Rita. If you are still locked up in that house...throw open those windows and dust your boy’s bedroom. Wash his sheets and let them dry in the spring breeze. Do it all the time so when he comes home they are fresh. Make his favorite meals. Prepare for his homecoming.
Because Toby will come home. God won’t take them both. And when he comes home you damn well better be ready for him.
Get OUT of there, Rita Vincenzo! You are not dishonoring Sal by going on with life. You honor him by taking care of Toby.
Sal needs you to be prepared to take care of your son. His mind, his body. His soul. And you can’t take care of someone’s soul if yours is lost.
Write to me, Rita.
Write to me while you wash his things. Tell me how to care for my chickens. Yell at me about Robbie. Ask me for one of my speeches. Scold me about my wild hair. Tell me about the night you gave birth to Toby. Or day?
All of my love,
Glory
P.S. Robbie painted you a dove. Irene has it. If you want it, you better ask her for it.
May 5, 1944
ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS
Dear Irene,
Please call me Glory. I suppose there’s a whole lot of differences between Massachusetts and Iowa, but I feel so close to you. Don’t ask me why. I don’t really know why....
So by now my plan has hatched. I hope it worked. And if it didn’t...yes. Have Charlie bust down that door. She has a son to take care of. And a grandson, too.
And I know a thing or two about taking care of sons. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your update. I am so grateful.
And thank you. Thank you for taking the time to work Rita’s garden. It would be such a shame if it went sour. It’s as alive as she is.
Well, I guess that’s that.
Let me know what happens.
Yours in peace,
Glory
P.S. I’ve been aching to tell you this. It’s my fault. All of her hysterics about the telegram. When Robbie was sick in the hospital I sent her a telegram without thinking. I won’t ever forgive myself. Especially now.
May 6, 1944
IOWA CITY, IOWA
Glory,
Thank you.
The sun feels good.
Sing to your hens. Talk to them softly. Chickens scare easy, but they’ll lay eggs if you don’t give up.
And you don’t give up, do you? Those birds are lucky.
This bird is lucky.
Love,
Rita
May 9, 1944
IOWA CITY, IOWA
Dear Glory,
The boy who delivered the telegram was beautiful. I watched him come up the road, my eyes following his path as he passed each house and rejected the address with a quick flick of his head before moving to the next, like a hummingbird in search of the flower which holds enough nectar.
His skin shone with health and the hair peeking out from under his cap was dark gold, a shade deeper than Toby’s. I spent a moment worrying Toby’s hair had darkened in the year since I’d seen him last. I decided it would still suit him, took a sip of my tea and studied my nails, disappointed in what typing had done to them. My mind visited the two colors of nail varnish in my bathroom cabinet, and I tried to decide which I liked better.
The boy approached the gate and I smiled and gave a little wave. His response was a twitch of the shoulder. His hand would not come up and his eyes would not meet mine.
And I knew.
The first part of my brain to respond chanted a quick prayer: Not Toby, not Toby, not Toby. It didn’t occur to me that if God listened to my plea, then Sal’s name would be on that telegram.
I felt the slip of paper in my hand. I must have signed the book. I don’t remember. I read, mouthing the words like a young child.
Then I screamed. I know I kept screaming because the boy backed into the closed gate, wincing with fear. I yelled for him to go, shrieked, but he wouldn’t budge. Later, I remembered they aren’t supposed to leave a recipient alone after bad news. He was simply following guidelines. But I couldn’t reason, Glory. I thought he might have another in his bag for me, the final one that said no one would come back, that the war had taken them both.
I threw my cup down and ran. With the door closed behind me I could breathe again. This was Sal’s house. Our first house together. He would come back if I willed it. If I shut everything else out and filled the room with memories, the past could become the present, and I could live there, with him. I would never leave.
What I was really doing was building a tomb. I have no body to bury. Sal could be anywhere. I needed him to rest. I had to draw his soul to me.
When I got your first letter I knew I was doing the right thing. And I did dance with him.
When I got the second, I thought about the things I did not like about myself. They were the very things that made Sal trust me enough to marry me. I had to do right by my husband.
When I got the third, I thought about a sweet, pale little boy drawing a chicken. I thought about a baby’s palm pressed against my window, a boy named for his grandfather.
When I got the fourth, I did take a peek through the curtains to watch Charlie and Irene. They were digging holes for two tomato plants much too close together. The roots would intertwine. If one died and I had to tear it from the ground, the other would only survive if it could burrow into the soil with the roots that remained.
When I got the fifth, I found my mourning dress and buried it under a heap of junk in the front closet. Then I found my gold lamé dancing dress and cut a star from it. I sewed it over the blue one. Tragedy might not shine, but my husband did. More than anyone else. I rehung the flag in the window.
And then I walked out into the sunlight.
Thank you for bringing me there.
Love,
Rita
May 15, 1944
V-mail from Seaman Tobias Vincenzo to Marguerite Vincenzo
I see the moon
and the moon sees me
and the moon sees someone
that I want to see
God bless the moon
and God bless me
and God bless the somebody I want to see.
I miss you, Ma.
—Toby
May 15, 1944
V-mail from Seaman Tobias Vincenzo to Roylene Dawson
Dear Roylene,
Thank you for your letters.
I’m sorry for what I said in mine. You’re right—a boy should know his father. It’s just, I can’t stand the thought of being introduced to him through a photograph, or a letter, or one of my ma’s crazy stories. I want him to touch flesh and blood. I want glorious recognition when I look into his eyes. I know what it’s like to reach out for my father’s solid hand and only get a fistful of memories. And Little Sal would get secondhand ones, at that.
Oh, baby, grief has made mush of my brain.
I can’t help my mother. Writing words on a piece of paper isn’t enough. I tried, but my hands shake, and everything I put down seems weak and lacking. I did send something, but I want you to do me a favor. Go over to the house and squeeze her, hard. Say it’s from me. I know this might embarrass you, but the thought of you doing it will help me sleep at night.
Please send my regards to Miss Wachowski and tell that Charlie fella I appreciate his helping out. And thanks for the story about my dad. Do you still have the socks? I’d like to think you’d kept them.
I think about you day and night.
Toby
May 15, 1944
V-mail from Seaman Tobias Vincenzo to Gloria Whitehall
Dear Mrs. Whitehall,
Thank you for writing.
Your name was not new to me when I got your letter. My mother has been writing about you for a year now. The first time she did, she ca
lled you “Mrs. Gloria Whitehall of Rockport, Massachusetts.” I must admit I disliked you immediately because 1. You had obviously captured the attention of my ma, and 2. You had a definite place in the world. I do not. I am on a ship. I’m no longer Toby Vincenzo of Iowa City, Iowa. I’m not allowed to tell you where I am. I probably couldn’t do that anyway.
And now my father has no place on the map. The only one of us who does is my ma. I need her letters to remind me. I need her.
It’s my understanding that you helped keep her standing on solid ground when she found out about my dad. That you somehow held her in place.
I can’t thank you enough.
Sincerely,
Toby Vincenzo
May 16, 1944
ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS
Dear Rita,
I’m so glad you emerged from your house and turned your face toward the sun. I was worried, to say the least. But then, I worry all the time. It’s some sort of low hum in the back of my mind. Do we all have it? A nation—a world—of constant worry?
I worry all the time about receiving my own telegram. Thank you for extending me the courtesy that I so rashly did not extend to you last year. I feel even more foolish now, if that’s possible.
I worry about the boy who delivered your telegram. All those boys delivering all that bad news. What memories will they bring with them into their lives? Too much worry all around.
So... I suppose the best thing for both of us to do is to just try and move ahead. We can’t move on...that’s impossible. But we can go onward.
And so it’s the middle of a beautiful spring here in Rockport. I don’t know how to explain the beauty of my garden. The amazing growth. How things can be so healthy when the world is so in trouble I will never understand. Things have slowed down quite a bit here. Fewer people show up for the Women to Work meetings. Everyone is so busy with their own housework and end of the school year preparations. Also, after that hard winter, I think people are busy being outside. It makes me wonder if I should start to hold outdoor rallies. Maybe even move some of them to Boston as I believe people are becoming tired of me here. What do you think? Should I spend more time there? It’s about three-quarters of an hour by train. An hour if I drive.
Did I ever tell you that I drive? I love to drive. My father taught me how when I was thirteen. He was drunk and annoyed with some people during one of mother’s “Grand Rose” events. He took me out to the back fields and let me tear up the turf in his Model T. He called me a “Speed Demon.”
Mother wasn’t even mad when he told her. He said, “Mother, our girl is a mighty Speed Demon!” And I remember my mother looked at him—not at me—and said, “It’s good of you to teach the child. A woman needs to be as independent as she can be or else the world will use her skirts as handkerchiefs and then toss her in the garbage.”
I was mesmerized by the story of your mother and the suffragettes. I know my mother was part of movements like that, probably because she was so unorthodox. But your mother was just a proud citizen who wanted her own daughter to know her own worth. This is important for me to understand.
I’m learning balance.
The days are long now, so long. Robbie is well recovered from his latest recurrence of the fever, and Levi found a specialist in New Haven (Connecticut) at the medical school. There is a trial of a sort of medicine that will hopefully stop the progression of the disease. We leave next week. Say a prayer.
The other day I was watching the two of them eat lunch on a red-and-white checkered tablecloth out in the yard by the garden. The sunflowers are as tall as Robbie now (he calls them Rita 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...too!) and Levi held Robbie’s hand to his heart and put his own strong hand on Robbie’s wispy chest. “My heart doesn’t want to work sometimes, either. But see? I’m strong. I can do a lot of things,” I heard him say.
But the truth is, they are very different conditions. Levi has a murmur. It doesn’t even really affect him. And that is why he’s so ashamed not to be able to fight.
Oh, well. Life does go on. And as the weather turns warm, my taste buds ache for the flavors of summer! I can barely wait for a plump tomato. I look every day hoping for an early yellow blossom that will promise a big, ripe fruit!
But until then...more beans.
All of my love,
Glory
Baked Beans
Ingredients:
2 cups navy beans (or your favorite dried bean—not lentils or peas, though, they cook too fast)
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons brown sugar
¼ cup molasses
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon dry mustard
¼ cup chopped white onion
1 cup boiling water
½ pound salt pork
How to make it:
Wash beans, then cover with water and soak overnight and drain well.
Cover with large amount of boiling salted water.
Boil slowly for 1 hour, then drain well.
Combine salt, sugar, molasses, bay leaf, mustard, onion and water, then add to beans.
Pour into bean pot.
Score rind of pork and press into beans leaving rind exposed.
Cover beans with more boiling water and bake at 300°F for 4 hours.
Remove cover for last hour of baking.
May 23, 1944
IOWA CITY, IOWA
Dear Glory,
I’m sleeping, breathing, washing my face, putting on clothes. I’m also back at work for Dr. Aloysius Martin. Is this living? I don’t know. It’s an approximation, and I guess that’s good enough for now.
When I read about the medicine for Robbie, I immediately thought, Sal, honey, investigate it when you get home. I’m talking to him all the time, Glory. Don’t call the white jackets yet, though. I know he’s gone, but like I said, I drew his soul to me to rest, and he came. I haven’t been leaving him alone much, but then Sal was always big on talking. And anyway, that’s what I would be doing if I was going to church, right? Speaking with spirits?
I must say it’s helping. So is Dr. Aloysius Martin. When I first returned he treated me like a porcelain vase with a small crack—one false move and I would shatter to pieces. He also took the map down. First thing I did was put it back up. I want to watch us win this war on the wall in front of me. It’s heating up, but the result will be in our favor. I just know it. My Sal contributed to that. Dr. Aloysius Martin was enthusiastic, to say the least, and even bought be a new set of pushpins. He’s also stopped being so nervous around me.
I like occupying my brain with talk of longitude and latitude, and I like the way a flat map allows one to take in the entire world at a glance. I haven’t been outside this country. When we had a little time and money, we usually visited Sal’s family in Chicago, or my cousin in Atlanta. Once, we took Toby to the Black Hills and watched workers carve away at Mount Rushmore. But that’s pretty much it.
It shames me to admit this, but one of the reasons I was furious with Sal for enlisting was that he would see the world without me. When he’d write about North Africa or Italy I would grow jealous. I’m not proud of my pettiness. I’ve reread those letters over the past few weeks, and now I see he was trying to help me see those places, really see them, through his words, like a picture postcard. I’ve apologized to him for not appreciating his efforts. It’s not enough, though. I’m going to have to find an olive tree that will grow in Iowa. Charlie might be able to help me—he seems to have a knack for obtaining items no one else can get.
For some reason, I’m now comfortable with Charlie’s possible criminality. Maybe it seems such a small offense in the grand scheme of things. Irene doesn’t agree. She’s downgraded her relationship with Charlie to “friendly acquaintance” status. They do seem to be genuine friends, and the only change I’ve noticed is they’ve stopped holding hands at lun
ch. Still, it bothered me that I hadn’t been in my right mind when Irene made her decision. I showed up unannounced in the library yesterday afternoon, and convinced her to take a coffee break. It took a while to get her talking—it always does with Irene—but after a little prodding it all came tumbling out.
“I fell in love with the idea of having a man,” she explained. “I realized a war was going on, and I was still sitting at the same desk, surrounded by the same books, living the same life I’ll probably be living in twenty years. At first I was just excited. Then I thought he could save me from boring myself to death.”
“I don’t think you’re the first to think it, hon,” I said, patting her arm.
“It wasn’t fair to make someone else responsible for my life. Especially someone I don’t love. As much as I’ve tried to force it, he’s not right for me. I couldn’t keep on pretending he was.” She paused, took a sip of her coffee. “I know you’ll tell me the truth, Margie. Do you think I’m stupid? I’m thirty-nine this year—how many more chances am I going to get?”
I couldn’t answer that question. How much do any of us know the future? I did say this: “You’re very brave, and I don’t want anyone to save you from yourself. I like who you are.”
She smiled and went back to work. I hope she knows I meant every word.
Well, please write and tell me what the doctors said they could do for Robbie. I just adored the dove he drew. That boy is sure talented. I’ve stopped posting his work on my fridge and place it in a real frame instead. He’s turned me into a real art aficionado!
Love,
Rita
P.S. The beans went over really well at the USO. I’ve got one for you. Mrs. Hansen from down the block brought it over a couple of weeks ago when I came up for air.
Mock Veal Cutlets
1 pound ground veal
6 tablespoons fat (or something oily)
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