The Last Embrace

  I pulled back, struggling to catch my breath. “Should we tell them?” Charlie whispered, his breath warm against my ear.

  For a moment, I was puzzled: he had just insisted on not telling his parents about the army. But he was talking now about the two of us being together, not his enlistment. I considered the question. I wanted to savor the newness of whatever this was between us. I wasn’t ready to face the scrutiny of our families.

  “We have to tell them, don’t we?” he continued, not waiting for an answer. “Dad will be thrilled. Mom, too, I think, though she’ll be more worried about you than anything. And the boys should be okay with it, as long as I’ll still share you.” It was thrilling and terrifying, the notion of saying this aloud and acknowledging it in the light of day. Surely it would change everything. But things were already changing, weren’t they?

  I raised my hand. “Let’s wait a bit. We’ll tell them at Thanksgiving when you come back,” I added before he could protest. “When we are all together.”

  “We’ll get engaged as soon as you graduate.” His words came out in a tumble as though he had thought about them for years. “Or maybe we should get married now,” he offered, an uncharacteristic sheepishness to his voice. Couples were doing it all over, making it official before the men shipped out. There were lines in front of the courthouses, weddings thrown together quickly in the churches and shuls and parents’ living rooms. But me and Charlie—it was all moving so quickly. We had barely yet kissed and I wasn’t even eighteen yet, for goodness’ sake. A few hours ago I had not been sure Charlie even liked me and now he was planning our wedding. He had always moved at a hundred miles an hour, a freight train plunging headlong into the future. Taking charge.

  “It was a silly idea,” he added quickly, retreating.

  “Not at all,” I replied quickly, placing my hand on his. “It’s just all so fast.” There was part of me that still could not believe he would want me.

  “I just meant in case anything happens to me.”

  “Don’t even say it.” I cut him off too late. The war, all that stood between this moment now and our happily-ever-after, the dangers looming large. “You’ll be fine.” It could not possibly be otherwise.

  He kissed me again and I responded instinctively, matching his passion as though we had been doing this for years and not minutes. His arms tightened around me and as the heat rose between us, I wondered if he might go further. I wanted him to. But a moment later he broke away and drew me close to his chest. I pressed my cheek against the rapid-fire beat of his heart, trying to catch my breath.

  A gull called out then and I turned to see the dawn pinkening the sky behind us over the ocean. “We’d better head back.” Wordlessly, we stood and started walking back, and as we reached our houses, there was a moment of awkward hesitation. I could go back to the Connallys and the sofa bed that awaited me. But something told me that if we were under the same roof, things might go too far. “You’ll tell your mother I went home?”

  He nodded. “I wish you didn’t have to.”

  “You have to be up in a few hours—you need your rest.” His train was at just past seven. I had seen his suitcase, packed and waiting, intended to look as though he was going to school. He would have to change it for a rucksack at some point like the ones I’d seen enlistees carrying back in the city. The deception seemed to grow larger and I was enveloped by sadness.

  “What is it?”

  I shook my head. I did not want to burden him when he was enlisting. “It’s hard to leave you when we just found each other like this,” he said, trying to read my thoughts. “But in some ways it’s going to make things easier, knowing you’re waiting for me. And I’ll be back in three months.” That sounded like an eternity. But when he did return, we could tell everyone and our life together could begin in earnest. We were together now, just like I had always dreamed. It almost seemed too good to be true. He kissed me once more, then stepped quickly back.

  I raised my hand to the chain that hung around my neck holding the mizpah half heart, and unfastened the clasp. Then I slipped it from my neck and handed it to Charlie. “To keep you safe.”

  “But this belonged to your mother.” Conflict washed over his face. “I couldn’t possibly take it, especially now.”

  I closed his hand around it. “You must.”

  “Just don’t forget about me, okay? Me and us and the morning we watched the sun come up.” I realized then he was scared. I wanted to tell him it was going to be fine and that he was destined for greatness wherever he stood. But I could not find the words.

  “Look behind us.” The sun had burst through the horizon, spreading its wings and talons through the dark clouds like a golden eagle. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Beautiful,” I echoed, seeing him silhouetted against the sunrise.

  I sighed as I watched Charlie disappear into the beach house. And in that moment, I knew he was already gone.

  I put on my overcoat and stepped out onto Porter Street. A late-autumn breeze blew sharply and the sky above was a medium gray. Though it was still afternoon, lights burned yellow behind blackout curtains not yet closed for the night. A bit of foil that had escaped one of the collection bins for the war effort blew along the gutter. I started northeast toward Pennsport, a tingling anticipation rising in me. Tonight was Thanksgiving—Charlie was finally coming home.

  The actual moment he left was unemotional, an awkward kiss on the cheek in front of our families. Then he was gone. For me, the real goodbye had taken place at sunrise hours earlier. But it was still unbearable to watch him go, every step taking him farther from me and what we had just found between us. Take me, I had wanted to shout, as Charlie and his father drove away, headed for the city and the train at 30th Street Station. Of course I did not. Instead I stood silently with the rest of his family, understanding so much more than they did what this goodbye really meant.

  The three months since Charlie’s departure and our return to the city had passed slowly. Southern High, which had a year earlier seemed vast and terrifying, seemed to have shrunk in size, the high school halls now narrow and confining. A kind of darkness settled over me that fall: my parents were gone, Charlie too. Even visiting the Connally house had at first seemed unbearable. For weeks I avoided going there altogether.

  “Are you mad at us?” Jack stopped at my locker one day in early September, clearly having noticed my absence at their house.

  I averted my eyes. “Not at all. I’ve just been busy.” It was not just that I didn’t want to be in the Connally house without Charlie. Surely something, my voice, or my expression or something I said, would give away the truth—that Charlie had not gone to college, but had enlisted in the army and was training for war.

  But by late September, when school had settled into its routine and the smells of summer were replaced by a tinge of crispness, I found myself heading toward Second Street, passing factory workers, now women as well as men, coming and going from round-the-clock shifts at the Navy Yard. I walked up the Connallys’ porch steps and hesitated: Would they still welcome me after I’d stayed away so long? But Mrs. Connally had spied me through the glass. “Addie! Come in!” She was baking cookies while Robbie and Jack tussled over who got to lick the bowl. The smell of warm vanilla enveloped me, nearly making me swoon.

  “Hey, Addie,” Robbie called, not looking up from his struggle.

  “Here.” Jack smiled good-naturedly at his little brother and ceded the bowl. Mrs. Connally handed him the batter-covered spoon, a consolation prize. Jack held it out to me. The taste was a little less sweet, and the lack of eggs which were scarce due to rationing made the texture grittier. But it was still delicious.

  There were no questions that day about my unexplained absence. I was back, and despite my fears of awkwardness, I found instant comfort being among those who spoke Charlie’s name with affection
. Mrs. Connally read his weekly letters aloud. He always asked about each family member and me. His references to his own life were vague, mentions of bad food and interesting people that could have been at college—or the army. He was walking a line, keeping the secret of where he really was, while trying not to lie to them.

  And now in a few hours, Charlie would be back. I shivered in anticipation at the thought, scarcely able to believe it. I reached the Connally house and stared up the steps, envisioning Charlie striding toward me with that same smile that seemed to lift the world. I would manage somehow not to run and throw myself into his arms, to keep the secret just a bit longer until the right time. Worry pushed in then, nagging at the edges of my excitement. My love had not changed during the months we had been apart; if anything, it was stronger. But did he still feel the same? He had written to me directly a few times, his letters brief and vague. I wanted to believe he had kept them general on purpose, so as not to give anything away if my aunt and uncle happened to read them. I couldn’t send him V-mail like the posters told us to, not without giving the secret away. We’d managed a phone call once, me in the booth in the back of Schaum’s soda fountain behind the penny candy wall. But he’d been rushed and the call had cut off before either of us had the chance to say much.

  I walked inside. “Hello?” The Connallys’ house was filled with warm, savory smells.

  “Hi, Addie.” In the kitchen, Mrs. Connally was peering into a steaming pot and did not look up. She drained off the excess oil, storing it as we’d all been instructed. Nothing was to be wasted now. She leaned sideways to kiss my cheek. “Oh, you’re cold.” She was wearing pants, her hair tied up in a red-checkered kerchief. About a month ago, Mrs. Connally had taken a job at the steel plant. “It will be fun to do my bit,” she’d explained gamely. Remembering what Charlie had told me about his dad, I suspected there was more to it than wanting to help the war effort: the Connallys needed the money.

  Footsteps came pounding from the floor above, then down the stairs. Robbie, swathed in a tangle of glittery tinsel, skidded into the kitchen. “Here,” he said breathlessly, offering me one end of the tinsel. “Jack wouldn’t let me carry anything else,” he explained, as he spun around like a top to unravel himself.

  “I told you we aren’t getting the tree until after Thanksgiving,” Mrs. Connally said. I exhaled silently, relieved that the tree would not be up tonight. Mrs. Connally had invited Aunt Bess and Uncle Meyer to Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks earlier.

  “We can’t,” Aunt Bess had replied quickly, when I had extended the Connallys’ invitation.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, they aren’t kosher.” Aunt Bess sounded flustered.

  “You eat at Woolworth’s,” I reminded her. “You could make an exception, just this once. Please.” I, too, had been hesitant when Mrs. Connally had first mentioned it to me; it was hard to imagine Aunt Bess and Uncle Meyer socializing with the Connallys. But it was suddenly important to me that we all be in one place when Charlie and I broke the news of our relationship. Aunt Bess had conferred with my uncle that night and hesitantly, they agreed.

  “I thought having the boys pull down the decorations would keep them out from underfoot,” Mrs. Connally confided to me now in a low voice. She smiled ruefully. “I was wrong.”

  Robbie paused midspin to look at me and his eyes widened. “Wow, you look like a girl!” The pale pink velvet dress, with its matching soft wool cardigan, was an early Hanukkah present from Aunt Bess that I’d felt obliged to wear. She had bought it a size too small and the stiff bodice and skirt above the knee gave it a sophisticated look I was quite sure she had not intended.

  “Thank you, I think.” Mrs. Connally and I laughed.

  “What?” Robbie demanded. “I meant it in a good way.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Mrs. Connally said and she held the end of the tinsel to her youngest son’s mouth like a gag. The war had taken a toll on her, adding faint lines around her eyes, a few gray hairs sprouting. But her smile for her boys was as bright as ever.

  “Where’s Liam?” I tried to sound casual.

  Watching her smile fade, I regretted the question. “Out somewhere. I haven’t seen him since I finished my shift.” With her working, the boys were left on their own more than ever—which for Liam was the worst possible thing.

  “Mr. Connally’s gone to the station to get Charlie,” she added now. “It will be so nice to have him home again.” Her eyes searched my face. Had she guessed? “I finished work at ten, so I’m a little behind.” She turned to Jack. “Your math teacher called. You’ve missed some homework and you failed a quiz.” Her mouth pulled downward. “I expect that from your brother, but you?”

  “Sorry, Mom. I’ll do better.”

  “How can I help?” I asked now, eager to change the subject.

  “You can set the table with the good dishes from the breakfront.”

  I escaped the kitchen, grateful for the task to keep me busy as the minutes until Charlie’s return seemed to stretch to hours. The dining room had been transformed, all of the clutter gone and a fresh flowered cloth on the table. Candles flickered on the mantelpiece. I set out the plates, ten of them pressed close.

  I had just finished folding the napkins when Jack came in and began helping me with the silver.

  “What happened with that quiz, Jack?“ I asked. “You’ve always been aces in math.”

  “I picked up an extra route after school for the Inquirer.” Jack had long had a paper route delivering the Bulletin but now with the war he had picked up a second and was working harder than ever, which explained why he didn’t have the time to study. “I thought maybe Mom wouldn’t have to work so much at the plant.”

  That was Jack, always trying to fix things for everyone. “But won’t she want to know where you got the extra money?”

  “I’ll tell her they gave me a raise.” He was willing to lie to protect the people around him. But his shoulders slumped. “It’s just...with Charlie away and everything with Liam, you know, I want to help out, make Mom happy.”

  I walked over and squeezed his hand. “I know.” It couldn’t have been easy for him, sandwiched between Liam’s dark and Charlie’s golden light.

  “I almost forgot.” I went back to the foyer and pulled out the Green Lantern comic book I’d bought him earlier at the drugstore. I was going to save it and give it to him as a Christmas present, but he looked as if he needed it now. I walked back to the dining room. “Here.”

  “What’s this for?”

  “Just to say thanks for all the homework help this semester. It’s a new one. I didn’t think you had it yet.”

  “I don’t.” His cheeks rose in a wide smile behind his glasses. He was used to thinking of others and not the other way around. “Thanks, Ad.”

  Jack and I worked together to set the table in a familiar rhythm, neither speaking further. In some ways he was the most like a brother to me. Would he mind that Charlie and I were together now?

  “What are you gonna do after graduation?” he asked unexpectedly.

  I considered the question uncertainly. I’d been so wrapped up in Charlie’s return that I had not given it much thought. But we were seniors now, the future looming uncertain before us. My aunt and uncle did not have the money for college. “I don’t know. It’s only November. You?”

  “I dunno. Maybe Mom and Dad will change their minds and let me and Charlie enlist.” Jack felt duty-bound to go into the army. But it was impossible imagining the gentlest of the brothers actually fighting. “Or get a job at one of the plants and take some night classes. You could do that, too, y’know.”

  I did not respond, as I took out the porcelain cups with the rose pattern that I loved. Most women were working now like Mrs. Connally. I saw them trudging off mornings with their lunch pails, returning twelve hours
later aged a decade, the dust lingering in their hair, steps slow. Nice, patriotic girls were supposed to work dutifully in the factories. But the notion of hunching over an assembly line all day made me nauseous. I couldn’t bear the thought. I did not have pretensions: I knew the place where I came from did not lead to a fancy college, or indeed college at all. But there had to be something in between.

  “Get a job maybe. I’ve been doing well in typing class.” One of the cups on the stack I carried started to teeter and as I tried to right it, it slipped and shattered on the hardwood floor. Hearing the sound, Mrs. Connally rushed into the room. “I’m so sorry.”

  She moved me aside gently and began to sweep up the mess. “It’s all right, dear. They’re only things.”

  But I still felt awful. She had trusted me with one of her treasured possessions and I’d broken it. You couldn’t fix that.

  Outside, tires screeched. Charlie! I raced to the front window. But it was not him. An unfamiliar car, long and dark, had pulled up at the curb. Two men in uniforms got out. My heart stopped. Were they bringing bad news about Charlie? “Stay here,” Mrs. Connally ordered more firmly than I’d ever heard her speak. I started after her, not listening. I breathed a sigh of relief when the men walked to the house next door. Mrs. Connally hurried outside, climbing over the low railing that separated the houses to grab her neighbor Mrs. Dennison before her knees buckled and she fell to the porch.

  Jack looked at me helplessly. Until now, the war had been abstract here. But suddenly it had truly reached us. Watching Mrs. Connally care for the other woman, I felt light-headed. She did not know that her own son might soon be in the very same kind of danger.

  Mrs. Connally came back into the house, face ashen. “Her son Todd was killed in the Pacific.”

  Before we could react, the front door opened once more and we all turned toward it with anticipation. But Mr. Connally was alone. My heart jumped. “Where’s Charlie?”

  “His train was delayed two hours.”