The towels were waiting just where she’d left them—in a forgotten pile, next to a bag of peaches. As she retraced her steps and headed back to the pool, Lillian made a mental note to ask the gardeners about her tomato plants—the ones in her victory garden were brown and limp.
She could hear Grace shouting even before she could see her. What has Peter done now? It wasn’t her son, however, who was the object of Grace’s reprimand, but a very small boy—no older than three. His mother knelt beside him, rubbing his back. As Lillian got closer, she recognized the young mother as Millie Fein. Her hair was tied back with one of the red bandannas issued by the Women Ordnance Workers.
“Millie! Is something wrong?”
When Millie realized who it was, her face flooded with relief. “Lillian!”
Grace frowned. “You two know each other?”
“Of course we do. Millie is Ruth Blum’s sister. I’m sure you remember her—I introduced her at one of our meetings in June.”
There was no doubt in Lillian’s mind that Grace knew who Millie was; she wasn’t the kind of woman to forget a face so quickly. Still, Grace wasn’t above pretending to forget, especially when the face belonged to someone like Millie—someone young and pretty but without social connections.
“Yes, of course,” Grace murmured. “I hadn’t realized that the two of you were still in touch.”
Lillian bent down next to Michael. “Would you like a peach?” she asked, holding one out to him. “It’s from a tree near our house. Peter! Come over here and say hello to Michael. I want you to take him to the shallow end of the pool and sit in the shade with him while he finishes his snack. When he’s done, you can take him swimming.”
Peter grinned. “You mean you’re going to let me go back into the pool?”
“As long as you behave.” When the boys were out of earshot, she turned to Grace. “Now, then, is there some sort of problem? I could have sworn I heard some raised voices when I was walking through the hedges.”
Grace pursed her lips. “This pool has always been for the exclusive use of armory officers and their families. It is for residents only, not for civilian workers or their children.”
“Millie is a member of Officer Blum’s extended family,” Lillian said. “And, since she lives with her sister, she is also a resident.”
“She works at the shops,” Grace answered. “Look at her badge. This pool is not for shopworkers.”
“I’m sure you’re not suggesting that you are superior to our shopworkers, Grace. Because that would be like saying you were better than our soldiers—better than the men who risk their lives for our country.”
“That’s not what I mean, Lillian, and you know it. This pool is for officers and their immediate families. If we let Millie in, where does it end? Is Ruth’s third cousin going to be here next week? Or Millie’s friends?” Grace kept her voice low so the children wouldn’t hear, but her tone was unyielding. “I didn’t want to have to say this, but I can see that you’re going to make me spell it out for you. You’re ignoring the obvious health risks to our children! It’s polio season, and swimming pools are prime breeding grounds. I’ve read a dozen articles at least, and they all say so. We don’t know who Millie’s son is associating with, what germs he’s being exposed to, what diseases he could spread—”
“Stop it this instant! That is enough!” Lillian was certain that no one had ever shouted at Grace before—for a moment, the awful woman was stunned into silence. But Grace regained her composure quickly.
“Madeline, Clara, time to leave now.” The command was unambiguous; Grace’s voice was firm. The always-obedient Peabody girls climbed out of the pool, buckled their sandals, and wrapped their towels around their waists.
“I hope you and your friend enjoy the afternoon,” Grace said. “It’s gotten too warm for us, I’m afraid.”
Lillian slipped her arm around Millie’s shoulder. “Funny how some people can’t take the heat.”
Millie
Brooklyn, New York (August 1937)
Despite the rising temperature outside, Millie’s mother insisted on cooking. When Millie told her to sit and relax for a while, she dismissed the suggestion with a wave of her hand. “Hot or cold,” she grunted, “people need to eat.”
“But no one wants soup in weather like this. It’s an inferno in here.”
“Who said anything about soup? I’m making stuffed cabbage.”
“Oh, Mama,” Millie groaned. “That’s even worse.” Millie leaned against the counter, fanning herself with a day-old newspaper, while her mother separated a fat, green cabbage into leaves. A pot of salted water bubbled on the stove. As the leaves began to boil, the sour smell of cooked cabbage overwhelmed the room.
“I need some fresh air,” Millie said.
“So, go down to the drugstore and get some ice cream with your friends. You can pick up some aspirin for me while you’re there.”
Millie hadn’t mentioned it to her mother, but she hadn’t seen much of her girlfriends lately. They’d stopped calling her for plans when she and Lenny had gotten serious, and when she’d asked them about it, they had only made excuses. You’re always out with him. You’re never home when we call. And then there were the rumors she knew they’d been spreading: that Lenny was faster than the boys in their own crowd and that Millie had gotten in over her head. She’d heard the talk in the bathroom when no one realized she was inside the stall; she’d heard the whispers in the hallways when they thought she couldn’t hear.
The truth was, since her graduation, Millie had been thinking of ending things with Lenny. On the day she first met him, she had been drowning in grief—not just for Mrs. DeLuca but for Nico and Paulie as well. She had been alone and lonely, with far too much free time. Ruth was already married, and the tiny bedroom the sisters had shared felt suddenly cavernous. When Lenny knocked on her door, it felt like fate—he was handsome and funny, the perfect cure for the emptiness that swirled inside her. Lenny gave her a glimpse of the world outside her tiny neighborhood—parts of the city where people didn’t know her, where no one thought of her as Ruth’s flighty younger sister.
But lately, she’d been feeling increasing moments of uncertainty—small doubts that festered in the back of her brain: the nervous way Lenny laughed when he spoke about his job, the shrug when she asked where he’d been, the vacancy of his stare at her high school graduation when one of her teachers asked where he went to college. She had no doubt that Lenny loved her, but she began to question whether that was enough. What was the proverb her mother was always quoting? Love is sweet, but it tastes better with bread.
* * *
On the way to the drugstore, her light summer dress felt like a thick woolen coat. By the time she reached the soda counter, it clung uncomfortably to her skin.
“Millie! How is your summer so far?” Beverly Botnick was sitting at the soda counter with two other girls from Millie’s high school class. The three of them were dressed alike, in pastel skirts and white blouses. Each wore her hair in a neat ponytail.
“Hot,” Millie answered, forcing a smile. She’d been hoping to avoid Beverly and the others—they were the same girls who had dropped her so abruptly that spring, the ones who had gossiped and spoken behind her back. “How are all of you?”
“Oh, we’re swell. Joyce just got engaged—Joyce, show her your ring. I don’t start college until the first week of September, so I have all summer to help her look for dresses. And Audrey is starting a new job next week. She’s going to be the receptionist at her uncle’s law office.”
Millie felt an ache in the hollow of her stomach; suddenly everyone she knew had plans for the future—plans that had fallen into place as neatly and crisply as Beverly’s shirt collar.
“Tell us about you. Everyone wants to know what’s next for the famous Millie Kaplan. Are you still dating the hat salesman? I don’t see a ring…”
“Yes.” Millie nodded. “Lenny and I are still together.”
“Poor Jerry Polikoff.” Beverly snorted. “You know it broke his heart when he saw you necking at the movies. But he’s with Leslie Schwartz now; they’re practically engaged.”
“You should get engaged too!” Joyce insisted. “It’s been so much fun, planning the wedding. David is in medical school, so he doesn’t have much time to help, but my mom says it’s probably better that way.”
“Thanks, but Lenny and I aren’t in any rush.”
“Not yet anyway,” Beverly muttered under her breath.
Millie cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking about taking some classes.”
“College, you mean? Well, that’s a surprise, coming from you.”
“Shhh, Beverly.” Joyce elbowed her friend. “I think that’s great, Millie. Really, I do.”
The air in the drugstore felt suddenly stifling. Noises from every direction roared in Millie’s ears—the jingle of the doorbell, the ding of the cash register, the constant buzz of customers and clerks back and forth.
“I’m so sorry,” Millie murmured. “I have to get back home.”
She stumbled through the doorway, gasping for air, and sped down the sidewalk back toward her building. When she entered the apartment, she found no relief—just the sulfurous stench of cabbage that had been cooked for too long. Millie ran to the bathroom and vomited in the toilet, her head pounding from a terrible mixture of heat and humiliation.
When she finally finished, her mother was waiting, as oblivious to her distress as she was to the smell of the dinner she was preparing.
“How are the girls? Did you remember to pick up the aspirin for me?”
Millie shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she answered. “I was having so much fun, I completely forgot.”
* * *
When her father came home, he opened all the windows. “Your mother is a wonderful woman,” he said, “but only a meshuggener makes stuffed cabbage in this heat.”
Millie flipped through the pages of her magazine. “After a few hours, you won’t be able to smell it anymore.”
“Tell that to Mrs. Bernstein downstairs. You should have seen the look she just gave me.” He sat down next to his daughter and loosened his tie. “What’s the matter? You forgot how to smile today, maybe?”
Millie wondered how honest she should let herself be with him. He was different from her mother—more open-minded. Certainly, he was more accepting of other people’s flaws. He didn’t seem to hate Lenny the way her mother did, but then again, he’d never said anything nice about him either. More and more, Millie found his lack of commentary puzzling. From somewhere in the kitchen came a metallic clang: the lid from the stewpot falling to the floor. It shook her from her reverie, and she shut her magazine.
“Papa, what do you really think of Lenny?”
Her father raised his eyebrows. “You met him, when? Last September? Why is my opinion so important all of a sudden?”
She had thought he would answer her question and be done with it. But clearly, it was going to be a longer conversation. “I know that Mama doesn’t approve of him. She thinks that Lenny isn’t good enough for me. But you and I both know how unrealistic she is. She has a crazy fantasy about who I’m going to marry.”
“Your mother is a wonderful woman. She only wants the best for you.”
“I know she does, Papa, but she takes it too far! You saw how she treated Lenny at Passover. She won’t even say his name out loud!”
Millie’s father took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. “Your mother is a wonderful woman—”
“Stop saying that already! Please, just be honest. You must like Lenny more than she does, or you would have forbidden me from seeing him. But you never say anything, good or bad. Please, Papa, tell me: Do you think he’s a good match for me?”
Her father’s lips curved into a faraway smile. “Ach, mameleh, I’m flattered that you want your father’s opinion, but believe me when I tell you, you’re asking the wrong person.”
His answer only made her more confused. Why did he have to speak to her in riddles? Why did he have to make this so difficult?
He rose from the couch and kissed her gently on the forehead. “You ask me this question—you say, ‘Papa, tell me.’ But how can one person tell another person her heart? When I introduced my sister to your mother, they didn’t get along. Did I ask my sister what to do when I wanted to propose? Of course not; I knew the answer she would give me. I knew I loved your mother, and that was enough. When it comes to love, nothing good comes of asking for someone else’s opinion. Love is something you have to decide for yourself.”
Ruth
After her mother revealed her grand plan, Ruth prepared a mental list of reasons why Millie couldn’t come to Springfield. First, Ruth had no idea what their assigned housing would be like. There might not be enough room for an extra adult. Arthur would have to check with his superiors to see if non-immediate family members were permitted to stay.
There were other issues, of course—whether Millie could find a job in a city where she didn’t know anyone; whether leaving her friends would be too difficult. When Ruth’s mother rang her doorbell a few days later, Ruth was ready.
“Don’t you think Millie will be homesick if you make her leave Brooklyn?” They had settled in Ruth’s kitchen to box up her grandmother’s china. Though Ruth’s departure was still a few months away, she was trying to pack whatever she could in advance.
Her mother rolled her eyes. “Trust me, Millie will be happier away from the Bum, even if she doesn’t know it yet.” She took a sheet of newspaper from the stack on the floor and laid it open on the wooden table. Then she set a single plate on top of the center crease and folded the paper neatly over the porcelain.
“Come on, Mama. Lenny isn’t that terrible. Daddy doesn’t seem to mind him as much as you do.”
“Your father has a soft spot for orphans and strays. He’s too sympathetic, that’s what he is. The Bum could never support a family, he’s nothing but a pustunpasnik—a loafer.”
“What about his brother? Murray is successful. He’ll probably bring Lenny into his business soon.”
“I don’t like the brother. He has a smile like a crook, shifty eyes like a ganef.”
“A crook and a thief? Do you know how you sound?”
“You think I care what I sound like? I know what I know. Get me another stack of plates, will you? There, the smaller ones. I’m done with these.”
“You can’t deny how much Lenny is smitten with Millie. He’s completely in love—you see the way he looks at her?”
“I’ll tell you what I see, Ruthie. I see a man with no steady job, no education, and no ambition. I see someone who cancels dates for no reason and who forgot your sister’s birthday. Did he show up the next day with a million excuses and a fancy present all tied up in a bow? Sure, sure, of course he did. But that isn’t love, not by a mile. He looks at your sister like a cat looks at a mouse. He doesn’t want to take care of her—he wants to gobble her up.”
“Well, I’m just surprised you’d want Millie to go to Springfield. When I said I was moving there, you acted like it was the North Pole.” Ruth pulled the gilt-edged bowls down from the cabinet while her mother continued wrapping the plates.
“Better to live in peace at the North Pole than to stay here with that no-goodnik.”
“Well, I can’t take her with me right away, Mama. I don’t know where we’ll be living, I don’t know if we’ll have room, I don’t know if she’d even be allowed to live with us.”
“Just have Arthur tell them she’s coming.”
“Mama, don’t you see? Arthur can’t tell them anything. They tell him what to do, not the other way around.”
“So, you’ll go and settle in, and we’ll bring her in a month. By that time, it should be fine. I’m sure you’ll have room.”
“I don’t understand why you think she’ll listen to you. If she really loves Lenny, she’s not going to leave; if anything, she’s going
to want to stay here and marry him.”
“Marry him? Marry him?” Her mother’s face turned purple. “Your sister will marry the Bum over my dead body!” The plate she was holding came down with a snap, like the splitting of a seam or the tearing of a page. Suddenly, her mother’s eyes filled with tears.
Ruth couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother cry. She hadn’t cried at Aunt Edna’s funeral or when their neighbor passed away. She hadn’t cried at Ruth’s wedding, not even when Arthur stomped on the glass under the chuppah. She hadn’t cried when the twins were born.
To see her mother so vulnerable made Ruth uneasy. “Mama, don’t cry. I’m sure we can fix it. I have some glue somewhere—just give me a minute to find it.”
Her mother’s face crumpled. “You think I care about a plate? You think I’d cry over an old dish? No, Ruthie. No. If your sister marries Lenny, then I’ll have something to cry about. If she marries him, mark my words: that man will break her heart.”
Millie
Springfield, Massachusetts (September 1942)
For the next few weeks, Millie couldn’t get Grace Peabody’s voice out of her head. Diseases. Millie knew Grace was wrong about Michael getting the other children sick, but still, she lay awake at night, worrying. It wasn’t polio she was afraid of but something else entirely.
“Do you have a pediatrician for the girls?” Millie tried to sound nonchalant when she asked her sister the question.
“I take them to Dr. Gibson, here at the armory. Why? Is Michael coming down with something?”
“No, he’s fine. But I was thinking that he should have a doctor in Springfield, just in case.”
It had been years since Millie shared anything private with her sister. Ruth had invited her into her home, she had tolerated Millie’s presence, but their connection was tenuous, their adult bond barely formed. Theirs was a détente of domesticity, held together with tacit understandings and unspoken boundaries. The sisters spoke of the weather, of laundry and dinner. There was safety in the mundane. But personal concerns were a potential minefield.
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