All She Ever Wanted

by Lynn Austin

  Eleanor’s worry over her husband was a constant, simmering flame that fueled a restless energy. She attended Mass every day, offering endless prayers for him. She cut out maps of Europe and the Pacific islands from the newspaper and pinned them to the wall so she could follow the battles on the radio and in the news. She knew all of the generals’names and their divisions, charting their movements as if only her daily vigilance would keep Rick safe.

  Cynthia worried as her friend grew increasingly nervous, and she worked hard to find distractions to help Eleanor relax. “Come to the movies in Bensenville with me,” she begged. “There’s a Mickey Rooney film playing—The Human Comedy.” They went, but Cynthia had forgotten that they always showed a newsreel about the war before the main feature.

  Too late, she noticed Eleanor’s pale face as she stared intently at the grainy images, as if searching for Rick among the many soldiers.

  They donated blood at all the Red Cross blood drives. Cynthia taught Eleanor how to knit, and they made scarves and mittens and socks to send overseas. But all the while she worked, Eleanor seemed to be marking off the days and hours and minutes like rows of knitting, waiting until the war would end and Rick would come home to her. She still looked like the same old Eleanor on the outside, but Cynthia saw the act for what it was. Inside, Eleanor was a tightly wound bundle of false brightness, trying to keep Rick safe and will him home again by sheer determination.

  As winter changed to spring, then summer, Cynthia grew tired of it all. She was sick of following the news, sick of hearing about the ups and downs of war, sick of the devastation and death. Since Eleanor would no longer go to the USO dances with her, Cynthia decided to go by herself on Saturday nights. She had gained self-confidence and enjoyed playing the field and meeting all kinds of guys. She agreed to write letters to several of them, but none of these relationships became serious. Then, after a while, Cynthia no longer enjoyed the USO dances, either. As the war dragged on, the new recruits she met were younger and younger, and seeing their vitality and fresh-scrubbed eagerness depressed her. She knew what they would soon face.

  Cynthia’s life began to feel as though it had ground to a halt. Shortages of everything from food to shoes to new clothes made shopping a chore, not a pleasure. Eleanor wasn’t interested in buying makeup or new clothes or shoes. She saved every spare cent of her paycheck, as if believing that Rick would be allowed to come home if only she saved enough.

  Every day seemed the same to Cynthia, as if she were stuck in a monotonous film that had no ending. She wanted to get on with her life— to fall in love, get married, have children. And she was deathly tired of her factory job.

  “This work is so boring and repetitious,” she complained to Eleanor as they sat on the grass eating their lunch one warm summer day. “I can’t imagine working here for the rest of my life, can you?”

  “When I’m bored, I just think about how much I’m helping our troops,” Eleanor replied. “I only wish I could do more.”

  Cynthia shook her head as she took another bite out of her bologna sandwich. “I have a hard time imagining that connecting hundreds of wires all day has anything to do with what’s going on in the rest of the world.”

  Eleanor picked at the crust of her bread, tearing it into little pieces but not eating it. “Every time I solder a wire, I think of Rick. His life or one of his friends’lives might depend on that very gauge or bomb switch.” Her fixation with Rick was starting to grate on Cynthia’s nerves.

  More than a year after Rick and Eleanor were married, the longawaited D-day finally arrived. The Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe finally began. Rick’s squadron of paratroopers took part in the assault, as did most of the soldiers that Cynthia wrote to. Eleanor’s brother, Leonard, was marching up Italy’s boot with the Allies to liberate Rome.

  Rick wrote from liberated Paris eleven weeks later. But his letters became less and less frequent once he began fighting in Europe, and Eleanor became more and more anxious and preoccupied. Cynthia worried about her.

  One afternoon after Eleanor had volunteered to take their ration coupons to the store and stand in line for coffee and sugar, Cynthia spotted a tissue-thin V-mail letter from Rick lying open on the desk. She couldn’t resist the urge to snoop.

  Dear Eleanor,

  It’s a beautiful fall day and I have a few minutes to spare before we march, so I thought I would spend them visiting with you. We’ve had trouble getting our mail lately. I didn’t get any letters from you for three days, then I got three all at once. Please keep them coming. They’re a lifeline to me, reminding me that there is still a sane world out there and a woman who loves me.

  I’ve told no one but you, darling—but I’m so afraid. No one who hasn’t been through it can truly understand what this war is like, and there aren’t enough words to describe it. It’s days and days of boredom and waiting, then hours of sheer terror when you’re certain that each second is your last. I’ve confessed and prayed and prepared to die so many times now that God is probably tired of hearing from me. But I’m still here, still miraculously unhurt. I know that when the war finally ends I’ll never be the same.

  I wish I could explain to my father that all of the things he values aren’t what really matters. Life and love and the people God gives us are the most important things, not how much money we have, or how many possessions and titles and honors we accumulate. Your love is priceless to me, Eleanor, worth much more than my father’s money.

  I’m tired of keeping our marriage a secret. I know we said we would wait until the war ends, but I’ve thought it all through and I’ve decided to write to my family and tell them about us. My dad will hit the roof, but I don’t care. I’m sick of lying. He needs to know that I’m not coming home to the phony life he planned for me after the war.

  We’re hearing good news from—the censors had cut out the word, leaving a hole—that we have the enemy on the run. Maybe this war will be over soon. I want to come home so badly and hold you in my arms again. You’re all I think about, and I’m so afraid that after surviving the war this long, I’ll end up dying just when I’m close to coming home. I’m not afraid to die, but I want so badly to live—to share my life with you and grow old together. … Cynthia dropped the letter on the desk when she heard Eleanor running up the stairs. “I got the sugar,” she said, breathless from the climb, “but I don’t know what good it will do us without any coffee to put it in. They ran out again.”

  “No coffee?” Cynthia repeated. “Honestly, I wish we didn’t live in such a dinky little town. They’re always running out of things…” Cynthia hardly knew what she was saying. Rick’s words had upset her, and she knew they would have had a worse effect on Eleanor.

  “The guy that runs the Valley Food Market is as crooked as all get out,” Eleanor continued. “He sells all the coffee to his friends, whether they have ration stamps or not. But look what I did get—” She unwrapped a packet of white butcher paper to display two tiny pork chops. “Ta-da! Real meat, Cynthia.”

  “That poor pig must have died of malnutrition.”

  “Hey, don’t look a gift-pig in the mouth—I waited in line for more than an hour for these.”

  “I know. And I’m grateful.”

  “I’m going to cook them up for us, too,” Eleanor said as she dug through their small stash of cooking supplies. They kept all their pots and pans and spices hidden in the bottom drawer of their dresser so Mrs.

  Montgomery wouldn’t find out that they were cooking in their room. “I told Rick that I was going to learn how to cook so I’d be an expert by the time he gets home. I thought I’d practice with these chops.”

  Cynthia heard the anxious determination in her friend’s voice, as if learning to cook was the latest project that would guarantee Rick’s safe return. But in reality, Eleanor was helpless; nothing she did—or failed to do—would change the course of the war or alter Rick’s fate. And Cynthia was just as helpless. All she could do was try to keep up her f
riend’s spirits and hope that the worst didn’t happen to Rick.

  “I don’t know,” Cynthia said, forcing a smile. “It’ll be pretty hard to become a gourmet chef with only a hot plate to practice on.”

  “I cut out this recipe from the newspaper. It calls for a can of tomato soup. Open the windows,” Eleanor said, gesturing to them with the frying pan, “so Mrs. Montgomery doesn’t smell meat frying.”

  “Isn’t Rick’s family rich enough to afford a cook?” Cynthia asked as she tugged open the sash. Cool, fall air flooded the room.

  “He’s not going back to that life—I told you that.”

  “How is he going to make a living?”

  “He has a college degree from Princeton, remember? We’ll be fine.”

  “Have you talked about where you’ll live and all those things?”

  “We’re going to live in ‘Paradise, New York,’of course. As long as we have each other, any place will be heaven!”

  The pork chops came out nearly as tough as shoe leather. Eleanor held up one of her worn out work shoes as they tried to gnaw the leathery meat.

  “We should have used the chops to patch our shoes instead of trying to eat them.” Her laughter sounded too bright, her smile too phony. Cynthia thought of Rick’s letter—how he was afraid he would die—and she knew that it was what Eleanor feared, as well.

  Just when the Allies seemed to be winning in Europe, the news turned gloomy again. Hitler had gone on the offensive in what was being called the Battle of the Bulge. It raged from mid-December until the end of January in frigid, snowy weather. Rick’s letters always arrived at least a week behind the news, and Cynthia feared that Eleanor would have a nervous breakdown as she waited to hear if he was among the more than 81, 000 casualties in the long months of fighting. “I don’t know what I would do without Rick,” she said over and over. “I don’t know what I would do.”

  Rick came through the battle unscathed. Eleanor wept as she read his letter describing the allied victory. Everyone said that the European war had reached the turning point, and that the Nazi retreat had begun.

  “I’m so tired of being brave,” Eleanor said. “I want this all to end… but I’m so afraid…”

  Cynthia could guess what she was afraid to say. “We’re close to the end now,” she soothed. “Rick made it through some tough battles, Ellie. He’ll be okay.”

  The warm spring weather made everyone hopeful. Cynthia saw daffodils and crocuses as she and Eleanor walked to work, and robins singing in the trees outside their window. When three days passed without a letter from Rick, Cynthia helped Eleanor dream up excuses—the troops were too far inland; the letters got put in the wrong mailbag; Rick was too busy to write.

  A week passed. Then two. Neither of them could sleep. The workdays seemed endlessly long as they waited to hurry home and get the mail.

  On Monday of the third week, Eleanor broke into a run as soon as the funeral home came into sight. She raced up the stairs far ahead of Cynthia. When Cynthia finally caught up to her on the third floor and saw Eleanor standing in their doorway holding a letter, she nearly collapsed with relief. Then she noticed the deathly pallor on Eleanor’s face, and her heart speeded up.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “This letter came for me. It isn’t Rick’s handwriting.” Tears spilled down her face. “Y-you open it for me. I-I can’t.”

  Cynthia was terrified for her friend. She tried to rationalize it away. “Wait a minute. It’s probably not what you think, Eleanor. If something bad happened, the army would notify you. They always send a telegram to the wife—‘We regret to inform you…’and all that. The telegram has one red star if he’s wounded, two red stars if… And besides, they’d ask your priest or your minister to come if they had to deliver that kind of news.”

  Eleanor shook her head. “The army doesn’t know we’re married. Rick didn’t list me as his wife.”

  “Why not?”

  “He didn’t want his parents to find out about us. He was afraid that his father would do something drastic to break us up. His father has a lot of connections with judges and politicians up in Albany. That’s why Rick waited until the war was almost over to tell him the truth. …” She shoved the letter into Cynthia’s hands. “Open it! Please! I can’t!”

  “Let’s at least go in and sit down, okay?” She pulled Eleanor through the door and forced her to sit on the sofa. But Cynthia felt just as sick as Eleanor did as she ripped the envelope open with shaking hands and pulled out a folded letter. A second letter fell out from inside the first one, and she saw Rick’s signature on it. So did Eleanor. She went very still.

  “Oh, no. Please, God, no. …” Eleanor murmured.

  Cynthia scanned the first letter. It was from one of Rick’s army buddies. Rick had been killed in action. Cynthia closed her eyes as her vision blurred, unable to read the rest.

  “Rick is dead, isn’t he,” Eleanor said.

  Cynthia couldn’t speak. She didn’t want to say the words out loud, knowing that when she did, Rick’s death would suddenly become horribly real.

  “Rick told me about the pact he and all his buddies have,” Eleanor said.

  “I know they all wrote good-bye letters to their loved ones, and their friends are supposed to mail them if anything happens to one of them. Rick had to send letters after three of his friends died. … This is my letter, isn’t it.”

  Cynthia nodded.

  “Oh, God!”

  Cynthia pulled Eleanor into her arms, and they wept together for a long, long time.

  “Why, God?” Eleanor raged. “Why did you have to take my Rick? All I ever wanted from you was for Rick to live! Why did you take him away from me? Why couldn’t you let me be happy—just once?”

  Cynthia sobbed as hard as Eleanor did, grieving for her friend, remembering Rick’s handsome, smiling face and the way he looked at Eleanor, his eyes shining with love. It was so unfair.

  At last Eleanor freed herself from Cynthia’s embrace and wiped her eyes. “Read Rick’s letter to me,” she whispered.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Cynthia swallowed. She could barely speak as tears choked her voice.

  “Dear Eleanor,

  If you’re reading this letter then the worst has already happened. I’m in heaven where there’s no more pain and no tears. How I longed to spend the rest of my life with you, making you happy every minute of every day—but God has decided otherwise.

  My beautiful, sweet Eleanor, promise me that you won’t grieve a long time. This war has caused enough suffering, and we’ve shed too many tears already. I could have died a hundred different ways back home, but at least my death counted for something over here. The world will be a better place, where you can raise your children and live in freedom. That’s what you need to do, Ellie. You’re a beautiful, wonderful woman, and I have no doubt at all that you’ll find someone who loves you as much as I do—it’s impossible to find someone who could ever love you more. Spend your life with him and be happy again.

  That’s the best way to honor my memory. God is in control, and He knows what He’s doing.

  Our brief time together gave us a little taste of paradise, didn’t it?

  And I know we’ll meet each other in heaven someday and be together forever. Neither one of us will ever have to shed another tear. Until then, I’ll love you in heaven even more than I did on earth. God bless you, my love.

  I’ll love you forever,

  Rick”

  Chapter

  17

  RIVERSIDE, NEW YORK— 1945

  Eleanor mourned a very long time, a widow at the age of twenty. She fell into such a deep depression, refusing to eat and losing so much weight, Cynthia feared she’d get sick. She often heard Eleanor pacing in the dark at night, sobbing quietly, unable to sleep.

  “I don’t want to live anymore,” Eleanor would say when Cynthia tried to console her. “I miss Rick so much that I don’t know how I’ll li
ve without him.” Cynthia worried that she would end her own life just to be with him. Eleanor stopped going to Mass and would weep and rage at God, asking, “How could He allow this to happen? What kind of a God would allow innocent young men to die? Rick had his whole life ahead of him— our whole life. How could God be so cruel?”

  “I think you should talk to your priest,” Cynthia said. “I don’t have any answers, but maybe he could help you get through this.”

  “I’ll never walk through the door of a church again,” Eleanor said. “I’m finished with God if this is the way He runs the world.”

  Cynthia didn’t understand what God was doing, either. The world seemed to have gone insane while He looked the other way. She bit her tongue to keep from adding to Eleanor’s rage by reminding her that she wasn’t the only person mourning a loved one. What about the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who had perished worldwide? What about the demolished cities and the starving refugees and the millions of innocent Jewish men, women, and children who had died in concentration camps, as the latest news from liberated Europe was reporting? Yes, there were a lot of deaths to be explained, not just Rick’s.

  Once her initial shock and grief began to ebb, Cynthia felt desperate to return to her normal routine and help Eleanor resume her life, as well. But the simplest things would remind them both of Rick and send Eleanor spiraling downward into grief again. Cynthia had started to cook popcorn one night when the aroma suddenly reminded her of the night Rick had come up to their room, so alive and full of fun.

  “Stop!” Eleanor said suddenly, as if remembering the same night.

  “Don’t make popcorn!” Cynthia unplugged the hotplate and scraped the unpopped kernels into the trash. She scrubbed the pot with steel wool, as if trying to scrub away the memory of the four of them creeping down to the basement to get the margarine, laughing and joking. Rick had crawled into one of the caskets and pretended to be dead—and now he was. Cynthia closed her eyes, wishing it would turn out to be a joke, as it had been that night—wishing that Rick would spring back to life, calling, “Boo!”