Sharing Corrie

Chapter Thirty Two

 "Jack? What's going on?" Panic rushed through Corrie. "Is Christina alright?"

"Yes, yes, Christina's fine." Jack dismissed her worry with the wave of a hand. "But get your coat. We're going to the doctor's office."

Corrie balked at the prospect. "Jack, I don't...I should stay here. There's a lot to do, and-"

"Oh, quit your worrying. Dr. Benjamin's gone for the day, it'll just be you and me and Hannah and Christina. Now let's go, don't make me drag you."

Corrie acquiesced and followed Jack out of the post office into the chilled winter winds that whisked from the sea through Irvington, scattering the remnants of fall leaves across the streets. At the doctor's office, Christina and Hannah were already sitting down to a meal of rolls and salted ham, meager rations in support of the war effort.

Jack settled down at the makeshift table in Christina's room next to them and began to eat while Corrie remained in the doorway. "What's the meaning of this? You demanded I come here just to have lunch with you?"

"Well, you haven't spent much time with us since Edwin left," Christina teased. "I'm going to blame that on the rumors about you and Dr. B."

Corrie felt her face redden; the rumor mill had left no rock unturned in trying to conjure a possible reason for Edwin's abrupt departure, and despite the town's love for their young doctor, he had been named the prime culprit.

Jack harrumphed. "Rumors? Of course that's all they are."

Her eclectic aunt ignored Corrie's pointed glare as Hannah jumped in, clapping her hands together. "Oh, stop your silliness. We had a much more important purpose in having you for lunch. This," she announced with sobriety, "is an intervention."

Corrie frowned. "An intervention? What are you talking about?"

Christina paused in her eating to look at Corrie, her eyes near mirrors of her sister's. "Cor, Edwin is no good for you. Perhaps you can't see it, but we can. I don't care what the consequences are, you have to be free of him."

For a moment, Corrie froze in place as her blood ran cold. Panic seized her and she resisted the urge to flee; Edwin was the last person she wanted to talk about, and to hear yet another opinion on what she should do was paralyzing.

"Chris, just leave it alone," she finally murmured hoarsely, backing out of the door.

"Corrie, wait," Christina said, and as much as she wanted to ignore her, Corrie stilled and stared at her sister. "I know you've been subject to an unfair share of gossip since he left, but this...if you don't end things now, you may not have another chance."

The pressure on her chest returned with a vengeance along with that feeling of being unable to escape. She was trapped in a labyrinth with Edwin and everlasting spinsterhood her only possible destinations.

"Edwin's not so bad," Corrie argued as much to convince herself as her friends. "He was always so kind to me in New York, and it was kind of him to visit me here."

Jack snorted. "After months without letters or calls or anything."

"He did write," Corrie defended though she did not mention the sparseness of the vapid missives he had penned.

"While he was here, all he did was demean you, speak for you, and put you in uncomfortable situations," Christina continued. "I saw your face when he proposed. It wasn't the face of a girl being swept off her feet by the love of her life. If David had proposed to me..." she trailed off. "You didn't want to marry him, Cor. You still don't. He doesn't love you."