Dream When You're Feeling Blue (24 page)

The front door opened, and there stood Frank, squinting at her, clutching his bathrobe tightly around his throat.

“For the love of Mike, what are you doing out here?”

“Nothing,” Kitty said.

“Sure I thought Bushman the gorilla had escaped from the Lincoln Park Zoo!”

“Sorry, Pop.”

He looked around the porch, pushing down on his hair, which stood right up again. “Are you all alone out here, then?”

“Yes.”

“Well, come inside. ’Tis late! What were you
doing
out here?”

“I mailed some letters.” Kitty walked past him, refraining from hugging him, which was what she wanted to do. She felt as though she’d been far away, to a terrible place, and now here she was walking into her own house, safe. The thought of her bed and her sisters upstairs made her feel like weeping.

“I’m going to have a glass of milk and a wee bit of jelly roll,” Frank said. “Will you join me?” He spoke quietly, for after dinner Margaret had given the family explicit instructions not to touch that jelly roll; she wanted to serve it again the next night.

“I will,” Kitty said. She took off her coat and galoshes and went into the kitchen.

“We’ll both be tired in the morning,” Frank said. “And in a fair amount of trouble with the crossed-arms missus!”

Kitty said she knew. Somehow, she was honored. She sat down at the table.

Frank poured them each a glass of milk and cut them not ungenerous slices of jelly roll. He clinked his glass with hers. “Here’s to my wife and great love of my life,” he said. And then, leaning in conspiratorially, “May they never meet!”

Kitty’s eyes filled with tears.

“I’m only joking!” Frank said.

“I know, Pop,” Kitty said. “I just was thinking about our boys. I just feel so sorry for them.”

Frank nodded. “All of us do. And always it’s a struggle not to give in to that sadness. But you know why we mustn’t, don’t you?”

Kitty shrugged.

Frank put his hand on her shoulder. “Here now, look me in the eye.”

Reluctantly, she did.

“Those boys are doing their part, every one of them, God love them. And to me, they’re all heroes, whether they fall in battle or sit at a desk stateside. But you know this, Kitty, sure I’ve said it often enough: We’re all fighting this war, dressed in a uniform or not. And where the part of the boys overseas is the fighting and the part of the boy stateside is to do the best job he can do to support them, our job is to remain proud and optimistic. We on the home front have to be the bright place those boys can come to in their minds. And we offer our own kind of ammunition: the belief that they’re doing the right thing. We must support them fully in every way we can, and we must wait patiently for them to come home.”

“And if they don’t?” Kitty asked, bitterly.

Frank nodded. He sat still for some time, staring into his empty glass. Finally, he looked up at her and said, “We live but a short time, at the longest. How do we make our lives mean something? If we die in glory, with our minds and our hearts fixed on achieving a great goal, we have lived a life that mattered.

“What fate decides an illness, or some terrible accident? Who can guarantee any of us another day, whether we are here on Pine Street in Chicago, Illinois, or on the beaches of Sicily? The boys who are fighting this war know that they will make a difference today and in all the years to come. They know that, whether they come home or not, they have helped write a mighty page of history. They know it, it lives large inside them, and as hard as it may be for you to understand, I believe that even the youngest of them are resigned to it. It may seem selfish for us to enjoy ourselves when they suffer so. But part of the reason for us to do it is so that we can tell them about it. When you girls write those men about a meal you had or a walk you took or a movie you saw, you’re giving them the experience to have with you. When you tell a soldier how proud you are of him, he is prouder of himself. Whenever those boys get a letter, they are for a few precious moments taken far away from a hellish place—sure you know they call letters from home ten-minute furloughs!

“But, Kitty, over there is where those boys want and need to be. If it doesn’t start out that way, it ends up being that way. Men in combat love one another, and although they hate war, they love it, too. I experienced it myself. A soldier needs to believe with all his heart in his commander and his mission, and he needs for us to believe in him. How do we show him that we do? Not by mourning the fact that he’s there but by celebrating the life we are privileged to lead on account of his sacrifice.”

Kitty bit at her lip; she felt dangerously close to bursting into tears.

“All right?” Frank asked gently.

She nodded.

“Off to bed, then, for the both of us, and may the good Lord help the one faces Margaret first.”

“I’m not afraid of her,” Kitty said.

“’Course you are, and so am I. She’s a formidable woman. But she makes a lovely jelly roll.”

When Kitty crawled into bed beside Louise, she felt her sister’s wakefulness. “Good night,” she whispered.

“Good night,” Louise said. And then, “I heard everything Pop said. He’s right, you know.”

Kitty said nothing. She still wanted to believe that there were other ways to settle things than war after war after war. But when Louise took her hand, she squeezed it.

TWO DAYS LATER, WHEN KITTY CAME HOME
from work, she thumbed through her pile of mail on the front hall table. There was another letter from Michael. He had used the same false name as last time, and the same boxy print, so different from his usual elegant script. Kitty slipped the letter into her pants pocket and took it upstairs to the bathroom to read it.

Dear Kitty,

Written in haste, but with great urgency. Please forgive and disregard last letter. Was awful tired. Okay now. Fine as wine, as J. would say. See you all and soon; I truly feel this can’t go on much longer.

Much love to you, dear.

Michael

Well, now! That was better! Kitty sat on the edge of the tub and turned on the faucets for a bath, then realized it wasn’t time to take a bath now. It was dinnertime, not bath time. Oh, she was tired! She couldn’t even think straight. She used the toilet, washed her hands and face, and pushed her hair back from her forehead. Then she leaned in to the mirror to inspect herself. It seemed so long ago that she’d done this with such pleasure, such excitement, and to be frank, such great admiration. Now she looked at herself in a different way. She had dark smudges under her eyes; she had lost more weight. And oh, look at her hair, so dull and dirty. Aw, so what? Accentuate the positive. That weight loss came from a job that was giving her enough money to make a real difference. Her father had begun calling her Mrs. Rockefeller, and her mother had again taken her aside to thank her for the significant contribution she was making to the family.

Kitty read Michael’s note one more time, then threw it away, as she had his last letter—she didn’t want Louise to see either of them.
Can’t go on much longer.
If only that were true. Kitty looked at her watch, as if that had anything to do with it, as if the war were a movie and would be over in twenty minutes. She had read an article that cautioned against thinking the war was all but won. In the Nazis’ favor were Hitler’s messianic control of the population, the natural will to survive, an army that remained strong and was yet unbroken, and the riches that had come from plundering Europe. Much of the money was gone by now, and the German army was in retreat, but still…The article had talked as well about the boys’ attitudes. They were sick to death of fighting and dreamed often about how life would be when they returned home. But the catch-phrase was
I’ll do the job I want to do when I finish the job I have to do.

There was an urgent knock on the door, and she opened it to find Tommy. “Hi, squirt!” She stepped into the hall and let him go in. “How are you?”

“Fine, thank you,” he said quickly and slammed the door. He had lost more weight, too; she could see his shoulder blades through his shirt, and his collar gaped huge around his neck.

Tish was in the bedroom, sound asleep. She was lying crosswise on the bed, her mouth open slightly. One shoe was still on. She was beat, too. Kitty stood smiling, watching her sleep. Soon Louise would come home and sit in the living room with her feet up while she waited for dinner, exhausted. But at least she wasn’t losing weight. She couldn’t see her feet anymore.

Louise and Michael’s baby. Everyone was counting the days. An early May delivery date had been predicted. A new baby and spring. Heaven. Even Frieda Schumacher, the bent-backed, bewhiskered old maid two doors down who scowled at everyone, had rung the doorbell last Sunday and thrust at Margaret a present wrapped in newspaper. “This is for your daughter’s baby,” she’d muttered and then stomped off the porch. “Thank you!” Margaret had called after her. She’d waved, her potato peeler in her hand. “Thank you…miss!”

“’Twas such a shock, I forgot her name!” Margaret said later. Inside the box had been a beautifully knitted blanket, snow white, and soft as snow, too, and matching bonnet and booties. Louise had added them to her hope chest, and every now and then she took them out and lay them on the bed, as if the baby were in them. Her sisters often stood beside her at such times, each with her own vision. Kitty saw Michael’s dimples, reborn; she saw chubby arms and legs waving excitedly. Tish said she thought the baby would have red hair, like Michael’s mother, and an exceptionally calm demeanor. Louise said she had no idea how the baby would look, but imagine, a whole new
person
added to the world! She and Michael had decided on names: Mary Margaret for a girl. And for a boy? Michael Francis. The Second. This was what Tish called the doll they kept in the crib, Michael Francis O’Conner, always the whole name. For as far as she was concerned, a girl was not an option. “I simply won’t have it,” she’d told her sisters, her blue eyes wide and really, Kitty thought, kind of
greedy.

“O
KAY,” KITTY SAID, SIGHING.
“Here it is.” She read out loud to her sisters from Julian’s letter:

“April fourth, 1944

“Somewhere in the Pacific

“I’m sitting here in the tent with a cup of joe. I’ve been waiting for a quiet time to write this letter, and now that time is here. I just had a luxurious bath in a stream with two nets stretched across either end to keep out the alligators. Then I took a walk to enjoy the view: shattered coconut trees, overturned jeeps, and whatnot. Oh hell, I guess I’ll skip the preview and go right to the feature.

“Kitty, it seems like I’ll never be your kind of guy. You’ve changed, and I have, too. I’m not the man you said good-bye to at the train station. Or maybe we always were different and we had to be apart in order to see that. I do think of you. I think a lot about you and your sisters, too. The Heaney sisters, wowser, best of the Midwest. But everything back home seems like it’s a movie or something, an out-of-focus movie at that. Maybe it would be best if you and I stopped writing. Seems like you might have more in common with that other guy; you kind of tipped your mitt when you mixed up letters that time. And to be frank, it seems like I have more in common with Tish. I hope it doesn’t hurt your feelings for me to say so. Maybe you already know. But I can tell it’s a strain for you to write to me, and it’s hard for me to write to you, too. I just don’t know what to say.

“Kitty, you know I’ll always love you. But not that way. I think you wanted me to slip you some ice for the fourth digit before I left, but I just didn’t see us a married couple, and now I see I was right. I hope we’ll still be friends.

“Julian

“P.S. Thanks for that picture you sent. Nice lid. You always did look swell in hats.”

Kitty blinked back tears. She was surprised at how much this hurt. Oh, she’d known for some time that things were never going to work out the way she’d planned between Julian and her. But to have it so forthrightly presented to her! To have him be the one to initiate the breakup! “Oh, well,” she said lightly. And then, to Tish, “He’s all yours.”

Tish shook her head. “Oh, no, I never meant to—”

“I don’t mind, honest I don’t. It just feels kind of funny.” And now she began to cry in earnest.

Margaret came into the kitchen, her face full of concern, her hand to her throat. “Who died?”

All the sisters burst out laughing, and then Kitty said, “Just a relationship. Julian and me. But you know, he’s grown very fond of Tish.”

“What do you mean, he’s grown fond of Tish? He can’t go through my daughters like Kleenex!”

“It’s okay, Ma,” Kitty said. “Things were never quite right between us.”

“Yes.” Margaret sat heavily at the kitchen table. “’Tis true.”

“Cripes!” Kitty said. “Was anyone ever going to tell me?”

“I suppose Julian just did,” Margaret said. “Ah, me.” She rubbed her forehead.

Kitty stood up. “I’m going for a walk. Nobody come. I’m fine.”

She threw on a coat and walked quickly down the stairs, down the block. In a short while she began to breathe more easily. So many men had told so many loved ones that they weren’t the same man anymore. Well, she wasn’t the same woman, either. Oh, it wasn’t just because of the change in her affections. Rather it was because of the way her ideas about herself had begun to change. She had believed for so long that she knew exactly who she was and exactly what she wanted. She had seen her future as Julian’s wife, a woman who would stay home and bear children and derive most of her satisfaction from whatever goals her husband accomplished. She had doodled “Mrs. Julian Stanton” thousands of times, eager for the day when she could sign her name that way legitimately. But now she was working in a place that gave her more independence, and she’d grown used to it. She felt stronger not only in her body but in her spirit. How to reconcile this new person emerging with the one she’d always been? How could a woman who swooned over a green-and-rose-plaid taffeta evening gown admire equally a well-made ratchet wrench? How could someone who relied on men to open doors for her have become a person who only yesterday crawled under the kitchen sink to make an adjustment so the faucet wouldn’t wobble?

She had written to Hank about some of this, and in a letter back he had said he thought times like this could galvanize people into a certain kind of unity but could also make for unexpected changes in the individual, for strange contradictions. He said he himself had begun to feel the need to be alone most of the time. And yet he also felt a kind of love and compassion for humanity far greater than what he’d ever felt before. He found it hard to blame the war on any one person. He thought that, despite witnessing—and taking part in—such unimaginable violence, most soldiers would come home from the war wanting never to hurt anything again.

He told her about boys who came back from battle vacant-eyed, their hands shaking, who in a few hours’ time were ready to smile and joke again and then eager to rejoin those at the front. He said that extinguishing life in another seemed to make you unspeakably grateful for your own, indeed for life in general. For a few hours after a battle, Hank said, everything the men looked at seemed caressed by their eyes. They were such young boys. They were such old men.

Oh, but Julian, who never told her things like this yet surely felt them. And now good-bye to Julian and his sweet kisses and his money and his wonderful good looks. Good-bye to the innocent time that had spawned their relationship. But good-bye also to the unease that had been there almost from the beginning, and the worry about how to explain Hank. She would write back to Julian when she got home. She would tell him that she understood, and that she would always love him, too. Because she would. Julian Stanton. “So long, sweetheart,” she said softly, and a man passing by her stopped and said, “Sorry?”

“Only a little,” she said and smiled.

She walked slowly, then, thinking that soon the first flowers would come pushing through the remaining patches of snow: the elegantly drooping snowdrops, the Easter-colored crocus. Not long afterward, tight little buds of lilac would burst open, and their scent would be everywhere. The air would soften and the days last longer, then longer still. There would be newspaper kites with bright rag tails flying high against blue skies, and twisted streams of water running in the gutters, where her brothers would sail their little boats. Soon the sound of shovels being scraped against the sidewalk would be replaced by the gritty sound of wagons being pulled down the block, kids with food-smeared faces being pulled along by some bossy older sibling. Crows would screech out their proprietary caws, cardinals would whistle, robins would hop heavily on the lawns in search of worms. Spring was coming, just as it always did, no matter how hard the winter that preceded it.

Now Kitty began walking quickly back toward home, for she wanted to share these thoughts with Hank in a letter. Indeed, she suspected she’d recalled such images just to tell him. And there was something else she wanted to tell Hank. She would say that spring would be the same as ever, but it would be altogether different this year, too, and it was because of him, did he understand?

He would understand.

If a sheet of paper were put before them, Kitty thought, she would draw something on it; Hank would study it and add to it. Then she would do the same. They would create something together that belonged to each of them equally, that
was
them equally. This was what she wanted to tell him. Also she wanted to tell him that Hattie had met a new man. That Margaret and Frank had gone out dancing for the first time in ages. She wanted to tell him that she would take him to Henrici’s restaurant as soon as he got off the train in Chicago, the minute he stepped off the train, and then they’d go dancing at the Aragon Ballroom. They would take her brothers to Riverview Park to shoot the chutes and ride the roller coaster and ogle the fat lady and the tattooed man. Hank would love the boys and the boys would love him.

She wanted to tell him about the time they’d had a race outside in elementary school, and she had lost because she had tried to avoid stepping on the ants, because she liked ants, their industry and cooperation, did he like ants? Did he like Jo Stafford? Johnny Mercer? Did he like tobogganing in the winter, boating in the summer? Did he like her, still? Did he love her? Because guess what.

There was always so much that she wanted to tell him, so much that she
did
tell him. And each time she finished a letter, she would think,
That’s it, sister. You’re out of gas now. You’ll never be able to think of something different to tell him tomorrow.
But she always did have something different to tell him. Except for the one thing she told him every time, in one way or another:
Oh, Hank. Be careful.