I headed down the hall, baby on my hip and Paul following close behind. I turned to face him. “Let me put PJ down for his nap, and then I can help you pick out a suit for Henry,” I said. “You go on and start looking in his closet. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Paul hesitated. Then, his voice low, he told me, “Henry’s clothes are in the guest room.”
I stared at him. “Why?”
Paul shrugged. He looked down at the carpeting. “Henry and Silja haven’t shared a bedroom in years.”
I raised my eyebrows. Paul sighed. “Angie, it’s none of our business,” he said. “Other people’s marriages have nothing to do with us.” He turned and went into the guest room.
“But . . . ” I protested to his retreating back.
He turned to face me. “But what, Angel?”
I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say. Paul was right; Henry and Silja’s marriage was none of my business. I followed Paul into the guest room.
He pulled several suits from the closet and laid them on the bed. The suits looked costly and as if they’d rarely, if ever, been worn. Some of them still had store tags attached. But they also seemed behind the times. I was from a small town, but I read magazines and watched television; I knew men were wearing their lapels thinner these days than they did ten years ago.
Paul held up two suits for my inspection. “What do you think? Brown or blue?”
“Blue.” I touched the fabric. The suit was finer than anything Paul owned.
He nodded and hung the other suits back in the closet. “I brought a suit from home for the funeral, but I guess I didn’t need to,” he said. “I could’ve just borrowed one from Henry.”
Was he serious? What a spooky notion—wearing a dead man’s clothes to that man’s funeral. I looked at Paul in shock, and saw that he was smiling grimly. He clearly hadn’t meant it.
Still—what a strange thing to say.
“I’m going to run these things to the funeral home,” he told me, adding a tie, shirt, and shoes. “You go ahead and put PJ down. When I get back, maybe he’ll be awake and I can take you to the market.”
I set the baby on the bed and put my arms around Paul’s neck. “Kiss me before you go.”
He did—long, lingering, and throaty. I pushed his mouth open with my tongue and explored inside, feeling the lower half of my body warm up. “Let me get PJ down and meet you in the . . . the other bedroom,” I whispered. “I can have the baby asleep in minutes. And Ruby doesn’t care what we’re doing.”
Paul sighed. “Angel,” he said, pushing me gently away. “I want to . . . I do . . . but you know this is not the time.”
Hurt and surprised, I stepped back. Yes, the timing was unusual, but still—he’d never refused me before. Not once since our first time together.
He softened his gaze and reached out to touch my cheek. “Later,” he promised, then spun on his heel and left the room.
I got PJ ready for his nap, listening with one ear to Paul leaving the house. After PJ was down, I started back toward the kitchen. I could get to work scrubbing that floor, I thought—it needed it.
And then, curious, I reversed direction and went into the master bedroom. I closed the door behind me and peeked into Silja’s closet.
I glanced at a neat row of shoe boxes on the upper closet shelves. I rifled through hangers on the rack—Silja’s smart business suits, her sumptuous dresses, her casual but expensive-looking weekend wear. I found the strapless emerald sheath Silja had worn at my wedding. She seemed to have a lot of green in her wardrobe—she must favor it, I thought.
I closed the closet door. Turning, I spotted a large leather jewelry box on the dresser. I crossed the room and, glancing once toward the door, lifted the hinged top.
Everything was meticulously arranged: earrings in small square sections at the top, bracelets below, and at the bottom, a tray of necklaces that came out to make selection easier. I removed the tray and fingered the fine gold strands, the string of pearls, the heart-shaped locket on a tarnished silver chain. I opened the locket to find tiny black-and-white photographs pasted into both sides: a teenage girl in old-fashioned clothing on the left and a solemn-looking, dark-eyed toddler on the right. Silja and Ruby, I guessed, of years past.
I was about to place the necklace tray back in the jewelry box when I noticed an envelope tucked into the bottom of the box. The paper was heavy and cream colored; the front was blank.
I reached for the envelope. What was in it? A letter to Silja? From whom? And what did it say?
I was itching to find out.
As I put my fingers on it, I heard the bedroom doorknob rattle. I let go of the envelope, shoved the necklace tray into the jewelry box, and slammed the lid shut. “Ruby?” I called, whirling around. “Is that you?”
There was no answer. I stepped to the doorway, but the hall was empty. Ruby’s bedroom door was open, and I could hear music from within. I went down the hallway and peered into Ruby’s room.
The girl, propped on her bed scribbling in a notebook, stared at me with hooded, inquisitive eyes. “Yes, Aunt Angie?”
I shook my head, flustered. “It’s nothing,” I said. “I’m going to just . . . ” I waved toward the open part of the house. “I thought I’d wash the kitchen floor,” I said weakly.
Ruby nodded and turned her attention to the notebook in her lap.
I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I backed into the hall and headed for the kitchen.
16
* * *
Silja
1944–1945
Henry weathered the initial fighting in Normandy but was severely injured a few weeks later as Allied troops penetrated France. In a skirmish near Cherbourg, he took five German bullets—one in his stomach, one in his right hip, and three in the groin. He lost so much blood they didn’t expect him to survive. But others near me, they were quick to action, his letter said. Nobody snapped his cap. Those medics saved my life.
He was transported to a field hospital, and then to a station hospital in Cheltenham, England. His wounds healed, but for weeks he was unconscious, the nurses keeping him comfortable and waiting for the end. Then one morning he opened his eyes and spoke. This is not in my memory but they say I asked where I was and for water.
He didn’t mention if he’d asked for her, Silja. Well, it was no matter. He slowly gained strength and eventually was moved to a convalescent hospital in Warwickshire. In the fall he was put on a carrier headed home.
• • •
Silja had dreamed of Henry’s homecoming almost since he’d left. She’d pictured how his eyes would blaze with adoration for her. How he would enfold her in his arms, bury his face in her hair, breathe her perfume. “Oh, baby doll, how I’ve missed you,” he’d say, while her eyes brimmed with tears.
His ship arrived on a blustery November day. Silja knew he wouldn’t be able to go home with her right away; he’d have to go to a disembarkation center for processing, which could take days. Still, she took Ruby and Mikaela to the pier, hoping for a glimpse of him. It felt as though they waited hours. Unable to stand still, Silja stepped back and forth, her feet on the rough concrete pier as spirited as an auditioning dancer’s on an oak-floored stage. Ruby toddled about chasing seagulls, with Mikaela lumbering after her. Finally, the ship’s portal opened and men started down the gangway.
She scanned for Henry in the line of hobbling soldiers. When she saw him—limping, supporting himself with a cane—she screamed his name and held up their daughter. He turned his head, gave her a slight wave, then followed the line of men toward waiting buses.
Two days later, he arrived at the Alku. Silja had offered to come and fetch him on the subway, but he declined. “I can get there myself,” he said over the telephone. “Keep an eye out for me in the afternoon.”
When Silja saw him shuffling down Forty-Third Street, cane in hand and duffel bag over his shoulder, she sprinted down the hall staircase and burst outside. “Henry!” she
called, meeting him on the sidewalk.
He gave her a peck on the cheek and a one-armed hug around her shoulders. “Hi-de-ho, Silja.” It was his jovial expression from the old days, but his weary voice masked the sentiment’s cheeriness.
She wrapped her arms around his back—in her excitement, she wasn’t thinking about his weakness. He began to topple and she stepped away, releasing him. Leaning on his cane, he righted himself. Their eyes met.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He didn’t reply. He stared at her as if he didn’t know who she was.
Mikaela appeared on the doorstep, Ruby in her arms.
“Meet your daughter,” she said. “And my mother, Mikaela.”
Mikaela held out the child for his inspection, and Silja felt a ray of hope. She saw his eyes widen with pleasure as he took in their pint-size daughter. “She’s beautiful,” he whispered. “Hi-de-ho, beautiful Ruby.” He clucked the girl under her chin. Ruby giggled.
He awkwardly held out his left hand to Mikaela, his right still gripping the cane’s top. “Ma’am.”
She nodded, shifting the child in her arms and clasping his hand. “Let’s get you inside, Henry.” She let go of his hand, turned around, and started up the steps. Henry and Silja silently followed.
• • •
That night in bed, Silja tried to get him to talk. “Tell me what happened,” she whispered. She sat with her nightgown wrapped around her knees as he lay on his back staring at the ceiling. “Tell me exactly where you were and what you were doing when you got hurt.”
In the half-light from the window, he turned toward her.
“Silja.” His voice was even and firm. “I’m going to say this once. I won’t say it again.” He sat up, facing her. “I don’t want to talk about what happened over there.” He looked out the window. “Don’t ever ask me again.”
Silja put her hand on his hip. “All right,” she said. “We don’t have to talk.” She reached forward, her hand crawling toward the buttons on his pajama bottoms’ fly—the new satin pajamas she’d splurged on for his homecoming night. “There are other things we can do.”
He pushed her hand away and shook his head angrily. “We can’t,” he said. “We never will again.”
“Never . . . will again?” Silja shook her head. “What do you mean?”
Henry grimaced. “You know where . . . on my body . . . my injuries occurred.” His mouth was a thin, irritated line. “I was told that you’d be informed about what to expect. And you were informed, weren’t you?”
Silja frowned. She’d had a rather awkward telephone conversation with a stateside army nurse who’d explained what Silja might anticipate. “He should be fine by the time he gets home,” the nurse had assured her. “Or if not right away, then certainly with time, recuperating at home . . . everything will be okay.”
“I understand.” Silja had held the receiver close to her ear and watched Ruby, who was calmly stacking alphabet blocks on the living room rug.
“You just be patient with him, dear,” the nurse’s motherly voice went on. Silja could almost imagine the woman patting her hand through the telephone line. “Give him your devotion and love. That’s all it takes for these fellas to get back to their old selves.”
Now, sitting in bed next to Henry, Silja said, “They told me it would be okay.”
But that wasn’t what they told her, was it? She’d discounted the nurse’s warning about time and recuperation. She’d been certain everything would be wonderful the moment he was back in her arms.
“I’m sorry I rushed you, Henry,” she told him. “I shouldn’t have done that.” She looked at him hopefully. “But maybe . . . another night . . . soon?”
Henry lay back against the pillow. “Silja, I’m beat,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Good night.”
He turned away from her.
• • •
Silja did what she should have done in the first place—gave him time. She didn’t bring it up again for weeks. She demonstrated her affection but kept her advances small—a peck on his stubbled cheek when she returned from school in the evening, a good-night squeeze of his shoulder as they settled into bed for the night. His rejoinders were stiff and indifferent. He never responded in kind, nor initiated such actions himself.
Each night they slept chastely next to each other. Sometimes he had nightmares—calling out names in his sleep, names she didn’t know: Walters! Channing!—and broke out in a sweat, his shoulders lifting off the mattress as he threw himself from side to side. Silja would gently shake him until he woke and stared at her blankly.
“It’s okay,” she’d tell him softly. “You’re home, Henry. You’re safe.”
She longed to throw her arms around him, squeeze him tightly and comfort him as she would a child who’d scraped a knee on the sidewalk. But when she reached for him, he said hoarsely, “I apologize. I’m all right. Go back to sleep, Silja.” He turned his back to her and pushed himself to the edge of the bed, as far from her as possible.
Holding on to the nurse’s words, treasured as if they were rare coins, Silja assured herself it would get better over time. As fall gave over to winter, as sidewalks became slick with snow that puddled and froze, as reports came from the front that Hitler’s army was collapsing, Silja waited for Henry to initiate physical contact with her. Eventually, he would—she was certain—snuggle next to her in bed and hesitantly take her hand, guiding it toward him, asking in a whispered voice if she was ready to try, because he was . . .
But it never happened. When finally she brought up the subject again—asking him one subzero January night if “things were getting better for him”—his mouth turned sour.
“It’s not better,” he said. “If it were, I would tell you. If I don’t say anything about it, Silja, the subject is closed.” He turned away and pulled the blanket over his shoulder.
She couldn’t believe he didn’t even want to discuss it. After the passion they’d shared before he went to Europe—the passion she’d dreamed about since—she couldn’t believe Henry would allow it to simply dissolve.
Were his injuries that encompassing? And even if they were, he had been the one to teach her that intimacy came in many forms. She knew war changed men, but she hadn’t expected so drastic a change.
Had he fallen out of love with her? Perhaps. But if he didn’t love her, why had he returned to her at all?
When she asked him this question, he sighed, as if she were a dim-witted child. “You’re my wife,” he said. “You’re the mother of my child.” He glared at her. “Do you know how many pretty English girls I met? Do you realize how tempted a man becomes over there? Do you know how many fellas filed for divorce from overseas? I’m not going to do that, Silja, no matter what happens. Marriage is forever.”
“Of course,” she agreed. “Of course it’s forever, Henry, and I’m so glad to hear you say so—”
“And not only that,” he interrupted. “Think about how many men came home in body bags.” He grunted. “You, Silja, got a real, live husband returning to you. Yet all you do is complain.”
“I’m not complaining,” she replied. “I just want . . . ” She trailed off.
His look was challenging. “You want what, Silja?”
“I want . . . us to be happy,” she said in a small voice. “Like we were before you went over there.”
“If you want to be happy, you can start by not bellyaching so much,” he said. “Be grateful for what you have, Silja.”
• • •
The two-bedroom apartment in the Alku, which had always seemed spacious to Silja, felt crowded with Henry there. When Henry came home, Mikaela moved her things into the smaller bedroom that once had been Silja’s, sharing it with Ruby. Silja and Henry took over the larger bedroom that previously belonged to Mikaela. Silja kept up her studies, throwing herself into her work at Hunter. She got straight A’s in every class and began looking forward to graduation, which would take plac
e in a few months.
Initially Mikaela worked nights, as she’d done before Henry’s homecoming. But within a few weeks she changed her schedule. She said it was because the factory was reducing the night shift; demand for uniforms was slowing down. That might be true, but Silja suspected her mother also was uncomfortable being alone with Henry during the day while Silja was at Hunter.
Silja knew Mikaela hoped that when Henry found work, she could quit the factory and stay home with Ruby full-time. But Henry appeared in no hurry to look for a job. He collected his unemployed veteran’s pay, going once a week to the VA office in Manhattan to pick up his twenty-dollar check. But he did nothing about seeking paid work.
She encouraged him to think about his future. The GI Bill had been passed in June; the government was providing boatloads of assistance for returning servicemen. College, starting a business, going to trade school—the world was Henry’s oyster. For Silja, who still felt like an oddity as a working-class coed, the bill seemed like an amazing opportunity.
But Henry said there was no rush; he was content to convalesce and spend time with their daughter. “You carry on, Silja,” he told her. “Finish that fine education. That degree they’re going to give you—that’s the ticket to any job you could possibly want, isn’t it?”
Silja watched as he set a bowl of rice on Ruby’s high chair tray and pulled up a seat in front of her. He placed a child-size spoon in Ruby’s hand and helped her wrap her fingers around it. Ruby looked at Silja—a questioning gaze, as if she sought Silja’s approval before doing what Henry asked of her. Silja nodded. The child placed her other hand in the bowl, pushing small clumps of rice onto her spoon and bringing it to her mouth. Silja smiled, and the girl smiled back before attempting another spoonful.
The Glass Forest Page 7