Don't Put the Boats Away

by Ames Sheldon

  While Harriet’s home for two weeks, she and Frank go to a lot of movies. They first met at the movies in the winter of 1944. They were sitting one row apart, and they both laughed at the same things. Afterward, Frank sought her out and asked for her telephone number. As they watch The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, they hold hands. Afterward, Frank drives to their favorite parking spot. Since they both live at home with their families, his car is the only place they can find real privacy.

  “Just like a woman,” he teases, slowing to a stop. “You would prefer a story with a romantic angle to The Best Years of Our Lives.” He turns off the ignition.

  She says, “In the midst of all those murders, that was the part of the movie that made the most sense to me.” She found the chemistry between Bogart and Bacall absolutely mesmerizing.

  “Shhh,” he says. “Stop talking so I can kiss you.”

  After they neck for a few minutes, she yawns uncontrollably. “Sorry. I guess I’m still catching up on my sleep. What time is it, anyway?”

  He glances at the new glow-in-the-dark wristwatch she gave him for Christmas. “Eleven thirty.”

  “I should go home.”

  On the last night before Harriet has to leave town, Frank takes her to a popular supper club. He looks spiffy in his new navy suit, and she can tell he’s just had his blond hair cut. She’s wearing a new dress as well, a green satin frock with a fitted waist and full skirt her mother bought for her. She’s looking forward to a fun evening of dancing, but then she notices him fingering his pocket as though there’s something precious in there. Now she feels nervous. She’s very fond of Frank. He was there at the front door with them when they received the telegram about Eddie’s death, and it was wonderful the way he offered his help, and then when no one answered, he had the sensitivity to walk out the door. She’s terribly grateful to him for caring about her. Picking at her food, she chatters about anything she can think of.

  Finally he asks her to dance. Before she went to Madison, she’d gotten him to take a couple of dance lessons with her. Now he’s pretty good at swing dancing, and they’re having fun twirling around each other, starting to sweat. When the bandleader sings the slow song “Five Minutes More,” she pulls Frank closer so their bodies are touching all the way from their shoulders down to their groins. As she presses into him, her heart starts to pound faster. She doesn’t really like the way Frank thrusts his fat tongue into her mouth when they kiss, but she loves the feel of him against her stomach. Abruptly, Frank pulls back, inserting several inches of space between their torsos.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want to embarrass you,” he says.

  “But that feels so good!”

  Later, after they park in their usual spot, Frank kisses her so hard that she tastes a little blood.

  “Can’t you be gentler?” Is he kissing like this because she’s not responding enough?

  “I’m sorry, I know you’ve asked me before. I just get so pumped up when we’re together.” He leans over to brush his moustache tenderly against her lips.

  “That’s better.”

  “I want to discuss our future, Harriet. I love you, and it seems to me—”

  She interrupts. “I’m not ready to make a commitment, Frank. I need to know where I’ll be working once I get my degree. I hope you can wait a few more months.”

  Once she’s back home in bed, she faces the fact that she feels frustrated by the physical side of her relationship with Frank. He’s rough when he kisses and caresses her—but maybe that’s the way all men are. She knows he’s inexperienced with women, and of course, she’s inexperienced too.

  She knows it’s unfair of her to refuse to discuss marriage with her boyfriend, but marriage is such a serious commitment, even if everyone around her seems to be diving in. Her mother told her that three different cousins would be tying the knot next summer. She wants to love and be loved. But she wonders now whether she could possibly be more attracted to the idea of Frank than the reality.

  The next morning, George informs Harriet that he’d like to speak with her after breakfast. When she knocks at the mahogany door, her father is sitting at his desk. He stands and gestures to the two armchairs facing the fireplace. Aside from the windows looking out on the backyard and the doors, all the walls are filled with bookshelves crammed full of volumes. A fire crackles in the grate. They sit facing each other.

  George says, “What are your thoughts about your future, Harriet?”

  “As I told you the other night, I want to work for Sutton Chemical after I graduate in May.” She’s never said this so directly to her father before. When she first went to Madison, she wasn’t sure she’d turn out to be good enough at chemistry for him to hire her. Since then she’s felt more confident about her abilities.

  “Given the kind of research you’re involved in, you’ll probably get any number of offers from drug companies.”

  “My advisor asked whether I’d consider going on for a PhD. She says I’d be a strong candidate for their doctoral program, but I can’t see pursuing a career in higher education. I’m more interested in solving practical problems with chemistry.”

  Lighting a cigarette, George inhales deeply. “We’ll talk after you finish your master’s degree. You never know what sort of opportunities may present themselves to you in the next few months.”

  Why won’t he give her a straight answer? Harriet takes a deep breath. “Will you consider taking me on, Father? You don’t owe me a job—but would you think about it?”

  He taps his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray on the small table at his elbow. “We’ll discuss your options when the time comes.”

  January 2, 1947

  Harriet and Nat are traveling west together on the Viking Train to Madison, and then it’ll continue on to St. Paul without her. She’s anxious to get back to school, whereas Nat appears horrified by the prospect of going to work in a mill owned by their father’s cousin in Northfield, Minnesota.

  On the leg from Chicago to Madison, Nat jokes frenetically, and she realizes that he’s becoming more and more nervous the closer they get to her destination, where she’ll leave him on his own.

  She says, “Let’s go get breakfast now.” Maybe eating something will help calm him down.

  As they pass by a lady wearing thick rayon hose, Nat whispers, “If she stands up, she’ll find her stockings still have knees.”

  She laughs out loud. What an image! “Where did you get an idea like that, Nat?”

  Looking gratified, he says, “It’s a line from a song I wrote a couple of years ago. You remember those baggy, tattered, rayon hose from the war years.”

  “I certainly do. I didn’t know you’d written a song.”

  “I’ve written a few songs about life at Andover.”

  “Lyrics and music?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What can you do with them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Once they sit at a table in the dining car and the waiter serves their coffee, Nat says, “I can’t believe Father wouldn’t let me go to music school once my career at Yale was over.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “I worked really hard at Andover—I made the first honor roll senior year. I thought I’d proved to Father that I was mature enough to know what I wanted to do next. He was supposed to let me choose my own school after graduating from Andover. But no, Father would have none of that. He said I had to go to Yale.”

  “Yale is his alma mater.”

  “I don’t care.” Nat clenches his fist. “He should respect my opinion. I’m eighteen years old. Guys my age were trusted to drive tanks and shoot the enemy, while I’m still being told what to do.”

  She tries to be gentle when she says, “Well, you did flunk out of Yale.”

  “Father knows how important music is to me. All the piano and saxophone lessons, the Gilbert and Sullivan performances, the concerts, the jazz clubs, all
of it was meant to prepare me for music school. I have to go to music school so I can become a professional musician.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Don’t you understand? I’ve got to be true to myself!” He sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. “I love making music more than anything in the world, and I’m really good at it!”

  “I know, Nat.”

  “My piano teacher at Andover and my saxophone teacher from the Boston Symphony Orchestra both said I should go to music school. Dr. Honiger told Father that again at graduation. After Yale booted me, I was sure Father would finally let me go to the Schillinger House of Music.”

  “Father’s not going to reward you for failing.”

  “He’s punishing me. He’s sentenced me to work as a manual laborer in some kind of mill. Now all I can hope is that if I do a really good job in the mill for a while, he’ll relent and send me to Schillinger next fall.”

  She says, “Pressuring Father will never work, Nat. I’m sure he thinks he’s looking out for your best interests. He takes his job as your father very seriously.”

  “Too seriously!”

  She looks out the window. After a few moments she turns back to Nat. “Maybe it’s time I tell you something. It’s a huge secret.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “George is not my real father.”

  “What?”

  “My actual father was Mother’s first husband, Henri.”

  “No way!” Putting his elbows on the table, he leans toward her.

  “It’s true. He was a surgeon in France during the Great War.”

  “I can’t believe it!” He pauses. “Well, maybe I can. That would explain why you don’t look like the rest of us.”

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say.” She looks down.

  “I’m sorry, Harry, it just slipped out. I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.”

  She lifts her chin. “I’m still your sister—your half sister.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “Sometimes I feel like I don’t really belong in our family, especially around Abba.”

  “When did you find out about your real father?”

  “Right after Eddie left for basic training.”

  “You sure kept it to yourself for a long time. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I haven’t discussed this with anyone except Mother. It’s really her secret.” She looks out the window at the passing scenery for a moment. Then she admits, “Maybe I’m embarrassed too. I don’t exactly fit into the family. Not like Eddie and you.”

  “Of course you’re part of the family!”

  “Learning that secret helped me understand why Father has always been so hard on me. I have to work harder than anyone else to win his approval.”

  “Father’s hard on me too. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to earn his respect.”

  “At least you know your father, Nat. You’ve looked into his eyes, and maybe you’ve even seen something of yourself in him. Mother doesn’t have a single photograph of Henri.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “After Mother admitted the truth to me, I wanted to know everything about Henri. Eventually, though, I realized that George has always done his best to be a father to me.”

  “Father was awfully proud of the job you did on the farm.”

  “He seems to have some reservations about what I’m doing now.”

  Nat says, “Do you suppose Father knows about Henri?”

  “I assume so, but I don’t really know. We’ve never discussed it.” She takes a sip of coffee. “Tell me, what happened at Yale, anyway?”

  “I hated being there. I wasn’t able to take any music classes first semester, and the other students were so suave and snobby. They made me feel like a slob.”

  “You must have had classmates from Andover at Yale.”

  “None of my Andover friends went to Yale—they went to Harvard and Cornell. Of course Eddie would have been there if he’d survived the war. That would have made being there much better.” He grimaces. “Anyway, I escaped from campus whenever I could get back to the city.”

  The waiter deposits plates of bacon and eggs sunny-side-up in front of them.

  Spearing a piece of bacon, she asks, “How often did you go to New York?”

  “A couple of times a week. I went back to my favorite clubs, and sometimes I’d see what was going on at Minton’s.”

  “You went up to Harlem by yourself!”

  “Minton’s has some really good hot music. You remember the time when we went to the Downbeat and heard Dizzy Gillespie’s band?” He smiles now.

  “They played so fast I thought my head would explode.”

  “It’s energetic! And all those flatted fifths—I love hearing them. Dizzy and a bunch of the guys meet up for jam sessions at Minton’s after their regular gigs. They really get groovin’. I’m just sorry Charlie Parker wasn’t in town. He’s my idol.”

  “That’s why you started playing alto sax.”

  “Of course. But I still play piano.”

  “If you were flunking, I’m not surprised Yale dismissed you. These days every college and university in the country is overwhelmed by all the GIs returning to school. Last year the student population at Madison doubled. They had to bring in trailers and Quonset huts and temporary barracks to house everyone. Classes run from seven-thirty in the morning until ten-thirty at night.”

  “I thought sisters and brothers are supposed to stick up for each other.”

  She touches his hand. “I’m just trying to help you understand how you got into this mess.”

  “I know how I got into this mess! Now I have to live with the consequences.”

  “It seems to me that Father has set you free.”

  Bitterly, he replies, “He sent me into exile.”

  “You know, you don’t have to go to Northfield.”

  “What else would I do? Where would I go? I have to follow Father’s plans for me.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you—so I can go to music school!”

  He turns to stare out the window while a dark-skinned waiter wearing a white coat removes their plates and silverware. “All I can see are fields of snow. Everything’s this monotonous white.”

  Trying to get him to find some other perspective, she says, “Not only white, Nat. The leaves on the trees are bronze, and see the tips of the sumac—they’re a deep rusty red.”

  “It all looks black and white to me. The landscape is totally bleak. Doesn’t it depress you?”

  “Actually I like having a view that goes all the way to the horizon. The sky is so big and open here. It makes me feel like I can do anything. You can too.”

  “What must I do to make Father believe in me?”

  Dropping her eyes, she says softly, “I wonder the same thing for myself.” Then she looks up. “Nat, I bet after some time at the mill, if you wanted to go back to college, Father would support you.”

  “I’m never going to ask him for anything again.”

  Now she’s growing impatient with him. “Never say never, Nat. You don’t know what the future will bring.”

  “I know I sound like a spoiled brat. I’m sorry for whining, Harry.”

  “More coffee, ma’am?”

  She looks up. “No thanks.” She looks back to Nat. “You can’t see what’s coming—that’s hard.”

  “I don’t know anyone in Northfield.”

  “You’re bright, Nat. You’ll land on your feet. I know you will.”

  When the train pulls into the Madison station, she gathers her belongings. Putting her arms around Nat, she gives him a warm hug. “You’ll be fine, Nat,” she says, patting his back. “Why don’t you visit me in Madison sometime? We aren’t that far apart. Come for Easter.”

  “That would give me something to look forward to.” Pulling away, he promises, “I’ll write you.”

  After squeezing his hand, she picks up her bags and departs.


  January 2, 1947

  As the train leaves the station in Madison, Nat looks out the window, hoping for a glimpse of his sister, but she’s out of sight. He settles back in his seat. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the last letter Eddie wrote to him. He looks again at the final paragraph. “Do not be led by your sense of duty. Your life is yours to live as you see fit.” That’s what Nat thought he was doing. All last year he worked his ass off at Andover. He earned good grades; he even did well in Dr. Marling’s impossible American history course.

  He played soccer and kept the team amused as they struggled in their games against Exeter and Deerfield. He belonged to the rifle club too—an easy choice since he’d had lots of practice shooting rats around the chicken coops at home. He studied piano with his beloved teacher Dr. Honiger and sax with Mr. Pratt. He did his part.

  Pulling the woolen scarf off his neck, he twists it with both hands, imagining it’s his father’s neck he’s wringing. He hates his father. As the train takes him farther and farther away from everything he cares about, he turns the scarf until it’s as tight as a rope.

  At the same time he longs to please his father.

  And he’s young—he knows he’s young. There’s not a lot he can do to change his father’s mind. Years ago he refused to go to Andover, but he didn’t get anywhere with that. His father insisted that all the men in their family attend Andover.

  Eventually Nat came to appreciate Phillips Academy. Andover raised the bar on his aspirations, and he managed to prove himself there academically and musically—if not socially. He gained some self-confidence, enough so that he came to believe he should be able to chart his own course going forward. Having Eddie there with him during his first two years at Andover forged a special bond between them, and with the school.

  Lifting his scarf from his lap, he untwists it and drapes it around his neck.

  Now what?

  After the Rock Island Rocket from St. Paul pulls into the train station in Northfield, Nat descends the steps and looks around. Walking along the street, suitcase in one hand and saxophone case in the other, he sees that he has landed in an awfully small town on an unimpressive river. The sky is blue and so sunny it looks as if it should be warm, but it isn’t. With each step he takes, the snow squeaks under his feet—actually, the snow is so dry that it shrieks. When he reaches the Cannon Mill looming over the falls, he hurries inside. A woman with a lopsided smile who’s sitting behind a desk tells him to take a seat. While he waits, he removes his leather gloves and flexes his fingers, trying to get the circulation going in his numb digits. Soon a short wiry man appears, looking as if he’s been sprinkled from head to foot with tan talcum powder. Nat stands.