In This Together

by Gail Kittleson

  The cold hit Dottie’s legs with a difference she couldn’t specify—something about the amount of moisture—probably that next storm coming through from North Dakota. Her faded pink and white nightgown billowed under her coat, leaving room for icy air to attack behind her knees.

  Halfway toward Al’s truck, she stopped. A star-spangled sky drew her eyes upward. From up there, this world must look miniature. She’d witnessed that in some of the photos airplane pilots took during the war. LIFE magazine displayed one she’d seen at the boarding house one day. Helene kept a stack of old issues in the wooden magazine holder. In those pictures from high in the sky, earthly objects appeared like ants in a colony.

  Unique warmth coursed through her, although arctic wind seeped through her coat, right into her bones. She’d better hurry up. She gathered her senses and set her course again, straight to Al’s truck. She mustn’t jump to the worst conclusion. She’d visited the end of the world a time or two, and this wasn’t it.

  The doors did not open quietly—the whole neighborhood would hear. An old calico cat on the prowl rounded the front tire, and Dottie clapped her hands together. “Shoo. Shoo now.”

  Over at Mrs. Grundy’s, all lay dark and quiet. Al still had a light on, no surprise there. Dottie wagered that about now, he was thinking he’d done everything all wrong tonight. For the guy who came up with such perfect solutions to other folks’ dilemmas, he displayed such a fragile side.

  If only she could have given him a clearer answer, but she just couldn’t. Not right there in that restaurant, anyway, and not in the confined space of the scruffy truck cab on the drive home.

  Hoping for the soft touch of velvet, she wallowed around on the seat with her bare hand. But only cold, crevassed leather met her fingertips. Then she remembered the hole in the floor. What if, in the worst of scenarios, she’d let go of the box and it had fallen through? Her face scorched at the possibility. At the same time, her limbs pulsed in the icy air. Visions of retracing their route—that long, long trip—flashed through her imagination.

  She bent down to explore the floor grit, waving her palms in circles. No velvet. The wind shot up her nightgown onto her thighs. Leaning on the door, she forced it open wider, resulting in an even louder squawk. Might as well butcher chickens out here, with all the noise she was making.

  Only one thing left to do—climb in and search the driver’s side. She had to find that ring and contorted her body every which way to reach the most remote spots. But even as her heart raced with the effort, a dull truth throbbed through her. The ring wasn’t here. It wasn’t in her coat pockets, either, although she checked again.

  Al’s light still shone, a beacon in the darkness. She carefully shut the door, stared at his back porch, and trudged around the hood toward the other side of the truck. Another loud noise split the silent night when she shut the door after a second fruitless search.

  Just as she raised her torso in defeat, Al’s porch light illuminated. His head poked from the door, sticking out of his pajama top like a giraffe’s. He peered toward his truck, focused, and found her. She wanted to shrivel into an insignificant bump in the frozen driveway.

  “Who’s out there? Dottie? That you? What in the world are you doing?”

  The backs of her eyes flamed, even as cold air nipped at the fronts. How could she tell him? Her mind flashed to the cemetery—to the day of Bill’s funeral, then the day of Owen’s. She bit the insides of her cheeks. She’d done harder things. She had no choice.

  His boots crunched step by step toward her. She glanced up at the stars. Despite the despair that wedged in her chest, this wasn’t the end of the world—no, not at all. A lot of money might be lost, but put in perspective, things could be so much worse. Somehow, she would pay Al back every penny.

  His tortured eyes didn’t help her much. It was obvious he wouldn’t sleep a wink this night. “Dottie? What’s up?”

  She put on a stoic face, resigned to her fate. “I’m afraid I might have—I might have done something terrible, Al.”

  His eyes widened. He touched her hand. “Why, Dot, you’re freezing. Come inside for a minute and warm up.”

  She trudged up the steps behind him and into his porch, each movement stone against stone as she willed her legs to work, a criminal on the gallows climb. Al gestured to a chair, and she sat down.

  “Now, what is the matter?”

  His already pale skin whitened to the color of fresh snow. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. You know that, don’t you?” The tender force of his gaze almost dropped her to the floor.

  Steam flowed from his coffee pot on the stove, with an aroma so pungent she knew he’d put in twice the normal amount. Made a pot to see him through the night, no doubt. He’d turned on the radio in the next room, too. A love song from the war wafted into the kitchen. The unforgettable Glenn Miller and his Army Air Force Band—great sound, and a genuine Iowa hero’s heart, to boot.

  Snatches of the lyrics came to her—something about the sky having millions of stars, but the singer having eyes for only one special person. Why, that was the same song Cora used to yodel around the house.

  “Dottie, answer me. What’s the matter?”

  Furrows cut into Al’s forehead. His caring touched her so deeply, she almost wept. Here he was, thinking of her, after she’d made him a pauper in one fell swoop.

  “Al, I…”

  He waited a reasonable time. “What is it?” His foot tapped the floor in staccato. He chewed his thumbnail, something he never did. She wanted to comfort him somehow, yet her news would do anything but that. She knew she should spit it out, but he’d probably have a stroke, and she’d be responsible.

  She closed her eyes. Pressed the back of her hand against her nose. Moisture tugged at the corner of her left eye. No, not that. She couldn’t fall apart and make this even worse.

  “The ring—I can’t…”

  “The ring?” His tone sounded hollow, like an old eaten-out log.

  “I can’t find it.”

  He seemed stunned, as though she’d slapped him. “You never even looked at it anyway.” His mumble hit her like a shout. Two strides took him to Nan’s Grandma’s Hoosier cupboard.

  “Here it is.” The dullness in his tone matched that in his eyes. He set the box on the table and dropped into his chair, staring at the floor. That pesky tear rolled down her cheek.

  “Oh.” Her hand slapped against her coat buttons. “I was so worried when I couldn’t…”

  “Well, it’s right here, so you can go on home now. Get some sleep.”

  The muscles around his mouth puckered, tightened, puckered again. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  Dottie sat down and reached for his hand. “Al, I…” She had no idea what she intended to say, but in that split second, the gray mass of befuddlement left her. Everything came together, and she marveled at her slowness of heart.

  Of course, she loved Al. She had all along. What woman wouldn’t love a man who rubbed her feet and helped her in the kitchen? Nothing stood between them but a minor misunderstanding.

  “No, Dottie. It’s all my fault. I was an old fool, that’s all. We can be friends still, can’t we? I don’t know what I’ll do if you can’t bring yourself to…”

  He stared at the tablecloth, faded from years of use. Against the dusky pink teapot wallpaper that framed his face, he looked faded too, and shrunken into himself.

  “I hope so. I mean, how could I marry somebody who wasn’t a friend?”

  He took forever to digest what she’d said, took forever to raise his eyes. Her heart pulsed up the front of her neck while she waited. Her shoulders tingled. But she deserved the long wait, she told herself, for putting him through this.

  “Marry?”

  “Well, you asked me to marry you, didn’t you?”

  He nodded, dumbstruck.

  “I want to. That is, I want to marry you, Al.

  A visible shiver spliced him. His prominent Adam’s apple bulged. “You d
o?”

  “Of course I do. You’re the finest man I know. Unless you’ve changed your mind, you love me, and you’ve shown me in so many ways. You’re smart and kind and…”

  His whole face crumbled. Then he was on his skinny knees beside her, his long arms wound around her shoulders, and she thought she’d never breathe quite the same way again.

  He pulled back. “You don’t have to, you know. I can still see you to California. I know how bad you want to go. I shouldn’t have put everything together like a store display. I wasn’t thinking right—these last few days, I’ve been so worried. I should’ve told you a little bit at a time.”

  “I admit, it was pretty overwhelming, but I think I want the entire package, Al Jensen, my dear, dear friend. I do. I want it all. I just needed a little time to think it over.” She swiped at her eyes as he stood and pulled her up.

  “You mean it, Dot? You really want to marry me?”

  “Are you withdrawing your proposal, Mr. Jensen?”

  “No—no, I would never do that. But…”

  “One thing you ought to know about me by now. I don’t say things if I don’t mean them. I do want to marry you, if you’ll have me.”

  Her last “do” muffled as he drew her closer, so close their lips touched. Wild tingles racked her, burned her teeth and the insides of her ears. The rush of emotion gave her goose bumps—the sensation she had placed on a shelf in the back of her mind years ago, never to be brought out again.

  “Al…”

  He loosened his hold and thrust back his head so he could look into her eyes. “What is it?” The start of a smile played with the right corner of his lips. An undeniable desire urged her finger to the spot.

  “I love you, too, by the way.”

  ****

  “Seems like I don’t know what’s real anymore, the world moves so fast.” Dottie brushed her wave back from her eyes.

  Millie glanced around her living room. “I know what you mean, Mom. Look at the kids—they’re almost grown up, and it happened so fast. Now you and Al are getting married.” She shook her head. “And you’re off to California. On top of that, Cora’s expecting her third baby. The last time I saw her, she was still a baby herself.”

  Dottie exhaled a long breath and loosened her belt. Her daughter’s new sofa cushioned her so well, she might never get out of her position. Millie outdid herself on dinner—fried chicken and homemade biscuits, potatoes and thick gravy, scalloped corn and the best homemade tomato relish Dottie had eaten in a long while. She even splurged on Oreo cookies and ice cream for dessert, a treat Dottie would never have purchased.

  She studied Millie’s face from the side for a minute. She’d never say it to her, but she could see her own mother’s profile there, because the skin under Millie’s chin had started to sag a little.

  “I ate so much—that was a perfect dinner.”

  “Well, I don’t go all out very often any more, with everyone traveling in so many directions. Some nights, when I work late, Alice cooks supper.”

  “Hmm…good experience for her. She’s turning into a woman already.”

  “Seems like she’s grown up overnight. She wants to attend Iowa State to be a home economics teacher. I’m betting she’ll see it through.”

  Dottie’s first granddaughter had already hugged her good-bye before she left for the Christmas program practice a couple of blocks away. Dottie gave herself a silent chiding. She ought to have found a way to come here more often since Owen died, but the trip down to Cedar Rapids seemed way too far when she thought of making it all alone.

  But she’d missed out on Alice growing up, and that was a shame. Now, though, she wouldn’t repeat her mistake. No, she would get on that train bound for California, come what may.

  Her lower leg jerked. Suddenly, with her bloated stomach, she felt as though she couldn’t sit in the same position for one more minute. “Want to take a walk?”

  Millie leaped up. “Sure. I’ll show you where I work.” She led the way through the dining room, where the men discussed the World Series.

  “How’d you like Yogi Berra pinch hitting that homer? I was sitting right here listening that night.” Millie’s husband Ren drummed his knuckles on the table. “You root for the Yankees or the Dodgers, Al?”

  “Guess I didn’t pay that much attention this year, with so much going…” Al held out his hand as Dottie walked past. She wasn’t sure, but the day Yogi made history might have been the day Al took her fishing—the day he realized for certain he couldn’t live without her.

  She twined her fingers with his, and her cheeks heated like a stoked furnace. “We’ll be back in a little while.”

  He looked at his watch and gave a gentle tug on her hand. “Probably ought to leave by four, don’t you think?”

  She wanted to smooth the thinning spot on the crown of his head. Worry lines crossed his forehead as she unlocked her fingers from his. But her voice failed her at a sudden rush of feeling for him.

  “Oh, Al, don’t worry. I’ll bring her back.” Millie’s chuckle tickled Dottie’s ears. It was so good to hear her daughter’s laugh—at least that was one thing that stayed the same about people. At the same time, she knew it would be a long time before she’d see Millie again.

  She swallowed down a lump rising in her throat. Getting married, traveling to California, even the trip today to see Millie and Ren and the grandchildren overwhelmed her. She felt dizzy. Maybe she’d taken on too much too quickly, or else she simply wasn’t meant to travel.

  Millie helped her with her coat and linked arms once they started down the sidewalk. “That Al’s a worrywart, isn’t he?”

  Dottie stiffened—Al? She hadn’t thought of him that way. “He’s only wanting us to get back safely, before that snowstorm blows in from the Dakotas.”

  “What storm?”

  “Why, the one they forecast on KGLO out of Mason City. It’ll be a big one, they say, and should hit sometime this evening.”

  “Hmm…”

  “Al’s quite a thinker, Millie. I’ve been amazed at how he plans ahead and figures things out before we have to deal with them—like this winter he noticed my chimney smoking and put in a new filter before I was even aware of it.”

  Millie’s hair swept Dottie’s shoulder. “That’s good, Mom. I’m glad you’ll have someone to take care of you—Al will fit right into Dad’s shoes.”

  Dottie bristled. Al Jensen take Owen’s place? No, it wasn’t like that at all. In fact, Al and Owen were opposites. The more she got to know Al, the more she wondered how the two men could have been such good friends all those years.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “This was the last street in town when we first moved in.” Millie gestured ahead along the street.

  “Really? It’s grown that much? Guess it’s been so long since your dad and I drove down here, I’ve forgotten.”

  Dottie focused on the new section of houses burgeoning all around them. So many brand new homes, all of them pretty much the same, covered acres of what used to be fertile Iowa fields.

  How long could this growth continue—wouldn’t a day come when the city had to stop spreading into the farmland? But change rode the wind. Dottie could sense it, not only in her life, but all across the United States, and mostly because of the war.

  Several city blocks later, Millie guided her around a corner and across a wide street toward an imposing stone building, pulled some keys from her pocket and fitted one into a heavy steel door.

  “I’ll show you where I spend my days.”

  “Didn’t you used to drive out to the plant?”

  “Yeah, but I moved in here a couple of years ago.”

  Granite—or was it marble? Dottie wouldn’t know the difference, but the smooth, chiseled rock filled the inside of the building. She hadn’t visualized Millie dressing up each day and working in such a fancy place. Early on, she’d assembled radios in the factory, and that picture still lived in Dottie’s mind—Millie in long pants
, her hair hidden in a man’s cap, helping with the war effort.

  Her daughter’s sensible heels clicked down a long hallway, and Dottie’s thoughts returned to Millie’s comment about Al. He would take Owen’s place? Something about that settled wrong in her stomach, but she swallowed it.

  How would Millie know? She’d never lost a husband. For that matter, since she and Ren married at seventeen, she’d never had to live alone. Well, she could think what she would—it didn’t matter, at least not enough to spoil this precious time together. Dottie pressed her irritation into a distant recess of her mind, where it belonged.

  “My cubbyhole is right down here, Mom.” Millie unlocked a wide door with glass almost to the edges and led the way across some sort of thick, newfangled carpet to a huge oak desk sitting in a corner. There was even a green plant beside the window.

  “So this is where you work? Doesn’t look much like a cubbyhole to me.”

  Millie rounded the desk and pointed to a framed wall certificate.

  Mrs. Ren Stanley

  Director of Marketing

  “You’re the Director?”

  Millie grinned. “I got promoted because of the war, Mom. If we hadn’t lost so many men, I wouldn’t be in this office.”

  She gestured toward a row of egg-carton indentations along the hall visible through a wide inter-office window. A shiny pipeline rode the wall from about three feet above Millie’s desk through a hole, extending as far as Dottie could see along the row of desks stuck into the small cubicles.

  “The staff and I use that to send notes back and forth. Cuts down on congestion.” Millie reached almost to the floor. “The returns come to me down here.”

  Dottie eyed a few metal canisters with screw-on lids stacked across the side of the desk. So, Millie put messages in those and sent them down the pipeline—what would they think of next?

  As if reading her mind, Millie added, “Forced air pushes the canisters along, kind of like vacuum cleaner suction.”