Tuesday Teasers

I thought I'd share the start of a new Merorial day story I'm writing with you. It's called Memorial Meeting.



Chapter 1

“My Dearest Wiliam,

I hope this letter finds you whole and hearty. My tour is finally over and I leave for home at the end of the week. They say the war is nearly over, and I pray what they say is the truth for that will mean you’ll be safe and able to go home yourself. Meeting you has been an experience I will never forget and cherish for the rest of my life.

Take care dearest Wiliam, come home safe.

All my love Eugenie
November 2nd, 1918”

***
Genie re-read the faded letter for the hundredth time. The letters were all the same, full of warmth, worry and concern but never graphic. You could tell the writer cared deeply for the recipient and yet this last one was the first time she signed the letter ‘All my Love’ and that caught Genie's attention like nothing else.

Ever since she was a child she’d been curious about the person she’d been named after and he grandfather willingly regaled her with tale after tale of the brave nurse who saved his life. Eugenie Shirley wasn’t a mere woman in Genie’s eyes, she was a superhero, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and stop bullets at a glance. And now finally, this year she would get to meet this incredible woman who made it possible for her to be here today.

Running a soft thumb over the well read pages, she thought back to what she knew about the woman. She was a Canadian nurse, working in one of the field hospitals in France during WWI. Women on the front were almost unheard of, and that alone made her special. She’d won two Royal Red Cross 2nd class medals during her tour for bravery and all the men lucky enough to be sent there for medical aid loved her.

Born in 1897, Eugenie enlisted at the tender age of twenty one. She was tall with bright red hair that when left loose hung down to her waist, but while working she always kept it up in a bun. Her grandfather used to say that when she was happy her eyes sparkled like green emeralds, but when she was mad a forest fire blazed from her eyes. His descriptions of her were always so vivid that Genie felt she already knew this woman. That was why she became a doctor, she wanted to be a superhero too.