by Karen White
I smile and take his hand. I’d beg for Mama’s forgiveness later.
Three years later
I feel a tap on my shoulder, and I open my eyes, startled. And I remember where I am: on the train, en route to Seattle. Yes, of course. I pat around my lap for Sam’s ring, but my fingers can’t find it. Did it slip from my grasp while I dozed off? My heart beats faster. My vision is blurry, but it comes into focus. There’s an older woman standing in the aisle. She’s tall and thin, with short gray hair and kind eyes, about Mama’s age. “Excuse me, miss?”
I sit up in my seat, and nod. “Yes?”
“I’m so sorry to wake you, but I believe you’re sitting in my seat.”
“Oh dear,” I mutter, reaching for my bag. “I apologize. I sat down for just a moment, and . . . well, I must have dozed off. I have a sleeping car down the way. I’ll just collect my things and let you have your seat.”
“It’s really alright,” she says. “I just got on at the last station, and when I saw you sleeping, I hated to wake you, so I spent the last hour in the dining car.”
“I didn’t realize I was so tired,” I say, shaking my head.
“Must have a lot on your mind, honey.”
“I do,” I say.
She sits down in the empty seat beside me. “My name is Grace,” she says.
“I’m Rose.”
“Want to talk about the burden you’re carrying?”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” I say honestly.
She hands me the necklace with Sam’s ring attached. It might as well weigh a thousand pounds, because it carries the heavy weight of my heart. “You could start by telling me about the man who gave you this.”
“Yes,” I say, nodding. And I realize that I want to talk. And I want to tell her about my big secret. “But first I have to tell you about someone else.”
Three years prior
The Cabana Club is smoky and dimly lit when we arrive shortly after nine thirty. It’s busier than usual, and I wonder how many women, like me, are here with soldiers about to leave for war.
Louis says something to the hostess at the podium in the entryway, and she lifts a telephone up. “Why don’t you call your mother,” he says. “Just so she doesn’t worry.”
I smile. “Thank you.” But instead of dialing Mama, I ring up my neighbor, Miss Privett. I can’t bear to take on Mama right now. Miss Privett, who is a dear, could pass along the message to Mama and let her know I was safe but would be out late.
“There,” I say, walking back to Louis who waits near the coat closet. “All set.”
I follow him into the club, and we find an empty booth that we both squeeze into. It’s intimate, and we’re closer than we were on the beach. A waiter appears, and Louis orders martinis for us both.
“I’ve never had a martini,” I say, grinning.
“You’ll like them,” he says. “They’re strong, but in a good way.” He grins. “So, tell me about you.”
“What do you want to know?” I watch as a man in the booth across from us lights a cigarette for an attractive blond. And, for a split second, I feel like an outsider. I feel like I used to, someone looking from the outside in. The awkward schoolgirl with knobby knees and pigtails, a smattering of freckles across her nose. But I see the way Louis looks at me now. He’s the handsomest man I’ve ever seen outside of the movie theaters, and somehow, out of all the women in the world, he wants to be sitting here with me right now. My heart races.
“Well, I’d like to know what you want in life, when this damn war is behind us.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say vaguely. “I suppose I want the same things that every woman wants. Happiness. A family. Security.”
He looks amused. “Really?”
“Why do you act so surprised?”
“I don’t know, I guess I pegged you as a different sort, more of a free spirit.”
My eyes narrow. “I don’t know what you mean by that, but I—”
“Don’t get sore,” he says with a smile. “Maybe I’m seeing something in you that you don’t even see in yourself yet.”
“Like what?” I ask, cautiously. For a moment, I feel annoyed. Louis is a stranger, by all accounts. It seems presumptuous, and a little rude, that he spends one hour with me and thinks he can size me up.
“Well,” he says, pointing out to the dance floor, where a gaggle of blonds make eyes with the men across the room, “for starters, you’re not like most girls.”
“Oh, I’m not, am I?”
“Not at all,” he continues. “I think you want different things, deep down.”
“And what do I want, my wise and all-knowing friend?” I smirk. “Please be good enough to tell me.”
Louis looks thoughtful. “I think you’re wound differently than most women,” he says. “I think you’d rather go off and see the world than be stuck in a kitchen with an apron tied around your waist.”
I feel tears sting my eyes, and I look away.
“Oh,” he says with concern. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
I shake my head quickly. “You didn’t upset me. You just . . . well, you just read my mind.” I sigh. “You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right. Marriage frightens me more than anything else. I suppose it has something to do with my own parents. My mother married the first man who proposed, and he turned out to be a con artist who strung her along, milking her bank account until there was nothing left, and then he was gone.”
“I’m so sorry,” Louis says solemnly. He pats the pocket of his shirt. “Darn, I wish I had a handkerchief to offer.”
I smile through tears for many reasons. For the eve of war. For the fact that his words have struck a chord. His words have unearthed a memory etched on my heart. I was sixteen, at Pike Place Market, when I watched, perhaps, the single truest expression of love in my lifetime. One I haven’t been able to forget. It was simple, really, and yet profound in its own right: Beside a produce stand, an elderly man tenderly offered his wife a handkerchief when she, for unexplained reasons, began to weep. For me, forever, it was the epitome of true love.
“What are you thinking about?” Louis asks, tilting his head to the right.
“Just a memory,” I say. I want to tell him about the exchange at the market. But I take a deep breath, remembering my mother and the brand of epic love she never could have. “Yes, my mother.” I nod. “She still won’t blame him. She waited for him, all those years, after he left with the money she’d inherited from her parents. Every last penny. He left her—he left us—with nothing, and yet she’d make his favorite biscuits every night for years in hopes that it would be the night he’d come home.” I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t think I could ever be that devoted to someone.”
“You don’t have to,” Louis says. “Marriage doesn’t have to be like that.”
“But doesn’t it always end up in unhappiness, one way or another?” I shake my head to myself. “Have you seen the way Mary’s parents hate each other? And Elsa’s?” I chew on the edge of my lip. “I’d rather die than live like that.”
“We don’t have to,” Louis says. His words make my heart race. Did he just say “we”? He takes my hand before I can catch my breath or venture a response. “We can live by our own rules. We can create our own beautiful, perfect marriage, better than any marriage that ever was before.”
I swallow hard. “What are you saying? We don’t even know each other.”
He smiles and points to his heart. “But we do.” And I know. The bell sounded. And now a choir is singing in my ears. Louis presses his lips against mine. And I am certain: This must be love.
—
It’s late, but we know the justice of the peace’s office will be open. Thousands of Seattle’s finest men will be shipping out in the morning, and when there are men shipping out, ther
e will be marriages. Mass marriages.
Louis and I stand in line together, amid dozens of couples like us. Kissing, crying, holding each other tightly. And when it’s our turn to sign the certificate and exchange vows, we do so without hesitation.
“I can’t believe we just did that,” I say as we walk out of the office, hand in hand.
“I can,” Louis says, smiling. “I just married my dream girl.”
I smile as he takes me in his arms again. The lights of the Olympic Hotel shine in the distance. I feel warm and light from the drinks at the Cabana Club. “And now, I’m taking my wife to the fanciest hotel in town.”
My wife.
I squeal with delight as he takes my hand and we walk together to the hotel.
—
I open my eyes the next morning, and my head hurts. I rub my forehead and squint as sunlight streams through the gauzy silk curtains that hang over the windows. The memory of last night slowly seeps in. Champagne. The Cabana Club. Louis’s passionate kisses. Martinis. The justice of the peace. My eyes shoot open. I look to my right. Where’s Louis? I hear whistling coming from somewhere. The bathroom? And then he appears around the corner.
“Oh, good morning, darling,” Louis says. I pull the sheet higher above my nude body. He’s buttoning up the shirt of his uniform; his hair is still damp from the shower. “Finally decided to wake up, did you?” He lies on the bed beside me and props himself up on his elbow.
“Did we really—”
He smiles. “We did.” He points to the large ring on my left finger—his class ring, gold with a red stone. A man’s ring. “Hello, Mrs. Hathaway.”
I feel panicked for a moment, and even though I’m trying to conceal my emotions, I know that Louis can tell. “What is it?” he asks. “Please don’t tell me you think you made a mistake, because . . . I can’t go off to war thinking that my wife doesn’t want . . .”
“No,” I say quickly. “No, it’s just so sudden. Of course I’m happy.” I force a smile. “I just married the handsomest man in Seattle.”
His smile returns. He kisses my lips and then my neck. He pulls me to him, and I don’t resist. He is my husband.
—
“Promise to write me?” Louis pleads.
“Of course I will,” I say. “Write me as soon as you’re in Europe so I know you made it safe.”
He kisses my hand. “You’ve made me the happiest man in the world.” His words make me think that I didn’t make a mistake last night. They make me think our night, our meeting, was all fate. Meant to be. Of course it was. It has to be.
“Have I?”
“You have. You have given me the greatest gift. The gift of love.”
“And so have you,” I say.
I hear the ferry horn sound, and I remember bits and pieces of what Louis said last night about his impending journey. Louis and his comrades will take the ferry to Bremerton, then board a naval ship that will take them to their next destination, somewhere in the Pacific, before eventually making it to Europe.
Soft music plays in the ferry terminal, and I recognize the song immediately: “I’ll Be Seeing You,” the very song that played last night on the lawn at Mary’s house.
Tears sting my eyes, and Louis takes me in his arms for a final embrace. “It won’t be long until we’re together again,” he whispers. “And we’ll have such a life together. It will be the stuff they write stories about.”
I nod. I want that, too. I just hope he’s right.
Three years later
Grace smiles at me. I’m relieved to see that after hearing my story, she doesn’t judge me. “So you’re a war bride?”
I nod. “But I never told anyone. Not a single soul, even my best friend at home.”
“Why not?”
“I guess it was partly because I didn’t believe it, even myself. It happened so fast. It was easy to just pretend it never happened and go on with my life.”
“Did you write each other like you said you would?”
“We did at first,” I say. “But then the letters tapered off, especially after I met Sam. I just felt so guilty. Believe me, I sat down and confessed everything in letters to Louis a hundred times, but I never mailed them. It didn’t seem right to have him get that news on a battlefield somewhere.” I shake my head. “That’s why I’m going to Seattle. To tell him—everything.”
“And what do you want from him, honey?”
I sigh. “Forgiveness. And, well, closure, I guess. I hope that he wants to move on, too.”
“And is that what you really want? To move on?”
“I think so,” I say. “I have a wonderful man waiting for me in New York.”
“Honey,” Grace says. “Don’t you see?”
“See what?”
“There may always be a man waiting for you,” she says. “But you can’t hinge life’s most important decisions on which man is waiting for you.” She places her hand on her heart. “You have to do what your heart wants. I wish I’d learned that lesson for myself a long time ago, before I wasted half my life doing what someone else wanted me to do.”
I blink back tears. “I don’t even know that I can trust my own heart,” I say.
“Oh, but you can,” she says. “Love is a funny thing. We think we know what we want, and we’re so often easily confused and distracted. But if we consulted our hearts more, it wouldn’t be that way.”
“I just wish it were easier,” I say.
“But it is,” she says. “You just have to teach yourself to see. The details of true love are so faint that sometimes we fail to see them unless we stop and look more closely. They’re there; you just have to really want to see them.”
“I don’t know,” I say, discouraged. “I feel sad and worried every time I close my eyes and see Sam’s face, and Louis’s.”
“What you have here is the gift of time,” Grace continues. “An entire train ride to just sit back and listen. Your heart is trying to tell you what the right choice is; you just need to remember how to listen to it.”
I look out the window and let the clickety-clack of the train wheels soothe the anxious voices inside my head, the ones telling me that I’ll never be loved, never be happy. And for a moment, all is quiet. And Grace is right; my heart has a lot to say. And I’m finally listening.
—
“Morning,” I say to Grace. I find her in the dining car hunched over a poached egg and a plate of toast.
“Good morning,” she says. “Sleep well?”
“Like a log,” I say. “I had the strangest dream. Sam and Louis were each driving in separate cars on the highway and they collided. They each died.”
“How telling,” Grace says after taking a sip of coffee.
I look out the window at the lonely, dry Midwest terrain and shake my head. “I have no idea what this dream could mean.”
Grace nods. “I think it speaks more to you. I think you’re afraid of ending up alone like your mother.” She places her hand on my arm. “Don’t fear that, honey, okay?”
“What about you?” I ask. “Were you ever happy in love?”
Grace looks thoughtful for a moment. She takes another sip of her coffee, then sets the cup down on its saucer. “I met a man many years ago, yes. I married him because I thought I should.” She lifts her arm up and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, which is when I think I see a faint shadow—a bruise?—beneath the cuff of her sleeve. “I did a lot of things back then because I thought I should.” She shakes her head. “I married Bill because I had no reason not to. He was handsome, rich, everything. And then we had children, and I had no way out, even when he started hitting me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “Here I am going on about my frivolous problems, and yours are so much more important.”
“Well,” Grace says, “I’m done with that life.
I finally got up the courage to leave him, to move on with my life. I only wish I’d had the guts to leave him years ago. I thought staying and suffering was the honorable thing to do. It wasn’t. I may not have many years left, but I’m going to live them to the fullest.” The waiter comes to the table, and I order a cup of coffee, before Grace turns to me again. “I recognized myself in you the first time I saw you yesterday. You have the look of a woman who is in conflict with herself. It’s as if you believe there’s a life you should live, but then there’s the life you desperately want to live.”
“And if you’re right,” I say, “what do I do?”
“I think you have to do what I did. I think you have to walk through the fire, do the thing that scares you the most. Let your heart break. Then get up again.”
“I wish I were that brave,” I say.
“You are,” Grace replies. “You just don’t know it yet.”
—
Another day passes, and I’m no closer to reaching a decision on the mess that is my life. We passed through Idaho this morning. Seattle is closer now. I find Grace in her seat with a book, and I slump into the seat next to hers.
“We’ll be in Seattle tomorrow,” she says.
“I know,” I say. “I’m not sure if I want to get there, or if I’d rather stay on this train forever. There’s something pretty comforting about being stuck in limbo, you know?”
“I do,” Grace says. “I was stuck there for thirty-five years of my marriage. But I can tell you, with it all behind me, I’m so happy to be off that train.”
I nod. “And what about your future? Do you think you’ll ever marry again?”
“No,” she says swiftly before her lips turn upward into a sly smile. “But I may have a lover.”
I giggle at the thought of this woman, my own mother’s age, dreaming about things like this, and I admire her free spirit. I envy it, even.
“But I can tell you, any man who takes me out again must adhere to strict criteria,” she says.
I grin. “Criteria?”
“Yes,” she says with conviction, as if she’s thought this over carefully, for years. “He must be a gentleman, through and through. No alcohol. I don’t like who men turn into when they drink. He must hold my chair out for me at the table. He must make me laugh, and love books, and not be seasick on boats. Because I want him to take me sailing. And when I sneeze, he will say, ‘Bless you,’ and offer me his handkerchief.”
