Significant Others

by Baron, Marilyn

  I had to get my hands on those letters.

  “I’m in the mood for something sweet,” I said. “Do you have any doughnuts?”

  “No, but I can run out and get you some. There’s a Krispy Kreme in the shopping center right around the corner from the complex. I won’t be gone more than fifteen minutes. You’ll be here when I get back, won’t you? No vanishing, promise? No retreating? I’m an ex-cop and I’ll just track you down.”

  “Are you a stalker?”

  “Whatever it takes,” he replied.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I promised. He embraced me and gave me a long, slow kiss which I felt down to my toes. Then he gave me a naughty, speculative look.

  “You sure you still want me to go all the way out to Krispy Kreme to get donuts? You taste pretty sweet. Delicious, in fact. I don’t think we need anything else.”

  “Daniel, please,” I said, my heart pounding as I placed my hand on his chest.

  “Okay, your wish is my command. One dozen donuts coming up. Any special requests?”

  “Surprise me.”

  The minute Daniel closed the door, I walked into his bedroom on unsteady legs. My hands were shaking. The letters had to be in this room somewhere. The closet was the most likely place. His unit was a two-bedroom, the same floor plan as mine. The master had a big walk-in closet. His wife’s clothes and shoes were still hanging there, neat and untouched. I felt like an interloper. My sympathies went out to Daniel. I can relate to that, I thought, my heart constricting. All of Stan’s things were still in our house in Atlanta. Even his glasses were still in their case on the nightstand where he’d left them. And his shoes, his wallet, all the dear little things that were constant reminders of the man I spent my life with. That’s why I couldn’t go back to that house. I didn’t want to give the clothes away because that would be too final, but I couldn’t bear to see them again, either.

  Daniel’s brown leather flight bomber jacket was still encased in plastic in the back of his closet, where it had probably been since he’d taken it to be dry cleaned right after the war. I smelled it and hugged it. The leather was still in amazing shape, just stiff and somewhat cracked with age, as I expected it would be after all these years.

  The jacket was adorned with medals and insignia. I could imagine a younger Daniel, dressed in his uniform—looking big and powerful. That’s how I’d remembered him, the way he looked when I last saw him. A tear slipped out of my eye and slid down my cheek.

  What business did I have snooping around in the man’s closet like an intruder? But I had to find those letters. See them for myself. They were not in the closet. Where could they be, then? I searched drawers and found old tax returns and business papers, and dusty boxes of loose family pictures. And a simple gold wedding band. He told me he’d just taken his off. I hadn’t had the courage to do the same. I was avoiding what I knew would be a gut-wrenching experience.

  Finally, in one of Daniel’s drawers, I had my hands around a thick stack of letters, wrapped in a frayed blue ribbon. Could this be what I’d been searching for?

  The pages were so yellowed and delicate, I was afraid they might dissolve right in front of my eyes, like a newly discovered Holy Scripture in an archaeological dig. My heart beat erratically. I felt a little like a common thief, except the letters were addressed to me in Daniel’s familiar handwriting. So, by rights, they were my property.

  He’d printed everything with small, perfectly formed, precise letters that looked as though they were written on lined paper. And there were some tags, documenting each of Daniel’s bombing raids over towns whose names I’d never heard of—Ludwigshaven, Germany; Florennes, Belgium; and Nancy-Essey, Villacoublay, Tailleville, Melun, Lille, Toulouse, Rely, St. Omer, and Fismes in France. Then there were the well-known cities in Germany—Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig.

  There was no time to read them all before Daniel got back from his donut run, but I was determined to take them with me. I did take time to sneak a peek at the first one. I slipped the top letter out from under the ribbon and started reading.

  “My Dearest Dorothy,

  As much in love as we are, we’ve only had a short time together. It suddenly occurs to me that we don’t even know each other very well. So let me start by telling you a little something about myself, my darling.”

  As I read the first few lines, money slipped out of the envelope and a stream of tears slipped down my face. He hadn’t lied. He had written, and more than one letter. He hadn’t forgotten me. And he’d sent me money, like he’d promised. How wonderful it would have been to have received these letters during that long separation and to know that the man I loved, the father of my child, was still alive and that he still loved me. Why hadn’t I received these letters back then?

  “I make $21 a month and I’m sending $15 home in this letter. This is just a down payment on our future together.”

  Before I could finish reading the first letter, I heard Daniel’s key in the door, so I stuffed the letters into my handbag and ran back into the living room. How was I going to explain away those damn tears?

  “One dozen glazed, coming up,” he said and placed one each on a dessert plate. “Minus one. I couldn’t resist eating one in the car.”

  I wiped my eyes and bit into my doughnut. My tears were as hot and fresh as the glazed pastries. The doughnut was sinfully delicious and sweet, even mixed with my salty tears.

  “It tastes wonderful.” I smiled. “Thank you for going out and getting them for me.”

  “You haven’t been crying, have you?” Daniel asked, frowning as he examined my face like it was a fresh crime scene.

  “No,” I lied. “Just got a little sentimental, I guess.” He squeezed my hand.

  I wasn’t ready to talk, so when I finished, I asked for another doughnut.

  “I feel like a pig,” I muttered.

  “I like a woman with healthy appetites,” he said, looking at me mischievously. “In the kitchen and in the bedroom.”

  Okay, now I was blushing again.

  I ate the doughnut so fast that some leftover glaze remained on my lips. He came around and licked it off and inserted his tongue into my mouth. I responded. He caressed my cheek in his powerful hand.

  “Oh, Dee Dee, come to bed with me. I want you so much. I need to be with you. I need to feel alive.” He pressed up against me so I could feel just how much he wanted me, and I felt his breath, hot and heavy, on my face. I was tempted to stay.

  “I’ve got to go,” I protested weakly.

  “But you just got here. I thought we were going Christmas shopping.”

  “I’ve hardly seen my daughter,” I said, making excuses. “We haven’t finished packing.” Grabbing my bulging handbag, I broke away from him and walked toward the door. He was a former law enforcement officer. Surely he could tell I had stolen his letters. When he tracked me down, what would I tell him?

  “At least let me drive you,” he offered.

  “I can walk. It’s not that far.”

  “When can I see you again?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “Dee Dee, what’s happened? If you think we’re rushing things, we can slow it down. I know we got carried away the other night, but you have nothing to feel guilty about. I know you think it’s too soon. But I won’t apologize for the way I feel about you. You can’t believe this doesn’t mean anything to me. This is anything but a one-night stand. Dee Dee, I care for you a great deal.”

  “Please, Daniel, let me go. Just let me go.”

  I had to get out of there. Away from the confusion and disappointment I saw reflected in his eyes. I pushed past him and left him there without an explanation. It was unfair, but I just couldn’t stay. I had to finish reading those letters. I ran all the way home. Winded, I got out my key and let myself into the condo.

  I looked around. Then I heard Honey on the phone, her voice animated. She must be talking to a client. She was in her room with the door closed. Right
now I had to find a quiet place to read. I needed to read those letters before Daniel started missing them. I’d read them and then find a way to apologize for running out and somehow put them back in his drawer before he knew they were gone. I ran past Honey’s bedroom and locked the door to my room behind me. I picked up the letter I had been reading and resumed my foray into the past, to the strains of the music of the ’40s—“Love Letters Straight from Your Heart.”

  Chapter Eleven: Flyboys

  When we flew our plane over the Atlantic and reached England, we dipped down to 50 feet above the ocean, where we saw whales and sharks. I thought, My God, this plane could drop into the ocean and they’d never find us in this bottomless place. We’re a daredevil bunch. We think we’re going to live forever, that we’re invincible. It’s hard to explain. Some of the boys take life for granted. But my life means a lot more to me since you’ve come into it. I have one goal and that is to stay alive and come back home to you. But the Germans aren’t going to make it easy for any of us.

  I leaned against a pillow, settled under the covers, and, with the music of the past washing over me, continued reading about Daniel’s missions—hardly believing they had happened a lifetime ago. Pausing, I pored over the letters, my hands touching each precious word as my eyes skipped over the reports about the missions themselves and focused on the personal words Daniel had written to me. I was almost glad to be reading these letters now, all these years later, now that I knew Daniel was safe.

  IInd MISSION

  BERLIN, GERMANY

  MAY 7, 1944

  We were not attacked by fighters on our first mission to Cherbourg, France, last night, but this time, the Germans knew we were coming. Anytime you go to Berlin, Frank Sinatra’s voice is broadcast over a loudspeaker, singing, “There’ll be a hot time in the town of Berlin.” The Germans’ idea of a joke, I guess.

  Berlin is the worst target that ever existed. Ships around me blew up and went down. This time, we were attacked by fighters and my turret stopped as I was tracking them. I couldn’t sleep that night thinking of how lucky I am and thinking of you.

  **

  VIth MISSION

  LUDWIGSHAVEN, GERMANY

  MAY 27, 1944

  I saw about 10 German fighters shot down before they could get through to our formation. We ran low on gas coming back, but made it O.K. When I get back, and I have to believe that I will come back, I want to introduce you to all the guys. They feel like they already know you, the way I go on and on about how beautiful you are. None of them believe me. We call our ship the Honey, but the pin-up girl has nothing on you in the looks department. I’ve shown them a picture of you and they probably think I cut it out of a magazine. That I don’t really know you. You’re so glamorous and as lovely as any movie star. Sometimes I think I’ve dreamed you up, that all those months you existed only in my imagination. But I know you’re real. I still feel the way we fit together on the dance floor and that last night with the rain coming down in sheets against the window. The desperate way you held me as if you knew it might be the very last time, the way you looked at me, the sweet way you loved me. Sometimes at night when I’m alone, I think I can still smell you, taste you. That’s when I know it was no dream. And someday, soon I hope, I’ll be coming home to my very own pin-up girl.

  **

  VIIth MISSION

  FRANKFURT, GERMANY

  MAY 28, 1944

  Skimming over Daniel’s words about the bombing raid, I went on to the more personal and puzzling part.

  I haven’t gotten a letter from you yet. Did you get the letter with my address? I’m anxious to hear all about what you’re doing on the home front. How are things back in Pittsburgh? I hope you’re having fun, but not too much fun without me. Is your mother still determined to keep us apart? Have you made any progress stating our case? Does the woman know how much I love you? If she did, she could never have any objections to our being together.

  I wondered why Daniel hadn’t received my letters and why I hadn’t received any of his. I had written to him every day and handed the letters over to my mother to post. Poor Daniel. No one there to comfort him, to let him know they were thinking of him. All those newsreels I watched alone in a dark movie theater, worried sick. Not knowing if he was dead or alive. I imagined him fighting over there, but there was no way to reach him, to let him know how much I was praying for him. How desperately I was missing him. I went to his house but no one was home. I asked around and they said the Moore brothers were all off to war. Every one of them. How awful that must have been for Daniel’s mother. How scared I was, but also how grateful I was to be carrying his child. If only I could have let him know.

  **

  VIIIth MISSION

  FLORENNES, BELGIUM

  MAY 31, 1944

  Very uneventful; No flak, no fighters. Tonight I’ll dream easier. I dream about you every night, you know. Waiting for word from you, my love. I hope it comes soon. Missing you is not getting easier. It’s an ache that can’t be washed away. But I know you’re waiting for me and that’s all that matters. I know what we’re doing over here is important, but our love is all that’s keeping me going. I’d rather be there with you than over here fighting. But then I realize you’re the reason I’m fighting.

  **

  Skipping over the next two missions, I came to the letter dated June 6, the day that would go down in history as “D-Day,” and continued to read with pride.

  XIth MISSION

  CAEN, FRANCE

  JUNE 6, 1944

  It was my 11th mission, on June 6, 1944, which also happens to be my birthday. You probably don’t even know that.

  They woke us at midnight, the earliest yet of any previous mission. We were told no abortions—no bombs in the channel. We flew straight across the channel and dropped our bombs about eight minutes before the first landing barge hit the coast in the Cherbourg Peninsula—formerly the worst flak area on the coast. We ran missions all day. Quite a lot happened. I got my personal message from General Eisenhower. It will be one of my most prized possessions. A letter from you would rank right up there, but so far I haven’t heard from you. I’m sure there must be an explanation, some SNAFU. It would truly be history-making to get your letter.

  They issued me a .45, which I’ll carry on all future missions. I’ve killed from the anonymity of a top turret. I’ve watched Forts blow apart into a dozen flaming pieces hurtling toward the earth and ships go down in a flat spin and burst into a sheet of flame when they hit the ground. I’ve fought nausea and broken out in a cold sweat when I saw my first flak. Deprived of oxygen half the time, I’ve vomited in my leaking mask and all over the floor-plate of the turret during the really rough missions. The flak is as thick as the soup I flew in over 30,000 feet up. And it’s accurate enough to really scare the hell out of us. Actually, I’m too sick to be scared. I sweated out this mission—as I always do.

  I tell you this to let you know that I’m not particularly brave. The truth is I’m as scared as any of the guys. Of course, none of us will admit that to each other. We’re all just putting on a front. But I want you to know me and everything about me.

  I’m just a man. But I believe in what we’re fighting for. And one of the things I’m fighting for is you and our future. I can see it so clearly in my head. I have a vision of you in our house, with lots of windows to let in the sunlight so I can see your beautiful face. You’re holding our son—and we haven’t talked about this, but I want a houseful of kids. Right now I don’t know how we’ll afford this life I’m dreaming of, but somehow we will, the two of us working side by side, building our new life together. I hope you’re getting the money I’m sending and saving it. I can’t wait to hold you in my arms again. I hope your mother isn’t giving you too much trouble about us. But I will win her over. I swear I will.

  I had to stop then because the tears were blinding me. Daniel would have loved a son, he would have loved Donny. He wanted children, our children. Oh, if
only I had known then. If only I had been braver, stronger. If only I hadn’t let my mother run my life.

  I wiped my face on the sheet, picked up the letter, and continued reading.

  I wasn’t going to admit it, but over here you never know whether your next letter will be your last one. And so I want to have no secrets from you. I’ll be honest. I couldn’t dance at all right before I met you. All the soldiers were jitterbugging in the women’s clubs where dances were held for the troops. I’d hardly ever talked to a girl in my life. I wasn’t the social type at all. I’d never had a date in high school because I couldn’t afford the clothes or the money to date. So there I was, just 20 years old, at a dance in the lower level Rec Room of St. Anne’s Catholic Church. Some of the girls took pity on me and taught me how to dance. Don’t be jealous, but without that experience, you probably wouldn’t have given me the time of day. Something just clicked and I became a class jitterbugger and a smooth dancer.

  Those lessons changed my life. I couldn’t believe my luck when the prettiest girl in the club agreed to dance with me, talk with me, marry me. Could you tell how inexperienced I was? I was so hungry for you the night before I shipped out. I was fumbling around in your car like a clumsy schoolboy. But I was so in love that making love with you seemed natural, right. I can’t wait until you’re back in my arms again. Until our life together begins. It seems like I’ve already waited forever.

  I remember you said I was the most handsome man you’d ever seen on or off the movie screen. Well, I don’t know about that, but it sure made me feel good to hear it. Now it occurs to me that it must have been the uniform. In our uniforms we’re highly revered, because the uniform represents the war effort, which is why I enlisted in the Army Air Corps. I wanted to be part of something important, something bigger than just me. I only have two stripes—but over here corporal is right under God because you can spend 30 years in the Army and never make corporal. Decked out in my bric-a-brac and braid and big gold wings left over from flying school (I washed out, I’m sorry to say), everybody salutes me. But they’re not saluting me. They’re paying their respects to America. And in my uniform, whenever I enter a restaurant or a pub, somebody offers to pick up the check because they’re so happy to have us over here.