by Kerri Maher
When she emerged a few hours later, she knew with a clarity she hadn’t felt in a long time what she needed to do. She found the duchess writing letters at a desk in the library, and said, “I have to go to America, to comfort my parents. There are things only I can tell them about Joe’s last days on this earth, and I just don’t want you to think . . . I’m so worried about Billy, but I feel I must go.”
The duchess put a reassuring hand on Kick’s arm and said, “Of course. You must.”
After one businesslike conversation with her father’s personal secretary, who assured Kick that her parents desperately wanted her home but were too overcome with grief to be on the phone, it was arranged that Kick would fly to Boston on an army transport plane. Exhausted, she slept most of the way on the overnight flight, but she was painfully awake for the last hour, feeling her body wind itself tighter and tighter with every mile that brought her closer to the family she had not seen in more than a year. In a cold sweat, she picked her lips till they bled.
After stepping on weak legs from the plane to the ground, blinking back the white light of the Boston morning, she saw Jack. Scrawny, tan, straw-haired Jack, in a white linen shirt and wrinkled khaki pants. She was so relieved to see him—just him—standing there waving his arms over his head in big swooping arcs, as if she might not recognize him, that she broke into a run and launched herself at him with a laughing-crying embrace. Nothing else—not his initial silence about her marriage, nor the letters he’d never replied to—mattered as much as his body standing there waiting for her at that very moment.
“Kick!” he said.
“Stick!” she said.
They didn’t dance this time, but shouted rhymes at each other till they were hoarse. This time he didn’t end it with a cough, but with an admiring “Marriage suits you, sis. You look great.”
“I’m not sure why,” she said. “I’ve been crying for three days.”
“Mom always said water was good for the skin,” he quipped, putting his arm around her and steering her home.
CHAPTER 36
“Mother!” Kick said, strangling the rising emotion in her throat. Rose looked terrible, with no makeup or jewelry on, wearing only an oriental housecoat that swamped her frame, for she was thin to the point of gauntness and her eyes had sunken in so much that they looked bruised. Kick rushed to her and put her arms gently around her for fear of breaking her, but she was surprised at the strength of her mother’s return embrace.
“Mother, I’ve missed you so much,” said Kick.
“We’ve missed you, too, Kathleen,” Rose said, her voice smaller than it used to be, like a child’s. “I’ve set some new clothes out for you on your bed.”
“Thank you,” Kick said, not knowing what else to say.
“I’m going to rest,” Rose said. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
“All right,” Kick replied, her heart wringing itself dry in her chest.
Teddy and Jean at least tackled her with hugs, then tears, and Bobby, who’d suddenly become a man with broad shoulders and a reddish beard he hadn’t bothered shaving that morning, hung in the background and waited for his turn to hug her affectionately but casually. “Hey, sis. I kept all the stuff I read in the papers about your wedding. It’s in your room.”
“Thank you, Bobby,” she replied, touched by this unexpected gesture. “That was sweet of you. I have gifts for everyone as well.” Then she looked around the Hyannis Port living room and asked, “Where are Pat and Eunice? Daddy?”
“Pat’s over at the McDonnells’, and I’m not sure where Euny is,” Bobby replied. Jack had already made himself scarce. “And Dad . . . well, we haven’t seen much of him.”
On her way to her childhood room, Kick saw Eunice sitting on the bed in her own room, reading. Kick leaned her head in. “Hi,” she said, not sure why her sister hadn’t come down to greet her. Had she really not forgiven her for marrying Billy? Even Mother had come down.
But the red eyes that looked up at Kick told her that her younger sister was lost again, as she had been after Rosemary’s disappearance. “And then there were six,” Eunice said drily.
“Six? Shouldn’t it be seven?”
“You aren’t staying, are you?” she asked bitterly.
Kick stepped into the room. “Please, Eunice, forgive me. Someday . . . someday when you find someone of your own, I hope you’ll understand.”
“You haven’t been here. You’re the one who doesn’t understand.”
“Eunice, please, for Joe’s sake.”
Her sister laughed and shook her head. “Of course you’d say that.” Then she fastened her eyes back on her book.
I have a lot of work to do here, Kick thought miserably. Help me, Joe. Please.
Everything Mother had left for her on the bed was perfect. The many pairs of nylons, the silk and gabardine dresses, the new lipsticks and nail varnish, and even the fresh bottle of Vol de Nuit. Everything she might have picked for herself as a new marchioness but couldn’t find on the barren shelves of Harrods or Selfridges. She fingered the hem of a trim violet day dress and felt a bottomless gratitude for her mother. When she picked up one of the dresses, she saw lying beneath it a peachy lingerie ensemble, more modest than what Marie Bruce had given her, but worlds more suggestive than anything her mother would have given her before. She’d thought of everything. Of course.
Kick had just sat down at the little desk in her room to write Billy and let him know she’d arrived safely and wished so much he was there with her, when she heard her father at her door. “Kick?” he said.
She turned and saw him, and wanted to burst into tears again at the sight. Like her mother, he’d lost a great deal of weight and his skin looked sallow. Behind his glasses his eyes were puffy and red.
She rushed to hug him, and he held her a long time. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he said into her hair. “With you here, I feel I might be able to bear it.”
“I couldn’t be anywhere else,” she said.
Dinner was a cookout on the porch, and everyone came and went between the beach and the table, alternately eating and swimming as they’d done for years. The white clapboard house with the black shutters was the same as ever, and it felt right to be carrying on as they always had, even though Kick was aware that each of them was performing for the others, acting out the parts that had been assigned to them at birth. At least, she and her siblings were. Her parents were silent, mostly watching their children eat and toss baseballs and towel off.
When the sun began to set, Kick felt very sleepy and realized it was after midnight in England, and she hadn’t slept well for days. “I’m tired,” she said to no one in particular. “Good night.”
Bobby and her father wished her a good night, and she headed into the house, annoyed that she’d acquired two mosquito bites on her arm. Typical of a night spent out of doors on the Cape. Some things never changed, even when everything else had.
* * *
The following morning began a week’s worth of exhausting activity. Jack went to the hospital in Boston for surgery on his back, which left Bobby and Eunice to beat the drum of summer fun. After a few days, Kick wondered whether she’d really ever thought this schedule of swimming, sailing, tennis, and hiking was enjoyable. Once she decided to stick to golf and swimming, she was better off, and she focused on championing her brothers and sisters in their more athletic pursuits. Eunice seemed the most determined to bleed her deep reservoir of grief into sweat and salt, even winning a race in her new sailboat. Once she fell down on the tennis court, slipping and skinning her knee on the damp grass, and Kick ran to her and asked if she was all right. “Fine!” her younger sister sang, picking herself up and winning the match despite the crimson trickle running down her skinny leg.
While their mother prayed at St. Xavier every day, their father cheered his children on as loudly and enthusiastically
as he always had. There were times, when Kick stood beside him, whistling and hollering and clapping, that she felt utterly one with him in joy and pride in her family. “Kennedys are champions,” her father said to Eunice when she won her race. “Thanks for reminding everyone today, kid.”
Other times, though, especially at night when she prepared for bed, Kick felt close to tears all over again. She would kneel by her bed and pray with clenched hands, Holy Virgin, hear my prayer. Send Billy home soon so that we can begin our own family. I might not be able to teach our children my faith, but I can teach them about being a Kennedy, which you have shown me is more than just mass on Sundays and all the sacraments. And please give my love to Joe. Tell him I miss him every minute. Even though he had his own doubts about reaching the pearly gates, I am certain he’s with you now.
Toward the end of her first week back, Kick finally got up the courage to go to St. Francis Xavier with her mother for the early-morning mass she’d been attending every day. When Rose came downstairs looking a bit healthier, clean and wearing a fresh summer dress—though still in a mourning navy—Kick, also just bathed and made-up, was waiting for her on the sofa. “Where are you off to?” her mother asked in surprise.
“I thought I’d come with you,” said Kick. “If you don’t mind.” She held her breath, because she wasn’t sure if her mother would mind being seen in church with her outcast daughter who couldn’t even receive Communion.
But Rose nodded and held the house door open for Kick.
Seated beside her mother in the wooden pews beneath the bracingly white arches that formed the nave, Kick felt acutely aware of her changed circumstances. The church itself was the same, but the azure blue of the wall behind the altar, and the lapis in the paintings of God and St. Francis Xavier that Kick had always found so soothing, reminding her of the nearby beaches, failed to comfort her. The pew felt hard beneath her rear and her knees. The coastal air gave her a chill, and she wished she’d thought to bring an extra sweater.
The short sermon that morning seemed tailor-made for Rose. And why not, since she and her daughter were two of only eleven congregants present that morning—and since Rose had been attending daily, surely Father Keller knew he ought to speak directly to his most loyal patron. It was based on a passage from James: “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.”
“Although recent events might make us doubt it,” the priest said, “the Lord does not give us more trials than we can bear. There is a reason for every loss, just as there is for every triumph. Our reward in heaven, the crown that James speaks of, is sometimes hard to remember. It’s not an easy reward to work toward, for it is not made of gold and diamonds and pearls. So God in his wisdom gives us smaller rewards here on earth, to remind us that he is watching over us. To keep us on the right path.” Rose broke from her posture of prayer to put her hand on Kick’s, and though she didn’t look at her daughter, she squeezed her hand before folding her fingers and palms together once more. This small act of affection felt like a mug of hot chocolate on a cold morning, sending a rush of heat and comfort throughout her body.
The next day, Kick played golf with Jack, whose back was much better after the surgery. They returned cheerful only to find Bobby waiting for them nervously in the front yard, hands stuffed into his chino pockets as he paced the lawn. “A letter arrived today,” he explained. “Joe must have written it . . . before . . . anyway, it arrived today. His last letter. Dad’s taking it pretty hard.”
Lips pressed together, Jack nodded and looked up at the house with a private dread. Inside, everything was quiet except for the sound of their father weeping behind the door of his study, the occasional murmur of Rose’s voice, and once a strong, bitter version of their father’s voice saying, “It’s over. Nothing will ever be as good again.”
* * *
The first person Joe Sr. asked for was Kick. She’d been preparing to attend mass again with her mother, but Rose told her to visit her father instead. “It’s your calling this morning,” her mother insisted.
Kick found her father wrapped in a blanket with an untouched cup of coffee on his desk, staring out the open window at the foggy beach as drizzly air blew in.
“It’s cold, Daddy,” she said gently. “Want me to close the window?”
“There’s a pile of blankets over there,” he said without looking at her or the blankets, which were indeed stacked on a chaise against the wall. She wrapped herself in a pink afghan knitted by her grandmother Fitzgerald, and sat down. She noticed there was a carafe of coffee and a clean cup, so she poured herself one, more because she wanted the heat than anything else.
The two of them sat in silence awhile before Joe turned to her and said, “Tell me about Pat Wilson, and the children. Tell me what he was like with them. And in London with his buddies. Help me”—here his voice thickened, but he went on—“see what his last days were like. I want to feel that I was there with him.”
“Daddy, he was very, very happy,” she said, finding her own voice to be completely clear. It was good to feel needed in this way, and she managed to keep her composure even though she occasionally teared up when she was describing some silly thing Joe had done with Pat’s children, or the way he’d stuck up for her with Billy’s parents. She spent a few hours a day with her father like that, until he began asking for repeat stories, and then one day he didn’t ask for her at all.
Jack said to Kick one afternoon, “I’ve been thinking that all of us have stories about Joe, like the ones you’re telling Dad. We should write them down and put them in a book.”
“Another bestseller?” Kick asked wryly.
“Nah, just for the family,” he said.
“That’s a marvelous idea,” she said. In fact, she’d already begun her part by writing down some of the stories she’d told her father in her notebook. “Mother and Daddy will especially like it, I think, since . . .” She was never quite sure how to say his body was never recovered. Her brother, their son, had exploded in the sky, leaving nothing behind. A book would be a tangible reminder of him.
“Yeah, I know,” Jack said.
The first week of September, as the younger siblings drifted off to school and the usual preparations were made to close the Hyannis Port house for the winter, Kick planned to follow her parents to New York City, see some friends, then fly home to England. She missed her English friends, even the duke and especially the duchess, and she longed to renew her life there, the shape it had begun to take around her new position as marchioness. Here in America she felt adrift. She nearly left after Labor Day, but sensed that her parents still needed her.
Their last night in Hyannis Port, Kick and her parents and Jack and Bobby and Eunice ate dinner and then enjoyed a last swim. The sun had almost disappeared on the horizon, and the sky was a blaze of orange and red. A few stars twinkled in the blue above. Kick had taken a walk by herself down the beach, talking to Billy in her mind—a new and comforting habit. She found herself talking to him a great deal in bed at night. It was the only antidote for the sharp ache she felt there, when she allowed herself to linger over the memory of his touch.
Just as she was laughing with him in her imagination about some long-ago prank at Cambridge, Kick looked up to see Jack sitting on the sand, his arms wrapped around his knees, staring into the distance as the tide came closer. Not far behind him, their father got up from the table and went to the edge of the porch. Putting his hands on the white rails, he leaned forward and looked long and hard at his son. Now his oldest son, just as Kick was now his oldest daughter.
Poor Jack, she thought. And then, with an ironic laugh to herself: Debo’s mother should go into business as a fortune-teller.
CHAPTER 37
For a week, Kick was glad she’d come to New York. She lunched, shopped, danced at the Cotton
Club, saw a few shows, and visited every single room at the Met. In a letter to Billy, she wrote:
The city has an energy and vitality to it that I’d forgotten. Or perhaps it’s new, the result of the depression lifting and the war giving everyone a sense of purpose. I wish so much that you were here to see it with me! I think you’d enjoy it thoroughly, though likely we’d have to escape every afternoon to take a break from all the noise and bustle. What a shame. Whatever would we do with our time?
She also worked on her part of Joe’s book and wrote copious letters to friends in England, including a long one to the duchess with ideas for fall and winter events in Derbyshire.
It had been a month since Joe Jr.’s death, and her sorrow had begun to clear like a mist chased away by the sun. Some mornings she still woke in a thick fog, but she was able to grope around and find her way. She found that if she thought of her future with Billy, she could feel genuinely happy and excited about what was to come.
One gloriously blue September morning a few days before her departure for England, she went to Bonwit Teller for a last shop. She’d been amazed at how much clothing there was in the stores in New York. It was therapeutic to see so much bounty, and she purchased surprises for Marie Bruce, Debo, Sissy, Elizabeth, Anne, and her other friends who deserved a respite from wartime austerity.
At noon, she met Eunice for lunch, but her sister wore a mask of worry and wrung her hands at her waist.
“Daddy wants you to come and see him before lunch,” she told Kick.
Kick’s heart sped up, in that lurching way it had when Officer James Woodman had come to the Cavendishes’ place in London. “What is it, Euny?” Kick demanded.
“I . . . I’m not sure,” her sister replied. “Daddy just said to come right away.”
