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It was a bright and sunny Friday morning, the kind of weather one spends lounging about on a summer day. It was the middle of August, and instead of holidays and daydreams, the air was filled with tension and anxiety.
Lois Bennett was filled with tension and anxiety. As she stared up at the blue sky waiting for any good sign, so many thoughts ran through her mind all at once. What if Vernon didn’t come back? What if Randy was wrong about radios going down all the time and this time was different? Could she ever live with herself knowing that she may never give him the answer he deserved? She shuddered and the teacup in her hand shook slightly.
Connie, who was sitting almost equally worried beside her, placed her hand on Lois’. She gave her friend a faint smile, almost hopeful.
Lois took a deep sigh and sat for a few minutes before getting back up again. Every time there was someone coming through the hangar, she would immediately stand up to see who it was. Then when it wasn’t Vernon, she would pace a bit while fiddling with her hands before she would sit back down beside Connie. This went on for almost an hour.
At one point, her mind ventured back to just a few days ago, when Vernon was sitting by her fireplace at home. His earnest eyes that day had stayed with Lois and she admittedly couldn’t bring herself to think of anything else since.
“You don’t have to love me. You just have to let me love you.”
She knew she didn’t deserve his love. There he was, the politest gentleman she will probably ever meet, a dashing RAF Wing Commander who somehow thought the world of her after only being together for hours across days, even if she felt ever so small and flawed. And yet, he had personally come to her home to ask her to marry him that day.
She couldn’t give him an answer then, what makes Lois think she could give an answer now?
“He’ll just hear ‘No.’,” Connie had said earlier when they arrived. Maybe she was right. But Lois knew that she had to try, and Vernon seemed like a man of reason. He listened to her and never judged her the first day they had met after all, so he might just listen to an explanation this time around.
But Lois also knew that, despite them not knowing so much about each other, Vernon’s feelings for her had deepened since the first time they met. It’s true, he had obviously fallen in love at first sight with her, but because of the risk he takes every day fighting for Britain, not knowing if he will come back down to see her again, he may also not listen to reason and just, in fact, hear “No.”
Connie may not know what exactly was running through her friend’s mind at that moment, but she knew that Lois was deep in thought because beside her, her baby started crying and Lois had not noticed. As Connie got up to cradle the baby, Lois stood up once more and waited by the door of the cafeteria.
She folded her arms and leaned on the door, waiting. She thought to herself, will this prolonging anxiety ever end?
Then from under the wing of the parked aircraft in front of her emerged a tall figure pedaling on a small bicycle. Under the bright sunlight, she couldn’t make out who it was at first. But as he got closer, a very tired Vernon was clearly doing his best to not fall off the bicycle. From someone else’s perspective, this would have been a light-hearted, almost hilarious image. But from Lois’ point of view, this was probably the best sight she’s seen for it brought her the biggest relief and joy.
As Vernon parked himself off the bicycle, he was greeted proudly by his men, who were also clearly grateful to find their commander back alive and unharmed. Lois stood from where she was but she was overcome with joy and smiling ear to ear as she watched the pilots greet their Wing Commander.
“I got into a spin over Hull! I dropped 6,000 feet, and I had to limp home with a battered fuselage,” he was telling them.
But in the middle of the handshakes and pats on the back, Vernon immediately found his attention drawn to the cafeteria door where the woman of his dreams stood waiting for him. As if pulled by a magnet, the moment he saw Lois and her smile, he couldn’t help but smile himself, and abandoned his comrades in a heartbeat to rush to her.
And Vernon, as awkward as he was, was still continuing the explanation of what happened to him as he walked towards Lois. “I managed to glide into a field about 20 miles away. It was all a damn sight easier than riding a lady’s bicycle!”
He had barely entered the cafeteria when Lois grabbed hold of his jacket and pulled him closer to her. “You’re alive! You’re alive!” she exclaimed.
“Of course I am, I’m indestructible,” Vernon answered coolly.
But all Lois could do was smile at him, for all of the worries and anxieties she had earlier that morning was all washed away. In fact, she was overwhelmed with happiness that somehow her heart instructed her brain to change its mind as soon as Vernon, suddenly losing his cool nervously asked, “Erm, do you have an answer?” He pertaining of course to the pending response from his earlier question to Lois about wanting to take care of her and her baby and start a family with her.
“Yes! I do!” she said giddily, clinging tighter onto his jacket. “Yes, I want to marry you!”
The sigh of relief that Vernon just took was probably the biggest he’s ever taken. Perhaps it was the nervousness of it all since he left the Bennett’s home without a clear answer, but he ended up chuckling at the sound of Lois’ ecstatic “Yes”. No explanations were needed.
She wrapped her arms around him as he gently lifted and spun her around out of pure happiness. And if that wasn’t enough, Lois impulsively cupped her hands on his cheeks and gave him a big kiss, to which he awkwardly and bashfully chuckled to.
In that moment, Lois felt a kind of joy she hasn’t felt in a long time. As she wrapped her arms again around her now fiancée, she also felt safe and secure despite the circumstances. Deep down she knew that marrying a fighter pilot whose life is at risk every day is probably the biggest challenge she will have to face, but in war times, the only thing you can do is to live in the present and worry about the rest later. For now, she is happy and content, and that’s all that mattered.