The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya

The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 108own babies to sneeze after coming down with the Spanish Flu, they themselves were listening forEugenia to make any noise at all after her apparent outbreak of good manners. Indeed, so quiet andeasy was Eugenia that Eudora, after listening for four months to Jose talk about the stream of invalidsand convalescents that he observed nearly every day, and listening in vain for Eugenia to make a soundother than tongue-clicking, decided that she would volunteer at the rapidly growing convalescent centeron Camp Sherman, where nursing help was so in demand that at the moment they didn’t care whether avolunteer had been booted from the Army Nursing Corps or not.Jose was at first opposed to such an arrangement on the grounds that Eugenia needed to nursethroughout the day, and that Eudora being a working mother would simply never do. The matter hungbetween Jose and Eudora for a week before Eugenia, tsk-tsking as was her wont, decided it for them bysuddenly refusing to nurse and instead only taking a mixture of cow’s milk, cod liver oil, and – at theassistance of Papa on a visit to Rockville – honey. Faced with the erosion of the only ground on whichhe had been able to deny Eudora, and reminded daily of the growing need for care, Jose at last relented.The decision was made more palatable for Jose by the fact that Gerald Ebbs was now alsoassigned to Camp Sherman’s convalescent center, and was more than happy to pick the couple up in themornings and drop Jose at the Discharge Detachment before continuing on with Eudora to theconvalescent center. It was an arrangement that minimized the time that the young parents had to spendapart from Eugenia, on whom they doted despite her unexpressed disapproval. It also allowed Jose tobe more at ease on the occasions when the volunteer work at the hospital required Eudora to stay late;even if he himself had to walk home, at least he could do so in the knowledge that Ebbs would safelydeliver Eudora without her having to walk home alone through the darkness.It was a sad fact that the rides would not long continue. Gerald Ebbs had been in love withEudora since she had first come to the nursing school on Camp Sherman. He had sat behind her in