Although he grows to love her, he knows she is attached to Mack and he refrains from expressing his deeper feelings. Worried about Mack’s fate and needing a distraction, Alice-Ann agrees to read to Carlton each day after work, and their daily time together becomes the foundation of a deep friendship.Ĭarlton’s girlfriend rejected him soon after seeing the extent of his injuries, so he is grateful for Alice-Ann’s reading and easy company. So far, Bynum has been blessed in that its boys are safe, but the first combat death stuns the town and then Carlton returns home blind and paralyzed – both conditions hopefully temporary. She also writes to Carlton Hillis, her best friend’s brother, who serves as a combat movie cameraman. She writes to him as she promised, goes to school, works a job in town, and helps out on her family’s farm. Alice-Ann promises to write and silently vows she’ll stay true to him until he returns.įor two years, Alice-Ann holds on to her dream of being with Mack. His lighthearted attitude tells her he loves her as a friend, but she clings to the hope that his devotion will grow. She does tell Mack how she feels, but Mack’s reaction is lukewarm. Two weeks after the momentous news, the interrupted party goes on, as much for the boys leaving to fight as for Alice-Ann’s birthday.
Alice-Ann tries to accept that her party is ruined while struggling to understand the import of the attack. A brief radio announcement changes her life, for not only is this her birthday, it is also Sunday, December 7, 1941, the day Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. She’s excited about her birthday party because she plans to tell Boyd MacKay-“Mack” to his friends and older than her by four years-that she loves him and will be devoted to him forever. It’s Alice-Ann Branch’s sixteenth birthday in rural Bynum, Georgia. After the first chapters, however, the romantic pace picks up and provides a lovely story of how a young girl learns to distinguish between affectionate friendship and mature and lasting love. Given the steady-paced, un-romance-like beginning, I was prepared to place The One True Love of Alice-Ann in the general Inspirational Fiction category.
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