“Girls?” their mother called, and in her voice was such panic that all three of them raced down the stairs.
There’s a fire! Kitty thought, and she sniffed at the air and worried about where the rest of her family was. Why hadn’t she gotten dressed faster? Now she’d have to go outside barefoot and in her robe.
But there was no fire. Instead, there was Tommy, lying white-faced in his mother’s arms, his eyes closed, something dark caked at the corners of his mouth.
AFTER THEIR PARENTS AND THEIR BROTHERS left Tommy’s hospital bedside, the sisters took their turns and pulled their chairs up closer to him. He had been tentatively diagnosed with a digestive disorder, and though the doctor thought he would be fine, he would not be coming home for a while. True to his nature, he’d complained about nothing. He lay still with his hair wetly combed—Margaret’s doing—and with Frank’s wristwatch huge on his arm. A transfusion was running, and squeamish Tish pointedly turned her back to the bottle of blood. “Did you meet any cute girls in here yet?” she asked.
Tommy smiled. “No.”
“Well, keep your eyes open,” Tish said. “I think there might be cute girls running around here.”
“Can you bring them in to meet me?” Tommy asked, and then Tish had to stop smiling. “I was just kidding, hon,” she said.
Tommy said gravely, “Me, too, sis,” and Tish laughed.
“Want me to bring you some ice cream tomorrow?” Kitty asked him.
“That’s okay, I’m not so hungry.”
“When you come home, then,” Kitty said, and the words reverberated inside her head. When you come home. It was funny; with all that was going on with the war overseas, these domestic trials seemed outrageous, a kind of bitter insult. Michael’s mother dying. Tommy seriously ill. But nothing in nature stopped in deference to anything else. In apology for it. For the sake of some kind of balance. Kitty thought of a film she once saw where an antelope ran from a lion. Its head was high, its dark eyes wide in panic. Then it was down, being eaten alive. That antelope, on that day. Nearby, a mix of other animals drank from a great pond, watchful, wary, but mostly just thirsty. Was human nature so different from animal nature? Or nature nature? How did one find sense in anything? How did one find comfort?
Kitty leaned over to kiss Tommy’s forehead. He still smelled like a little boy sometimes. He smelled of pencils and lunch meat and clean sweat. “I love you,” she told him. There. That was how to find comfort.
Louise leaned over and spoke quietly to her little brother. “I’m going to tell Michael to send a letter just for you,” she told him. “Would you like that?”
He nodded happily.
“Want one from Julian, too?” Kitty asked.
“Yes.”
“Want one from a whole bunch of guys?” Tish asked. “And one of them is a really good artist who draws really funny pictures?” Kitty knew the Army flier Tish meant. He was stationed in England, and he’d sent a drawing of Churchill smoking a cigar the size of himself.
“Yes,” Tommy said and yawned, and the sisters gathered up their coats and purses. Their parents would come in one more time, and then the family would go home, minus one.
ON MONDAY, HATTIE MET KITTY for lunch at the corner table of the employee cafeteria. There was something different about Hattie, something wrong. She wouldn’t look directly at Kitty, and in place of her usual chattiness, there was a heavy silence. She sat staring at her lunch bag, refusing to meet Kitty’s eyes. Kitty touched her hand. “Hattie? Is everything all right?”
Finally, “I have to tell you something,” Hattie said.
Kitty stopped unwrapping the waxed paper from around her sandwich. “Did Will…?”
Hattie nodded. Two tears slid down her face, and she hastily wiped them off.
Kitty reached across the table for Hattie’s hand. “Oh, Hattie. I’m so sorry. When did you find out?”
“His mama wrote me. I got the letter Saturday. It’s funny; I knew, soon as I saw the envelope. We’d been writing, she and I. But I knew this was going to be the letter telling me that he got killed.” Hattie looked at the employees all around her, talking, laughing, smoking. At the table next to them was Arlene Burns, whose son was a Navy flier and had just been written up in the paper. Sitting with her was Luddie Stevenson, who’d returned from Guadalcanal completely deaf in one ear and was always cocking his head like a puppy to hear you better, and Tiny Hermon, who was mildly retarded and anything but tiny. You could always count on Tiny to help you lift things.
“Sure took a while to find out,” Hattie said. “There I was, getting up every morning thinking I was one day closer to being back with him. Writing him every night. I used to get all dressed up to write him, isn’t that silly? Used to put a dress on, and my lipstick, my high-heeled shoes. Just like a date. I put his picture next to me, turned on the radio, and wrote him everything I could think of.” She smiled and shook her head. “He was one handsome man, old Will Duncan. I wish you’d met him.”
“I do, too,” Kitty said. Her throat hurt. She wanted to go home.
“And he wrote me such nice letters. Romantic, but also just nice. He’d say things ’bout how he missed oranges, that little spray when he first dug in to peel them, that scent. Said he missed the sounds of his neighborhood, the little kids skipping rope, old Mrs. Dooley leaning out her window in her nightgown and yelling for her cat, sounding for all the world like a cat the way she yowled, but he missed it. I fell in love with him from those letters, it’s how I got to really know him. I remember thinking. Well, who wants a war, but how else would I have ever gotten these precious words? I thought after the war was over, we’d all get together. You and Julian and me and Will. It was a surprise I was saving for all of us. I had a big dinner planned, I was going to play music and serve dinner, and we’d eat and we’d dance…. I wish I’d told Will about it. I had the whole menu planned, I’d asked him once what his favorite foods were, and he gave me this big long list—Lord! But I was going to make every single thing he told me, from catfish to hot dogs to strawberry shortcake to buttered noodles, and I was going to invite you and Julian, and we were going to celebrate the end of the war and the beginning of…
“Well, I didn’t really know, see. I didn’t know for sure. I think me and Will were perfect together, and I guess I just thought we’d get married. We’d have the kids and the house and…” She looked at Kitty. “You do that, dream in your mind ’bout all you and Julian going to do after the war? Do you see everything just so clear?”
Kitty nodded. “All the time.”
Hattie stared into her lap. “I knew the house we’d live in like it was a real thing out there, just waiting for us, the door cracked open. I knew how it would feel when we were lying in bed together every morning.” She looked up sharply at Kitty, and her voice turned hard. “I wish I’d done more with him. I wish I had done everything. Those people that tell you to wait? They’re wrong. Because now I’ll never know what…I’ll never know.”
Kitty wanted to tell Hattie that she had been better off not doing more. That there would be another man for her, in time. That then she would be glad she had waited. But what she said was “I know.” Then she asked, “So…are you going to stay here?”
Hattie nodded and opened her lunch bag. “I’m going to stay here. Least until a better idea comes along. I’m going to build me a plane kill a bunch of Nazis dead.” She pulled out a sandwich and an apple and stared at them. “I don’t guess I’m so hungry. Would you like my lunch?”
“You need to eat, Hattie,” Kitty told her gently.
“I know you’re right.” Hattie took a bite of her apple. “It’s good,” she said. “You know, I just feel so bad about how good it is.” She dropped the apple, put her hands to her face, and began to cry, and Kitty moved her chair to shield her friend from the stares of their co-workers. She put her arm around Hattie’s shoulders and rocked her. Rocked them both.
THAT NIGHT, ON THE WAY HOME FROM WORK, Kitty mirac
ulously found a seat on the streetcar. She stared out the window, noticing all the fringed flags in all the windows that were decorated with blue stars, one for each person from that house who was in the service. One flag had three stars, and Kitty imagined what it would be like to have all her brothers gone. She looked especially for gold stars tonight, gold stars for those buried at home or at sea or in foreign soil, those men who’d waved jauntily from departing trains and jitterbugged at USO clubs, those who would never again hear the sounds of their neighbors, or kiss their girlfriends, or pet their dogs, or father children, or breathe in the scent of an orange. Gold stars for those men barely old enough to shave, who had written wills specifying the disposition of their few things. I want Dad to have my camera. A soldier she’d once danced with had told her that you never hear the sound of the shell that kills you. She hoped that was true.
AT LAST, TOMMY CAME HOME, still weak and needing time to recuperate. Margaret made soups and stews and casseroles and compotes and a little pan of apple crisp, for it was Tommy’s favorite. Frank made puppets from socks and put on a show every night. The sisters brought Tommy comics and crayons, books from the library, small bags of candy. They sat on his bed and read him letters from the boys. Billy made Tommy a slingshot and dropped in several times a day to make sure he was perfecting his aim. And Binks often sat by the side of Tommy’s bed, folding newspapers into hats and boats and singing songs to his brother in his nasally little voice.
After a few days, Dr. Brandon made a house call to check on Tommy’s progress. The rest of the family followed him upstairs and squeezed into Tommy’s doorway. Frank, his arms crossed and his posture ramrod straight, watched the doctor’s every move, occasionally grunting his approval. Margaret peered over his shoulder, Binks and Billy silently punched each other for obscuring the view, and the sisters held stock-still behind all the rest, as though their standing at attention would guarantee a good report on their pale-faced brother.
The doctor sat on the edge of Tommy’s bed and pressed and prodded at his abdomen. He listened to Tommy’s heart and had Tommy open his mouth wide and stick out his tongue. He lifted his pajama top in back and listened to Tommy’s lungs, his eyes on the ceiling. He told Tommy to cough, and he did, rather dramatically, which caused a worried look to pass between Margaret and Frank. The doctor had Tommy stand and then sit down and then stand again. Then he tucked him back into bed and told Tommy he was doing very well. He turned to the rest of the family and raised his bushy eyebrows. “Shall we all go downstairs?”
When the family had assembled in the living room, Dr. Brandon said, “If you don’t all stop taking such good care of him, he’s going to have to go back into the hospital.”
“What do you mean?” Frank asked, halfway between anger and fear.
“I mean, you’ve got to let him rest! Now here, listen to me. I want you to give Tommy a little bell. If he needs something, he’s to ring it. You may poke your head in on him every three or four hours, but do not wake him up. The boy’s exhausted!”
Binks began to blink back tears. “Tommy’s not better?”
The doctor turned to him and softened his voice. “Now, son, I didn’t say he’s not getting better. And I know you all only mean to help him. But what he needs most of all is to rest. So here’s an idea: why don’t you each pay him a visit at a certain time every day? But listen to me now, only one at a time! One!”
“I’ll go first thing in the morning,” Frank said.
“Can I go with you?” Binks asked, and Frank said that would be a fine idea.
“I want to see him in the morning, too,” Louise said, “before I have to go to work.”
“That’s my time,” Kitty said.
Exasperated, the doctor put on his hat and his coat. “You work out a schedule,” he said. “But I want that boy to get some rest! Now, can I rely on you to give it to him?”
All of them were silent, nodding. And then Margaret asked would the doctor like a loaf of the lovely rye bread she’d made that morning. And Binks asked but could he just go up now and say good night to Tommy.
“IT’S SHORT; SHALL I GO FIRST?” Louise asked, after dinner. No one answered. And so she began reading from the letter that had come from Michael.
“Dearest Louise,
“I’m so beat I’ll resort to V-mail for tonight, and even at that I may fall asleep over the page. Today tested us all to the limit; one fellow broke down. And yet despite all the hardships, there is something to love in this man’s Army. We are all on one side, united in this fight against evil, and of course that brings with it a certain camaraderie. But what I’m talking about is more mundane than that, more day-to-day. In basic training, there was a kind of stripping away of ego that now serves us well—there can be no stars in battle, there can only be a team. We aren’t competing in that desperate and backhanded way that men do when they’re trying to climb the corporate ladder. Black, brown, white, red, and yellow men fight together. When you need something, there is someone who will do his best to get it to you. There are no phony standards to live up to. Strange as everything about this war is, it is still the realest thing I’ve ever known. Except for my love for you, my darling. Except for that. Here’s a kiss. And as always, my heart.”
Louise smiled and folded up the letter. “Your turn,” she told Kitty.
Kitty had not heard from Hank Cunningham in well over two weeks, and she feared the worst. But she did have a longer-than-usual letter from Julian, and she shared it with her sisters as well as her father, who had come into the kitchen looking for matches for his pipe.
“Hello, Kat.
“Well, hi de ho, from a brand-new island in the same old Pacific.
“Guess what I’m going trick-or-treating as. A U.S. Marine!
“Yipe, I’m cooking on the front burner now. Did I ever tell you about Too-Too Padama? He’s a Philippine who works in the motor pool. We call him Too-Too because he’s this real excitable guy and that’s the way he talks: ‘I’m too too hungry!’ ‘It’s raining too too much!’ Anyway, old Too-Too got tired of wearing the same stinking clothes all the time, so he made a washing machine using a big barrel and two wooden paddles. It’s powered by a one-lung gasoline motor. I traded him all my hoarded-up smokes to get my laundry done. Then I spent all afternoon with my nose buried in my collar. Detergent: my new favorite perfume. I am now once again the best-dressed man around.
“Last night we saw Abbott and Costello in Pardon My Sarong and Ship Ahoy with Eleanor Powell and Red Skelton. Pretty good. It’s strange when the lights come up and you’re not there. I know you’re not there of course, but in the darkness, you sort of are.
“Wowser, you sure have learned a lot in that factory. I’m impressed. You asked if I’ve learned a lot in the Army. Oh sure. I’ve become an ace fly killer. Flies take off backward, did you know that? So if you want to kill them, you aim from behind them a couple of inches and you get them every time. I’ll bet I’ve killed more flies than any man in my division. Just waiting for my medal. Maybe it’ll be a big round silver medal featuring a compound eye.
“This all is more difficult than I can say. I can’t write to you about what we do, other than to tell you we go from zero to a hundred miles an hour, not much in between. I’ll have a lot of stories when I get back, but for now I just have to talk about safe things. The guys say the censors all have a case of scissoritis. Beats malaria, I guess. Say hi to the family, and send me some more cookies anytime.
“Love, Julian.”
“Cookies! What cookies?” Frank asked.
“Gingersnaps,” Tish said. It had been Tommy’s idea to send Julian cookies, and Tish was the one who had made them. But she had let Kitty send the accompanying note as though she were the one who had made them. This was because Kitty had let Tish wear her only pair of nylon stockings.
“Any left?” Frank asked hopefully.
“Sorry,” Tish said.
Frank grunted. He was hungry tonight, for Margaret had served
them baked-bean sandwiches for dinner—the butcher had had no meat that day. “Be grateful you’ve dinner at all,” Frank told Billy, who’d stared dismally at his plate. They had all cheered up a bit when Margaret told them that meat loaf was slated for tomorrow, the Good Lord and Emmet the butcher willing.
When her father left the kitchen, Kitty read Julian’s postscript:
“One more thing. I just want to say that I’m not a guy who’s jazzed up about any kind of romantic writing, Kitty. Some guys are regular Shakespeares—whether they’re chinning on paper or in person, the words just flow. I don’t care two whoops up a rain barrel about that kind of thing. To me, it’s just showing off. Still waters run deep, you know. I care very much for you. That’s the crop, duchess. I guess it counts for something.”
“There you go,” Louise said, and she said it proudly, as though she were the one who had written it, or the one who had encouraged Julian to.
“That’s it?” Tish said.
Kitty looked levelly at her, and Tish turned away.
ON A DARK SATURDAY MORNING in early December, while snow clouds gathered outside, Margaret told Louise, “All right, now, sit sideways, take in a deep breath, and stick out your chest!” She had decided to take photographs of her daughters to send to the men for Christmas. Right after breakfast, she told them to get dressed up, fix their hair, put on some lipstick. Louise was first. “Come on now, push it out,” Margaret said.
“Ma,” Louise said, embarrassed.
“You and Michael are practically married,” Margaret said. “Show him your stuff, ’twill cheer him up. Go on now, take a nice deep breath. All the girls do.”