"It's been hard on Carol too. She's been making the trip to D.C. every month to visit him. I got the guys to take up a collection, sent her money to help out, but I sure wish there was something more we could do."
"I have three dollars and twenty-six cents," Maggie said immediately. "I can send that, I know it isn't much, but—"
Dad smiled at her. "You just keep writing to him. That's the best thing you can do, and it's a lot more than you think." He paused, then added, "You might say a prayer for him, too."
He elbowed her gently. "C'mon, let's go eat."
"I'll—I'll be in in a minute, okay?" she said.
He hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Suit yourself. Don't be too long, princess." He rubbed his bad knee, then heaved himself to his feet.
Maggie heard the door close. She bent her head down and squeezed her eyes shut, as if she might somehow be able to block the wave of hot shame rising inside her.
All those months she had been praying for the Dodgers—when she should have been praying for Jim.
Why hadn't she started praying for him right when the letters stopped coming? For that matter, she could have prayed for him the minute he went into the army! She knew people did that—she had heard them ask for intercessions in church—she could have asked for one for Jim—why hadn't she thought of it?
Maggie wasn't crying, but she found herself taking quick gasps of air that seemed to catch in her throat. She had been so selfish, praying for the Dodgers—for something she wanted. If she had prayed to God to keep Jim safe, maybe this wouldn't have happened, maybe he would have been fine and home months ago....
If any of it, even a little tiny crumb, was her fault, she would have to make up for it somehow.
Maggie opened her eyes, blinked a few times, and glanced up and down the street. Nobody around. She crossed herself, then laced her fingers together and brought her clasped hands to her face as she breathed out the words.
"Dear God, please bless Mom and Dad and Joey-Mick and me and all our friends and relations and the most abandoned souls in Purgatory. And especially Jim. Amen."
NOT ENOUGH
In bed that night, Maggie prayed again. Then she thought about her letters, which had never gotten to Korea after all. She realized now that it had been important to her, the idea that they were going somewhere so far away. It was disappointing to think that they had stayed right here in the U.S.
And what had happened to the things she had sent to Jay—the comic books, the Pez candy? It would be nice if Jim's sister had maybe sent them on to him, but that was probably too much to expect. More disappointment: Maybe he never got any of it, except for those first cards.
Jim, sick all this time, not talking to anyone for months now. And Dad had known, and hadn't told her. Who else had known—everyone but her? But Maggie found that she couldn't really be mad at Dad for not telling her sooner. Because, in a way, what difference did it make? Jim wasn't here, so she wrote letters to him: It would have been the same even if she had known earlier what she knew now.
No, that wasn't quite right. One thing would have been different: She wouldn't have been waiting all this time for him to write back.
But maybe ... maybe if she had known he wouldn't be writing back, she would have felt differently. Maggie realized then that every time she had sat down to write Jim a letter, she had thought something like, THIS is the one he'll write back to. If she had known about him being sick, she might not have written to him nearly as often. She might have stopped writing entirely.
Sure enough, writing to him from then on felt different. Awkward.
July 13, 1953
Dear Jim,
My dad told me about what happened to you. I was glad to hear that you're getting out of the hospital! I hope you'll be feeling better really soon.
I don't know if I should still write to you about baseball stuff. I guess your sister or her family could tell you the scores, or maybe you're even listening to the games yourself. But you can just let me know if you don't want me to write to you about baseball anymore.
The Giants beat the Dodgers two out of three in their last series. The Dodgers are still in first place, just barely—1½ games ahead of the Braves. 6½ ahead of the Giants, who are in fifth place, sorry. But the Giants swept the Phillies last week, including both games of a doubleheader, so they've been playing good lately, in fact before the Dodgers beat them yesterday they won eight in a row, so that's good news for you!
Not much happening around here lately—no games either, three days off for the All-Star game tomorrow. I hope you feel good enough to come visit soon. I bet Charky will remember you!
Your friend Maggie
July 28, 1953
TO JIM STOP I GUESS YOU HEARD THE NEWS BY NOW STOP CEASE-FIRE IN KOREA YESTERDAY STOP THE WAR IS OVER STOP WHAT GREAT NEWS STOP BIG QUESTION WILL WILLIE COME HOME IN TIME TO PLAY THE REST OF THE SEASON STOP
(In case you're wondering, I wanted to make this look like a telegram. I never got a telegram or sent one either but I always wanted to.)
Your friend Maggie
The newspaper printed a map of the way Korea would be divided, into communist North Korea and democratic South Korea. Maggie traced the map to add it to her war notebook.
Then she added a caption:
July 1953: Cease-fire! The war is over!
Maggie frowned and turned back a few pages until she found what she was looking for. Map 7, from the summer of 1951.
The new map looked almost exactly like it. The line dividing the two sides was in the same place.
More than two long years of fighting ... Thousands and thousands of soldiers on both sides dead, thousands more hurt, like Jim.
And in all that time, the line hadn't moved, hadn't budged.
Maggie looked carefully at her work. The exclamation points ... they looked too—too happy, or something. She erased them and put periods instead:
July 1953: Cease-fire. The war is over.
Maggie could still remember the parade when World War II ended, even though she had been only three and a half. Dad wasn't with them that day; he was at work, helping with crowd control, and he wouldn't let his family watch from the street, of course—too many people. So they had gone to Uncle Leo's place in Manhattan and watched the parade from the roof. What had most impressed Maggie was all the confetti and ticker tape falling from the sky, and after the parade was over, she and Joey-Mick went down to the street and picked up handfuls and threw them into the air to watch them fall again.
She wondered if there would be another parade in New Jersey, and if Jim would be well enough to march in it. Maybe they could even go to that parade; she could stand at the curb and wave a little American flag and cheer for Jim when he marched by.
When she asked Dad about it, he fiddled with his mustache. "There's always big crowds at a parade," he said. "But I guess it's not the same as indoors. I dunno, I'll think about it. Doesn't matter this time anyway. There isn't gonna be any parade."
"What do you mean, no parade?"
Dad shook his head. "They're sayin' it wasn't ever a war."
Maggie stared at him in disbelief.
He must have seen the expression on her face, because his next words were gentle. "We never declared war on North Korea," he said. "Not officially. Congress has to do that, and they never did. I think they called it a 'police action'—whatever that means. So we can't even really say, 'The war is over,' because it wasn't a war."
Maggie thought of Jim. She felt a little knot of fury tighten inside her. She knew it wasn't right to think that she was smarter than all the congressmen in the whole U.S. of A., but she couldn't help herself: It had been a war, all right, no matter what the stupid Congress said.
In the fall, the Dodgers won the National League pennant again, a whopping thirteen games ahead of the second-place Milwaukee Braves. Never in Maggie's years as a fan had one team so thoroughly dominated the league. Brooklyn had gone into first place at the end of June and never le
ft. They had the pennant locked up a full two weeks before the season ended. The Giants ended up in fifth place; Willie Mays didn't come home to finish the season with them. Maggie read in the paper that even though the war was over, he had to complete his two full years in the military because he hadn't spent any time overseas.
Despite the Dodgers' remarkable play all season, she tried hard to smother her hopes for the World Series. For one thing, they would be playing the Yankees again. For another, she decided that it would be better to expect the Dodgers to lose and not be disappointed if they did, and that way, if they happened to win, it would be a terrific surprise.
At least, that was what she kept telling herself.
Then Maggie read in the newspaper that radio announcer Red Barber had quit his job over a salary dispute. A guy named Vin Scully would be calling all of the World Series games. Even though Maggie knew that she wouldn't be hearing Red when she turned on the radio for Game 1, it was a jolt when she heard Mr. Scully instead. She hadn't realized how much Red's voice had become part of the game for her, and the change seemed like a bad omen for the Dodgers.
The big moment happened in Game 6. The Dodgers were down three games to two; they had to win this one to stay alive in the Series. Maggie listened to the game at home. With Brooklyn behind, 3–1, in the top of the ninth, her hopes were like a tiny flame trying to burn through wet wood—down to a final, feeble flicker, choking and gasping on thick smoke. Any moment now and she would be waiting till next year again....
Then a small miracle occurred: Carl Furillo hit a two-run homer! The game was tied! If they could hang on in the bottom of the ninth, the game would go into extra innings—they would have a chance to win it and go on to play the seventh game.
Please, please, please...Maggie made the sign of the cross on her thumb.
But in the bottom of the inning, the Yanks' Billy Martin got a clutch single to drive in a run and win the game, 4–3.
Not just the game, but the Series title.
For the Yankees.
Again.
"Billy Martin!" Maggie cried out. "It's always stupid Billy Martin!" At that moment she hated him—hated him so much that she realized she had never really hated anyone before in her whole life. "He's always up at bat or all over the field or—or something. It's like there's twelve of him!"
She stomped up to her bedroom, jerked open the closet door, and threw the scorebook onto the floor in the corner. There was quite a pile there now: the 1951 season, another book for the playoffs that year, then 1952. And now this one.
It was the worst loss ever, even more crushing than the year before. Maggie wasn't quite sure why. Was it because she had tried so hard not to hope for too much that she had ended up hoping even more?
Maybe it was because the Dodgers had played so well all season, or because pitcher Carl Erskine had been so brilliant in the third game, setting a Series record by striking out fourteen Yankees. Maybe because it simply had to be Brooklyn's turn this time.
Or because Jim was back, but not really.
Throughout the fall, Maggie pestered Dad for news about Jim. She knew that there were regular phone calls between him and Jim's sister, and she wanted to be absolutely sure she didn't miss anything.
"If there was anything new, I'd tell you," Dad kept saying. "Carol says he's still the same."
And Maggie would say, "Okay, Dad, thanks." But she couldn't forget that he hadn't told her the truth before, and part of her didn't quite trust him. No, that wasn't true: She trusted Dad more than any other human being on the planet. But she thought it was possible that he might sort of "delay" telling her the truth again if it was bad news.
The weather grew colder. Brooklyn had its usual amount of snow that winter: flakes and flurries here and there, with one good storm that left enough snow on the ground to go sledding in the park. Maggie had outgrown her winter coat and was delighted with her new one; it was the exact color she thought of when she thought of the word "blue."
The guys went out on calls—house fires, sometimes shops or restaurants, and once a warehouse. They came back safely every time. Maggie made the sign of the cross on her thumb whenever she was at the firehouse on their return.
Which was less and less often these days. She was busier than ever with homework, as the teachers prepared the class for next year's move up to junior high. One nice surprise: the highest grade in her math class for the percentages unit, which was a breeze after all the hours she had spent calculating batting averages.
But still no word from Jim.
Nothing.
He wasn't getting better.
The letters weren't enough. And it didn't look as though her prayers were helping, either.
THE OLD SOCK
1954
On a cold January afternoon, Maggie sat in the green armchair, counting the bills for what was probably the twentieth time.
"What are you gonna do with it?" Joey-Mick asked.
It was her confirmation money, seventeen dollars altogether. Five each from Uncle Pat and Uncle Leo, three from Treecie's parents, and four from the fire-house guys. Treecie had gotten even more, twenty-four dollars—she had more aunts and uncles than Maggie did.
Just as they planned, the girls had taken each other's names. On the day itself they had gone around calling each other by all four names, and "Margaret Olivia Theresa Fortini" was such a mouthful that every time Treecie said it, they both had giggle fits.
Maggie riffled the bills, then restacked them so the George Washingtons were all facing the same way.
Joey-Mick prodded her. "C'mon, you must have some idea."
"I don't know yet," Maggie said.
"I can't believe you don't got a plan," Joey-Mick said. "I had it planned out for ages before my confirmation" His voice cracked in midsentence, finishing much lower than it started, as if it wanted to be deep and manly but wasn't quite sure how. That happened often these days. Maggie giggled. Joey-Mick shrugged and couldn't help grinning a little himself.
Joey-Mick had been confirmed just before his thirteenth birthday a year and a half ago. The day after the service, he had taken down the magazine ad on his wall. It had been there for months: a full-page ad for the top-of-the-line Wilson fielder's glove, $19.95. The kind the big-leaguers used. He had folded the page carefully around his wad of bills, and Dad had taken him downtown.
Joey-Mick could have gotten a glove for a lot less. Eight dollars, or twelve—that was what most of the neighborhood boys paid for a glove, those who could afford one. But Joey-Mick knew what he wanted. "They don't let you get confirmed more than once," he had said. "I'm never gonna have this kind of dough again—I need to get me a glove that's gonna last forever."
He had done just that. The glove had seemed clownishly big at first, stiff with newness, but with use and several applications of neat's-foot oil, it mellowed, and Joey-Mick grew to fit it. Now it was like part of his body, on his hand that very moment as he thunked a ball into the pocket again and again.
Maggie knew that Treecie had a plan, too. She was saving her money to buy a camera. Treecie was not happy with her handed-down Brownie; she had her heart set on a Rolleiflex, a fancy German camera. The kind used by the famous photographer Margaret Bourke-White, Treecie's hero.
According to Treecie, Miss Bourke-White had taken photos all over the world, even in combat during World War II. Treecie also told Maggie that a photo taken by Miss Bourke-White had been chosen for the cover of the very first issue of Life magazine.
Everyone knew Life, of course. Mr. Armstrong brought it in the mail once a week. Treecie's family got Life, too; the girls often phoned each other when the magazine arrived, to talk about the interesting pictures.
"All those men photographers out there, and they picked her photo," Treecie had gloated.
Maggie didn't know how much a Rolleiflex cost, but she was sure it was a terrifying amount. It would take Treecie a long time to save up enough.
Thunk—thunk—
J
oey-Mick, plunking the ball into his glove. And here it was the middle of January, with baseball season too far away to even be thinking about.
Maggie stared at the ball as it went back and forth ceaselessly. Baseball season ... the Dodgers playing again ... the Giants ... Willie Mays ... Jim ... Jim loves baseball...
"I have an idea," Maggie whispered, so quietly that Joey-Mick didn't hear.
It was a good idea. Maybe even a great idea.
Seeing a Giants game would surely make Jim feel better! She could take him to a game! And why not a game against the Dodgers at Ebbets Field?
Maybe Dad would say yes, because it's for Jim. Especially if I paid for it.
In the top drawer of her bureau, in an old sock—a little-girl sock, with pink lace around the cuff—Maggie had three dollars more. With her confirmation money, that made twenty dollars total. A ticket to a Dodgers game cost around two dollars. Not for box seats closest to the field—those were more expensive—but for seats in the grandstand.
I've got enough to take ten people! Jim, and Mom and Dad and Joey-Mick. And Treecie, of course, and me. That's only six, so I'd have plenty of money left over....
Maggie folded down a corner of the bill on top of the stack, then unfolded it and began rolling the little point between her thumb and forefinger, thinking hard.
But maybe Jim would want his family with him. So his sister would come, too. And she has two kids, and her husband....
It was getting complicated. Maggie took the money up to her bedroom and put it carefully into the old sock. Then she got out her scoring notebook and turned to a blank page at the back.
Seated on her bed, she wrote the word "People" at the top of the page. Then a list:
JIM
Dad, Mom, Joey-Mick
me
Carol (Jim's sister)
Carol's two kids and husband?