The Last Embrace

  I looked across at the corner of my dresser where, under a paperweight, I’d kept all things Charlie—the ticket from the movie we’d seen, a scrap of paper on which he’d written me a note. It all seemed so silly now. He’d never think things were special just because they were from me.

  My hand grazed something under the bed. I pulled out the box that I had nearly forgotten putting there, shortly after arriving nearly two years earlier. Neatly folded inside were a change of clothes and a pair of shoes, and foodstuffs that would not spoil, like a can of milk. How I would open it exactly I had not figured out. Things that, as a scared little girl just off the boat, I had thought I might need just in case. I had learned well that night Mamma had plucked me from our apartment to always be ready to go.

  I lifted up the old shoes. There had not been a suitcase the night I left Trieste. Mamma had rushed me from the house, and it was not until we neared the docks and she set me down to catch my breath that I noticed I was not wearing shoes.

  “Mamma...” I looked down. Desperately she had taken her own shoes, two sizes larger, from her feet, and put them on mine. Then she’d led me to the ship, heedless of the stones that cut into her own bare feet, causing them to leave a thin trail of blood.

  I slipped the shoes onto my feet and felt the cracked leather, remembering. They fit almost perfectly now. Aunt Bess had bought me new shoes shortly after my arrival and other times since, dress Mary Janes and sneakers and sandals. But I kept Mamma’s shoes. It was one of the only pieces of my parents that I had. I slid the box back under the bed and left the room.

  I slipped from the house without calling to Aunt Bess, who was in the kitchen. Outside I found myself headed north. At the turnoff for Pennsport, I stopped. I always walked slowly past that spot, because if I closed my eyes and imagined very hard, Charlie might just be there, waiting for me. But he was gone, and all that was left were the dark memories, looming large. As long as I stay here, I’ll never be free, a voice seemed to say. I turned and raced west, then north of 9th Street, skirting the edge of the Italian market where the smells of meat and cheese and garlic wafting from the open stalls were heady, even with wartime rationing. But I did not stop. Grief chased me, nipping at my heels. I pressed on, not quite sure where I was going, just wanting to get away from the neighborhood and all of its memories.

  Almost an hour later, I neared Center City, the streets thick with the midday crowds. I crossed Market Street, enjoying the bustle of the city street and the feeling that nobody knew me. Flags flapped in the breeze above the display windows at Lit Brothers department store and a placard on a light post bore a woman sewing, exhorting passersby to support the war and “Make do or mend.” I looked west past the shop awnings toward the clock tower above city hall. A few blocks farther, the bus station loomed. I knew then that I was going. Somewhere. Away. From. Here.

  I crossed the street. At the bus station, I navigated around the crowded benches and two soldiers sitting on their rucksacks, playing cards. I walked up to the ticket window. “Where to?” I peered uncertainly over my shoulder at the fronts of the Greyhound buses which sat idling, belching exhaust fumes. For a second I thought fleetingly of trying to find the Connallys, but I had no idea where they had gone. And, as Uncle Meyer had said, they did not want to be found. One bus was headed to Washington. Charlie had spoken so glowingly of the capital when he was applying to Georgetown, a city of new beginnings, “where the ground just seems to shake under your feet!” Impulsively, I opened my purse and counted the twenty-three dollars and fifty cents, all the money I had in this world. I hoped it would be enough.

  “Addie?” I looked up. Uncle Meyer sat in his car by the curb. He must have seen me go and followed me to the station. Guilt washed over me. My aunt and uncle had given me everything and been so kind, and here I was about to go without so much as a goodbye or thank-you.

  He stepped from the car and I walked toward him. “You’re leaving.” I remained silent, unable to deny it. Would he try to stop me? “Take this.” Uncle Meyer reached in his pocket and handed me a thick, neatly folded stack of bills.

  “I can’t take that.”

  “Think of it as a graduation present. I know we haven’t been a substitute for your folks and, well, I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve both been very kind to me.” The fact that he cared was somehow enough.

  “You forgot this.” He held out the camera, which I had left behind in my haste. I would not have felt right taking it from him without asking. “Where will you go?”

  It filled my hands, the sureness giving me courage. “I’m going to Washington,” I said. My voice grew more certain with each word.

  “Let us know when you get settled, and that you’re all right.”

  “I will.” I kissed his cheek, touched. He and Aunt Bess had tried when I had nothing else and that was something. “Thank you.” I thought he might stay until the bus had left, but he turned and got back into his car.

  I bought my ticket (which thankfully only cost eight dollars and forty cents) and climbed on the bus, then realized that once again I was going without a suitcase. The graduation money Uncle Meyer had given me and the camera were all that I had. That would have to be enough.

  * * *

  The streetcar screeched to a stop and I pushed my memories of home aside and climbed off. The neighborhood east of Capitol Hill, with its tony federalist brick-front houses, would have been too expensive for me before the war. But now living quarters were at a premium and the once-grand residences had been subdivided to let. I walked to the rooming house and unlocked the door to the room too tiny to be shared, with space for no more than the bed, chair and dresser wedged in. I couldn’t control the radiator that gave off an endless hiss, and the air was uncomfortably hot, cracking my lips and skin. There was a shared kitchenette and bathroom that was too crowded for all six rooms. But it was a place of my own and I loved it. The other girls were friendly enough and I joined them sometimes for a movie, or in the parlor downstairs where we would listen to the radio and play cards, some writing to the boys that had gone overseas or their families back home. We’d planned to go ice-skating on the Reflecting Pool when it froze. I had built a life here, created a place where I was not just the Connallys’ girl, not quite part of a now-broken family.

  Only now Charlie was here, looking at me in that way again that seemed to reach right inside. I might have missed him. If Mr. Steeves had not asked me to accompany him to the meeting, or if I had not walked out to get air, or if I had turned right instead of left. So many ifs.

  I started to peel off my wet clothing. As I reached in the dresser for fresh nylons, I remembered Charlie’s class ring. It had hung around my neck in the murky days that followed Robbie’s death. At some point that spring, I had taken it off. I pulled it out of my drawer now and held it aloft, considering. I had not had the chance to give it back—nor had I really wanted to part with it. It had seemed wrong, though, to wear it still when everything between us had been blown to bits. Charlie had said he loved me. I had thought that what I had with him, with all of them, had been permanent and real. But he had walked away without so much as a backward glance, leaving me alone. I tucked the ring in my bag. Then I fixed my hair and changed into a dry dress, trying not to think as I applied my powder and lipstick with a bit more care that it was for Charlie.

  Forty minutes later I stood before the Old Ebbitt Grill, a historic beaux arts oyster bar I had passed a dozen times but never dared to enter. In the reflection behind me the crowds had thinned and a few straggling commuters made their way home for the night. I peered through the wide front window, taking in the velvet-and-mahogany parlor of cigar-smoking men. I had never understood bars, groups of people standing among perfect strangers, all for the purpose of having a drink. My breath formed a cloud on the windowpane.

  On the other side of the glass I saw Charlie and my pulse quickened. Fo
r everything that had happened, my feelings were there, stronger than ever. But my excitement quickly faded. A glass of clear liquor sat before him on the bar, nearly empty. Charlie had not drank back then, ever. His face had storm clouds where once there had only been light.

  Charlie was talking to himself in that way he did when he was intensely concentrating. Rehearsing what he was going to say to me. Would he tell me that nothing had changed? I couldn’t bear it if he did not love me anymore. There had been something in his eyes, which I could still read even now, that said he still wanted me, just the same as he had that night and the ones before it. My heart lifted. Why couldn’t we go back? I could run to him right now and throw myself into his arms.

  I reached out as if touching him through the window, stroking his hair and his cheek. All that I ever wanted was on the other side of that glass, waiting for me. A hand seemed to stop me, making it impossible to breathe. My scars had healed over the months away, forming a kind of protective armor, and I could not fathom reliving the pain if I ripped that off again. I stood frozen in place, Charlie just beyond reach. We weren’t the same people anymore. We were different now, broken. Anger rose in me then. He had left that night. He might have stayed and clung to me, but he had gone. And now he was here just expecting me to take him back, if that’s what this was all about. How could we be together, as if none of it had ever happened? Happiness seemed wrong, a betrayal of Robbie.

  I could not go in there and face him.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” I said aloud to no one. “This is everything I didn’t want back home. This is why I left.” I turned and ran, shoes smacking against the still-damp pavement. One of my heels broke but I kept running as well as I could, not quite sure where I was headed until I had reached the newspaper bureau. Though it was well after seven, a light still burned behind the blackout curtain in the second-story window above.

  I climbed the stairs awkwardly on my broken shoe and knocked at the door to the editor’s office. “Mr. Steeves,” I began, waving away a cloud of smoke. As his eyes lifted, I faltered. How could I dare approach him, much less make this request?

  “What do you want, Montforte?” His tone was brusque, but not unkind. “I’m on deadline.”

  “I’ll make it quick. I understand you’re building up the London bureau.” I’d heard some of the other typists talking about it a few days ago during a break; with the war intensifying and America’s invasion of the continent a growing certainty, London was becoming an even more critical base of operations for the press.

  He nodded. “We had to pull men out of Berlin and Paris. And with thousands of GIs headed overseas each month, we need the coverage in Britain.”

  “I’d like to go.” The words came out in a wobbly voice that did not sound like my own.

  “Go?”

  I nodded. “You’ll need secretarial staff, surely.” My voice grew more certain. I’d come here impulsively, the notion of what I actually wanted vague and uncertain. But as the words formed, they felt right and I suddenly wanted more than anything to go, as far and fast as possible.

  “We were planning on just staffing that locally.”

  “But someone with some experience with the paper. And I speak other languages—Italian, Spanish, even a bit of French.” I made the case I had not known I wanted to win. Why London? Because it was not here.

  “Better than the translators, it’s true. It would be good to have someone who knows the home bureau,” he conceded. “But wait, didn’t you come from Europe?”

  “Italy as a girl, yes.”

  “And you want to get out of here that badly?” I did not answer. “You’ve seen the stories, haven’t you?” It seemed like a silly question, given that I worked for the Post. But lots of the girls out in typing never read the very newspaper they worked for, or if they did, only the entertainment and style bits. “It’s a war zone, a ton of bombings, even after the Blitz.“

  I nodded, my stare unblinking. “I know.”

  “You want to leave me,” he remarked, making it sound personal. “Is it about that fella at State today?” He peered at me keenly, sensing a story.

  “Not at all.” I had not realized Mr. Steeves had seen me talking to Charlie, or noticed the effect the conversation had on me. It was too close and personal to speak about with anyone, especially my boss.

  “I never should have taken you with me,” he added ruefully and I braced, sure he would refuse my request. “You need to get a passport.”

  I exhaled silently. “I have one.” I squeezed my purse, which held the passport Aunt Bess and Uncle Meyer had helped me get shortly after I had become an American citizen.

  “When did you want to go?”

  “Tonight, if possible.”

  “Tonight? There’s no way. You need a work visa. Hell, Montforte, I’m not even sure I can get you credentialed at all. They aren’t letting many people in now. The Brits want folks out of the city, not in.”

  “I know. But you can manage it.” I was surprised by my own audacity and hoped he would not find me rude. “I’ll board the train for New York and you can have my papers wired.”

  “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” His shoulders slumped with resignation. “Fine. I’m sorry to lose you.” He scribbled something on a business card and held it out to me. “Ask for Teddy White. He’s a rising-star hotshot correspondent, a Brit and kind of an ass, but you’ll get the best work with him. I’ll wire ahead to say you’re coming and I’ll have your train and boat tickets ready for the morning.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I’d been too embarrassed to ask about covering the travel, but I couldn’t have afforded it myself.

  “Don’t mention it.” I stood and started for the door, not wanting to take more of his time. “But, kid...” I turned back. “Whatever it is you’re running from, you’re going to have to face it sooner or later.”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded. How much did he know? “Sir?”

  “Just a newsman’s hunch.” Then he chuckled and turned away. “Safe travels, kid.” He turned back to his work, not one for long goodbyes.

  Dismissed, I walked through the outer office. I had done it—I was going to London. I gazed through the window at the Washington Monument, which seemed to stare back remorsefully. Could I really leave, just like that? There was nothing keeping me. The life I created was transient, the city never really mine. And I’d done it before, leaving Philadelphia and the only life I had really known. The second time would not be nearly as hard.

  I gazed out the window towards the Old Ebbitt Grill. Charlie would be wondering where I was, perhaps realizing even that I was not going to show. Should I somehow send a message? No, there was no way to explain why I had not come. And he had not given me a phone number or other way to contact him—perhaps because he did not want to give me a chance to say no.

  I looked around the office, knowing I would not pass this way again. Once my life had seemed a great circle of gathered holidays and returning seasons and school-year rituals. Now it seemed to go straight, a great linear journey to a point unknown. I picked up my purse and walked from the office, closing the door behind me.

  England

  November 1943

  I stared out into the fog-shrouded horizon, closing my overcoat where it gapped a bit beneath my scarf, then burying my hands in my muffler. Southampton, chalky and white, was a slip thickening in the distance. My shoulders slumped with weariness at the end of nearly a week of travel. We had been scheduled to arrive the previous day, but the threat of an air raid had kept us bobbling in the choppy waters just west of the Channel for hours until the all clear came. Now the morning sky was an ominous slate gray. The sea winds rose up, whipping my hair wildly. Gulls cried out sharply overhead.

  I’d left Washington in an orderly fashion, not fleeing as I had done Philadelphia, but rather re
turning to the boardinghouse to pack and notify the landlady. I’d even bought a second-hand suitcase and packed before taking the train to New York the next morning. As we neared Philadelphia and the railway tracks wound through the gritty neighborhoods by the Navy Yard, I had pressed my fingers to the glass, feeling for the places I’d once known. The train stopped at 30th Street Station to take on passengers and for a minute I had considered hopping off and seeing my aunt and uncle. But I had closed that door months earlier and could not go back. I’d exhaled, breathing easier, as the train continued on. I would write to let them know that I’d gone instead.

  After I boarded the ship in New York, I stayed on the deck, heedless of the icy rain that fell lightly, needing to see. As we pulled from the harbor and the Statue of Liberty slid from view, I was flooded with doubt: thousands of refugees were trying desperately to get to America, as I had done when I was a girl. And yet here I was leaving. London had been an impulse in my haste to avoid facing Charlie again. But England was at war, and I was going there—alone.

  The second-class cabin Mr. Steeves had arranged was tiny, even smaller than my bedroom in Washington. It was all mine, though, and opulent compared to my earlier voyage to America. I was one of just a handful of civilians on the ship—so few had a reason to cross in this direction now. I did not mingle with the soldiers and nurses that danced and laughed on the decks at night. Instead I read, trying not to think of the dark, rough waters below.

  But the rocking ship taunted me: going back, going back. At night I tossed feverishly. I dreamed of Thanksgiving night, Charlie striding up the porch steps of the Connally house toward me. “Now we can be together,” he said, his smile as broad as it had ever been. I reached out for him, but as he neared a wave of water rose from nowhere, throwing me to the ground. When I stood up again, he was gone. I’d awakened with a start, staring around the cabin, trying to see and breathe through the darkness that surrounded me. Other times I lay awake, seeing Charlie seated at the bar in Washington as he realized I was not going to show. I was flooded with remorse: How could I have given up the one meeting I had hoped for months to have again?