When the Clouds Roll By by Myra Johnson

“Did you finish playing your hand? Then pull a chair over, Samuel, and sit with us. You can explain much better than I what happened with Gilbert this afternoon. I know Annemarie is anxious to hear.”
    “Please, that’s really why I came.” Holding the handkerchief around her throbbing finger, Annemarie leaned forward. “They won’t tell me anything because I’m not family, but I’m going absolutely crazy with not knowing.”
    Samuel’s brows drew together. His lips flattened into a worried frown, and for a moment Annemarie feared he’d plead patient confidentiality or whatever you called it between a pastor and penitent. Then he gave a single nod. He drew his chair away from the game table and settled it near the end of the settee. Taking one of the steaming cups of cocoa, he sat back with a thoughtful sigh.
    Mrs. Ballard handed a cup and saucer to Annemarie. “Now, Samuel, about Gilbert . . .”

    About Gilbert.
    True, Annemarie deserved to be told, but Samuel dreaded bringing more tears to those soulful brown eyes. He stalled for time by taking a couple of tentative sips from the hot drink—not as sweet as he usually liked his cocoa, nor as strong, what with the Ballard family still doing their part to conserve.
    Thomas took a cup from the tray, then propped a hip on the arm of the settee next to his mother. “For pity’s sake, the man’s just returned from war. Gilbert’s never had a violent streak, but after what he’s been through, who wouldn’t be a little unhinged? If you ask me, I’d say they went a little overboard with the whole straitjacket business.”
    Annemarie gave a stunned gasp. She turned an open-mouthed stare upon Samuel. “Straitjacket! What happened?”
    “Thomas is exaggerating. It wasn’t an actual straitjacket, but—” Samuel set down his cup and scoured his palms up and down his pant legs, as if he could wipe away the memory of this afternoon. “A nurse startled Gilbert out of a nightmare, and he hit her in the jaw. When they couldn’t quiet him, they had no choice but to restrain him.”
    “That is utterly ridiculous.” Annemarie’s cocoa sloshed onto her saucer. “Gilbert would never hurt anyone—” She stopped herself with a hand to her mouth. Her eyes shut, and Samuel didn’t have to guess what she was thinking. The war had turned them all into killers.
    All of them, one way or another.
    Samuel clamped down on the fragment of memory and stuffed it away in the darkest corner of his mind. He relieved Annemarie of her cocoa before she spilled anymore and used the handkerchief he’d given her to soak up the hot liquid filling the saucer.
    Annemarie’s face crumpled. She heaved a regretful moan. “Oh, dear, you’ll never get the stains out of it now.”
    “Not to worry. It was an old one anyway.” Samuel resisted the urge to take her hand and soothe away the anguish distorting that lovely face.
    She straightened her spine, and while she fought for composure it seemed as if Samuel watched a different kind of war. Quiet, artistic, but such a strong, determined woman. He had no doubt she’d win this battle. She coughed softly. “The nurse—was she hurt badly?”
    “She’s fine, more surprised than anything.” As tactfully as possible, Samuel tried to explain the reasons for keeping Gilbert restrained and sedated. “It’s as much for his own protection as for the hospital personnel. You’ve heard the term shell shock , I’m sure.”
    Mrs. Ballard gave a haughty sniff. “Call it what you may, my son is not insane. He needs tender attention, not to be treated like a rabid animal.”
    “They’re doing all they can, I’m certain.” Samuel’s stomach knotted as he recalled the crazed look behind Gilbert’s eyes this afternoon. “The problem is this hospital doesn’t have the psychiatric resources of a military facility like Walter Reed or Fort McHenry, which is where many of the returning wounded are being sent.”
    Thomas stood and paced, his cup