by Cat Gardiner
She entered into the narthex of the church, a small vestibule, which lead into the nave through an inner set of doors, currently propped open allowing the afternoon sunlight to stream in and the music to float out. The gathering place was large with wood beams, arching above the pews lining both sides of the aisle’s red carpeting. At the far end, steps led to the altar.
Juliana took a seat in the middle, listening to the organist play with such passion at the side of the sanctuary. Only her white hair could be seen above the top of the electronic organ.
The worship space felt comfortable and peaceful. This was her faith, the religion of her father, and the religion of her grandparents, yet the last time she had come to a Lutheran church was for her own christening as a baby. With the sun shining through the inspirational stained glass, Juliana stared up at the wood cross above the altar, thinking how it couldn’t hurt to pray. It wasn’t as though she abhorred prayer, it was just unfamiliar, but pray she did. She prayed she would find the answers in this search she had embarked on. Sitting here, in this house of worship, she couldn’t help considering that some higher power had intervened her singular path, setting her on this quest. She’d have faith that this wild goose chase to find love, romance, and the two people who embodied it wouldn’t be for naught.
After about ten minutes, Mrs. Landry stopped playing and rose. A pretty woman in her sixties, wearing a cobalt blue suit and a pink scarf stood beside the organ’s bench. Obviously pleased someone had been listening to her play, she offered Juliana a pleasant, surprised expression that quickly became a warm smile.
It took Juliana aback when the organist grabbed two hand crutches and adeptly made her way down the red carpet toward her. With body shifting and feet carefully landing, she swung her weight and made her way forward with only slight exertion. Apparently, the affliction wasn’t new. Juliana unconsciously stared, eyes fixed with curiosity on the woman’s legs. She wondered if there were braces concealed beneath the trousers, what her handicap was and ultimately, marveling at this woman’s ability to manage the pedals of the organ in spite of it.
“Hello,” the woman said, stopping at the end of the pew, tilting her head slightly to make eye contact.
“Hi.” Juliana fidgeted because she knew she had been obvious in her staring. “You play beautifully. What were you playing?”
“I’m so happy you enjoyed it. Pachelbel’s ‘Ciacona’ is one of my favorites. It felt appropriate for such a gorgeous day.”
“Yes, it is. Are you Katherine Landry?”
“I am. How can I assist you? Are you getting married and at that stage of planning your nuptial music?”
“No. I … um … would you care to sit?”
“No, I’m fine, dear. I’ve been playing for an hour straight so sitting right now has very little appeal. I need to stretch a bit.”
“I understand. I’m sorry to intrude on your time, but Barbara at the Glen Cove Public Library suggested that you might be of help to me. I was wondering if you have a few moments to answer some questions I have about the area.”
“Of course. You’re interested in Glen Head and Glenwood Landing?”
Fastening her full attention on Mrs. Landry’s face, which seemed familiar, she fudged, “Actually … the Gold Coast.”
“Well, except for a several years in Minneapolis, I spent my entire life here, so I can tell you just about anything. Let’s take a walk to the business office. It’s empty and the pastor won’t be arriving for another hour or so. We can talk about the area over a cup of coffee. Would you like that?”
“That sounds great.”
The organist shifted her weight, readying herself to lead the way, when Juliana gently rested her own palm upon the woman’s hand grasping the back of the pew. “Forgive me, but do I know you Mrs. Landry. Have we met before?”
Her blue eyes examined Juliana’s face. “I don’t think so. What is your name?”
“Juliana Martel. I’m from Manhattan.”
Over the course of Katherine’s sixty-six years, facial control was something she had mastered early on, and today—more than any other—she was thankful for that mastery. She remained frozen in expression and form, legs and mouth unmoving.
Forcing herself she slowly spoke, “Martel, you say?”
“Yes, ma’am. Are you familiar with the family name?”
“Somewhat.” Good G-d, This is Lillian’s granddaughter. How did she find us? “Let’s talk in the office, okay?”
“Super!”
Juliana gripped her briefcase, trailing behind Katherine slowly. Resisting her innate New Yorker frustration at the reduced pace, she instead admired how the woman traveled down the long aisle with noble competence.
Katherine glanced over her shoulder, noticing Juliana’s intent observation. “I’m sorry to take so long. These old bones aren’t used to dealing with crutches and braces after so many years without them.”
“No worries, take your time. Truly, I’m not in any rush today.”
“Did you come out on the train?”
“Yes, yesterday. Although I had only planned a day trip, my plans changed so that I could meet with you. I was able to get a room for the night at the Glen Cove Mansion Hotel and have nothing pressing to get back to the city for. I … I have all afternoon.”
“They have maintained the gardens and property beautifully at The Manor. What a treat to stay there.”
“The Manor?”
“Yes, that was the name of the Pratt home when I knew it before the matriarch Ruth died in 1965. Well, here we are.”
They stood at the threshold of an office that looked more like a prayer room with a desk. Religious paintings and kitschy plaques with spiritual sayings and bible quotes decorated the walls and surfaces. Two comfortable chairs sat beside one another on the left.
“Take a seat and make yourself comfortable, Juliana, while I put up a pot of coffee.”
“I can do it if you like.”
Katherine smiled. “No that’s okay. I can handle it.” With her back turned to the young woman, her hand scooped the teaspoonfuls into the paper coffee filter. She had to be very careful—not about spilling the grounds—but about how she posed her questions and answers to Lillian’s granddaughter. Too much was at stake; the exposure of all the well-concealed secrets that spanned over fifty years were now placed at her feet. How she handled it and what she divulged could affect so many lives, especially her own. She began her subtle inquiry, “So, what can I tell you about this area of Long Island?”
From behind her back, she heard the unlatching of the briefcase, a shuffling of papers, and discerned the opening of a box, its cover falling to the bare floor.
“Well, I’m interested in learning about Glen Cove, one of the mansions in particular.”
The organist sat beside her, eyes settling on the slight tremble to Juliana’s hand. “You don’t need to be afraid of me. Honesty is the best policy, truly. What is this about?”
“To be honest, what started as a simple quest for love and life has morphed into something else entirely, so I’m not sure what it is about. Both Barbara and my friend Jack alluded to a couple of things, but I can tell you for whom I am searching: the Renner family or more specifically, Elizabeth Renner.”
There they were, the words Katherine feared hung in the air. Further, this young woman had met Jack. She didn’t know how to proceed. Juliana should learn about her family, the family Lillian had denied her. “Jack?”
“Jack Robertsen, the travel reporter at Newsday.”
“Ah, and did he know this Elizabeth Renner?”
“I believe so, although he was rather tight-lipped about how. It was the same way with Barbara.”
“And why do you need to find her?”
“It’s silly really. My great-uncle William was in love with her, and I was deeded his house, which really was left as a shrine to her. Beyond her wartime letters and snapshots found in his footlocker, I’d like to learn their complete love story. It’s s
ad because I found her engagement ring sitting in a bedroom beside a photograph. Theirs seemed a romance like none other, and I suppose I’m captivated by it.” She removed a letter from the box. “Yesterday, I shared one of Lizzy’s letters with Jack and it helped to convince him to assist me in finding my uncle and drive me up to Meercrest’s former location.”
Juliana’s mention of letters strangled the air around Katherine, dangling like an expectant noose on judgment day. Fifty-year old guilt rose like bile, twisting the flesh at her neck. An engagement ring. I didn’t know. How could I have known? Oh, William …
Oblivious to the pain of the woman beside her, Juliana enthusiastically began to read aloud.
“November 7, 1942
My Dearest Darling,
You spoke your sonnet at Lake Mirror in the words “I love you, Lizzy”, and they are now deeply embedded within my heart and soul to carry me forward when you depart for Europe soon. I cannot fathom how I will adjust to periods of possible little communication from you. I have grown so accustomed to having you visit my home twice a week! Every letter, every word you write remains with me. I think of you night and day—day and night—the memory of your kisses and caresses, the lingering sound of your deep laughter, your intelligent conversation, and your goodness. These five months have been the happiest of my life, Will. Before you, everything, even the old Lizzy has become a blur. I never imagined that I would thank the war for bringing us together.
I am so happy that you have this time with your mother and father before your departure. With your ground crew’s leaving of Drane, your parents’ arrival to Florida could not have been any better timed. Do you think you will be flying to your embarkation airfield within the week? Please repeat my insistence that your parents could stay at Rosebriar for as long as they need or desire. The Renners will be remaining north, so there is nothing to worry about.
I love you, William Martel, but then you know that already. Thank you for not being such a chicken and finally confessing your feelings for me. Words cannot convey the depth of my understanding and gratitude in your confiding in me, and together although apart, we will pray for the safety of your family. Now that you have given me your heart and trust, I promise to guard it and protect it, always—until my dying breath. Be safe, my love. Come back to me. I’ll be waiting.
Yours,
Lizzy”
“Can you see why I’m so intrigued by them and need to find out what happened to separate them?”
Katherine knew the truth, but she had expected to die with that secret, determined never to cause unnecessary pain to Lizzy.
Juliana handed her a snapshot of them together at a U.S.O Dance at Drane Air Field in Lakeland, Florida. “See how captivating they were together? She was from Glen Cove and he was from Park Slope. This one here is the photograph of the home where she lived, Meercrest. Jack took me there yesterday to see Lizzy’s water tower.”
As though the calendar had reversed, instantaneously wiping away decades, it was now the fearful, seventeen year old hand of Kitty Renner that trembled when she took the two offered photographs. Yes, they were a beautiful couple. She had always thought so, and her heart clenched seeing them together after all this time. She had truly liked the lieutenant, and Lizzy had loved him like no other. Her heart broke; her guilt overwhelming. Time had not “chalked it up as a result of the war,” as she had once thought it would. “So, you say you would like to find him. Do you believe your great-uncle is still alive?”
“I don’t know. He left his home in 1950, only sending greeting cards now and again on momentous occasions. But as far as I can tell, it’s been many years of no contact.”
Kitty closed her eyes for a moment, taking a cleansing breath. Lizzy had confided in her what had happened in 1949 when she and Will unexpectedly met after seven long, painful years of separation. Further, Lillian had alluded to, never truly divulging, what Lizzy assumed was his devastation when he left New York the following year after his own father’s death.
A radiant glow spontaneously lit the face of the young woman, Lillian’s granddaughter, when Kitty stated, “I did know Lizzy. In fact, I knew all the sisters. No five girls could have been more different in every way possible. Two, the second and fourth were especially close and still are, and two, the oldest and youngest were especially … self-absorbed, manipulative creatures. The middle daughter was highly independent and sought refuge and peace in the joy of building her own new family with a beloved husband, son, and granddaughter. She never, ever, came back to the Island to see her sisters, not that she didn’t love them, but Glen Cove ceased being a home to her in 1942. In fact, with the exception of her two beloved sisters, she ceased being a Renner.”
The automatic drip coffee pot gave up its final push, and Juliana jumped up to pour two cups. “And their parents?”
Kitty sighed. “Why … I hardly knew them at all. Does one really know a person?”
Juliana met her comment with silence, feeling extremely at ease with this woman she had never met before. The tone of her voice was strangely anodyne and uncannily familiar. She surmised it was because Kitty knew Lizzy and somehow, Juliana felt as if she knew Lizzy in a way. After a long minute spent preparing the coffees, Juliana looked over her shoulder. “Were the Renners, um, the Nazis that Barbara mentioned?”
“Well, that’s a story for another time, okay?”
The hair stood on Kitty’s neck, fighting against those suppressed painful memories. She leaned back in her chair, continuing this unexpected but long overdue autobiography of five sisters as Juliana placed two plastic creamer containers and sugar packets before her.
“The youngest daughter, Gloria was as wild as wild can be. Untamed and unchecked at fifteen, she was, during the forties, what folks referred to as a Victory-Girl, or V-Girl as they were called, only the family never knew it. Taking the train with her girlfriends into the city at all hours and picking up soldiers in Times Square or Grand Central Station, offering them sex in exchange for a night out on the town and receiving venereal disease in addition to a good time. It was a terrible scandal on the Renner family, even making its way into the Social Diary. Disowned, Gloria’s father sent her to New Jersey to his sister Helga in ’44. Years later at the ripe age of nineteen, she moved to California where she depleted her trust fund. Sadly, no longer a child of the affluent, society lifestyle … well, I’m not entirely sure how she lived her life, but she died from a drug overdose in the mid-sixties.”
As much as Kitty disliked her cruel younger sister, even after all these years, she paused in sad reflection. Thankful for Juliana’s following comment, in silence she offered up a prayer for the soul of her wayward sister.
“I’ve never heard of a V-Girl.” Juliana wrote furiously on her pad. Not that this Gloria mattered, but it was an interesting follow-up piece about wartime promiscuity that could definitely be featured in Allure at a later date.
“Now, the oldest sister, Ingrid, currently lives in the former Renner family winter retreat home, Rosebriar Manor in Sarasota, Florida. After their mother’s death in the seventies, Lizzy and the other two sisters traded Rosebriar for Ingrid’s share of the Renner estate inheritance. She forfeited her rights to Meercrest and anything else beyond Rosebriar. Upon her death, the Sarasota property and all its holdings revert to the Renner sisters. You see, back in the forties, the sisters had a terrible, irreparable falling out, so the loss of her sisterly ‘affection’ was negligible. I imagine she still lives there in her miserable world. The latest gossip was that she was on her fifth husband.”
With obvious disdain and a curled lip, Juliana repined, “She sounds like my mother.”
“I assure you, no matter how bad you think your mother is, there is no one as ruthless or repugnant as Ingrid Renner. Her beauty and vanity made her ugly of heart, thinking herself superior. She openly expressed her despicable beliefs in eugenics. She is the sister who is never referenced, her name considered even a further taint upon the family’s already
destroyed legacy—of which you alluded to earlier.”
And for that last reason alone, Ingrid would receive no prayers from the former Kitty Renner, the daughter whose own father and sister considered her to be counted as an undesirable—unfit for life due to her polio. She paused, taking a sip of her coffee.
“Did she also abandon a child?”
Kitty furrowed her brow, placing the cup down on the desk. “No. Thankfully, she never wanted children.”
“And the others? Are Kitty and Lizzy still alive?”
“I can see how eager you are, but humor me as I get to that. Yes, Lizzy is still alive, Juliana, but her story is her own where it relates to your great-uncle. I can’t share those things with you but what I can tell you is what an incredible woman Lizzy is and how the person she became during the war changed the fate of so many people, specifically the life of the sister she is closest to. Now, hers is a story that I can intimately share with you.” Her eyes filled with tears, searching for the right words to describe Lizzy, as she struggled to retain this detached second person narrative.
Juliana placed her coffee cup on the desk and sat forward, giving the organist all her attention. She reached out and touched the woman’s hand, offering encouragement to continue. At the touch of their hands a shiver ran up her spine. That strange niggle in the back of her mind had now become more pronounced and she knew instinctively that Mrs. Katherine Landry was part of Lizzy’s story, too, and … maybe part of her great-uncle’s story.
Kitty smiled apologetically for her tears. “The fourth daughter, Kitty, contracted polio at the age of thirteen, and it devastated her. She had dreams of dancing and continuing to study the piano, boys and sailing, tennis and swimming, and if not for Lizzy, her spirits would have been dashed when faced with a life without those things. Essentially, because of her sudden ‘inferiority’, Kitty was abandoned by her parents—maybe not physically but without a doubt emotionally.”
She swallowed and fought the urge to burst into tears.