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Until Tomorrow, Mr. Marsworth

Page 22

by Sheila O'Connor


  P.S. If your brothers would be willing, I hope they’ll sit with us as well. “All for one,” as you would say. I think it would be best to meet you all.

  P.P.S. I should forewarn you, dear Miss Kelly: My pallor is quite ghostly. I’m afraid you’ll be alarmed to meet a man so frail. Letters can disguise an aging heart.

  Yesyesyesyesyesyes

  yesyesyesyesyesyes

  yesyesyesyesyesyes

  yesyesyesyesyesyes

  YESSSSSSSSSSSSS

  Tuesday, August 27, 1968

  Dear Mr. Marsworth,

  Do you know my biggest worry before I met you face-to-face this afternoon?

  I was afraid you might not like me, or I might not like you either, but the thing I worried most about was that our letters might just stop. After a summer of my begging you to meet me at your gate, to be my friend in person, I was suddenly afraid you wouldn’t want me to write you anymore.

  I have to write to you, Mr. Marsworth.

  I do.

  And you have to write to me, because even while we talked today on your front porch (our front porch now, too!) I couldn’t tell you ALL my feelings, I just couldn’t. A letter helps me say what’s in my heart.

  And I bet it helps you, too. Both of us were shy this afternoon for two good friends! ☺ I still feel a little shy alone here at the cottage writing to you now.

  I guess that I’ll just say what’s in my heart.

  First, it wasn’t true EXACTLY when I said Billy had to work at Mrs. Brindle’s, and that Dare didn’t want to come. The truth is, I didn’t invite them, because deep down in my selfish heart I wanted us to talk all by ourselves. You and me, just like our letters. And I was happy when I saw you had left Carl Grace at home. When it was just you on that front porch it almost made me cry. (I’m still as weepy as I was when you were here.)

  And you’re right, you looked pretty small and frail, but your warm handshake was still firm.

  “Give a man a handshake,” you said with a quick laugh, and I’d forgotten that I wrote that, until you reminded me I did. I can’t believe you’ve saved all my letters, Mr. Marsworth. Of course I’ve saved every word you wrote me, but I didn’t think you’d do the same. Someday we have to read them all together, word for word. Let’s do it at the cottage, sitting on our porch.

  What was the second thing you said? I wish I could remember.

  Maybe—“You’ve done a fine job on that paper route, your mother would be proud.”

  I think I might have blushed. I know I wished I had invited Dare and Billy after all, because once I was with you, I could hardly say a word. Loquayshous (not sure about that spelling!) Reenie Kelly, who can usually blab and blab.

  Instead I just stood there tongue-tied, hoping you could be like a friend who hardly said a word. Finally, I sat down on the porch step like I always do with Dare, while you sat there on the rocker, and I truly couldn’t believe that you were real! Or that meeting you was real! Or that you wore a starched shirt and a bow tie even in the August heat, or that you looked older than I’d pictured in my mind.

  You talked about the weather, and I talked about the lake, and we were nothing like our letters until you mentioned Skip.

  “I’m concerned for your young spirit, dear Miss Kelly,” you said, serious and slow, and suddenly you sounded like my pen pal, but in person. (Not your wobbly voice, but the way you use your words.) And when you said love was all that matters, and that my missing Mom and Skip would last forever, because you still missed Ruth and Danny, you were exactly like your letters, and I hope whatever I said back to you (I don’t remember what I said) sounded like the Reenie Kelly you wanted for a friend.

  I didn’t tell you, Mr. Marsworth, but I could feel my own throat closing while I listened to you talk. I was thinking about Danny as a boy down at the cottage, and going missing in Korea, and never coming home, and Skip’s family at his funeral, and how they’d never get to see their boy again, and Billy leaving me for college, or getting sent to prison, but either way at least he’d be alive. And I was thinking you were right again: Love endures all.

  “I like that,” I said, smiling, but I couldn’t keep back the tears.

  (Thank you for that handkerchief, it’s in my hand right now!)

  The second thing I want to tell you:

  I’m sorry that I gave you that quick hug. I hope that I didn’t scare you, Mr. Marsworth, or hurt your tender bones, or make you need to leave abruptly, because suddenly Carl Grace was in your driveway, and your pale cheeks were flushed, and you rose up from your rocker to “bid a quick farewell.” Farewell, and we’d hardly talked at all!

  I’m not sure what you meant when you said, “Perhaps for this first meeting brevity is best.”

  Could you please explain that to me now?

  That wasn’t a long meeting, even for a first.

  Are you ready for a second? Please say yes!

  Here’s the third thing I need to say about this afternoon:

  As soon as you were gone with Carl Grace, I used that key you left me, and went into the cottage to see it for myself.

  It smells a little like Gram’s crawl space, summer hot and dusty, but I like all the pictures of Danny on the wall. Danny as a baby, and Danny as a boy, and his high school graduation, and Mom and Dad and Danny on the edge of your old dock. All Danny pictures, but I see Billy, too. Your boy is living still in Billy, and before the summer’s finished, you’ll see that for yourself.

  Don’t forget you promised me you would.

  Time is of the essence.

  When I’d finished with the living room and kitchen, I went into Danny’s bedroom to hug that old-time bear. It smelled like grass and cherries, and a little like your woods, and I sat on that twin bed and hoped it’d be my own.

  And you know what I saw next, Mr. Marsworth?????

  That sweet gift with the letter you’d left for me in Danny’s room!!!

  I can’t believe you had that picture of us framed, or that you’ve kept it at your bedside table all these years the way a grandpa would.

  Billy, Dare, and me all seeing Santa.

  Every night for all these years you got to see us, Mr. Marsworth.

  You better take it back now, so we’ll be with you again. You shouldn’t be alone in that big house.

  Until Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,

  Reenie Kelly

  P.S. I came home from the cottage to the most amazing news!!! This afternoon while we were talking, Dr. Roland Price called Billy to say he’d been awarded the Daniel Marsworth Scholarship for Peace!!! Every penny of his college paid just like you promised!!! Not charity, but earned by Billy’s good grades and his peaceful Marsworth heart!!! We did it, Mr. Marsworth, we made Mom’s dream come true. Our dream!!! Or I should say you did it??? Yes, I should! We want you to come for supper! Everybody does! Get ready, because I’m going to clang your bell until you finally answer YES! You know how much I hate to hear a no!

  Tuesday, August 27, 1968

  Dear Miss Kelly,

  I remember what you ask me.

  This would be the photograph your mother gave me long ago.

  I have kept it framed and faded at my bedside through the years, and in that way you’ve kept me company much longer than you know.

  Now it shall be your keepsake, a gift from your good mother.

  The Kellys at the cottage, right where they belong.

  Until Tomorrow,

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  Don’t you love a letter? A letter is the perfect way to share your thoughts and hopes and fears with someone else. It’s why I’m here this morning, writing my own letter to you now.

  I have some things I need a friend to hear.

  When I began this book five years ago, I didn’t set out to write about the war in Vietnam or the damage that endured beyond
that war. Nor would it be possible for me to write a book that would give voice to the millions of civilians and soldiers of all nationalities killed and wounded in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, or the suffering experienced by survivors and the families of survivors, including refugees from war-torn countries forced to make new homes in unfamiliar lands, and those who have been wounded recently by weapons the U.S. and other armies left behind. While their stories must be told and told again if we ever hope to learn the lessons of this war, they belong to voices other than my own. My greatest wish for this book is that it will inspire you to read and listen beyond it to the stories told by those voices.

  In truth, I began this book drawn by the spunk of Reenie Kelly, an eleven-year-old girl uprooted to a small town and hoping for a friend. In early drafts, it was the Kelly family story that I followed, and up until Mr. Marsworth suddenly appeared in one short letter, I didn’t know who he was or that his own life had been scarred by war—his refusal to serve in World War I and the loss of his beloved son in the Korean War. I didn’t know this book would become the story of a friendship between an aging conscientious objector and a scrappy letter-loving girl.

  Yet, there I was in 1968 with Mr. Marsworth and Reenie Kelly in Lake Liberty, Minnesota, watching as they bonded over the shared fear that Billy could be drafted for the war in Vietnam. What did that threat mean to Reenie and her family? To reclusive Mr. Marsworth? The community of Lake Liberty? What did people in a small Midwestern town know and understand about the war in 1968? What did they believe? How did they treat people who disagreed with their beliefs? Were peace activists welcomed or despised?

  Luckily, like Reenie Kelly, I’m always eager to learn more. I’ve spent the last five years considering those questions, and a hundred more that came up as I wrote. I’ve read letters, books, and oral histories, talked to friends and strangers, watched documentaries on wars and 1968, and after all that research, I have so much more to learn. About all wars. About humanity. About how to make peace possible. My work is just beginning; I hope you’ll learn more with me, too.

  So while this was never meant to be a book about a war, I hope in some small way it has become a book of peace. Inspired by the peacemakers, the conscientious objectors, the brave activists who are punished or imprisoned, the marchers, the letter writers, the justice seekers, the poets and the dreamers. I hope we find a way to make a better world our work. Maybe then we can begin to end the wars around us. Or stop a war before it starts. Or realize that the damage done during a war never really ends.

  That’s the second wish that’s in my heart this morning as I finish up the final pages of Reenie Kelly’s book: A wish for peace far into your future, and the future of all children on this earth.

  I’m leaving now to drop this letter in your box. I hope you’ll write me back ASAP. I hope you’ll tell me what you’re doing to make a better world.

  Your Story Dreamer,

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to all who have been with me through the years I wrote this book—family, friends, and students—those who cared about my progress, and those who kept the faith. As always, endless gratitude to my amazing family—Tim, Mikaela, and Dylan—who have shared this book since its beginning. Thank you for reading and rereading and rereading every draft, and believing it would end. I could not write without you. Honestly. This book only exists because of you. Thank you to the men who lived through the draft years of the Vietnam War and shared their stories: Gary Gorman, Allen Learst, Gordon Salisbury, Jim Perlman, Rod Nelsestuen, and others. I am especially grateful to the book Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, edited by Bernard Edelman. I carried that collection of letters close to my heart. So, too, Dear Dr. Spock: Letters about the Vietnam War to America’s Favorite Baby Doctor, edited by Michael Stewart Foley. Thank you to Ann Melrose and Patricia Jones for answering my questions about Quakers, Susan Wolter Nettell for reading with careful attention and kindness, Callie Cardamon for loving the early pages of this book, Loren Taylor for proofreading on short notice, Tricia Hummel and Dick Mammen for Rollo’s second home, Maeve and Meghan Maloney-Vinz for your expert advice that early morning, Josie Sigler for so many important conversations, Jamie Titus for keeping me centered and well, and Marty Case for sharing this writing journey with me, always. Thank you to the wonderful people and places that gave me quiet rooms to dream this book into being: The Studios of Key West, Tyrone Guthrie Center, Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Clare’s Well, Malmo Art Colony, and Lynn and Frank James. Thank you to the Minnesota History Center for your invaluable archives and for the work you do keeping history alive. A huge thank-you to my treasured agent, Rosemary Stimola, and my visionary editor, Stacey Barney, who saw a book within a book within a book and kept me moving toward that light; I would only work this hard for Stacey Barney. Thank you to my incredibly generous assistant editor, Kate Meltzer, and all the folks at G. P. Putnam’s Sons whose work and contributions made this story real. I know the wait was long; thank you for believing. And finally, thank you to the staff at HCMC TBI Clinic—especially Helen Mathison and Courtney Mitchell—for helping me find my way back to my work. In more ways than any of you know, you made this possible.

  Other Voices on 1968, the Experience of War, and Work for Peace

  For Kids and Adults

  Thanhha Lai, Inside Out & Back Again, 2011 (novel)

  Thanhha Lai, Listen, Slowly, 2015 (novel)

  Bao Phi and Thi Bui, A Different Pond, 2017 (picture book)

  Rita Williams-Garcia, One Crazy Summer, 2010 (novel)

  Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven, 2013 (novel)

  For Adults

  Thi Bui, The Best We Could Do, 2017

  Clayborne Carson and Kris Shepard, editors, A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 2001

  Bernard Edelman, editor, Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, 2002

  Michael S. Foley, editor, Dear Dr. Spock: Letters about the Vietnam War to America’s Favorite Baby Doctor, 2005

  Larry Gara and Lenna Mae Gara, editors, A Few Small Candles: War Resisters of World War II Share their Stories, 1999

  Le Ly Hayslip with Jay Wurts, When Earth and Heaven Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman’s Journey from War to Peace, 1989

  Rufus M. Jones, A Service of Love in War Time: American Friends Relief Work in Europe, 1917–1919, 1920

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, 2010

  Maxine Hong Kingston, editor, Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, 2006

  Viet Thanh Nguyen, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, 2016

  Bao Phi, Thousand Star Hotel, 2017

  James W. Tollefson, The Strength Not to Fight: An Oral History of Conscientious Objectors of the Vietnam War, 1993

  Kao Kalia Yang, The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father, 2016

  DVD

  The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It: The Story of Conscientious Objectors in World War II, 2002

  The Trials of Muhammad Ali, 2013

  The Draft, 2015

  The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, 2017

  Nobel Peace Prize

  In 1947, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Quakers. To read more about their work and why they were selected for the prize, you can visit the Nobel Prize website: nobelprize.org.

  Gunnar Jahn, chairman of the Nobel Committee, said the following in his presentation of the award: “The Quakers have shown us that it is possible to translate into action what lies deep in the hearts of many: compassion for others and the desire to help them—that rich expression of the sympathy between all men, regardless of nationality or race, which, transformed into deeds, must form the basis for lasting peace.”

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