Good-bye, Peter Hess.
His letter scattered to the wind, no one ever had to know how close she’d come to betraying…
“What are you doing up here?”
Caroline’s face appeared in the crack where Esther had propped open the roof door. She shoved it open and climbed out, protecting her white hosiery even as she wedged the block of wood back into the door and came over to stand beside Esther. “Are you crazy? I don’t think sitting on the side of the building is such a good idea. They’ll think you’re going to pull a Charlie! Do you want them to call the fire department or storm up here and put you in a white jacket?”
“I’m not Charlie.” Although, yes, she’d caved in on herself as she’d ridden home in the sweltering bus, behind the woman who had visited her POW son.
As the night fell around the bus, she saw her own reflection in the window, ruddy and swollen, and hated the woman who stared back.
She couldn’t meet her eyes in her mirror since. Still, her voice sounded detached as she dredged it up, cool and sane for Caroline. “I’m not going to jump. I just—like it up here. It’s quiet.”
Caroline pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. Lit one. Handed it to Esther. She stared at the red char on the end, considered it, then shook her head. Caroline shrugged then sat on the roof, despite the tar, her back to the wall.
“It didn’t go well, did it? What happened—is he married?”
Esther shot her a look. Winced. Then shook her head. She might actually be able to blame him, then. But she’d looked at his letters and discovered that yes, he had dropped clues.
She’d simply ignored them. Because she had turned into Hedy.
“Then what’s eating you? You looked a mess when you showed up. He wasn’t glad to see you? And please, will you at least scoot away from the edge?”
Esther leaned back on her hands. “Did I ever tell you how my sister died?”
Caroline took another pull on her cigarette. Esther watched the smoke spiral into the night.
“No.”
“She was shot in a speakeasy by Capone’s gang. Fifteen years ago. I was ten years old, and I’ll never forget how my parents found out. They picked up the Chicago Times, and her obituary made the inside front page.”
“Oh no.”
“She sang in a cabaret. I wouldn’t have even known her—she’d changed her last name to Brooks, but they’d printed her picture. She was so beautiful, she could have done anything. But she became a flugie for one of the local gangsters. She came home a year before she died. I remember her talking about this real swell daddy she’d met. She and my folks got into a real humdinger of an argument, and she left the next day. I didn’t know what she meant until the obituary listed her as the girlfriend of a local mobster. My mother just crushed the paper to herself, bent over in her chair, keening as if she’d been torn asunder.” Esther pressed one hand to her ear, closed one eye, the scream somehow not as distant as it had been a week ago.
“I’m sorry.” Caroline flicked out her ashes.
“Thing is, Hedy loved this local boy—Francis Mulligan. His family owned the hardware shop in town, and he loved her back something fierce. He’d come over every Sunday, sit on our porch, ask her to take a walk. I remember watching her fix herself up for him. She had long golden corn blond hair, and she’d braid it down her back, put on a hat. I remember thinking that even without her makeup—she didn’t start wearing it until Chicago—Hedy could make any boy fall hard for her. She always came back after dark, the wind in her hair, her eyes shining. I thought for sure they’d get married. Then one day, he stopped coming over. She sat by the window three Sundays in a row until her face was all puckered and red. He never showed. I saw him in the hardware store after that, and he ducked behind the feed aisle. Then one day Hedy came home from school and said she decided to answer an ad for secretaries, even though she hadn’t a lick of secretarial experience. She was seventeen when she hopped on a train to Chicago. I didn’t see her for a year, when she returned, all gussied up, full of stories of gin mills, hep-cats, rum runners, and her jakey. I had a feeling her ‘daddy’ wasn’t the only one, even then.”
“What happened with Francis?”
“I don’t know. But Hedy had a thirsty heart, and I think she might have…” She lifted a shoulder, glanced at Caroline.
“Given him too much of herself in the back seat of a coupe?” Caroline blew out the smoke.
Esther watched it dissipate into the night. “I figure that Hedy decided that she had already given away the biggest parts of herself, so there was nothing left but pieces. And those she gave away like penny candy. A desperation for someone to taste enough of her to want more.”
I’m lost, Hedy. I’m lost.
Caroline rolled out the end of her cigarette. “What happened at Fort McCoy, Esther?”
Esther shook her head.
Caroline didn’t reply, the wind shifting her question between them. Below, Esther saw Rosemary exit the building, her trench coat over her arm, the milky sky turning her red hair to mahogany. She’d already changed into a red swing dress, probably on her way to the Saturday night USO dance.
Maybe they were all destined to give away bits of themselves, piece by piece.
Rosemary walked out of the halo of light spilling from the clinic and into the darkness.
“By the way, you didn’t pick up your test score. I saw the letter in your box.” Caroline pulled a folded envelope out of her apron pocket, smiled at her. “Rosemary got a 90 percent.”
“How do you know that?”
“I might have stolen a peek while she went on rounds with Dr. O’Grady. She left the open envelope in her box.”
Ninety percent.
“Open it.”
Esther took it. Ran her thumb along the smooth surface. Ninety percent. I will make you pay for what you stole from me.
Please, Esther.
She cut Peter’s voice from her mind.
She wasn’t lost. And she most definitely wouldn’t be giving pieces of herself away like Hedy.
Turning over the envelope, she ran her finger along the inside lip. The paper tore, and she sawed open the envelope, finally wrestling out the paper.
The envelope slipped from her grasp, flew out into the wind, sailing on the breeze until the night swallowed it.
She took a breath and opened the letter. Her body turned hot. “I got a 98 percent.”
“That’s wonderful!” Caroline grabbed her hand. “Esther, that is wonderful! You beat Rosemary!”
“I still need Dr. O’Grady’s recommendation.”
“Oh, I have no doubt you’ll get it. Especially with Linus’s death.”
“What—What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know Dr. O’Grady’s story?” Caroline got up, dusted off her uniform. “He was in the Great War. Married his high school sweetheart the day after they graduated. She got pregnant right away, but she and the baby died in childbirth while he was off fighting the Germans.”
So that was why he showed her such compassion when she walked into his office, six months pregnant.
Caroline ran her hands up her arms, as if cold. “He understands what it is to lose someone you love because of war. He hates the Germans nearly as much as we do.”
Esther’s throat thickened, her breath grating through it. She nodded, managed a smile.
“I’m going inside, and you’d better hurry up before they come looking for you and call the psych ward.”
“I’ll be right in. I have to beat Charlie at a game of gin rummy.”
“Seems to me there’s something not right about the way you keep winning.” Caroline smiled at her, then opened the roof door and disappeared.
He hates the Germans nearly as much as we do.
Except, that was the problem, wasn’t it?
She didn’t.
Let me know as soon as you receive your marks. I am waiting with great belief in your abilities.
I got a
98 percent, Peter.
She put a hand to her mouth, and it trembled.
Peter had believed in her, saw her without her scars. Peter knew what it felt like to betray oneself. The poison crept through me, until I felt charred, even hollow inside.
And yet, he’d seen the woman she wanted to be.
I am waiting with great belief in your abilities.
With great affection,
Peter
Why had she torn up his letter?
Please, Esther.
She closed her eyes, but they burned against her lids, longing to reach out, gather the pieces, to repair his words, draw them into herself.
No, she didn’t hate him at all.
“Sadie, don’t kick Teddy, and please stop blowing bubbles into your malt.”
Esther removed the candy cane straw from her daughter’s mouth, wiped her gooey chin. Then she placed a hand on Sadie’s knee to keep her foot from whacking Caroline’s beau in the knee, again. She hoped she could get the chocolate stain out of the bib of Sadie’s sailor dress.
“It’s all right, Esther.” Teddy held Caroline’s hand atop the café table, his long fingers woven through hers.
They matched well, with Caroline’s deep chestnut brown hair, chocolate eyes, and Teddy’s Swedish heritage—golden-blond hair, pale blue eyes. They would have beautiful children.
“I can’t believe the army is sending the POWs here. Here. Right here to Roosevelt. And worse, the hospital is making me assist in their exams this weekend at the POW camp—did you know that we actually provide monthly exams to the patients?” Caroline stabbed her straw through her own chocolate malt. “Who’s taking care of our prisoners of war, I’d like to know?”
“Shh, Caroline.” Teddy tightened his hand in hers. “We need them. The pea crop needs to be harvested, and with our men still away at war, we need workers. Trust me, they’ll get the worst jobs in the cannery, and most of them will work out in the fields. Besides, it’s not about what others are doing—but what we do.”
She withdrew her hand. “If anyone should be throwing a fit, it should be you. You nearly lost your leg because of those Germans! What if you hadn’t been found by the medics—you might have bled out on that beach—”
“Caroline. I can’t keep fighting the war. The war in Europe is over, and hopefully the one in the Pacific will be too. It’s time to start living our lives, right?” He leaned over, kissed her cheek.
Esther looked away. But the news hadn’t left her brain since she’d heard it at the hospital.
The army had already begun to erect canvas tents, haul in snow fencing.
Snow fencing?
At the counter, two navy men, home on leave and seated at the round counter stools, flirted with the waitress while she washed ice cream dishes. Behind them, a group of teenagers jockeyed for control of the jukebox where a twangy Billie Holiday voice crooned out “Good Night My Dear.”
Good night my dear,
You must never fear—
For your love is here,
“And the worst part is that Teddy and I were planning on visiting his parents this weekend in Milwaukee.”
“We can go next weekend,” Teddy said softly, but Caroline met Esther’s eyes.
Oh. This was that kind of weekend—the one where she might be getting his parents’ approval. Well, like Teddy said, time to live their lives.
“I’ll work in your place, Caroline.” Esther wasn’t sure how or why the words bubbled from her mouth. Maybe because she needed to get away from the cauldron of lies at the Hahn household. Any day now, Linus’s telegram might arrive.
Then what?
She tossed most of her nights away, recalling the pain in Peter’s eyes, the rough edge of desperation in his voice, both real and imagined. She managed to pound her pillow into a concrete block.
And, in the wan light of dawn, with Sadie curled against her, she’d even scratched out the beginning of a few letters.
Peter,
I don’t know why I didn’t see the truth --
Dear Peter,
Seeing you, like that, behind barbed wire –
Dear Peter,
I don’t blame you for not telling me –
Peter,
I wish I could write, that I could see you again. But I… don’t think
The crumpled attempts lay in the bottom of the wicker basket in her room.
Oh, who was she kidding.
“Really, you’d do that?”
Esther found a cool smile. “Yes. You’re my friend, right?”
Caroline looked at Teddy. “Could we still get bus tickets?”
“Of course.”
The look he gave her made something hot and sharp curl inside Esther.
The voice sang on.
’Cuz you, my dear,
You’re my everything,
You’re the song I sing
When my nights are starless.
Caroline touched her hand. “Thank you, Esther. Dr. Sullivan is leading the team—normally Dr. O’Grady goes, which is a shame, because it would be the perfect opportunity for you to impress him. Have you talked to him yet?”
“I can’t—not unless he talks to me first. Stupid hospital rules. I’m hoping he’ll keep his word. I did put in my application for—”
“There you are, you little tramp.”
Esther froze.
She turned and had no words for the woman standing there dressed like domestic help, with her hair in a white handkerchief, wearing a pair of jeans and one of the judge’s old dress shirts. Mrs. Hahn gripped crumpled, now flattened discarded letters, written on Esther’s lavender stationery.
Sadie sucked the last of her malt. “Grandmother!”
“Who are these to?” Mrs. Hahn ignored Sadie.
It seemed that even Billie Holiday had silenced at her tone.
“They’re to a soldier.” Even as Esther said it, the words clawed her chest tight.
“A soldier.” Mrs. Hahn’s voice shrilled. “You’re writing—and according to this—visiting another man while my Linus is fighting across the ocean, for your freedom, your life—”
“No! It’s not…” She gulped in a breath, shot a look at Caroline. “Arlene—Mrs. Hahn—I can exp—”
“Not only do you trick my son into marriage, but now, already, you are cheating on him.”
“No I’m not.”
“Then what do you call this?” She shoved the letters at Esther, who let them drop to the ground like leaflets.
“He’s already dead!”
Oh. No. She hadn’t.
Except, she had, because Mrs. Hahn stopped moving, her mouth working but her eyes fixed. Then, lethally quiet, her words so sharp they slid up between Esther’s ribs and serrated her heart, “Who’s already dead?”
Who. Oh, for a second she wanted to point at the ground, to the letters—because, in a way, wasn’t he, to her?
No. And Linus’s mother clearly saw the truth on Esther’s face, because she began to tremble.
Sadie began to cry, flung herself at her mother, her legs vised around Esther’s waist.
Caroline came around the table. “Sadie, come with me.”
Sadie clamped her arms around her mother’s neck.
Esther schooled her voice, added something gentle. “Mrs. Hahn, maybe we should just go home—”
“You tell me what you’re talking about right now!”
Esther pried Sadie’s arms from her neck, shoved her into Caroline’s grasp. “Listen, we don’t even know if it’s true—I mean, it could be, but—”
“What are you talking about?”
Teddy moved to stand beside them. “Ma’am—”
“I got his letter.” Esther drew a breath. “I got…the letter.”
Mrs. Hahn’s eyes widened. She clamped a hand over her mouth. Shook her head. “No you didn’t.”
“I did. Before…” Oh why hadn’t she told them? “On V-E day. Or just before. Peter sent it.”
The nam
e didn’t register with Mrs. Hahn, and Esther didn’t bother to explain.
“Linus didn’t love me, Mrs. Hahn. He—it was all a terrible mistake. We were foolish and only thinking of the war, and what could happen, and—he didn’t love me. And he didn’t love Sadie—”
“That’s a lie.” Her voice dropped so low it tremored through Esther. “That’s a vicious lie. Of course he did—does! He sent you here, to us, so that we could—well, clearly, watch over you, keep you from your whoring ways—”
From behind the counter, the waitress wrapped her arms around her waist.
But probably Esther deserved that.
“He wrote it in his letter—he even apologized for sending me here.”
“You’re a filthy liar.”
No, for the first time, a dam had burst inside her, the truth came rushing out of her, filling her with the taste of something fresh and alive.
“I’m not a liar. But I have been for three years. Lied to everyone. I don’t love Linus either—probably never did. And unfortunately, you and the judge and Sadie paid for our—”
Mrs. Hahn’s hand connected with her face, a stinging slap that jerked her head back, split her face into flames.
“Ma’am—” Teddy took a step towards them.
Mrs. Hahn’s eyes filled, her finger pressed into Esther’s face, her voice so low it must have been dug out of the darkest places inside. “You came into our lives to steal from us. Did you think you were going to live off our money, on the dole and my son’s inheritance for your bastard child? Linus isn’t even the father, is he?”
“Of course he is.”
But oh, how she wished he wasn’t. And she hated that, yes, in that brief moment, she hoped it all might be true. Awfully, finally true, that Linus had died on the battlefields of Germany.
Because she simply couldn’t bear to be married to a man who felt nothing for his daughter, and possibly despised her. Married into a family who hated her.
Are you sure?
No. Never!
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe any of it. You’re just trying to justify your own promiscuity!”
“I haven’t—” She shook her head, cut her voice low and polite. “I’ll prove it to you. I’ll show you Linus’s letter. It’s back at the house. I swear it’s true. He didn’t love me, Mrs. Hahn.”
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