“Going to Omaha was the best thing I could have done. I only wish I had gone three years ago. Everyone from Pat's family wanted to meet me, so they reserved the Knights of Columbus hall. When I saw Pat's photo on one of the tables, I almost bailed, but then I realized that most people were in small groups, laughing and telling stories. The Monaghans were having a party for Pat.
“The next day, Mr. Monaghan told me how excited Pat had been when he found out he was going to flight school. 'When the Army told Pat his scores were high enough to get into the Air Corps, he was on Cloud Nine. It was the proudest day of his life when they pinned those wings on him. He said it meant that he would never have to work in a meat-packing plant again.'
“The thing that I had been dreading was that his parents would ask me how Pat had died. But all Pat's father said was, 'I can see that something's bothering you. But I want you to know that there's only one reason my son is dead, and that's because a German killed him.'”
I had always suspected that Rob thought he had some role in his friend's death, but I didn't understand how something as random as flak hitting the nose of a bomber could be anyone's fault. Taking his hand in mine, I said, “I'm glad you were able to talk to Pat's dad, and he's exactly right. It's time to let the ugliness of his death go and remember what a fun and funny guy Pat was.”
Rob smiled and then continued. “A couple of days before the wedding, the Monaghans had a smaller group over for dinner.” Rob hesitated, took a drink of coffee, and then said, “At this get-together, I spent a lot of time talking to Pat's cousin, Peggy. I had met her on my first visit to Omaha. She's one of those people who are very easy to talk to, and we hit it off.”
“What do you mean 'you hit if off?' Are you saying you went out with her?”
“Sort of. But that's not the point I'm trying to make here. It was because of Peggy that I realized why I had never asked you to marry me.”
“Okay, I'm listening,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.
“When we were in England together, I thought about you constantly. From the time I met you at the Christmas party, I believed I had finally found the right girl, but for some reason, I kept hanging back, and I didn't know why. Even when I knew I was hurting you, I still didn't ask you to marry me.
“You are the most curious person I've ever met. Wherever we went in London, you wanted to know everything that had ever happened there. Remember when we went to the cemetery where Elizabeth Garrison's family is buried? You let out a whoop when you found them, as if they were your own family. I didn't give a crap about those people. I got all caught up in it because of you.
“For you, life is an adventure. You want to go places and see things. And as long as you are living overseas, you will continue to do that. I had my adventure. Three years in the Army and thirty missions scratched that itch. I'm ready to settle down, and I think deep down I knew you weren't.”
“And how did Peggy help you out?” I was really annoyed. Rob had been gone for ten days, and in that time, he had met a girl who had provided such clarity he had been able to figure everything out.
“She talked about what most women her age want—getting married, buying a house, and having kids. She doesn't care where Elizabeth I is buried or what happened in Regency England.”
“You're making it sound as if being interested in people and places isn't a good thing,” I answered defensively. “You've seen where I grew up. Of course, I want adventure.”
“Do you know what I want?” Rob asked, leaning across the table. “Getting that job at Delta and buying a car. I don't want to tour Europe. I've seen all of Europe that I ever want to see. In a few years, I want to go to the beach in a station wagon with a couple of kids in the back seat. But that's not what you want. You want to walk the streets of Pompeii and climb the Eiffel Tower. And I want you to have it. It's just that you can't have those things with me.”
I didn't have a response to that because everything he was saying was true. “Is her name really Peggy?”
“As far as I know. Why?”
“Peggy and Maggie are both short for Margaret.”
“That seems about right. Two nice women with the same name.”
We said very little on the drive back to the station because I didn't want to start crying.
“Rob, take care of yourself. Don't rush into anything.”
“You don't have to worry about that. It'll be a long time before I get over you.”
As soon as I got into the car, I started to cry. Rob had been my first true love, and we had some wonderful memories together, and now he was gone forever.
Chapter 45
ALTHOUGH A WEIGHT HAD been lifted from my shoulders, I felt little sense of relief. I was dreading going back to the house because I would have to explain the breakup to my family. What I needed was a few days of quiet, but I wasn't going to get it.
“Where's Rob?” my mother asked while peeling potatoes. “Weren't you supposed to pick him up at the station?”
“He's flying home to see his parents in Arizona. We have decided to stop seeing each other,” I said, slumping into a wooden kitchen chair.
My mother, who had a lifetime of experience in navigating bumps, had learned that problems seemed more manageable after drinking a large cup of black coffee, with a splash of whiskey if it involved Patrick. I tried to explain why I had let Rob go, but I was falling short. I finally said, “I just couldn't marry him.”
“Then you shouldn't. You absolutely shouldn't,” Mom said with a surprising amount of fervor. “Look at me and your father. I was so flattered that a smart, college-educated man was interested in a girl from Miner Hill that I was willing to overlook the drinking and the long silences. We should have left Minooka right after we got married. Get him away from his father and the bars, but I didn't want to leave my mother. So we stayed.”
With that opening, I thought this might be a good time to tell her that I was going back to England, but then she said, “While you were at the station, you had a long-distance call from Michael Crowell. He said to let you know he and his parents were thinking about you and to offer the family their condolences for our loss.”
“That's it? That's all he said?” I was so agitated that my voice cracked. Whatever thoughts I had had of Rob flew out of my head. The only person I cared about was Michael.
“Well, he asked if you were home, and I told him you were at work, and after that, you had to pick Rob up at the station. Then he said what I told you he said. I didn't rattle on, Maggie. That was a long-distance call from wherever—London—I don't know, and I didn't want to waste his money.”
I looked at the clock. It was the middle of the night in England. I'd have to wait until 2:00 in the morning before calling Crofton. I dialed the long-distance operator to find out what I needed to do to place an overseas call. She explained the procedure and told me she would call me back when she had my party on the other line. My mother had been staring at me the whole time I was talking to the operator—not having a clue as to what was going on. When I got off the phone, I tried to explain as best I could what Michael meant to me, but my mother shook her head in total incomprehension.
“You're not thinking this through, Maggie. It is not possible to be in love with one man one day and a different one the next.”
Additional explanations were getting me nowhere when Sadie came downstairs and told my mother that she knew about my reservations regarding Rob and my feelings for Michael.
“Mom, it's too late,” Sadie explained. “Maggie was already in love with Michael when she got here. She felt bad about letting down someone as nice as Rob, but she knows what she's doing.”
“I beg to differ,” my mother said angrily. “This shows a lack of seriousness I would never have guessed about you, Maggie.”
As much as Mom's words stung, she was not my main problem. What did Michael think when my mother told him that I had a job? That made it sound as if I had made the decision to stay in the States. An
d what was going through his mind when he heard that Rob had come to Minooka?
At 1:30, I put on a heavy robe and went down to the kitchen to wait for my call to be put through to Crofton. For ninety minutes, I stared at the phone, willing it to ring. The call finally came in at 3:00 a.m. It was Beth.
“Maggie, is there something wrong?” I told her about Michael's call earlier in the day and that I was trying to return his phone call.
“Oh, dear,” she said in that clipped English accent that I loved. “He's not here. He's in New York. He must have called you from my Aunt Laura's. Maggie, he went to the States specifically to talk to you.”
“I don't understand why he did that. The last thing he said was that he was going to wait in Crofton for me to make a decision. But I'm afraid he got the wrong idea when he called this afternoon. He's probably thinking Rob and I have gotten back together, and it's not true.” After a long pause, I said, “Beth, I'm in love with your son.”
“Yes, dear. I know,” Beth said with a smile in her voice. “I've known since the ball. I was waiting for you to figure it out.”
Beth immediately put a plan into action. She would call her Aunt Laura to make sure Michael didn't leave New York. “We have to get you to New York City. Get a pencil and paper, and I'll give you all the particulars.”
Laura Bolton Winslow was just shy of celebrating her eightieth birthday, but you would never have known it from the spry woman who answered the door of her fifth-floor New York apartment.
“Finally, I get to meet the young woman Beth has been writing to me about for how long now? A year?” she said, gesturing for me to come in.
A colored woman came into the room carrying a coffee tray and smiled broadly when Laura introduced her personal assistant of twelve years, Ruth Johnson. When Laura's husband had died, she had hired Ruth as a maid, but in the intervening years, Ruth had become her friend and companion.
“When Beth called, she left me with specific instructions. I was not to let Michael leave the city until you arrived, but not to let him know that you were coming. So I arranged for him to spend the day with my son-in-law, David Weisman, at Beth Israel Hospital. He'll be home about 6:00, but I won't. Ruth and I are having dinner with my neighbor, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, in Apartment 2B. We won't be home until, let's say, 10:00.”
After an enjoyable lunch with Laura, I spent the afternoon resting, bathing, and doing my hair because I had a lot riding on this. I was in the kitchen when I heard Michael come in.
“Hello. Anyone home?”
“I'm in the kitchen,” I hollered.
Michael stuck his head around the corner. “Hello.” He acted as if he wasn't surprised that I was in his aunt's apartment. “I was expecting to see my Aunt Laura, but this is okay,” he said, leaning up against the counter.
“I'm returning your phone call.”
“I like the way you return phone calls.”
“I thought you said that you would stay in England until you heard from me.”
“I didn't think the strategy was working. Besides, I missed you.”
“In that case, aren't you going to kiss me?” I asked.
“I would, except I don't think I could stop at kissing. I used up all of my willpower in England.”
“Who said you had to?”
Looking around, he said, “Where's Aunt Laura?”
“She's with Mrs. Kirkpatrick, Apartment 2B, and won't be home for three hours—she promised.”
Michael came over and kissed me briefly before pulling me into a tight hug. He whispered, “I love you,” and for the first time, I was able to tell him how I felt. “I love you, too. Thank you for waiting for me.”
Michael reached out to take my hand, and when he did, I remembered what Geoff had said about how Michael was favoring his right hand. With everything that I had gone through with Rob, I needed to know what had happened to him in Burma.
“If you are left-handed, then why are you doing so many things with your right hand?” I asked.
“If this is what passes for sexual banter in the States,” he said, completely perplexed, “it's not very effective.”
“Geoff said when you two were in India, you always bumped elbows because you were left-handed and he was right-handed.”
“Maggie, this is not a question about which hand I favor. What is it you need to know?” Gesturing toward the kitchen table, we both sat down. “If your question is, did I experience some horrendous things during the war, the answer is 'yes.' But if you are asking if I am carrying around some terrible burden, the answer is 'no.' I have had ample time to deal with these things, and I have. I saw what not dealing with the past did to my father.
“As I told you, when I got to India, I was trained as a pilot and a medic. We were responding to a call for an emergency evacuation when we were hit with small-arms fire. It was enough to damage the wing, and we were forced down. Fortunately, the men who had radioed for the med evac were nearby. They established a perimeter while we tried to fix the plane. During the night, our perimeter was breached, and it ended in hand-to-hand fighting. My left shoulder was sliced open by a machete, and it damaged the muscle enough to make certain movements awkward. My range of motion is almost back to normal, but my fine motor skills have been slower to return. Rather than spilling hot coffee on someone, I use my right hand. Now, I do have a magnificent scar on my back.” Pulling me onto his lap, he said, “And I would be happy to show it to you.”
We went into the guest bedroom, and Michael took off his shirt and undershirt. On his left shoulder was a purple scar that cut across his shoulder blade. I ran my fingers along the scar, and then I started to kiss his back and his neck until he turned around and pushed me onto my back. He slid his hands under my slip and removed my underpants, all the while looking into my eyes, and then he lay on top of me and entered me immediately. At that moment, I wasn't thinking of anything else; I just wanted him to love me forever.
When Ruth and Laura came in, we were sitting innocently on the couch. We had been talking about Angela and James's wedding night, and Michael said it was a good thing his brother had pulled the covers off the bed because his aim was terrible, and the chances of his hitting the modesty hole dead-on weren't very good.
“I can see that you two have been having a nice talk while we were playing canasta with Mrs. Kirkpatrick, who won every game but the last.” Pretending to yawn, she said, “If you don't mind, I would like to retire, and we can visit in the morning. By the way, I'm a very heavy sleeper. I don't hear a thing, and Ruth is the same way.”
After I heard the doors close on Laura's and Ruth's doors, I asked Michael if he thought she knew. He laughed, and pointing to my legs, he said, 'You didn't put your stockings back on.”
I turned beet red and asked Michael why he hadn't said something.
“About what?” he said, laughing. “Why do you think she left us alone?”
We waited for about ten minutes before returning to the guest bedroom. This time Michael was not in a hurry, and it was different from anything I had ever experienced with Rob. I got to the point where I wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything before, and I wrapped my legs around his and pulled him into me. And, afterwards, I wouldn't release him because I needed to be reassured that someone could love me so much, and it was only with great reluctance that I finally let him go.
After making love, he pulled me onto his chest and asked when I had first known I was in love with him. “I'm not sure,” I answered honestly. “I know that as soon as I met you that I liked you a lot. When you came home from Malta, your mother asked you why you had cut your hair so short, and you said, 'So I can do this,' and you combed your hair with your fingers. Then at the Grist Mill, you started flirting with me, and that night I had impure thoughts about you.” After I refused to go into more detail, I said, “I knew I was in trouble at the ball, because I had hardly seen Rob all night, and yet it didn't bother me all that much. Shame on me.”
“What happened with
Rob?”
I told Michael everything about Rob's visit and his comment that he knew Michael was in love with me when he saw us dancing together at Montclair.
“Now, it's your turn,” I said.
“I suspected it on the day you fell into my lap at Thor's Cave. I was absolutely sure the night of the ball. By the time we had the last dance, I was in over my head. So Rob was right, when we danced to 'Always,' I was in love with you.” Holding me tightly, he asked, “Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
“It's too late to get married today. What about tomorrow?”
I pointed out that we needed a marriage license, and we had to get married in the Church. It was at that point I realized we weren't going to get married anytime soon. There would have to be three weeks of announced banns, and Michael would have to agree to raise any children in the Catholic faith, or a marriage could not take place in the Church. I asked him if this was a problem.
“I was baptized in the Anglican church. However, I grew up in India amid Hindus, Moslems, and Sikhs. I want to have children who are moral and compassionate.”
There was also the matter of a courtship. It was wonderful to think that Michael was so in love with me that he wanted us to marry immediately. However, I had to slow the process down. It was true we had known each other for four months, but in those months, we had spent very little time together. Michael suggested the best way to accomplish that was to say good-bye to Aunt Laura and Ruth Johnson and to check into a hotel for a few days.
We chose the Algonquin, and when we weren't making love, I was in the bathroom taking long, hot baths. There was even a shower, and I sat in the tub with the hot water pouring over my head. Michael kept checking on me to make sure I hadn't gone down the drain. But after living overseas for two years, with restrictions on everything because of fuel shortages, I was going to make the most of an unlimited supply of hot water. Finally, Michael climbed into the tub with me saying that it was the only way he was going to get to see me. The experience of having someone who was head over heels in love with me and willing to show it was so wonderful that it had almost a fairy-tale feel to it. But even fairy tales have to come to an end, and after three days, Michael and I boarded a train in Penn Station for our trip to Scranton. The closer we got to Scranton, the higher my anxiety level. How was I ever going to explain what had happened between Michael and me? I didn't think it was going to go well.
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