#oc: corrie brewster

[letters-to-gene-roe]

Hi! I am so excited for y'all to meet Corrie Brewster, my Band of Brothers OC, and entry in this year's @blind-dates-fest 🩷

Snip, snip, snip.

Corrie closed her eyes and let Momma cut her hair, bit by bit, into a soldier's close crop, not wanting to watch the long hanks of shiny brown hair float to the kitchen floor. She had to do this, sure, her plan would never work without it, but it still hurt her heart to see years of memories hit the ground, destined for the trash. Instead, she forced herself to listen - to her mother's shallow breathing and the wind chimes faintly ringing on the back porch, to the dog snoring in the other room and the kettle bubbling just behind her, to Johnny Mack and Russ whispering upstairs and to her own heartbeat, thumping away behind her ribs.

Snip, snip, snip.

“I used to despair over those broad shoulders of yours, but now it seems they will be your saving grace. Nothing to do about that jawline of yours, though. It's positively girlish.”

“If you're trying to discourage me, it's not working. I'm sure there will be other privates with equally ‘girlish’ jawlines, as you say.”

Snip, snip, snip.

“Yes, but none of them are named Corina Judee Brewster, are they?”

Corrie stayed silent at that, and her mother did not speak again. Eventually, she finished her daughter's hair, and while she swept, Corrie reached into the cabinet and grabbed the tin of loose tea, measuring out enough for two cups (they may live in Texas, but Elsa Brewster is a born and bred Michigander, and as such, took her tea hot with milk and sugar).

“Are you going to say goodbye to your brothers?”

She wasn't planning on it. “You know I can't do that.” Please don't make this harder on me, she thought.

“It wasn't a question.” Momma was suddenly so much heavier, her blonde hair greyer, her furrows deeper. It hit Corrie, in a lightning strike sort of way, that she did this - made her mother so old before she should have been. She's only forty-three, but tonight has put ten years on her face in a way that losing two husbands and the Depression didn't. “When we're done here, you're going to go upstairs and tell them goodbye. You're gonna get up there and tell them exactly where you're going, too.”

“Can't I-”

“No, you can't just tell them you're off with the WAC. You can lie to everyone else, lie to the government, I don't care - but you can't lie to me and you can't lie to your brothers. Especially not Johnny Mack.”

Corrie smiled. “He'd see right through me anyway.”

“Always could.” Momma did not smile, but her lips lifted a little, and her crow's feet tightened up around her grey eyes. “When you're done with them, I've got something for you.” She patted the table and got up, signaling to Corrie that it was time to get going, now that the tea was drunk. Corrie lingered in her chair, though, dreading all the possibilities of what might happen after she opened that bedroom door.

Russ will almost certainly cry. He was gentle like that, and she was glad he was too young to fight this war, at least for the moment. His eyes - grey, like their mother’s, but wide and still full of boyish wonder - will well up with hot, salty tears, and he won't fight the urge to let them flow freely like an older, tougher boy might. Johnny Mack, though, will act mad. His face, already naturally rosy in the cheeks, will flush a dark red. He'll demand she give up, and when that doesn't work (because it won't work, not in a million years), he'll demand to come with. But that's just it - it's an act. He knows there's nothing he can do about this and he hates it. He'll act mad when all he is is hurt.

After one last sip, Corrie stood. The steps creaked in a familiar cadence that almost stopped her in her tracks, but she pushed forward anyway, stopping to gather her thoughts just a moment before she, inevitably, tore their relationships apart.

She opened the door. They were both stifling laughter as she came in, but when they saw her serious expression, their faces fell. Breathe, she told herself, just… breathe. Closing the door behind her, Corrie's feet felt like lead weights, and she stayed where she was as she delivered the news before it could choke her. Between sobs, Russ begged to know why. Every answer she gave set off a new rush of tears, and so she stopped trying to explain and pulled him into her side, like they were kids again and this was all just a bad dream she could soothe away.

“Johnny Mack?” She looked over to her oddly silent brother. This was not what she had expected at all.

“I can't ask you to be safe, but I can ask you not to be stupid. Don't forget to write, Judee.” There is not a single ounce of anger in his voice, not even a drop of hurt or a dash of surprise, but there is a glint in his eye that says he - somehow! - knew she was going to do this. You can't lie to Johnny Mack, her mother had said. He'd see right through me. “Gonna tell momma?”

“She cut my hair.” Johnny Mack nodded and in an act of brotherly affection, ruffled her hair, the short, slightly damp strands going every which way. It got Russ’ attention and made him chuckle wetly.

“Yeah,” her youngest brother said, “I wanna hear all about it.”

When she leaves the room, she's calm, calmer than she was before she told her mother, even. Now, everyone who needs to know - everyone who matters - knows. Corrie feels a bit boneless now; she kind of doesn't want to go back downstairs to where her mother has settled in the living room. She's spilled herself out to her family, and it's left her feeling like a wrung-out towel left hanging on the clothesline. That's just how it goes, sometimes, she thinks. The man she needs to be cannot exist alongside the woman she already is, and so Corina must be poured out to make way for Private Brewster.

Momma was sitting in her chair, eyes fixed on a point far in the distance when Corrie made her way back to the living room. She stirred as Corrie settled on the couch. “I was thinking,” she began, “when the war's over, and when you've come back-’

“If-”

“When.” Momma’s voice was firm, final. “When you've come home, will you come back to me as my daughter or… or would you like to be my son from now on?”

Corrie thinks on it for a moment. It's a hard question to give a simple yes or no to, even if the possibility had crossed her mind before, which it hadn't. “I think- I think you'll have to ask me again when the time comes.” She can't quite make herself say when I come home.

Her mother nods. “And what name should I call you in the meantime, darlin’?”

“James. James Conrad Brewster.”

“Well, then. Goodnight.” Corrie can hear the creaks of her mother's bones as she stands to kiss her on the forehead, her shaking hands caressing gently her now-dry hair. “Goodnight, Jamie. Write soon.”

—☆—

Louella insisted on walking with her down to the station. Despite the early hour, she was dressed up in her second best set of clothes - stockings, makeup, and all. The streets were busy, but not bustling, and Lou had her arm threaded through Corrie's as they slowly made their way from Lou's family home to the train station.

“You didn't have to get all dolled up just for me, ‘specially since I know you'll have to go right back home to change for work.”

“It was worth it to give you a good and proper send off,” Lou purred.

“Know what would make it even better?”

“What?”

A giddy grin tugged at Corrie's mouth. “A kiissss,” she sing-songed, and dove for Lou's lips. Pink Champagne, her mind supplied. She had bought the tube while they were out running errands together, and Corrie had a matching one in Red Raspberry. Bet most GIs don't have that in their bedside drawers, Corrie thought.

“Oh!” She ducked, putting a hand on Corrie's chest to keep her away. “You are not getting on a troop train covered in my makeup!”

“Aww, why not? It'll make all the other fellas jealous.” She still said no, but compromised on letting Corrie kiss her on the cheek. Her face powder was sweetly bitter on her lips, and she savored the uniquely ‘Lou’ scent of garden dirt, cooking oil, and a spritz of rosy perfume - not an ideal smell, but a human one, and it made Corrie feel stronger at heart. She lingered there, not letting a single second be wasted. “Can I expect a letter or two?”

“Of course not.” Corrie pauses, her heart in her throat. “You can expect a great many letters, every week if I can manage it. Can't let you forget me in favor of some Georgia peach, can I?”

“Good God, woman, don't scare me like that!”

The station clock ticked nearer to her departure time. Neither of them wanted this to become a tearful goodbye, but they were beginning to feel their remaining time together slip away. Her heart raced as she pulled out of Lou's embrace, half-inch by half-inch. She wants - needs! - to impress every detail into her mind before she goes, but it seems they have wasted their chance, they've only got a minute or so, no time at all. “Goodb-”

“This is not goodbye. I will not tolerate such finality.” There was not a single tear escaping her eyes, but her voice was thick with the strain of keeping it that way.

Corrie shook her head. “Please, let me say it. For myself.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“Goodbye, Lou.”

Lou's soft blonde curls trembled as she replied, “Goodbye, Corrie,” and yanked her down onto her lips. “Goodbye.”

Toccoa, Georgia - here she comes.