Dream When You're Feeling Blue (27 page)

“Well, I’ve got to get moving. My powdered eggs await, aren’t you jealous? Say hi to those gorgeous sisters of yours, punch your brothers, and give my love to your parents. I’ll write again as soon as I can. Keep up your letters, too, darling. Sometimes we move so fast the mail has a hard time catching up to us, but then it does, and oh boy what a day that is. One day I got eight letters at once, and you’d have thought I won the Kentucky Derby. It was better than the Kentucky Derby. I tap-danced all over my foxhole—Fred Astaire had nothing on me that day.

“Yours always. Yours, Louise. Always.

“Michael.”

Tish put the letter down and looked at her sister. Her face screwed up. “Don’t!” Kitty said. She wanted to cry, too, but she was afraid if Louise saw her sisters crying, she’d feel worse. “When Louise comes back in here, don’t mention that letter unless she does.”

“I don’t think she’ll come back in here tonight,” Tish said.

“You’re probably right. Who are you writing to tonight?”

“Just Julian.” Tish looked down.

“Don’t feel bad. Julian and I are all washed up.”

“I know. Julian said. Only he said you were ‘gebusted.’”

Kitty laughed. “Tell him I said hello.”

“Who are you writing?” Tish asked.

“Butch Henderson,” Kitty said and sighed. “And Emmet Thompson. And Roger Carlson.”

“I’ll bet you hear from Hank tomorrow,” Tish said.

Kitty nodded. Sure she would.

AS IT HAPPENED, TISH WAS RIGHT.
The next evening, the doorbell rang. It was nine o’clock, early enough that the family was awake, but late enough to make a person nervous about unexpected visitors. “Who could that be?” Margaret asked.

“I’ll see,” Frank told her, his voice deep and authoritative. But then, “Come, Fala,” he said, revealing that he wasn’t without apprehension himself. Not that Fala would do much. Frank always said the dog needed a muzzle to control his licking.

The sisters, seated as usual at the kitchen table, listened carefully as Frank walked to the door, then opened it. “Hello,” he said, doubtfully.

“I’m sorry to come here so late,” a man’s voice began, and Kitty was off her chair and running.

“Hank!” Louise and Tish said together. Tish tightened her robe tie and patted her hair, and Louise rose so quickly she nearly upset the table. Together, they moved to the front door and began calling out greetings. The boys had come downstairs, and now they stood in a little huddle, silent and admiring. Hank talked to the family, but his eyes stayed fixed on Kitty, who had attached herself to his side and was weeping happily and pulling out her hairpins. “Wait,” she was saying. “Don’t look at me yet.”

“Fat chance,” Tish said.

“Let the man in, let the man in,” Frank said. “Drinks all around!” Fala suddenly began barking, and Frank said, “Well, of course, I mean you, too! What good’s a dog that can’t drink?”

Kitty couldn’t think of what to say. She was glad for her family and all the confusion, because she was rendered temporarily speechless. She thought of Molly Swanson at work, who’d said when her new husband came home on leave, she’d asked her girlfriend to open the door. When her friend had refused, Molly went to the door, opened it quickly to say, “Sorry, we don’t need any eggs today,” then slammed it shut. “Now why did I do that?” she’d asked Kitty. “Can you imagine? When I opened the door again, there he was with his feelings all hurt. Golly! Why did I do that?” Kitty had said maybe she was just overwhelmed. Molly had shrugged and said she guessed so. But her hubby was never going to let her live that down.

Now Kitty understood. When you were flooded with such emotion, you didn’t think right—your feelings were jumping all over the place. When she’d set eyes on Hank, the only thing that had come to her to say was something that brought equal parts shame and exhilaration—she couldn’t wait to confess it to her sisters tonight. All she could think of to say was,
Now I can grow my nails back!
Poor Hank. Barely across the threshold and she had him married and supporting her and her hands.

“A
RE YOU SURE YOU DON’T WANT TO COME
?
”
Kitty asked Louise. It was Saturday night, and Hank was going to take Kitty and her sisters to the State-Lake, then to dinner at George Diamond’s Steak House, then to the Green Mill to hear jazz. Tish was downstairs waiting already, and Kitty had almost finished getting ready, even though Hank wasn’t due to arrive for another twenty minutes. Every time she left him, she couldn’t wait to see him again. Louise had been going to come but then had decided at the last minute to stay home. She needed to reline her dresser drawers, she’d said, she’d bought some pretty paper last week with tiny pink roses. But now she lay on the bed, Michael Junior sleeping in her arms.

Kitty came over, tightening an earring, and looked down at her sister. “Are they straight?” She pulled back her hair and turned from side to side.

“Are what straight?” Louise asked.

“My earrings!”

Louise looked carefully at one ear, then the other. “Yes. Yes, they are. You look very pretty.”

“Scootch over,” Kitty said.

After Louise made room for her on the bed, Kitty touched her sister’s cheek. “You okay?”

“Sure I am.” She forced a smile.

Kitty spoke gently. “Is it hard to have Hank home while Michael’s still in the thick of it?”

“Oh, no, Kitty, gosh. I’m glad he’s back. He flew his missions, he deserves to be back! I’m just feeling a little…” She pulled a letter from her pocket and gave it to Kitty. “I got this today.”

Kitty unfolded the thin pages full of neat blue script and read:

Dear Michael Junior,

I’m asking your mother to hold on to this letter for when you’re older. If you’re reading it, it means I didn’t make it back from the war.

You know, you picked the best person in the world to be born to, and I know that she will guide you well all your life. What I want to tell you are just a few things that I would have told you—probably over and over—had I had the great privilege to help raise you.

First of all, I want you to know that I believed in the cause for which I died. No war is won without sacrifice, and I think I can speak for every man I’ve met here when I say we knew exactly what we were doing and why. We fought for the country we left behind, and those in it, to preserve a way of life; and we fought to rid the world of a great evil.

Death is a hard thing to understand at any age, and perhaps under any circumstances. But I hope you will come to see that I did not die when my body left this earth. I live on as long as someone remembers me, and I know your mother will, and I know you will come to know me through her. And I live on because of you, Michael, for even though you are your own man, I am forever a part of you.

A few words of advice.

Tell the truth. Make it a habit. Nothing will erode your soul more than to live a life built on falsehoods.

Do not provoke a fight, but if you or your family are attacked, fight back honorably.

Make time for prayer and reflection; try to understand your value as a man on the earth but see, too, your proper place in the scheme of things. It may sound funny to say this, but I have come to see that we are all far more important and less important than we think.

If your mother marries another man, and I hope she will, I want you to give to that lucky fellow all the love and respect you would have given to me.

My biggest wish for you is that you enjoy this beautiful life you were given. For all its problems and difficulties, life is mostly a wonderful experience, and it is up to each person to make the most of each day. I hope you are successful in your life, but look to the heavens and the earth and especially to other people to find your real wealth.

Wherever I am, wherever you go, know that my love goes with you.

Your proud father,

Michael O’Conner

Kitty handed the letter back to her sister, her eyes full of tears.

“Aw gee, I’m sorry,” Louise said.

“For what?”

“I made you cry.”

Kitty wiped carefully under her eyes. “That’s okay. But you know what? Guess what I want to tell you that I just
know.”

“That he’ll make it back?”

Kitty nodded.

“I know that, too,” Louise said. “I really do. It’s just that when you get a letter like this, and you think about all the boys who wrote them who didn’t make it back, or won’t…” She shook her head. “And all their women who will be left alone and will never find another man like that one, because there’s only one of each of us. I just can’t get it right, Kitty, I just can’t imagine it. A guy wakes up and eats breakfast, and it’s his last day on earth, and he doesn’t even know. He has no idea. Every guy over there knows men are going to be killed; every time they’re in combat, they see men killed all around them, yet every guy thinks he’s going to make it.”

“I know,” Kitty said. “Hope.” She didn’t want to go out anymore. She wanted to put on her pajamas and talk to her sister. She wanted to make them fried egg sandwiches to eat in bed.

“Oh, stop,” Louise said, as though she were reading her sister’s mind. “Go have fun. I’ll come next time. Gosh, he’s swell, that Hank. You’re lucky to have found him.”

Kitty shrugged.

“Knock it off,” Louise said.

“What?”

“The nonchalance. You’re nuts about him.”

“We’ll see.”

“Look at me,” Louise said. “Let’s make sure you didn’t smear your mascara. Do you like that mascara, anyway?”

“I do,” Kitty said. It was new, an expensive brand she’d bought last week from Tish at the cosmetics counter where she worked. Even with Tish’s discount, it was outrageous. “I’ll put some on you,” Kitty said. “Want me to?”

“I’m not going anywhere!”

“So?” Kitty looked at her watch. “I’ve got time. I’ll put some on you. I’ll show you how to do it.”

“Okay,” Louise said, and she sat up higher in bed, happy now.

Kitty headed for the bathroom to retrieve the black cake of mascara, the cunning little brush.
There,
she was thinking.
Now Louise is okay. Now I can have fun.

The bathroom door was locked, and Kitty rapped lightly against it. “Who’s in there?”

“Me,” Binks said.

“Well, come out.”

“Okay.” The toilet flushed, and Binks banged the door open.

“Good boy,” Kitty said.

“WAIT TILL I TELL JULIAN ABOUT THE GREEN MILL,”
Tish said. She straightened the piece of writing paper before her.

“He’s been there,” Kitty said.

“Did you go with him?” Tish asked.

Kitty spoke carefully. “We went there a long time ago.” They had drunk sidecars, and at one point Julian had lifted her up in the air and kissed her. She’d bitten his ear, and the people around them had whooped and applauded. “Some hot tomato, huh?” Julian had said. “Eat your hearts out, fellas.”

“We didn’t have any fun, though,” Kitty said.

“Well,” Tish said happily, and Kitty felt sure she knew what her sister was thinking.
He didn’t have fun with
you.

Kitty was glad for Tish and Julian. She wouldn’t trade her situation with anyone. She was finally deeply, wildly, madly in love. She talked to Hattie about Hank almost every day, and last time she’d said, Wasn’t it a miracle that she had found the one man for her? Wasn’t it truly a miracle?

Hattie had said she was very happy for Kitty, but truth be told, she didn’t really think it was a miracle. She’d said, “I know how you feel about him. It’s how I felt about Will. But I guess I believe that there’s a lot more than one man for me, and for you, and for every other woman. And more than one woman for every man.”

Kitty didn’t like thinking that way. But she guessed it was true. Still, when you were with the man you loved like crazy, you didn’t have to acknowledge that there could ever be another you would love so well. You could pretend it
was
a miracle you’d found each other. You could relish the knowledge, however false, that no one else would ever do.

F
ALL AGAIN. LEAVES DRIFTED SLOWLY
or, in a wind, blew down sideways. The days were warm and golden, and the nights made the tip of your nose cold. Michael Junior was almost able to sit up unsupported and adored his strained peas. Kitty sang him lullabies each night, and every time he reached up to touch her face, his eyes wide and wondering, she nearly wept. She understood now the attraction to babies, to children. Oh, did she. She understood with her mind and her heart and her gut.

Fala had learned to fetch the newspaper, and Frank took all the credit, though it was Tommy who’d taught the dog how. “Showed the little fellow once, and didn’t he do it ever after!” Frank said, ignoring the number of times Tommy had done it before him.

Billy was working delivering newspapers, and was so well liked he made extremely good money in tips. He was saving for a car, he said; he was going to buy a new car as soon as they started making them again. “Better get a bigger piggy bank,” Frank told him, and Billy said his money was at the bank. Earning interest. To which Frank said, uncharacteristically, nothing. Binks’s baseball team had taken first place, and he slept with his trophy. Tommy’s health was stable; his cheeks were pink again.

The war news was good, too, if you ignored the casualties. Paris had been liberated, and it seemed Hitler really was all but done for. According to the newspaper, he was hiding in his underground bunker, wavering between fits of rage and deep depression. He suffered from headaches, stomach cramps, and dizziness, and existed on an assortment of drugs. He was mentally ill, too, talking to his generals about the new armies he would raise, the secret weapons that would appear, the quarrels that would break out among the Allies, which would facilitate a victory for Germany. Meanwhile, his “army” was old men and children. Yes, Hitler was nearly defeated; it was just a matter of time. Then the Japs would get licked and the boys would come home. What a day that would be!

Meantime, the Nazis had boasted that Germany would eat, even if all the rest of Europe starved, but Michael wrote of seeing heartbreaking groups of refugees, of how he gave away most of his food to children who stood staring at him with their eyes wide, their bony hands clasped before them.

He wrote about the odd poignancy of coming across horses hit by artillery fire and lying dead in their harnesses at the sides of the roads. He told Louise about the mighty Russian army, how they and their American allies had at last met, and had drunk and danced together. He told her about Ernie Pyle’s famous remark, made after the Americans arrived victorious in Paris and all the French girls were throwing flowers and kisses. Pyle was reported to have said, “Any guy that doesn’t get laid tonight is a sissy.”
Guess what?
Michael had written.
I’m a sissy, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Julian wrote from Saipan that they were sending boys home who had been two years over. Those boys going back were overjoyed but also scared to death. When your days left grew shorter, you got very nervous about being hit. Later, from the Palau Islands, Julian wrote Tish,
Don’t worry about me, kid. I’m taking it easy, making like a crab in the sand.

The sisters wrote back: to them and to other soldiers they met here and there. Always letters going out and always letters coming in, all up and down the block. If someone saw someone else out on the porch taking mail from the box, they would call out, “Did you hear from him?” And if you said yes, they appropriated some of your joy and some of your relief, too.

It was different for Kitty now; her man was home. But of course she worried about those who remained. One night she moaned loudly in her sleep, dreaming about Julian being killed. When her sounds awakened her sisters and they in turn awakened her, she told them she’d been dreaming about some monster. Purple, with purple eyes. They were too tired to doubt her word. The next morning, Kitty went to the church and lit a candle for Julian.
Please don’t let him die,
she whispered, then quickly added,
or get hurt, either.