Letters From Home

by Kristina McMorris

  “Ah, c’mon, Jack,” Charlie said. “You wouldn’t do that. You need me around.”

  “Yeah, what for?”

  “How else you gonna get any broads to notice you? Other than your mother, that is.”

  Frank looked to Morgan, who had just settled into his window seat. “Mac, your brother ever shut up?”

  “Not without a big piece of tape.” Morgan smiled, remembering the day he’d taped Charlie’s mouth closed and tied the rambunctious grade-schooler to a pole of their mother’s clothesline. It was the most effective way to stop him from telling a girl in class that Morgan wanted to “milk her udders.” Their father cut a whimpering Charlie loose an hour later, in full agreement with the punishment.

  Morgan almost wished he’d packed some tape for this particular trip.

  “Forgive me, Reverend Frank, for I have sinned. Again.” Charlie genuflected like the devout Catholic his mother had hoped he’d become.

  Frank scratched the crook in his nose and continued browsing the latest issue of Yank magazine. He didn’t bother to fake interest. When it came to Charlie’s racy tales, Jack always showed enough for them both.

  “Okay, Chap, let’s hear it,” Jack said, a smile in his eyes. “Which one of the twins did ya end up with? The one with the knockers or the long stems?”

  “Are you kiddin'? I was too much man for them dames. Scared ‘em off with these enormous cannons.” He flexed his biceps as if he had the physique of Captain America. When Frank tossed the magazine at his head, Charlie sank back into his seat and grinned. “Did some neckin’ with the broad from the coffee shop, though.”

  Jack crumpled his face. “The one with bad teeth?”

  “No, you dumbbell. The tasty dish with glasses.”

  Frank turned to Jack. “Well, that explains it. She needs a new prescription.”

  “Ha, ha. You’re hysterical.” Charlie removed his soft garrison cap and rubbed his hair with both hands.

  If only their mom could see him now. She used to say that someday girls would go wild over his golden waves. That they’d even be willing to pay to run their fingers through them.

  It’s funny the things you remember. Morgan regretted not paying more attention, regretted not seeing the truth behind his father’s lie. Charlie had only been eight, but Morgan, at eleven, should have known better. Farm families avoided doctors like the plague. When he watched his parents climb into their old pickup truck that cold January night headed for the hospital, he should have realized their mother was never coming back.

  “Hey, speaking of hysterical,” Jack said, pulling Morgan from his thoughts. “Went to a tattoo joint last night. Rev ended up knocking the owner’s lights out. You gotta see it—the stupid sap put ‘Joan’ instead of ‘June’ in the big ol’ heart on Rev’s arm.”

  Frank’s lips flattened into steel rails, his dark eyes trained on Jack. “And you think that’s funny, do ya?”

  “Look at the bright side,” Charlie interjected. “Instead of Joan, it could’ve said John.” He punctuated his wisecrack with a grin.

  Frank picked up his magazine from the carpeted floor, still eying Jack. “At least mine don’t make me look like Mussolini’s branded cattle, ya dope.” A jab at the unfortunate birthmark on Jack’s collarbone, shaped like a sideways stamp of Italy, was one of the few ways to ensure the last word with the guy.

  “So, uh, Mac, what about you?” Jack shifted the spotlight. “Get chummy with the brunette you went after?”

  Morgan coughed into his fist, the question taking him off guard. “Nah. Not really.” Considering how Liz had given him the brush-off, their encounter was the last thing he wanted to discuss. “How about you fellas? What else you wind up doing?”

  Frank crossed his arms. His expression lightened. “Chap, I believe your brother’s trying to change the subject.”

  “It’s all right, Mac,” Jack assured him. “You shouldn’t be ashamed. First time getting lucky can be a scary experience for any young man.” He grinned, impressed by his own sarcasm.

  “What a coincidence,” Charlie said to Jack, “I’ve heard that dames think every time is scary with you.”

  “Can it, both of ya.” Frank angled to Morgan and jerked a nod. “Go ahead, Mac. You were sayin'?”

  Morgan suddenly wished he’d jumped off the train after all. “Really, there’s nothing to tell. She just had to skip out early.”

  “You’re saying she ditched a McClain?” Jack asked in mock disbelief.

  “Not his fault,” Frank said. “If I was her and knew he was related to Chap, I’d double-time it outta there too.”

  “Oh yeah?” Charlie said. “Well, it just so happens that last night—on account of yours truly—my brother reeled in a broad any fella would give his left nut for a chance at.”

  Morgan tightened his eyes at him. “What are you yappin’ about?”

  “You have an admirer,” Charlie sang out in a taunting voice he never outgrew.

  “Sure it was a girl?” Jack smirked.

  “Not just any girl,” Charlie said. “That looker from the USO.”

  In an instant, Liz’s face flashed in Morgan’s mind, clear as rain. Wary, though, of being a sucker in one of his brother’s juvenile pranks, he played it cool. “You’re full of it,” he muttered.

  “I’m serious. Said she was searching all over for you.”

  “Yeah? Where’d you run into her?”

  “At the dance. Where else?” Charlie’s tone indicated he wasn’t horsing around. “I went back to find ya. She heard me asking about you. Told me you two had twirled some, but then you flew the coop.”

  Morgan straightened, his thoughts racing: How could he have missed her? Did she come back after he left?

  “Well, spit it out. What’d she say?” Morgan demanded.

  “Said she wanted to keep in touch. So,” he said, “being the dutiful brother I am, I gave her the Army address for forwarding.” He reached into the chest pocket of his shirt and produced a small rectangular note. “Here, this is for you.”

  A broad grin latched onto Morgan’s face as he retrieved the gift. A scribbled message spanned three lines. His heart pumped like an oil rig as he imagined her voice delivering the words.

  To Morgan,

  Take care of yourself.

  Betty Cordell

  Morgan’s mind pinched in confusion. “Betty Cordell?” He flipped over the paper and discovered it was a photograph, a black-and-white close-up of the girl from the dance. Just not the girl he was hoping for. He managed a closed-lipped smile as angst revisited his gut.

  “Damn, Chap,” Jack said, “you didn’t say it was the foxy blond singer.” He snatched the wallet-sized keepsake from Morgan’s fingers. “I can’t believe you got a dance with her, you lucky bastard. Where the hell was I?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Charlie said. “She only wanted Fred Astaire, here. Must have a thing for his fancy promenades and do-si-dos.”

  Morgan flicked his brother’s temple. “Dry up, why don’t ya.”

  “Man, that’s so unfair,” Jack grumbled, ogling the image until Frank swiped the photo.

  “No need to get jealous,” Charlie told him. “I’m sure she’s got a few friends who would gladly talk to you outta pity.”

  “All this from a kid who hasn’t hit puberty.” Jack launched his toothpick with a puff. “Enough of this shit. Are we playing cards, or what?” Not waiting for an answer, he began dealing them out, each card featuring pinup models in garters and brassieres.

  Morgan gazed out the window at the passing urban scenery. It was his first trip to the East Coast, his first journey out of the Midwest. Across the ocean, a battle-raging continent awaited their platoon, but all he could think about was Liz.

  4

  July 15, 1944

  Evanston, Illinois

  All day, Liz had avoided opening the envelope. She sat on the rumbling bus, staring at her name and address penned in Professor Emmett Stephens’s meticulous longhand. Like the best of
carnival fortunetellers, she could report what was inside before even breaking the seal.

  Dear Elizabeth,

  I trust life is keeping you well. I was extremely pleased with your academic marks from last term. Your decision to take extra classes this summer is commendable.

  I leave tomorrow for New York to guest lecture at several universities. I shall return to Washington D.C. in approximately three weeks. Should you need to reach me in the interim, my secretary at Georgetown will have my itinerary and contact information.

  Please congratulate Dalton on my behalf. From what I have heard, he is running a powerful senatorial campaign for his father. I wish them continued success. Respectfully,

  Your father

  Respectfully.Such distance conveyed in a single word. A sad reflection of the fissure between them that had widened into a canyon.

  Liz turned to the half-open window and closed her eyes. A gentle breeze swept over her sun-drenched face. Once again, she was eight years old, poking her head out the window of his shiny black Ford Victoria. Zooming past the California palm trees, she and her daddy would talk, laugh, and improvise silly songs, their excursions drastically warmer than those spent with her mother.

  Isabelle.

  In Liz’s memory, she embodied a caricature in a household appliance ad, her cool disposition offset by her grace and beauty. How close their family could have been had Isabelle exuded the warmth and affection of a mother like Julia’s.

  Then again, ruminating on the impossible was as useless as deferring the blame.

  A jolt from the bus’s brakes brought Liz back to the present. Familiar landmarks and rising passengers reminded her of her stop. She stuffed her father’s form letter into a skirt pocket and dashed down the aisle, her grocery bag slipping in her arms.

  Around the bend of Kiernan Lane she pushed against the humidity. Sweat rolled down the slide of her spine as she passed the string of contemporary bungalow homes. The sharpness of newly cut grass clung to the air, blocking pollutants from the bordering city of Chicago. Service flags paraded in window after window; their proud stars of blue outnumbered the dreaded gold symbols of loss.

  Willing herself to smile, she returned waves from neighbors relaxing beneath their shaded porches. Sun lovers basked in the late afternoon rays and giggly children played tag through the rainbow sprays of sprinklers.

  Liz adjusted the bag, ripping the bottom corner. She cupped the protruding soup can to keep it inside while crossing the street to reach her house. Her favorite accents on the modest, brick-red structure remained the same since her childhood visits: a small garden of irises, a large picture window in the kitchen, facing the street, and a two-person swing her grandfather, “Papa,” had built for the covered porch. Best of all, a towering cherry tree shaded the east side of the house, a finishing touch as sweet as the turnovers her grandma used to bake from its abundant fruit. Papa had purchased the home more than twenty years ago for his wife, his “sole reason for living.” It was a claim he literally proved after she lost her battle with cancer.

  “Your grandfather’s had a stroke,” Liz’s father had announced. “We’re moving to Illinois.” The triangular plane of his face had concealed all emotion, a defensive mask not unlike her own. It was one he’d acquired six months before, the day her mother left their lives forever.

  Correction: the day Liz sent her away.

  And so, with Isabelle gone, there was no discussion, no call for a vote. By the eve of Liz’s fourteenth birthday, they had packed up their boxes, along with their unspoken feelings, their devastation and sorrow too potent for words.

  The paving of Liz’s regret had stretched clear across the country, permanent as concrete. And there it took up residence, beneath Papa’s roof, where she and her father coexisted for the next four years. The cordial but mechanical nature of their exchanges, maddening as a blackboard screech, gripped even his farewell words after her graduation: “I’ll send your tuition payments directly to the university and quarterly allowances to the house. We’ll touch base once I’m settled at Georgetown.” With a nod, he’d grabbed his suitcases and left her on the front porch. It was at that moment she had realized: Abandonment struck in degrees.

  Standing now on that same rickety platform, Liz squeezed the grocery bag to her chest. She closed her eyes and gave her head a brisk shake, as if emotional wounds were cold droplets she could simply cast off.

  When she lifted her lids, the memory prevailed.

  Liz placed the food items on their designated kitchen shelves. Cans of Scotch broth soup and corned beef hash, Mello-Wheat cereal, bread, oleo, and a splurge of Cocomalt. With the sleeve of her blouse, she dabbed her temple while washing her hands with a bar of lavender soap. The thick, purple lather failed to soften her calloused mood, and the dry texture in her mouth—like flavorless cotton candy—only irritated her more.

  She tossed some ice cubes into an empty glass, a ricochet of clinks.

  “Liz?”

  She cringed at the distant voice, not in the mood for company.

  “Liz, is that you?” Betty called again from her bedroom, a room Liz would have to pass to reach her own.

  Reluctantly she answered. “Yeah, it’s me.” She poured herself the last of Betty’s freshly squeezed limeade and downed half the glass. Sourness puckered her cheeks, stung the corners of her eyes. Of all the items rationed for the war effort, she missed sugar the most.

  “Hurry up and get in here!” Betty’s trademark impatience.

  “Hold your horses, I’m coming!” She dragged herself down the narrow hallway lined with framed photos of deceased and twice-removed relatives.

  “Come on, slowpoke.” Betty reached through the doorway and tugged her inside. Liz nearly tripped over the girl’s old teddy bear doubling as a doorstop. His lone button eye hung by a thread, his cream fur matted and stained. Clearly he had seen better days.

  Yep, buddy, she wanted to tell him, you’re not the only one.

  Julia sat at the vanity. “Hey, hon,” she mumbled around two bobby pins between her pursed lips.

  Liz returned the greeting before daring to ask, “So what’s the crisis?”

  Betty tsked. “Now, why does it always have to be something bad?” She spun around so fast the white polka dots on her violet sundress streaked into lines. Grabbing an envelope from atop her pillow, she belly flopped on her bed to face the vanity. “Fact is, it couldn’t be keener. Just wait till you hear Christian’s latest.”

  Thanks but no thanks. Liz had read all the letters she could handle for one day. “I’d love to hear it, gals, but I really have to get some work done.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a fuddy-duddy.” Betty reached across the path created by the nightstand to pat Julia’s mattress. “Sit, sit, sit.”

  Liz groaned, then stopped short; she did not want to hurt Julia’s feelings. Christian’s posts were, after all, among the redhead’s prized possessions.

  “Believe me,” Betty told Liz, “it’s even better than those Emily Dickens letters you like.”

  A smile crouched behind Liz’s lips. “Dickinson,” she corrected, speaking the author’s name with reverence.

  “Yeah. Well, this is better.”

  A sacrilegious comparison, no doubt. Though who was Liz to deny any writer a fair swing at the title?

  “Fine,” Liz conceded. “But only for a minute.” She strode over to the wrought-iron bed she had given up when she moved into her father’s former bedroom, and started clearing space to sit among Julia’s fabric swatches. Vogue pattern pieces and celebrity shots torn from Silver Screen magazine added to the fashion hodgepodge.

  “Did you happen to pick up some bread at the market?” Julia asked.

  “Yeah,” Liz said, settling in. “I noticed we were out when I tried to make toast this morning.” She should have known then what kind of day she had ahead of her. “Speaking of which, when did Hillman’s start charging eleven cents a loaf? It’s outrageous.”

  While Betty sor
ted pages from the envelope, Liz glimpsed Julia’s pearly face in the vanity’s oval mirror. The crimson-haired girl contorted her expression at an uncooperative spit curl. Limited reflection space further challenged her efforts, with a mural of photographs covering half the mirror: a graduation picture of the three of them amidst her family snapshots, a sepia-toned portrait of her and Christian, and a new photo of her sailor leaning on a signal lamp of his ship, with Love you Red penned across the bottom.

  “'My dearest Julia,’” Betty began, letter propped before her. “'Only another week has passed, but it seems an eternity since last seeing you. You’ll have to send a new picture soon. I’ve looked at the one I have so many times, my eyes are wearing your image right off the paper. Unfortunately, thinking of you for hours on end only makes me miss you more. The weather has been sweltering, so I’ve taken to sleeping out on deck. To cool off, some shipmates and I had liberty yesterday and headed for …’ Yeah, yeah, yeah, boring, boring.”

  The letter was a typical one from Christian Downing, sweet and smooth as butterscotch. Enough to give you a toothache, Dalton would say; and though from the start, he and Liz had agreed mushy offerings of the like weren’t necessary between them, Liz suddenly found herself wondering: Had the ban been her idea or his?

  “Ooh-ooh, here we go.” Betty resumed reading. “'Although I am proud of the job we are doing for our country, already I am eager for the day we will hear that we’ve won the war and that it’s time to sail back home to you, my darling, the beautiful woman whom I will soon make my bride. Well, I best drop anchor for tonight. Sending oceans of kisses from your loving husband to-be. Eternally yours, Christian USN.’” Betty rolled onto her back. She pressed the papers to her chest, tight enough to embed the prose into her heart. “This is sooo romantic,” she said dreamily.

  Liz turned and caught Julia running her fingers over her fiancé’s latest photo, losing herself in the gray tones of their separation. That same look of hers, a pensiveness in her eyes, had made appearances more than usual lately.