K.B. Fugitt

• 12 •

Summer 1948 – Northern Kentucky

An Angel’s Sign

ON HIS SON’S FIRST BIRTHDAY, CIVILIAN EZRA DODD SAT DAYDREAMING ON A BLANKET SPREAD OUT NEATLY on the grass in a park. The former soldier and World War II veteran and hero appeared to be at peace and watched the river flow slowly by. Bertie twirled Brian around in a circle just in front of him. There was no more beautiful sight, Ezra knew, than the one he was witnessing now. It was a scene he would hold onto forever. Sometimes though, his beautiful thoughts were interrupted by memories of fighting in a war that ended three years ago. The emotional scars of battle never go away and he, like so many who served, suffered in silence when it came to their inner pain and the effect that war can have on one’ssoul. Still daydreaming, he was blessed to have a loving wife who had been his high school sweetheart and his best friend for so many years. Now, they had a son who loved being airborne and attached to his mother’s hands.

Ezra got up from the blanket and walked to the edge of the low-lying bluff overlooking the river. Bertie watched as she laid Brian on his back in the grass and tickled him. She kept a close eye on her husband. Since Ezra returned from the war, his personality had changed. One minute he would be high on life and the next minute he could be quiet, solemn, detached from everything around him and acting depressed. To her, it was always obvious when his mood changed and the couple rarely talked about it. The war had impacted him in a way he couldn’t explain. He didn’t want to discuss his experiences overseas and had said as much. So, Bertie let it be and tried her best to understand his pain. She couldn’t conceive what he must have witnessed during the invasion of Normandy and she didn’t even want to imagine what went through her husband’s mind when he had flashbacks like the one he was having now as he looked out over the river.

What Ezra saw was the river becoming an ocean and the other side of the river was a beach with a battle raging. In his mind, he was getting ready to land on the sands of Normandy once more. He began to sweat and rubbed his palms together, then reached into his pocket and started fiddling with a stone he always carried with him. He didn’t want to go back to that beach of horror ever again. Yet, in his head, he was there now. Private Dodd knew he couldn’t repeat that experience of charging into the water and over the sand one more time. But, if he had to, if he really had to, he would do it with the same abandon as before. And, if he became one of those who needed to be saved, hopefully, someone would come along and drag him up the beach to safety. So now, as he stood and looked out over the river, he wondered why he the voices of his commanders were sending him back into the fight.

Bertie watched her husband closely and knew the signs. He looked anxious and it was time for her to go comfort him. She picked her son up and walked to her husband’s side. Holding Brian in one arm and with her free hand rubbed Ezra’s back. The veteran turned his head and looked at his wife and son. It was exactly what he needed and it brought him back to that beautiful place he loved more than anything else in the world. Her touch was the comfort which brought him back to the reality of a loving wife and son.

Bertie put her head on Ezra’s shoulder. For this husband and father, the world became livable again. The lovers managed a smile at each other then looked at their son, who smiled back. Ezra took his son from his mother’s arms, held the toddler high over his head and gave out a hearty laugh. Bringing his son back down to Earth, Ezra, with his nose, tickled Brian’s belly button. The child giggled uncontrollably. It brought an indescribable feeling of joy and delight to the parents. Ezra put his son back down onto his feet and laughed out loud again. Bertie was entranced with her husband’s actions as she watched the proud father play with his son.

“Lunch anyone?” Bertie asked the two most important people in her life. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m getting hungry.”

Ezra took half a step and gave his wife a soft kiss on the forehead.

“I’m starved, Miss Bertie. Let’s eat. We’ll race you back to the blanket.”

Ezra swept his son up into his arms and trotted back to the blanket as Bertie stood and watched.

“You win!” she shouted and began walking the last few paces to where her husband was already rifling through the picnic basket. Mr. Dodd handed Mrs. Dodd a sandwich.

“Are they all the same or are some different?” Ezra inquired.

“This one you gave me is yours,” the maker of sandwiches informed her husband and handed the sandwich she held back to Ezra. “This one’s mine.” Bertie grabbed another sandwich Ezra held and good naturedly warned him to, “Keep your hands off my sandwich.”

With his two hands holding onto the edge of the picnic basket, Brian balanced himself and stood peering down into the food container and wondered what all the excitement was about. Bertie put her sandwich on a paper plate and got down on her knees next to her son.

“Well, let’s see what we have for you, Brian ol’ boy. How would you like some homemade apple sauce? Oh, and I have some milk for you as well.”

Ezra sat down, stretched his legs out and watched a loving mother and their first child. He turned his back to the water and the river was a river again, flowing slowly, quietly, peacefully. He scanned the surroundings around him. The white families on the other side of the trail were still playing and laughing. One of the children, a girl of about twelve years old, accidently threw a ball so hard it bounced across the trail and found its way to the Dodd’s blanket. Ezra got up, grabbed the ball and rolled it back in the direction of the girl who had come to retrieve it. She stopped and picked it up.

“Thank you,” the girl shouted in Ezra’s direction and gave a wave before she headed back to her family and friends on the white side of the trail.

As Ezra watched the young girl return to her game with the rubber ball, an adult male, possibly the girl’s father, did what the girl had done. He waved and shouted, “Thank you.”

Ezra waved back and acknowledged the pair’s gratitude. He didn’t know the people who played with the ball, but suddenly Ezra felt like there were no ‘white’ or ‘black’ side of the trail. It wasn’t a dividing line at all. It was just a trail.

He asked himself why all people couldn’t be treated as equal. It’s what he had fought for in the war – equality and freedom. It was possible that the adult white males on the other side of the trail fought in the war for the same reasons. They could have been at Normandy on the same beach with him. Any one of them could have been a soldier that Ezra had dragged up from the beach to safety in the mayhem of that moment. He recalled at least five of the soldiers he rescued as being Caucasian. All that really mattered to Ezra, as he sat back down on the blanket, was that a certain black family shared a park with white families and one day, surely one day, the fears that divided them would go away.