Fiona
A life not her own has become hers. She doesn’t know how it happened, only knows that it has. And she doesn’t know how to stop it. No, she corrects herself, she doesn’t want to stop it. She counts on his letters now. She is dependent on his reassuring words and his love for Fiona. But she, she is not Fiona.
She has almost forgotten that she is Elizabeth.
***
She reads his letter for the fourth time as she twists her hair into a bun, securing the loose bits with a pin. The dark hairs escape and fall into her face, but she doesn’t push them away. Defeat has come sooner than normal, but, she thinks, there are more important battles to fight today: more wounds to treat, more lives to save.
She spends only moments in front of the mirror. The men on the ward don’t notice her appearance; sometimes they are unaware that she is with them at all.
Almost as if they’re already dead. She doesn’t remember their names. She can’t think of them as individuals. They’re always the same man: Dominic. They all become the singular He. Just one man calling out for help; just one man shaking and crying from a nightmare; just one man standing on the precipice of life and death. He. He is always the same man.
Dominic. Every patient brought in from the front bears a striking resemblance to Dominic, if only for a fleeting moment. She sees his eyes before she blinks her own, then he is gone and the real man—someone she will never know—stares at her, waiting for her to make him painless. But every man she treats has Dominic’s face, his features: the same strong jaw, the wavy hair, the same wide smile; every man is Dominic. She soon realizes that she doesn’t remember what colour his eyes are. She imagines that they’re a dark brown framed by black, curling lashes. The kind of eyes the women in the pictures get lost in, she thinks.
She writes to him on Mondays and Wednesdays. She knows it’s extravagant to use so much paper, but she has to. She counts on each letter, each word, to get her through the long days. She feels that she can’t live without his letters, just as she knows that Dominic can’t live without hers.
She receives a letter from Dominic so often that she begins to think that they aren’t separated by the Channel, or the war. He feels so close to her; almost as if he’s in London.
And he’ll take me out on a Sunday afternoon. We’ll walk round the city; he’ll hold my hand. She longs for his return, she dreams of it in every spare moment. She can’t let herself think that he’ll never come back.
He’ll come back to me. He must come back. And so she writes to him, shaping each letter perfectly, every word a perfect imitation of the last. He writes back to her with words so full of love and promise of life after the wretched war. He writes back to her, unaware of the secret hidden within her words.
She keeps the letters with her as she works at the hospital. She feels safe knowing that they’re tucked away, hidden from the all seeing eyes of Sister Cavell. She knows that she would be reprimanded if the Sister found them. Carrying letters while on the ward is against hospital policy, the Sister would shout. But she can’t leave them. Though she knows every word by heart, she can’t leave them behind. She’s afraid that if she leaves the letters behind, she’ll lose him. And she can’t lose him, not now. She has loved him for so long; she has spent so many years with an aching heart. But now he’s hers, and she’ll do anything to keep him.
True
