It was hard to row now. The marshes were closing in around them, and there was the dry rustle of the reeds hitting the sides of the boat and scraping the bottom.
She could see Playland now in back of them on Ninety-ninth Street, the roller coaster, a dark skeleton, and the Ferris wheel rising up behind it. In front, the boardwalk was misty, the tall lights painted black toward the sea, so German subs couldn’t spot ships in the water nearby.
“How long?” Albert asked.
“Long?”
“To learn to swim.” He leaned forward. “I want to go with you to Europe.”
She opened her mouth. Tell him right now, she told herself. Tell him it’s just too far, the water’s too rough.
“Lily?”
She sighed. “You could never learn to swim the Atlantic in a summer. It would take months, years to be good enough, fast enough.”
“If you can do it . . .”
“I’ve been swimming since I was four,” she said. “And remember that afternoon when I went into the surf after you, I was nearly swept under.”
He didn’t answer.
She took a breath, trying to think of something to convince him. “You even said you thought I was a better swimmer.”
In the dark she could just see him shaking his head. “I know you are a good swimmer,” he said slowly. “I know you were coming for me.” He stopped for a moment. “I was . . . I don’t know the word . . .”
How could she tell him the truth now? He was the first friend she had ever made. You couldn’t count Margaret . . . Margaret, who had been in Rockaway every summer from the time they could walk, from the time they could talk. Albert, a friend, a good friend, Lily’s best friend.
“ ‘Teasing’ is the word,” he said.
She looked at him. His face was so serious. One hand was in his jacket, petting the sleeping cat. “You do not want to take me,” he said. “You think I will not be able to keep up.”
“No, it isn’t that. Really,” she said.
“You think I am a coward because of the plane that day.”
She kept shaking her head.
He leaned forward. “It was just that I was thinking it was Europe.” His lip trembled a little. “In Budapest, we had a yellow house with birds.” He moved his fingers. “They were small birds. Blue ones painted on the house, painted on the window shutters. I had an orange cat too, we called him Paprika, after the pepper. He looks like this cat.” He tried to smile. “And my grandmother, Nagymamma, was always telling me to do this and that, like your grandmother.”
Lily bit her lip, trying to think of what to say.
“I have only Ruth left. Ruth is my family.” He stopped then, and pointed. “Look.”
She turned and saw it too. The first ship looked like flat chunk of coal on the water, so far out she wasn’t even sure it was a ship. But then a second one appeared on the horizon, moving out of the mist. It was a huge ship, its top tangle of turrets and masts.
For a moment, they didn’t say anything. They sat there watching, the rowboat rocking gently, until the ship disappeared into the mist again.
“That was a troop ship,” she said at last.
Albert leaned back. “Yes,” he said, “I know. I will learn to swim, Lily, to keep up, and we will go out there, out to a ship. And then I will go back to Europe to find Ruth.”
She began to row again, turning the boat toward the canal, her mouth dry.
Chapter 15
There were two letters the next day, one from Poppy and one from Margaret. Lily managed to pick them up from the mailman before he even hit Cross Bay Boulevard. She’d been waiting on the corner for more than an hour, watching the street as far down as she could see, wondering if Margaret had gotten the letter she had sent. She had told her about Albert and the cat he was calling Paprika.
Lily yawned, tired from last night. Even after she had tiptoed through the dark kitchen at two or three in the morning and slipped under the red quilt again, she hadn’t been able to sleep. She had tossed from one side to the other, thinking about the troop ship, and Poppy, and what she could possibly do about the lie she had told Albert.
Now she took the letters and went straight to Margaret’s house, past the bedroom where Paprika slept now, a small orange circle on Eddie’s pillow. She climbed the attic stairs and shoved up the window as high as it could go, then took a quick look at the beach. It was still empty t this hour of the morning, litter baskets clean, the sand smooth and even. She had time, plenty of time. She wanted to stretch out this moment with two letters to read. It would be like sucking on a red LifeSaver until it melted into a thin little circle.
She looked at them both, Margaret’s as filthy as the first letter she had sent. But this time it was in ink that was blotted and watery as if drops had been spattered on it.
Her father’s letter was much neater, much cleaner, and is beautiful clear writing said “Miss Elizabeth Mary Mollahan.”
Lily slid her fingernail under the flap and slid out the tissue-paper letter.
“Lily,” it began. “My dearest daughter.”
She closed her eyes, and held the letter her father had held in his own hands just a few days ago.
She read the rest of it quickly, so fast the words ran together. He never mentioned that she hadn’t said goodbye. He never said that he minded, or didn’t mind, only about the war being over, and everything the same again.
I have a picture of you in my head as clear as a photograph to take with me overseas. You’re in the boat, and frowning, staring at a skate fish just before you set him free. By the time you read this, Lily Billy, I’ll be on my way across the ocean, the faster there, the faster home.
She thought her heart would stop. Her father out there, crossing the Atlantic, part of a convoy, maybe even on the troop ship she and Albert had seen last night.
She couldn’t even think about it. She looked at the end of the letter.
Hug the waves for me, and the beach on 101st Street.
And then at the very bottom,
Hug Gram too. She loves you, Lily, more than you know.
Lily wiped her eyes. It was a good thing she had Margaret’s letter to think about next, and not having to give Gram a hug.
She looked back at Poppy’s letter. At the very bottom he had written:
Don’t forget to finish those books, Madeline, and A Tale of Two Cities, and especially The Three Musketeers.
Lily frowned. Strange that Poppy had written that. He had read Madeline to her a hundred years ago, when she was six. How could he have forgotten? And he didn’t know she was reading The Three Musketeers. She had just taken it from the library on Thursday.
She put her father’s letter down carefully near the chimney and opened Margaret’s. It started out in the strangest way. No opening, the way Sister Eileen had taught Lily in school. No “Dear Lily.” Just
Please go in my living room and get Eddie’s picture. Send it right away even if you have to ask your grandmother for the money. Tell her I’ll pay her back when the war is over. I can’t member what Eddie looks like and now he’s missing in action, isn’t it strange, on a beach. It was on D-Day. The telegram didn’t come until this morning. He never even got any of the candy.
Margaret
Lily sat there for another minute; then she went down the stairs feeling so dizzy it seemed her feet didn’t even touch the steps. She went into the Dillons’ living room and reached for Eddie’s picture. Her hands were shaking and she knocked it off the table, grabbing it before it hit the floor. Nice catch, Lily, Eddie would say.
Then she was out the door and down the street. She couldn’t wait to find Gram, to tell her this awful thing that had happened to Eddie Dillon, to ask for wrapping paper and stamps for the picture.
She went down the road and in the back door, but before she could begin, Gram had started. “Change your clothes, Lily, and get your hat,” she said. “Mrs. Colgan told me that Eddie Dillon is missing and—”
“Ho
w does she know?” Lily asked.
Gram put her hand up to her mouth. “A phone call all the way from Willow Run to Mrs. Tannenbaum’s candy store. We’re on our way to church . . . a special Mass, and we’re going to pray as hard . . .” She took a breath. “We’re all praying, I guess, the whole world, that this will be over soon.” She blinked back tears. “And right now, we’re going to pray for Eddie, and your father, and Albert’s family, and everyone who—” She broke off.
Lily put Eddie’s picture on the table next to the couch and went onto the porch to find her Sunday clothes, even though it wasn’t Sunday.
Just ten minutes later, she was walking into church, stopping for a quick dip of holy water, and sliding into a pew next to Gram.
As she knelt there and waited for Father Murphy to begin, the sun blasted in around the partly opened stained-glass windows. It felt as if it must be a hundred degrees. The fan in front didn’t do any good. It just moved the fringe a little on the banner that hung over their heads.
Father Murphy had hung the banner there himself. On its white background were rows of blue stars, one for each of the men from the parish who were in the service. There was one gold star in the middle. That was for a sailor who used to live near the Cross Bay Theatre. He had been killed at Pearl Harbor. And now, in a day or two, there’d be a silver star for Eddie Dillon, who was missing, lost somewhere on a beach in France, and no one knew if they’d ever find him.
Lily tried to imagine what it must feel like to be Eddie, to have been taken prisoner by the Germans, maybe, or just somewhere by himself, hurt.
It was a desert in that church. She lifted the brim of her straw hat away from her head and fanned the air with her hymnbook, watching Mrs. Orban come up the aisle with Albert, until Gram gave her a poke.
In a moment Father Murphy was out on the altar beginning the Mass, and Lily began to pray for Eddie, and then for Poppy. She prayed for Albert’s sister too, and his grandmother.
Next to her, Gram took her silver rosary beads out of their case, and on her other side, Mrs. Colgan opened her missal.
Lily leaned back against the pew, thinking how thirsty she was. She was dying for a glass of orange soda, or maybe a peach with juice dripping. If Mass didn’t end soon, and she didn’t get something to drink . . .
Gram was looking at her, frowning, so she started to pray again. She prayed for everyone she could think of, even Sister Eileen.
She looked at the stained-glass window. Outside, everything was red or orange or yellow. And inside were the sounds of the fan whirring and feet shuffling. Maybe they’d find Eddie. Maybe he had just gotten mixed up and had to find his way back, or maybe they had made a mistake and some other Eddie was lost.
She sat up straight. She had just thought of something. Eddie’s picture. She had left it on the table next to the couch in the living room. How was she going to explain to Gram where she had gotten it? What would Gram say if she knew Lily had been in and out of the Dillons’ empty house? Gram would say plenty. Lily’d be in trouble for the rest of the summer. And she’d never get back into Margaret’s house until the end of the war.
She tried to figure out what to do. She could feel her heart pounding at the thought of Gram reaching for that picture when they got home. She wondered if Gram had seen her put it down. Gram always saw everything she didn’t want her to.
But if she hadn’t, if Lily could get to the living room first, she could grab up the picture, and then . . .
And then what? She didn’t have a cent since the tan purse had sunk in the water. How was she going to send it?
And right now, kneelers were banging back and people were standing. Mrs. White was playing the organ, and everyone was singing “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name.”
Lily edged herself out of the pew almost before they finished singing. “See you,” she whispered to Gram. And before Gram could answer, Lily had ducked ahead of Mrs. Colgan and the other people going down the aisle. She took another quick dip of holy water and raced for home.
Chapter 16
Gram had locked the door, of course. Lily rattled the knob and shoved at it with her shoulder, but it didn’t do one bit of good. She was lucky Gram liked to stand and talk to Mrs. Colgan after church for a few minutes.
She went around the back and slipped off her good shoes and socks. She’d have to climb down into the rowboat and shinny up the pilings into her bedroom.
She stopped. A couple of kids from Broad Channel were rowing out in their boat. They were staring back at her.
She waited a moment, hoping they’d turn away and start fishing or something, but they just sat there, one of them fooling around with the oars, watching her.
Gram would be home in five minutes.
“Forgot my key,” she called, and dropped into her rowboat. She wondered what they thought about her wearing pale yellow Sunday dress as she boosted herself up on the piling and tried to reach the screen.
She couldn’t seem to get high enough, and somehow the hem of her dress was soaking wet. Gram would go on and on about how she’d have to wash, starch, and iron it again.
Lily could hear the sound of voices. Gram’s voice. Mrs. Colgan’s. They were next door, standing there. All they to do was look down the alley.
She tried to raise her bare foot higher on the rough wood. Any minute she’d have a splinter. And any minute Gram would spot her. She held on to the piling with her legs, and feet, and one arm, as tightly as she could, reaching up for the screen, trying to get her fingernails underneath.
And then, finally, she felt the screen give. She pulled it out, opened it wide, then reached out for the sill, holding on, boosting herself in, just as she heard Gram saying, “Good grief, what’s that child doing now?”
She raced through the porch and into the living room, grabbing Eddie’s picture, and then raced back again to shove it under her bed. By the time Gram was in the house, Lily was in the bathroom with the door closed and locked, leaning her head under the faucet in the sink, taking deep gulps.
Her dress was a mess, filthy, with a rip in the hem. She took it off as fast as she could, rolled it up in a ball, and reached for her old bathing suit, which was dangling in the shower.
Gram was knocking on the door. “Lily, are you in there? Whatever made you think of getting into the house like that? You could fall and kill yourself. Lily?”
“I’m trying to get my bathing suit on.”
“I’d like to see the condition of that dress.”
Lily crossed her fingers. “It’s all right.”
“I’ll bet,” Gram said.
Lily could hear her footsteps going into the bedroom. She took the dress and slid out the door and onto the porch. She pulled Eddie’s picture out from under the bed, wrapped it in a towel, and looked around for a place to hide the wet dress. Under the mattress. She’d figure out what to do with it later.
She was out the door, yelling a quick goodbye before she could hear a word about the piano. But Gram had turned on the news. “It is estimated that ten thousand have been killed in the invasion of France.”
Lily went up the road to cut across the Orbans’ lawn and find Albert.
A moment later, they were rushing down the back road, Albert asking where they were going, why they were such a hurry.
“To the fishing wharf,” she said. “I have to find a purse. A tan one.”
“I will help. Where—”
“Under about seven feet of water, and we have to hurry because Gram will be along to capture me any minute.”
He shook his head. “Why—”
“She’s going to find my soaking wet, ripped Sunday dress. She’s going to remember I haven’t practiced the . . . You ask a lot of—”
“And what is in that towel?”
“Don’t say another word, Albert. Not unless you have a pack of money in your pocket. Otherwise let me think about how I’m going to dive down and find that purse.”
“But—”
“That pur
se has to be somewhere under the water, unless a bunch of pirates have moved in.”
“When . . .”
Lily sighed. “Will you stop asking questions? We’re in a hurry here.”
A truck had scattered gravel all over the approach to the wharf. It was a good thing Albert had shoes on. It was a good thing her own feet were tough.
Not tough enough. By the time they had gotten to the wharf, she was walking on the sides of her feet, hobbling along. “I hope your eyes are good,” she said. “I want you to look into this water and tell me . . .”
Albert nodded. She could tell he was trying not to laugh.
“What?” she said.
“You look so . . . so odd walking like that, and your bathing suit . . .”
“ . . . is a little faded.” She looked down. She had put on her oldest one, almost no color left from Gram’s Clorox. Too bad. She put the towel with the picture down on a bench and crouched on the edge of the dock to look down into the water. “Dark,” she said. “Really dark today, you can’t see a thing.”
He was looking too. “I see a fish.”
“What good is that?” she asked. “It’s about two inches from the top. We’re looking for a purse on the bottom.”
“Down with the bar-nackles,” he said, grinning.
She was still smiling as she rolled over the side and hit the water. It was cold this morning, the water rough. She kicked hard to push herself down, opening her eyes in the salt water, trying to see the sand. She swam along the bottom until she thought her lungs would burst, then shot up to the top for a huge gulp of air.
She held on to the wharf for a moment, pushing her hair out of her face with one hand, and felt Albert grab her wrist. She looked at him through blurry eyes. “What?”
“I have money,” he said.
She nodded. “Let me try once more.”
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