by Sarah Jio
“You don’t have to talk,” she said softly, “if you don’t want to.”
I looked into her eyes for the first time and could see anguish residing there.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, “about the letter I sent. I should never have sent it. I should have let your father tell you. It wasn’t my place.”
I reached for Maxine’s hand. Her fingers felt cold. “You have always been honest with me,” I said. “You were right to send it.”
“Will you ever forgive me?” Her thick accent made her sound meeker, more vulnerable somehow. “Will you ever love me the way you once did?”
I took a deep breath. “I never stopped loving you, Maxine.”
Her eyes sparkled as if it was the only response she needed. “Now,” she said, “eat your sandwiches and tell me about the South Pacific. I sense that there is a story that needs telling.”
I reached for a croque monsieur and nodded, eager to tell her the whole story. Well, parts of it, at least.
The rain cleared the next day, and as the clouds parted to reveal the June Seattle sun, my heart felt lighter.
“Morning, Antoinette,” Maxine chirped from the kitchen. “Breakfast is on the table.”
I smiled and joined Papa at the table, surveying my plate: fresh fruit, buttered toast, and an omelet—a veritable feast compared with the rations on the island.
Maxine hung up her apron and joined us at the table. Papa gave her cheek a nuzzle when she did, and I realized that while I may have accepted their love, it would still take some getting used to. How is Mother taking the news?
“Papa,” I said cautiously, “have you heard from Mother?”
Maxine set down her fork. The air felt thick and uncomfortable. “Yes,” he said. “She’s in New York now, dear. Of course you know that. She’s written you, I gather.” He produced a scrap of paper from his pocket. “She asked that I have you call her at this number. She’d like you to come out to see her.” He paused. “When you’re ready.”
I folded the crumpled paper and set it down near my plate. She was shopping, attending fashion shows, no doubt. But is she happy?
“Gerard phoned this morning,” Papa said, eager to change the subject.
“Oh?”
“He’d like to stop by this afternoon.”
My hands instinctively reached for my locket. For a sign.
“Yes,” I said, looking to Maxine for approval. “I’ll see him.”
Maxine’s smile told me I’d made the right decision. The first step in making sense of this new reality was facing Gerard and acknowledging the life we’d planned together. I rubbed my hand along the place where my engagement ring had once resided and sighed.
“Good,” Papa said from behind his newspaper. “I told him to come by around two.”
I heard Gerard’s car pull into the driveway, followed by the sound of his footsteps on the porch. I froze. What will I say to him? How will I act?
Maxine peeked into my room and gestured toward the stairs. “He’s here, Antoinette,” she said softly. “Are you ready?”
I smoothed my hair and walked to the top of the stairs. “Yes,” I said, composing myself.
One step, and then two. I could hear Gerard’s voice in the parlor talking to Papa. His nearness caused my heart to flutter in a way I hadn’t expected it to. Three steps. Four. The voices stopped. Five steps, six. And there he was, standing at the base of the stairs, looking up at me with such love, such intensity, that I could not unlock my gaze from his.
“Anne!” he said.
“Gerard!” My voice cracked a little. His left arm rested in a beige sling.
“Well are you going to just stand there or are you going to kiss this wounded soldier?”
I grinned, and sailed down the final steps, welcoming his embrace before planting a light kiss on his cheek, operating on instincts, or muscle memory.
Papa cleared his throat and nodded at Maxine. “We’ll leave you two,” he said, grinning. “You have some catching up to do.”
Gerard took my hand and led me to the sofa in the living room before closing the double doors behind us with his good arm. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you,” he said, sitting down beside me.
I’d forgotten how handsome he was, shockingly so. “I’m sorry I didn’t write often,” I said, frowning.
“It’s all right,” he replied lovingly. “I knew you were busy.”
But if he really understood the reason, would he be so forgiving?
“Your arm,” I said, touching his shoulder gently, then retracting my hand in haste. “Oh, Gerard. Papa says you may never use it again.”
He shrugged. “I should have died out there,” he said, looking at his lap. “All the men around me were shot down. All but me. I can’t make any sense out of why I was spared.”
I could see that, like me, Gerard carried a great burden in his heart, his a nobler one.
He reached for my hands, and then paused, holding up my left hand, bare without the engagement ring.
“Gerard, I—”
He shook his head. “You don’t need to explain,” he said. “Just having you here, having you back is good enough for now.”
I let my head rest on his shoulder.
September 1944
“Can you believe I’m getting married?” I said to Maxine, admiring the white silk gown Mother had shipped from France before the war broke out.
“You look beautiful, Antoinette,” she said, tucking a pin in the bodice. “We’ll just have the seamstress take it in a bit here. Have you been losing weight?”
I shrugged. “It’s nerves, that’s all.”
“Is something bothering you, my dear? You know you can tell me.”
The phone rang before I could answer the question. “I’ll get that,” I said bolting down the stairs to the kitchen. “It’s probably Gerard.”
“Hello,” I said cheerfully, a little out of breath. “You’ll never guess what I’m wearing.”
Static crackled over the line. “Anne?” a familiar female voice spoke. “Anne, is that you?”
“Yes, this is she,” I said. “Who is this?”
“It’s me, Mary.”
I gasped. “Mary! My God, how are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t have much time, so I’ll have to keep this short. I’m calling with some bad news, I’m afraid.”
I could feel the blood leave my face. Mary. Bad news. “What is it?”
“I’m in Paris,” she said. “I’m here on account of Edward, but that’s for another conversation. You’ve probably heard about the liberation of the city.”
“Yes,” I said, still shocked to be speaking to my old friend.
“It’s a dream, Anne. The Allies are here. For a while we didn’t think it would happen.” She paused. “What you need to know is that today at the army hospital I saw Kitty, and . . .”
I had thought of Kitty often, especially now that my wedding date neared. And now the mention of her inflamed the familiar wound in my heart.
“Mary, is she OK?”
“Yes,” she said. “She’s fine. But, Anne . . . Anne, it’s Westry.”
I sat down as the room began to spin, feeling a stray pin from the wedding dress jab my side.
“Anne, are you still there?”
“Yes,” I said weakly. “I’m still here.”
“He’s been hurt,” she continued. “He got hit. He was part of the Fourth Infantry Division, the men who stormed the city. But his battalion was struck in the fight. Most died. He somehow held on.”
“My God, Mary, how bad is it?”
“I don’t know for sure,” she said, “but by the look of things . . . well, Anne, it isn’t good.”
“Is he conscious?”
The line began to crackle again. “Mary, are you still there?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m here.” Her voice sounded garbled and more distant than it had a moment ago. I knew the connection could be severed in an
instant. “You need to come. You need to see him, before—”
“But how?” I cried, panicked. “Travel is restricted, especially to Europe.”
“I know a way,” Mary said. “Do you have a pen and paper?”
I fumbled in the kitchen drawer and pulled out a notepad. It had Mother’s handwriting on it, which made me realize how much I missed her. After more than a year at home, I had yet to visit her in New York. “I’m ready,” I said.
“Take down this code,” she said. “A5691G9NQ.”
“What does this mean?”
“It’s a Foreign Service travel code,” she said. “You can use it to board a ship leaving from New York to Paris in four days. And when you arrive, come to my apartment: three forty-nine Saint Germaine.”
I scrawled the address on the pad and then shook my head. “You really think this will work?”
“Yes,” she said. “And if you run into any trouble, mention the name Edward Naughton.”
I clutched the receiver tightly, trying to hold on to the connection, to her. “Thank you, Mary.” But the line had been swallowed up by static. She was gone.
“Gerard, I need to tell you something,” I said that night at dinner. I pushed my plate aside. The dinner, even broiled salmon with new potatoes, hadn’t interested me.
“You’ve hardly touched your food,” he said, frowning.
He looked dapper seated across the table from me in a gray suit. The war had rendered the Cabaña Club a ghost town without the buzz of people and the familiar fog of cigarette smoke. A lone saxophonist played on the stage. In some ways, it felt like a betrayal to be there, a betrayal to those who had lost their lives, or who were in agony in hospitals. I swallowed hard.
“What is it, my love?” he continued, dabbing the corners of his mouth with a white cloth napkin.
I took a deep breath. “While I was in the South Pacific, there was a man. I—I . . .”
Gerard closed his eyes tightly. “Don’t tell me,” he said, shaking his head. “Please don’t.”
I nodded. “I understand. But there’s something I need to do, before the wedding.”
“What?”
“I need to go away,” I said. “Just for a while.”
Gerard looked pained, but he didn’t protest. “And when you return, will you be yourself again?”
I looked deep into his eyes. “It’s why I need to go,” I said. “I need to find out.”
He looked away. My words had hurt him, and I hated that. His left arm, the bad one, hung from his torso, limp, lifeless. He didn’t like wearing the sling when we went out. “Anne,” he said, clearing his throat. His voice faltered a little, and he paused to regain his strength. Gerard never cried. “If this is what it takes. If there’s a chance I can have your whole heart again, I will wait.”
Chapter 14
Papa took me to the train station the next morning. It would be a long journey to New York, but it was the only way. I’d stay with Mother for a day before boarding the ship Mary spoke of. I prayed that Westry could hold on until I arrived. There was so much I needed to say to him, and so much I needed to hear him say. Does the grain of love that still lingers in my heart remain in his?
“Your mother will be overjoyed to see you,” Papa said, looking sheepish, the way he always did when he spoke of Mother. It didn’t seem fair for him to use the words “overjoyed” and “mother” in the same sentence, given the state of their relationship, but I chose to overlook those details.
“You have the address, right?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, indicating my pocketbook, where my ticket and Mother’s address were tucked inside.
“Good,” he said. “Take a cab from the train station directly to her apartment. Be careful, kid.”
I smiled. “Papa, you’ve forgotten that I lived in a war zone for almost a year. I think I’ll be fine in the city.”
He returned my smile. “Of course you will, dear. Ring me with your return details, and I’ll be here to pick you up.”
I kissed his cheek before stepping onto the train. The conductor took my ticket and showed me to the small drawing room where I’d spend the next two days traveling across the country, alone.
It was late when the train pulled into Grand Central Terminal, and as it glided along the tracks, the city lights glistened. It was hard to imagine Mother making her home in this big, bold place so unlike Seattle.
I stepped off the train, and lugged my bag through the maze of people, pushing past a woman with far too many children, a man with a monkey holding a set of miniature cymbals, and a gray-haired transient extending his cap and muttering something I couldn’t understand.
Outside on the street, a sea of taxis waited. I raised my hand and caught the attention of a dark-skinned driver, who nodded and gestured toward the back seat.
I opened the door and stuffed my bag inside before sitting down. The air smelled of cigarettes and must. “I’m going to”—I paused to glance at the slip of paper in my hand—“560 East Fifty-seventh Street.”
He nodded absently.
My eyes blurred as I gazed out the window. The lights flashed—green, red, pink, yellow. Sailors on leave in stark white uniforms clung to women—blondes, brunettes, tall ones, short ones. The war hadn’t ended, but the tide had turned. You could feel it—from the little suburbs of Seattle to the vibrant streets of New York.
The buildings outside flicked by like frames of a film, one after the next, composing a picture that was both foreign and lonely. The cab finally stopped abruptly on a tree-lined street.
“Here we are, miss,” said the cabbie. I paid the fare, and he set my bag on the street, pointing up to a brick townhouse with a shiny red door.
“Thank you,” I said, turning toward the steps. I rang the doorbell, and moments later Mother appeared. It was almost eleven, but she stood in the doorway in full makeup and a red off-the-shoulder dress. A poorly balanced martini glass sloshed in her hand.
“Anne!” Mother cried, pulling me toward her with a freshly manicured hand. An olive bobbled out of the glass and fell to floor.
She took a rocky step back, and I dropped my bag and reached out to steady her. “Let me look at you,” she said in an unnaturally cheerful tone. Her eyes pored over me, then she nodded in approval. “The South Pacific was kind to you, dear. Why, you must have lost ten pounds.”
I smiled. “Well, I—”
“Come in! Come in!” She turned away from the door, and her red dress swished ahead.
I followed her, lugging my bag into the foyer, where a crystal chandelier, too large and gaudy for the small space, loomed overhead. “It’s not Windermere,” she said, shrugging, “but it’s home for me now. I’ve grown to love city life.”
She led me into a small front room with parquet floors and a Victorian sofa. “Of course,” she said, “I’m having it all redone. Leon is helping me with that.” She said his name as though I was expected to know him.
“Leon?”
“My interior decorator,” she said, taking another long sip from her glass. I didn’t remember Mother liking martinis in Seattle, nor did I remember her collarbones protruding from her chest. “He’s insisted on mauve for this room, but I’m not sure. I rather fancy a shade of teal. What do you think, dear?”
“Teal might be a little bold for this room,” I said honestly.
“That’s just the look I’m going for, dear,” she said, running her hand along a nearby wall. “Bold. Your father was so traditional.” She gulped down the last of her drink, then giggled. “I don’t have to be traditional anymore.”
I nodded, preferring not to discuss Papa with her in this state.
She shook her head. “Listen to me going on like this,” she said, reaching for a bell on a side table. “You must be exhausted, dear. I’ll ring for Minnie.”
She sounded the bell, and a small woman, no older than me, materialized moments later. “Minnie, be a dear and show Anne to her room.”
“Yes, ma’am
,” she said in a squeak, reaching for my bag.
“Good night, my dearest,” Mother said, caressing my cheek. “I know you can’t stay long, but I have the morning packed with fun before your departure tomorrow. Go get some rest, sweetheart.”
“Good night,” I said, following Minnie up the stairs as Mother made her way back to the bar and reached for a bottle of gin.
The sound of a horn outside my third-floor window woke me the next morning. I pulled a pillow over my face, hoping to fall back into slumber, but with no luck. I glanced at the clock; it was barely 6:40, but I got up and dressed anyway. Mother would be waiting, and I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before I boarded the ship.
The light shone through the windows downstairs, revealing a lonelier space than I’d seen the night before. There were no photos on the walls, or paintings. Mother loved paintings.
“Good morning, miss,” Minnie said shyly from the entrance to the kitchen. “May I make you coffee or tea?”
“Tea would be lovely, Minnie, thank you,” I said, smiling.
Moments later she appeared with a cup of tea on a tray with a plate with fruit, a croissant, and a boiled egg.
I eyed the tray. “Shouldn’t I wait for Mother?”
Minnie looked conflicted. “About that,” she said. “Well, it’s just that, well—”
“Minnie, what is it?”
“Mr. Schwartz was here last night,” she said nervously, searching for my understanding, or approval.
“Do you mean Leon?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “He arrived after you turned in.”
“Oh,” I replied. “And Mother’s still asleep?”
“Yes.”
“Minnie, is he still here?”
She looked at her feet before gnawing at her thumbnail.
“He is, isn’t he?”
Minnie looked relieved to share the secret with someone. “When he comes to stay, I often don’t see her until after twelve, sometimes one.”
I nodded, trying my best not to show the disappointment I felt. “Then I’ll take my breakfast right here,” I said, reaching for the tray. “Thank you.”