Ellie squealed her delight. Betsy’s face indicated it was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard of, but she trotted off behind her sister. Seconds later Kate heard the door to her room close.
She bit down on her lower lip to stop the trembling, and leaned back in the sewing chair she’d upholstered herself. Her position gave her a clear view through the front window.
She thought about her husband then, remembering. As if she could ever forget. Patrick was her life, her reason for being. She knew in her heart that the day God had created her, He’d said to Himself, I’m putting Kate Anders on earth so she can marry Patrick Starr. She’d never told that to anyone, not even Patrick. It was a secret she hugged to herself every day of her life.
She’d known Patrick since grade school, walked behind him and his friends on the way to school, blushing furiously when he turned to look over his shoulder at her. When his friends weren’t looking at him, he’d smile and sometimes wink. She’d never told anyone about that, either.
Once in third grade when the teacher had made her head of her relay team, she’d picked Patrick and he’d outright refused to be on her team because his friends heckled him. Later, out in the hallway, he’d hissed at her to never do that again. She’d nodded miserably and then cried like a baby.
On the way home from school that same day, Patrick had rushed to catch up with her and apologized for making her cry. She remembered exactly what he’d said and how he’d said it. “Jeez, Kate, the guys will never let me live that down. Guys don’t like that kind of stuff. I don’t like to be kidded. I like you. A lot. I’m sorry I made you cry. Don’t tell your mother, okay? If you do, she’ll tell my dad. Boys aren’t supposed to hit girls or make them cry. I’ll get a whipping for sure.”
Everybody in school knew she liked Patrick, and everyone in school, even Patrick’s buddies, knew he liked her, too. But it wasn’t until they were older, in high school, that they had a real date.
All the girls liked Patrick because he flirted with them, but he smiled at her, his eyes all warm and wet like a puppy’s. Once, when she was in seventh grade, he’d touched her hair and said it was like silk. He said she could be his girl if she wanted to, but if she told anyone, then she wasn’t his girl. At night she’d added that secret to her growing list, and slept with all of them on a piece of paper under her pillow.
In her teen years every single minute that wasn’t used up by school or her family was spent with Patrick. By that time Patrick’s friends had paired off with girls, so she was accepted. Patrick was her fella and she was his girl. All the time. If she didn’t see him for a day over the weekend, she thought she would die. She knew way back then she could never live without him.
Once she’d been sick in bed with a high fever for three days, which stretched into four and then five. She should have known she was retarding her recovery by being so miserable, not eating or drinking fluids. But she didn’t need that kind of nourishment; she needed Patrick, to see him, to hold his hand, to have him smile at her.
She’d waited until the family fell asleep and then crept downstairs, put on her mother’s ratty fur coat, and in her slipper socks walked around to Patrick’s house and threw a small stone at his window. He’d come downstairs in his pajamas and, outside, had hugged her and kissed her eyes and even her ears. He’d said all kinds of really nice things and then made her go home. She was better the next day. All she thought about for weeks after that were Patrick’s kisses, sweet as sugar and warm as summer sunshine.
The kisses had stayed sweet and warm, and then they’d become passionate. Always passionate, even when she was pregnant, right up to the last minute before delivery.
If she lived forever, she would never forget the look of rapture on Patrick’s face when he held Betsy for the first time. The doctor, smiling, said father and daughter had bonded.
Kate’s face closed up when she thought of Ellie’s birth. Patrick hadn’t bonded with Ellie. He didn’t pick her up for two whole weeks, and when he did, he said, “She looks just like you, Kate.” How pleased she’d been with that compliment. To her dismay, Patrick said over and over that Betsy was his and Ellie was hers. She wasn’t sure even now if Patrick loved Ellie. She’d asked so many times, and Patrick would just look at her and say, “Now that’s a stupid question if I ever heard one.” He’d never given a straight-out yes or no answer.
A sound from outside jolted her. She wiped her tears away, her eyes fastened on the front window.
She knew who he was the moment she saw the Air Force blue sedan with the gold lettering on the door glide to the curb in front of the building.
Every military wife in the world knew who he was.
She leaped from the chair and bolted for the front door. She slammed the door and double-locked it, her face filled with panic. Her hands clenched into tight fists, the knuckles bone-white. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
How shiny the car was, not a speck of dust on it. The car door inched open, and she saw one brilliantly shined shoe, then another. Feet. Black socks. Two legs, and then the whole of him. How sharp the creases were. Almost as sharp as the ones she made in Patrick’s trousers.
Kate glanced toward the little table. She should have opened the telegram. Never!
Dress blues. Spiffy. She knuckled her eyes as she tried to stifle the sobs rearing up in her throat. He squared his shoulders, not the way Patrick did it, all slithery motion, but with a quick little snap that looked ominous. Through her tears she watched him settle his cap squarely on his head. Now he was going to come up the walk.
Kate clutched at her heart. How could it be beating so fast when it was broken, shattered into a dozen pieces?
He was moving. Betsy had counted the steps to the front door once when she was having a race with Ellie: twenty-one. She counted each one, her eyes on the black polished shoes. Ten, eleven . . . Betsy’s were a child’s steps. This man in his dress uniform and shiny shoes made it in eleven. She should have known it would only be eleven. Why hadn’t she known that?
The knock on the door was the loudest sound she’d ever heard in her life. Her heart fluttered in her chest. Don’t open the door. Not now, not ever. If you do, your life will change forever.
The knock sounded again, louder this time. Kate felt herself start to crumple. Her eyes flew to Patrick’s chair, to his picture on the little end table. How handsome he was in his flier’s gear. Through her tears she could see the excitement in his face, the endearing, lopsided grin. Her husband, and Ellie’s and Betsy’s father.
“Mrs. Starr, are you there?”
Of course she was here; what a stupid question. She had two little girls to take care of, where else would she be a half hour before dinner? Please, God, make him go away. The clenched fists kneaded her thighs.
“Mrs. Starr, I must talk with you. Please open the door.”
“Go away,” Kate whimpered. Please, God, make him go away.
She sensed movement on the other side of the door.
Kate felt her knees buckle. A second later she was crunched against the front door, her eyes level with the kitchen doorknob. She saw his shadow, saw the brass knob turn, saw his creased trousers, his polished shoes.
“Get out of here!” she whimpered as he entered. “You have no right to come into my house. You broke and entered . . . breaking and entering . . . you damn well came into my house uninvited. Now, leave now! That’s an order, Major. My husband was a captain. Is ... still is ... would be ... you’re here . . . leave me alone!” Kate sobbed.
“I can’t do that, Mrs. Starr.” He approached her, held out his hand to help her to her feet. Kate knocked his hand away and cowered against the door.
“Mrs. Starr,” Major Collier said, dropping to one knee so he was eye level with Kate, “the chaplain is on his way. I’m sorry, I thought he would be here. We do our best to arrive together with Mrs. Willard.” Mrs. Willard was the wife of Patrick’s commanding officer. “There must have been an emergency....” He let his voice trai
l off. “I know how difficult this is for you. One is never prepared. . . . It’s not as though Captain Starr is dead. We don’t know that yet. I’m not here to tell you there’s been a change in his status. You know how things are done.” His voice sounded even lamer than before.
Kate sprang to life. “What are you talking about?” She wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “If Patrick isn’t . . . what are you doing here? Why was that telegram delivered?” she said, pointing to the hall table. “I know who you are. You bring messages from the Grim Reaper. Everyone calls you men the big G.R.s. How can you do it? Why do you do it? Damn you, where is Patrick?”
Nelson Collier flinched. So she hadn’t opened the telegram; she didn’t know. Goddamn Air Force.
“Captain Starr’s plane was shot down,” he told her. “That’s all we know. Two of our pilots say they saw him eject. If he ejected, he was alive. He could be anywhere in the jungle, or he could be a prisoner. We just don’t know. We try to get the information to the family as soon as we can. Here, let me help you up.”
He was taller than she expected, so tall she had to stretch her neck to look up at him. She was aware of everything then, of the radio playing softly in the kitchen, the smell of her meat loaf in the oven, the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree. Patrick wasn’t dead. Not confirmed, anyway. Alive somewhere. She had to hang on to that thought. She allowed herself to be led into her tiny kitchen, which sparkled with cleanliness.
“A cup of coffee would taste wonderful, Mrs. Starr.”
“All right,” Kate said listlessly. She turned off the oven before she measured coffee into the percolator and added water.
“This is a pretty kitchen. My wife would like it,” Major Collier said quietly.
“I wallpapered it myself. Patrick . . . said it reminded him of an outdoor garden. It’s the ivy pattern on the paper”
“I can see where he would think that, especially with all the plants on the windowsill. Or are they herbs?”
“Both.” Placing three green-checkered place mats on the table, she watched as Nelson Collier played with the fringe. “I made those, too,” she volunteered.
“They’re pretty. My wife is partial to green.”
“Green was ... is Patrick’s favorite color. Betsy likes green, too. Ellie prefers red. I think I like blue.”
“Mrs. Starr, is there anyone you want me to call?”
“No. Most of my friends moved off the base. They went back to their families, and I stayed here. There’s been no room at my parents’ house since my grandparents moved in. They’re quite elderly. Patrick’s father lives in a retirement village that doesn’t accept children. I decided it would be more economical for us to stay here . . . and wait. How long will it be before you have more information?”
“We’ll do the best we can. Things like this take time. There’s the other side to deal with.”
“So, what you’re saying is you don’t know. It could take months or even years. And what am I supposed to do in the meantime, Major Collier?”
“Wait. It’s all any of us can do. Time, Mrs. Starr, will take care of everything.”
“That’s not good enough, Major. I want details. I want to know everything. I have a right to know, and so do my children. What’s to become of us?” she whispered.
“We take care of our own, Mrs. Starr,” Nelson Collier said with an edge to his voice. Hearing a knock, the major looked toward the front door. “That would be Chaplain Rollins,” he said. The relief in his voice startled Kate.
Major Collier, with Kate’s permission, opened the door. An aide ushered in a tall, graying man dressed in regulation blues. When the men joined her in the kitchen, Kate poured coffee with a steady hand as she suffered through the amenities. She knew the chaplain expected her to fall into his arms for comfort, so she deliberately distanced herself from him, preferring to stand by the stove with her rump pressed against the warm enamel of the oven door.
“Do we pray now?” Kate said bitterly.
“She’s in shock, forgive her,” she heard Major Collier say, sotto voce.
“Only if you want to, my dear,” the chaplain said to her, his voice deep and resonant.
“I don’t want to.”
“God—”
“Don’t talk to me about God, Chaplain. Not now. And you, Major, don’t tell me the Air Force takes care of its own. When you walk out this door, I’m by myself with my two children. I know exactly how the military works. You’ll bombard me for a week or even two weeks, and then I get shuffled into some never-never land, at which point I become a liability. No one wants to deal with heartbroken wives and crying children. I know how it works. Each phone call is filtered down to people you have to repeat the story to until you reach the maintenance people. I defy you—do you hear me?—I defy you to prove me wrong!” Kate cried, her blue eyes blazing. She fell apart almost immediately, sobbing into her hands.
This couldn’t be happening. It was one of those horrible nightmares she had from time to time when the mail was slow and Patrick’s letters didn’t arrive. They didn’t say Patrick was dead; they said they didn’t know. Surely not knowing was better than dead. Dead meant Patrick would never walk through the door again. Never hold her in his arms or kiss her good night. Dead meant she would be a widow, her children fatherless.
At last Nelson Collier stood up. This was the part he hated. “Mrs. Starr,” he said, not unkindly, “Captain Starr would want you to be the little soldier he knows you are. This has been a terrible shock. You have to be strong, especially for those two little girls inside. You must keep the home fires burning for your husband.”
Kate dropped her hands and stared at him, incredulous. “That’s bullshit, Major, and you know it. I’m not a soldier. My husband is the soldier, and look what happened to him. I’m a wife and a mother. I don’t want to be tough, I don’t want to ... I wish you’d leave. I want to be alone with my children.”
“We understand, Mrs. Starr,” the chaplain said in the voice he reserved for serious sermons. Nelson Collier nodded. “If you need anything, if you want to talk or ... pray, call me any time of the day or night.”
Kate said nothing as she held the door open for their departure. She didn’t say good-bye. The dead bolt seemed to move of its own volition.
There were things to do, things that had to be taken care of. She had to set the table, cook the potatoes, cut up the salad greens, slice bread. All the things she did every day according to her schedule. Later, when it was time for her to sit down and knit, she would think about Patrick and prepare what to say to the girls. Tomorrow. Not today. Her eyes filled again as she peeled potatoes. “You promised me tomorrow, Patrick. You promised. I’m holding you to that promise. You’re alive, I know it. I know you’ll keep your promise.”
She was talking to herself, mumbling under her breath. And why shouldn’t she? She’d just had the shock of her life. Anything she did now, no matter how strange or bizarre, shouldn’t be held against her. Oh, Patrick, where are you? Are you alive like they said? I didn’t ask when it happened. What was I doing at that precise moment you ejected? There has to be a record. Families need to know things like that. Was it yesterday when I was cranky and out of sorts, or the day before, when I had that awful headache? I should have known, felt something. We were always so in tune with one another. Oh, Patrick, what’s happening? Why didn’t I feel something?
She rinsed the potatoes a second time before drying off the pot and clamping on the lid. Her movements were sure, deft from years of practice in the kitchen. Mother Earth, was what Patrick called her. Would he ever call her that again? Yes, God, yes. She would accept nothing else.
Kate sniffed, wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and cut the salad greens into tiny pieces so Betsy would have less trouble chewing with her missing front teeth. Ellie liked little pieces, too, and always lined up the tiny pieces of vegetables to make a ring around the plate. At five she knew her colors and alternated the ring with carrots and peppers, ch
ortling as she arranged the bits of tomatoes in the pyramid in the middle. The shredded lettuce was her moat. Every evening they laughed over it. Or she did, as Patrick seemed to tolerate Ellie’s ways.
Her chores done for the moment, Kate glanced around, a wild look in her eyes. Now what was she supposed to do? What if ... what if ... Eyes burning, she decided to clean the refrigerator. Busy hands didn’t allow time for thinking. God, what if he didn’t come back? What if he’d been shot when he landed on the ground? Maybe she should call her mother, one of her sisters, somebody who would say, “Don’t worry, Patrick’s all right. One day when you’re least expecting it, he’ll walk through the door. Patrick was too vital to die so young. Patrick was a survivor. Hold on to that.”
Kate scrubbed industriously, the stainless steel shelves glistening with her efforts. The enamel blinded her. She wished she knew why she had such a fetish about cleanliness. Maybe someday she’d think about that. Patrick thought about it often, chastising her eat-off-the-floor housekeeping. “We never eat off the floor, so what’s the point?” he would say. Sometimes he grinned when he said it, and other times he said it sarcastically.
Finally, satisfied with the condition of the refrigerator, she washed the bottles and jars, making sure the lids were on tight. Her eyes raked the ketchup bottle and the butter dish. Her mother always said you could tell a good housekeeper by the way she kept her ketchup bottle and butter dish. Hers were spotless. Patrick always dribbled the ketchup and got little toast crumbs on the butter and the dish. Tears slipped down her cheeks, and this time she didn’t stop them. Maybe she needed a really good cry; better to let it out and then get on with it.
She washed the vegetables, the lemons, the cucumbers, the tomatoes, and then dried them with a dish towel. Patrick said she was balmy for doing it. She hated it when he said things like that, so she tried to wait until he wasn’t around. But he always knew.
She’d tried so hard to be perfect for Patrick, the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect housekeeper, the perfect lover, the perfect money manager, the perfect everything. Patrick said there was no such thing as perfect, and even if there was, he didn’t want it. Her ears and cheeks started to burn when she remembered him saying, “Let’s have stand-up sex in the kitchen by the sink.” The girls were outside in the sandbox, and the kitchen window was open. She’d refused, and Patrick got testy. “What’s the big deal? All I do is push up your dress, pull your panties aside, and bingo!” She’d offered to go in the bedroom and lock the door, but Patrick had said to forget it. Instead he’d gone to the bathroom, alone, and she’d known why. She hated it when he masturbated. It was her fault. Her face and ears continued to burn. Patrick was selfish, but then so was she in her own way. Once he’d even whipped out his . . . his thing, and done it right in front of her. She’d cried, told him to stop, but he wouldn’t. That time, they were in the hall outside the bathroom and the girls were in the tub.
To Have and to Hold Page 2