Charlie sighed and asked if he could tell her a story. Then he told a tale I’d been waiting to hear for a long time. It came out in a torrent—his jailbird father, alcoholic mother, juvenile delinquency. He grew up in the back of a pool hall, was arrested for the first time at twelve years old when his father talked him into driving a getaway car after he’d robbed a drugstore.
“I got plenty to be ashamed of, and I’ve spent the past few years trying to catch my own glimpse of what I can be,” Charlie said after he’d finished. “I wanted the war to help me get there, to make me whole. That didn’t play out, but it might for you. I don’t have a child, but if I did, I’d do everything I could to make sure I could look him in the eye when he asked what kind of man I was. Now, you got nothing to be ashamed of besides being born to a real SOB, but life is long, and if you feel you’ll look back on this experience and see it’s made yours a better one, then you need to consider it.”
I wanted to object. Roylene was already whole in my book. But some kind of understanding passed between the two of them, something outside of my comprehension, so I didn’t say a word. After a moment, Roylene slid off the car and walked up to me. “I need to do this, for Little Sal and Toby...and me,” she said, her eyes full of conviction. “I don’t take it lightly, and I know I’m taking a risk. I need your permission for leaving, though, or it won’t feel right. I trust your opinion more than any other, Mrs. Vincenzo. Do you think I should go?”
Every part of me wanted to scoop her up and take her back to Iowa City, to her son and the life I wanted her to live. She gazed at me expectantly, her eyes clouding up a bit when she guessed my answer.
“Every day I’ll tell Little Sal about his brave mommy and daddy,” I said, and pulled her trembling body close. “It’s only a year, hon. You go. Jump off some cliffs for both of us.”
I kissed her forehead and promised to send weekly updates of Little Sal’s progress. And then I let her go. It’s the third time I’ve given someone to this war and, oh, Glory, in some ways, it was the hardest.
On the way home, Charlie pulled over onto an embankment about three miles past Waterloo.
“Everything I told her was true,” he said, cutting the engine. “There’s more to the story. I want you to hear it, is that all right?”
The next decade after the drugstore robbery was one of petty (and not-so-petty) thefts and consistent arrests. He did some adult time in the Oklahoma State Pen. That’s what doomed him to 4-F status. “I thought if I could serve,” he admitted, “I could make up for what I’d done.”
Then Charlie went on, from the sordid mess of his mother’s death to his father’s final incarceration, to the guilt and pain and regret that tug at his pant leg like the unhappy, attention-starved child he was.
Given his bravery, I’m not proud of what happened next. As he talked, mean thoughts zipped through my head like bolts of lightning. Why was Charlie sitting next to me and not Sal? Why is my husband—a man who read Shakespeare and never harmed a fly—decomposing under a mound of Italian soil while this man wears shiny shoes and drinks hooch and plays Monopoly at my dining room table?
Charlie must have sensed something. He dropped forward, gluing his forehead to the steering wheel, arms slack at his sides. The droop of his shoulders announced his defeat.
His total immobility prompted me to act. I gently pushed him upright. I combed through his tangled hair, wiped the sweat from his brow, curled his fingers over the wheel. I turned the radio on to something low and melodic. “You are a respectable man out for a Sunday drive,” I said. “I believe it, so you should start believing it, too.”
“Do you?” he whispered. “Do you really believe it?”
I did. It was a side of him I had seen, and one I knew to be true. “I do,” I said, and we drove off into the heart of Iowa, two people under the wide expanse of cloudless sky.
This is the thing, Glory—sometimes it takes so long to see the best sides of a person. I’m not certain Robert has seen all you have to offer. I don’t even know if you’re aware of your many attributes. They lie in wait, like a tower of brightly wrapped gifts hidden in a cedar closet. When the door finally opens you have to be certain they won’t come tumbling out, overwhelming him.
Anna has the rare talent of seeing more than most. Levi, too, in his own way. Now it’s time for Robert to have his chance. Let him discover you, and you him. Take the time you both deserve.
Good luck, my friend.
Love,
Rita
October 13, 1944
ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS
Dear Mother,
It’s been five years since we said our last goodbye. Do you remember that October? The Indian summer stayed and stayed. I felt that somehow, if it lingered...so would you. How O. Henry of me. Sophomoric, you’d probably say.
I’m writing this letter because I couldn’t find you when I went home. I felt sure I’d see your ghost. To be honest, I’ve been a little mad that you haven’t haunted me. I suppose you and Father are dancing at some infinity ball.
I’ve taken to writing letters, you see. I’ve made a friend through paper and pens and envelopes and postage. A true friend. Not like the girls at school or the silly geese you dressed me up to play with as a child.
Her name is Rita and she lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Her husband just died in the war last spring. He was wonderful even though I didn’t know him.
Are you engulfed up there, with all these spirits coming through? Or do you have box seats?
Anyway, I’ve learned a lot through writing things down. So I figured I’d let you go this way.
I’m letting go of the ache for you. The desire that wasn’t filled even when you were here on earth. I’m letting go of the idea that I can still please or displease you. I’m letting go of the horrible fear that I’ll turn into you someday. And also letting go of the fear that I won’t.
When I came home I wanted to confess all my sins. I needed you to tell me what to do. You see, I love two men. I love Levi. I love him very much. And to make everything more complicated, Robert loves him, too.
Every day I worry about losing one or the other (or both!) of them. I wake up with an ache that won’t go away. It throbs inside of me all day long.
I can’t wait until summer comes around the bend again. I’ll be able to run down to the cove and dive into the deep waters there. Somehow I think those icy waters will calm this heart that is on fire. You liked the cove, didn’t you, Mother? Or have I made that up in my mind?
I’m thinking so much of you lately. Of you and Father both. The love you had together. Perhaps that’s what I’ve been looking for. That combination of fiery passion as well as stable commitment. Maybe you two were the lucky ones. I suppose the rest of us need to pick one or the other and then try our best to create the other portion of that amazing equation as we live our lives. Yes, that seems to be it, doesn’t it? Wake in the stability of a proven, time-tested love and then create the passion that can exist inside of it.
Look. See what you’ve done now? You’re not even here walking on this earth and you’ve helped me make my decision.
I can still see you, the way you looked at me when I came home from the Sadie Hawkins dance. You were sitting in that red velvet wing chair wearing your glorious taffeta night robe and reading.
“Who did you choose?” you asked without looking up.
“Robert,” I said, and sat on the ground leaning my head against your knee.
You didn’t say anything else, but you did the most incredible thing. You let your hand find my hair. And then you stroked my head. Do you remember? It was the most affectionate you’d been with me in years.
Would you stroke my head now, Mother? Now that I’ve made this decision? I’ll dream that you would. I’ll dream your soft hands are all around me.
I love you, Mother.
All best to y
ou in heaven,
Gloria
[Letter stuffed into the side pocket of Glory’s jewelry box.]
October 16, 1944
ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS
Dear Rita,
Has the world ever been so beautiful and terrifying as it is right now? I never thought I was a person who was afraid of much. But boy, I’m scared.
Your letter arrived not a moment too soon (as they always seem to do!). Just when I was beginning to doubt that I could maintain this entire farce. And that’s what it started to feel like, a farce. Shakespearean (so Sal would have loved a retelling of the story) and forced. Every morning I felt I pasted a lipstick smile across my lips and hoped the day would rush by. Afraid to lock eyes with Levi, whose longing seeps from him. Or even look too hard at Robert, whose eyes hold the same longing. Like the other night when I was clearing the dinner dishes and Robert came in to help me. Levi grabbed the dish from him.
“I’ve got it,” said Robert, holding firm to the plate.
“Let me,” said Levi, not letting go either.
They both pulled at it and then it fell to the floor. Crashed into a million pieces. Then they both just stared at me. I’m so exhausted by all the tension. Something has got to be done.
Or Robbie, who needs so much, and Corrine, whose little life has been turned upside down more than any of ours, I guess.
So many sets of eyes pleading for me to be more than I am. Frankly, I’m exhausted. And then? Then I get your letter.
I was walking back from a glorious outdoor rally. I’d just made a speech about “Maintaining Our Autonomy When the War Is Over” (the irony of this was not lost on me, but I was persuasive, anyway). We were on the green, near the beach, but I’d decided to take the long way home. So I walked through town.
It’s lovely here when the tourists leave. Don’t get me wrong, I love the jumble of new people during the late spring and summer months. They give this place a newness that it needs. But when they empty out, it’s like the sea at low tide. An acquired taste. And yet...a treasure trove of tide pools and deep-sea shells. And the water is always so peaceful even if it’s laden with seaweed.
Anyway, I was walking through town and Sam comes running out of the post office waving a letter. He gave it to me and then held my hand. “Someday you’ll have to tell me all about these letters, Mrs. Whitehall,” he said. “I get almost as excited as you do when they come in and I don’t even know why!” Then he went back into the post office.
I liked that. Feeling like our friendship has gone beyond us. It is one of the only good feelings I have these days. Can you tell I’m trying to skirt around an issue here? Because I am. My words fail me here almost as much as they did the very first time I tried to write to you.
It happened. All of it happened. And now? Now I’m lost. Here goes, the whole shebang of it.
When he first got home, Robert was doing exceptionally well. But as the elation of homecoming began wearing off, reality sunk in. He needs help to bathe, Rita. And help to dress. He tries, but falls. His upper arms are so strong...but I think there’s a part of his brain that assumes his legs will work. So he tries to make them move, and when they don’t...he finds himself on the floor. He won’t let me see him like that, so he yells and grabs for the bottoms of doors, trying to slam them shut. To close me out.
It was the sneaking out of bed at night that was the worst. And it led to all the trouble. I’d lie there and pretend to stay asleep. Pretend I couldn’t hear him struggle from the bed to the chair. I told myself I pretended because I wanted him to have that little bit of grace. Truth is, I knew what could happen in the dark night, just the two of us and some crickets. Honesty. The kind that turns your stomach.
One night, though, I was so restless I followed him out of the bedroom. He wheeled out onto the back porch to smoke. When I got to the door and looked out, I could see the back of his head, the smoke curling into the darkness.
You were with me in my mind at that very moment, as if you were standing right next to me.
“It’s now or never, Glory...” you said.
So out I went.
“Got one of those for me?” I asked.
He didn’t turn around right away. I walked around to face him and sat right up on the weathered wooden table we keep out there. That way, my head was a bit higher than his. I needed some kind of power in the situation or I’d never do what had to be done.
He shook a cigarette out of his pack and lit one for me.
“When did you start, Ladygirl? Not too ladylike...”
I took the cigarette and lingered over my first drag. “Not very ladylike to sit on a table in your nightgown, either,” I said.
“Maybe we lost all the real ladies to the war,” he said.
“Maybe so,” I said, but then I got quiet because I was losing my nerve. Thank God he knows me. Thank the good Lord.
“You got something to tell me, Ladygirl?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I knew it,” he said, slapping his knee and laughing. “I could feel it from the day I got off the train. It’s been written all over your face. Spit it out, quick. Who is this new Gloria I’m married to? The old Gloria Whitehall would have told me anything.”
“It’s not that easy, Robert. It’s about the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“It’s serious?” he asked.
And that was it. I wasn’t going to bruise his pride any more by making him play twenty questions with me. I let my weakness with Levi fall out of my mouth. The flirting, the kiss, the—you know. I won’t write it.
Nothing but crickets were heard for a long, long time. So long I helped myself to another three or four cigarettes. He didn’t offer to light those.
“Do you love him, Glory?”
That’s what he asked when he broke his silence. Do I love him...do I love him.
I thought I’d say no. But when I opened my mouth, I said, “Yes, I do. But not how I love you, Robert. Not like a wife loves her husband. I love him like a dear friend. Like a long-ago love. Not up close. I love him from years and years away.”
“Will you leave me be for a bit?” he asked. His voice cracking and breaking my heart.
“You want me to go to bed?” I asked.
“Yes. Go to bed. I need to be alone, okay, Gloria?”
Gloria. Not Ladygirl. Maybe never Ladygirl again.
I went to bed but I didn’t sleep a wink. I heard him come in the house and then I heard some things breaking. But I didn’t get up. After it got quiet I went to check on him. He was in the living room, asleep in his wheelchair, holding a picture frame. I eased it out of his hand, careful not to wake him. It was a picture of the three of us—me and Levi and Robert, our arms around one another from when we were kids. The three musketeers.
Our wedding picture was on the floor, glass broken. I took the photo out of the frame and eased that one back into his hands. He would wake up holding us as a couple. And I would put the picture of the three of us high up on a shelf, where it belonged.
The next morning I woke up to shouting.
“She’s my wife!” yelled Robert.
I ran to the porch and out the screen door in time to see him throw his coffee cup at Levi. I froze.
“What part of that did you not understand, Levi? Were you still so angry at me for winning her heart? Were you angry at me for being healthy enough to fight in the war? Well, look at me, man! Who wins? WHO WINS NOW? You get the girl and you get to walk. You get a nice house and two kids, too. Happy? Are you happy?” He was pulling himself up by the porch columns, his legs slipping, but his arms holding strong.
Levi was white. Pale as if he was dead. I could tell he wanted to help Robert, but knew he mustn’t get too close. Because in Robert’s face was a rage neither one of us had ever seen. A rage that came from a dark, black place, Rita. The war was ins
ide of him...ready to come out.
“I didn’t get the girl, Robert. I might have got her attention for a second...but I didn’t get her. She’s always been yours, we all know it,” said Levi, loud enough to be heard over Robert’s roaring tenor. Just yelling without words.
That’s when Robert fell. He fell to the ground, down the two small steps from the porch to the grass.
Levi couldn’t stand it, so he reached down to help him up. But then Robert’s arms shot up and before I knew it he’d turned Levi over and had him pinned to the ground. He was punching him, over and over again. Levi was struggling to get up...and that’s when I unfroze.
“Stop it! STOP IT!” I cried. I threw myself on Robert’s back, and he shot up his elbow. It clocked me right in the eye. I fell to the ground next to them, and I must have screamed because the children were out and on the porch, and then on top of me in a heap.
Robert turned to me, “Oh, Jesus, Glory! Are you okay?” He was at my side in a flash. “What did I do...? What have I done? What the hell is happening to us?” he choked out through his enraged broken heart. His eyes were absolutely frantic, Rita. I think it wasn’t until that very moment that I understood the full ramifications of my transgressions. He fell back and leaned his body against the lattice of the back porch. The children went to him, trying to hush him. How they’ve fallen in love with their daddy so quickly. It’s been a natural adjustment for them. He shines in their eyes.
Levi got up and backed about a yard away from the pack of us. There was crying and soothing and cooing going on for the children...and soon, believe it or not, there was laughing. All of us. Levi, too.
My eye hurt, but my heart was starting to heal.
When all the fuss quieted down, Levi was the first one to talk.
“I came over this morning to tell you I’m leaving. I’m going to California. I got a cousin out there who bought some land. He fought in the war, fell in love with grapes in Italy, I guess. Wants to start a vineyard.”
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