Also upsetting was the fact that Kitty had not heard from Hank in almost three weeks. She dutifully answered the letters she got from other boys, but she was heartsick, thinking that something had happened to Hank and it was just a matter of time before she would get word from his mother that he, too, had been injured—or worse. Hank had asked his parents to get in touch with Kitty if something did happen, and they had agreed. Then they had asked when they might meet this girl. One week after he set foot back in the country, Hank had promised; and Kitty had agreed to take time off from work to travel to San Francisco with him. But now she had a sick suspicion that that day would never come.
She went back downstairs and sat with her sisters at the table. Michael Junior was sleeping soundly in the laundry basket. Louise picked up a thick letter from Michael and looked at the postmark. “Texas!” she said, confused. She opened the letter, read a few lines quickly, then said, “Oh.”
“What’s he say?” Tish asked, and Louise held up her hand; she’d let them know after she looked at it first.
After she’d finished reading the letter, Louise said quietly, “Well, I kept asking him to tell me what it was really like over there. He finally did.”
“What’s it say?” Tish asked.
“I can’t read this out loud. It’s…I can’t.”
“Can I?” Tish asked.
Louise nodded. “But I don’t want to hear it again. I’m going out in the parlor with Ma and Pop.” She picked up the baby and quickly left the room.
Tish looked over at Kitty, her eyes wide. “Go ahead,” Kitty said quietly. “Read it.”
“June twelfth, 1944,” Tish said, and Kitty said, “Six days after D-day.”
“I actually know that,” Tish said, then read on.
“Somewhere in France
“Darling Louise,
“It’s late afternoon, and so blessedly quiet. We’re holed in behind the lines for a few days, awaiting supplies and replacements, and today I had the luxury of a haircut, a hot meal, and a bath, if you can call warm water in a helmet a bath. In the morning, I’ll give this letter to a buddy of mine, Fred Jenkins, whose leg got messed up real bad and who’s going home tomorrow. He’ll mail it stateside, and that way we can bypass the censors, which we will certainly need to do if I’m to respond honestly to your persistent requests.
“I thought for a long time about whether or not to do this, and I hope I made the right decision. I think I understand why you keep asking me to tell you more, to say everything I can about how I’m feeling. You must believe that it will keep me from becoming one of those poor fellows that just break down. Or maybe you’re right, maybe people at home should have more of an idea what it’s really like here, they should have more of an idea of what war really means. I’ll try to answer your questions, but believe me, I won’t come close to telling you everything. There’s just too much to say, and no words for some things anyway.
“Yes, I have killed a lot of men, I really don’t know how many, but a lot. I don’t usually see their faces when I do, but I see some afterward, and I certainly see plenty of our guys who have died in battle. Oh, Louise, it’s more awful than you can imagine. You see a body curled as if in sleep sometimes, but there’s that terrible stillness that lets you know it’s not sleep, and it’s some guy you saw laughing and smearing jelly on bread with the back of a spoon that morning. You see limbs blown off, arms, legs, and once I saw a head lying there with the eyes open, and I just didn’t know what to do when I saw that. You see guys with terrible burns, one guy we tried to pull to safety and the skin on his legs just slid right off. You think, Skin doesn’t do that! Skin doesn’t do that!
“There are guys bleeding to death who don’t know it, they’re smiling, they’re talking, they don’t feel the pain because they’re in shock, they ask you for some water and then they’re dead. On D-day, I ran past a guy lying on his spilled guts with his eyes closed and his thumb in his mouth. Eisenhower’s speech had been read to us over the loudspeaker by our commander when we crossed the channel that morning. What valor and inspiration were in his words—all about how we were embarked on a great crusade, that the hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people were going with us. We each got a copy of that speech, and I kept reading it, I pretty much memorized it, especially the part at the end where he said the tide had turned and we were marching together to victory. I took great pride in him saying he had full confidence in our courage, our devotion to duty, our skill in battle. I got gooseflesh when he asked for the blessing of Almighty God on “this great and noble undertaking.” But how to reconcile that with spilled guts on a beach and flies in the eyes of some dead nineteen-year-old kid who traded his life for some words on paper?
“That guy I ran past, I’d talked to him on the way over. He was holding a tablet and frowning, trying to think of how to say what he wanted. He was writing to his sweetheart, a gal named Harriet, a real looker, he showed me her picture and she was wearing a bathing suit and posing like a pinup girl. Polka-dot two-piece, real curly red hair piled up high on her head, smiling as big as all outdoors. But he was frowning at that picture while writing to her, and I knew, because he told me, that he was writing a letter to be given to her in the event of his death. All of us have done that, sweetheart, written those letters and made out wills, and please don’t let it scare you, it offers a kind of comfort to us, and anyway, we were told to do it. Funny how some things can’t be said unless we’re thinking we’ll be dead when they are. My friend Jack showed me the letter he wrote to his son, telling him he was proud to have served his country, telling him to be a big boy, to take good care of his mother, she loved him so much, telling him it would be hard for him to understand why his daddy died, but he would, in time. I intend to write little Michael such a letter, too. I hope he’ll never have to read it. Guys write their parents, their sisters and their brothers, their best friends. One guy wrote a letter to his old cocker spaniel, and he was acting like it was a big joke, but I saw the tears in his eyes. Gosh, I just don’t know how anything can ever be more precious than the words in those letters.
“So Harriet’s boyfriend, Lou Silver was his name, he didn’t make it, Louise, so few in the first wave made it out of the battle that day. One company of 197 men lost all but 7 or 8. Omaha Beach sure got the worst of it, so much went wrong—the paratroopers were all but massacred, the flotation devices on the tanks didn’t work, and all but one sank with their crews. The landing crafts were just swamped because the waves were so high, we had to keep bailing water out of them and I was sure we’d never make it. None of the boats could get all the way to the beaches, and our ramp wouldn’t go down so we had to jump over the side and some guys landed in water over their heads and their heavy equipment sank them, they drowned. Because of the weather, the air corps wasn’t able to cover those of us who made it to the beach, and we were just pinned down there for over three hours. This after it had been drummed into us to get off the beaches, get off the beaches, die on the bluffs if you have to, but get off the beaches because if you don’t, you will die there for sure.
“I know thousands made it out of there alive, but thousands didn’t. And you keep seeing the guys you ran past, floating in water turned red by all the blood or sprawled out in the sand, you see them when you’re awake and when you’re asleep, dead in those sad and undignified ways, it sure isn’t anything they show you in the training films. A dead guy killed in action is so much different from your old uncle Ned in his coffin. These guys are so young, and to see them dead, well, it’s kind of ridiculous. I know what we’re fighting for, it’s as keen and continually present in my mind as my love for you and our child, Louise. But man alive, those long minutes before you go into battle, your stomach is churning and you’re holding your weapon so tight and your mouth is sticking to itself and your heart is pounding so fast and you’re thinking, What am I doing here, why did I ever enlist? But then there you go, go, go, run, run, shoot, duck, cover your head, run, crawl, and bullets
are screaming past and mortar shells are coming in and guys are yelling and falling all around you and sometimes they call out for their mother, and you quit thinking, you quit feeling, you have to, you move down into your guts and you just go. It’s kill or be killed. That’s all it is. Survival. And the enemy is thinking the same thing. Kill the Yanks. Kill them. All this hate on both sides for people you never met, you’re killing people you never even saw before. I know this war is about what soldiers represent, I know that. We’re fighting an idea, a wrong and deadly idea in the form of a person, and I know, too, a soldier’s duty, he does what he’s told without questioning, but a guy’s face is different from an insignia, an enemy soldier’s wallet falls out and there are his photos of his girl.
“We see these things almost every day, dead men whose loved ones will soon learn they are never coming home. I think about some guy’s wife out hanging sheets on the line in the warm summer air and the kid is asleep in the crib and then comes the telegram with the black stars. I heard about this one woman, she wouldn’t answer the door, she saw them coming to deliver the telegram and she wouldn’t answer the door, as long as she didn’t answer the door, her son was still alive.
“You get used to it in a way, but in another way you know you never will. You sit around after battles lasting anywhere from minutes to weeks, and you smoke a cigarette and talk to your buddies, eat some grub, even joke around, play cards, but inside you are reeling. I am, anyway. We are all so far away from the kind of naïve exuberance we had when we first left, thinking we’d pick off the Krauts and the Japs like in a carnival game and come home heroes. Just such a different thing now. I don’t ask the others about that, about how they feel now versus how they felt then. Or about how they feel at all, really, none of us does that. What we have to try to do is forget the sadness, the horror, the fear, the humanity—or lack thereof. I know one guy sent a terrible letter to his sweetheart, kind of yelling at her to stop saying how much she missed him. Tell me what you had for dinner, he said. Tell me about the movies you went to, what you wear every day. Tell me what you saw on the streetcar on the way to work, tell me some jokes. Some guys said they thought it was kind of rough, but he mailed it anyway, said she had to learn to cheer him up.
“I guess he’s right, we need to keep a part of ourselves in some nice place, it’s like our own private church inside us where we can go anytime. We need to have that connection to home. We share the food we get—those New York boys getting the Katz’s salamis, are they ever popular!
“We listen to American music when we can, sometimes we get patched in real good. One night we heard Glenn Miller from a German station in Berlin, if you can believe it! How’s that for an insult! I heard the Andrews Sisters sing ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree’ at one of the USO shows we picked up, it was swell. And don’t you, Louise Marie, don’t you dare sit under any apple trees or anywhere else with anyone but me! I’m kidding you, honey, I know you won’t. You are my angel now, truly, the thought of you lifts me up and away from everything here, you’re better than a prayer. I swear I’ll come home to you. It’s funny how some guys know they’re going to get it that day, they just wake up knowing it and oftentimes they’re right, but what I know is that I’m coming back to you, I know it beyond a doubt, Louise, I just do. I don’t know when, but I sure know how, as I’ve imagined it and described to you a thousand times before, your sweet arms around my neck, our first kiss after such a long time, boy, don’t even get me started.
“I’m not going to read this over. I know if I do, I won’t send it. I said an awful lot, probably way too much, and I apologize if the awful parts make you feel bad, sweetheart. I hope it wasn’t the wrong decision to tell you these things. And I hope, too, that you’ll understand that I can’t ever do it again. Surely it’s not good for you, and it’s not good for me, either. Seems like a guy’s got to store some things away. I can’t imagine that when I come home I’ll want to talk about any of this, I don’t think any of us will. We’ll all be so eager to put it behind us and start our new lives.
“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 con
fess 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.
“ARE 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?”