Kathryn Egan just wanted to follow her brother over to Europe. She didn't intend on making waves in the medical field and she certainly didn't intend on falling in love with her brother's best friend, Gale Cleven. She should've known that a love lik...
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A/N: Reminder that I am not, in fact, an expert on what went on during WW2, so this is just my best attempt at a fun filler chapter! As always, I hope you all enjoy and let me know what you think :) also, enjoy the moodboard for Laura!
Sundays presented optional days and something different from the monotonous routine of the regular war-week. On Sunday, services were usually held by the men of different denominations in order to keep up with faith. And seeing as how their base only had a priest present, the only actual service that was being held was for the Catholics.
It was an interesting amalgamation—men from all over the country had gathered at Thorpe Abbotts to bring the war to Hitler's doorstep and then on Sundays, they took a rest day. Kathryn didn't think that the Nazi's did, but to each their own. At 0900 hours, everyone was dismissed for the day and things went back to normal at 1800 hours. It also signified the end of their leisure time for both Saturday and Sunday.
Seeing as how Kathryn wasn't much of a religious type, she generally had the day to herself. It was a nice day to relax—but again, idleness was a sin during the war. Most nurses took the time after services to write to their families, work on some sort of a knitting or sewing project, or found some time for a hobby.
Kathryn did, in fact, have plenty of hobbies. It's just that they weren't all that applicable here in England. She loved reading poetry—anything by Tennyson or Dickinson or Whitman was particularly endearing. Stargazing was another hobby—but this wasn't rural Wisconsin and she couldn't just go lay in a random field and try to stare at the stars.
No, with the bombings and air-raids that seemed to permeate every aspect of life here in England, that just wasn't on the table anymore. She still liked dancing as much as she did when she was younger, but dancing always seemed to leave the door open for unsavory types and for men to get the wrong kind of idea about her.
She missed choir, but she wasn't about to go singing out in the woods or try to sing at any of the parties held on the base. Besides, any singing was sure to convince her brother to give another attempt at vocals and that was one crime she was just fine without committing.
With all of that being said, Kathryn usually went back to bed on Sunday mornings and got an extra hour of sleep. She'd catch up on her journaling and faithfully write to her mother (since she knew that her brother was especially bad at writing to her anyway). This was all followed by a few necessary chores and getting some laundry of her own done, and then she'd take a walk.
This weekly ritual was one that brought some sense of normalcy back to her life. She particularly liked being able to take summer strolls through the flowers in the fields and imagine that she was back in Wisconsin and that life was not as grim as it really was.
Maybe it was romanticizing life a bit too much—but a woman only got through the war by holding onto a few good things in her life. And if that meant that Kathryn Egan was going to hold onto her Sunday morning walks, then that's exactly what she would do.
