Family Secrets

by Nancy Thayer

  Jean nestled against him, burrowing her head into his shoulder. She murmured against his skin. He couldn’t hear the words, but she needed to say them. “I couldn’t stand to lose you. I love you,” she whispered.

  “We should go,” Erich told her. “It’s late.”

  The next day she told her parents she was meeting Betty for lunch and an afternoon of shopping. Betty promised to cover for her, then Jean brazenly drove to the hotel, where she went to bed with Erich. Then, terribly pleased with herself, she drove home and got ready for a “date” with Erich.

  She was sitting in the living room waiting for Erich to pick her up for dinner, spending a few diplomatic good-girl moments with her parents, when Bobby and Al came in.

  Al’s face lit up when he saw her. “Jean. I’m glad you’re here.” He sat down next to her on the sofa. “I’ve come to say good-bye. I’m going back to Norfolk tomorrow.”

  She was wearing a boxy black wool suit that she knew her parents would find reassuringly prim. Beneath it her body was still tingling from an afternoon in Erich’s arms, and Jean felt brimming with good luck, spilling over with goodwill.

  “Oh, Al, take care. Will you?” She saw the hope kindle in his eyes at her words. He was a lovely man, handsome, kind, intelligent, good, and in the glow of her happiness she found she was truly fond of Al.

  “It’s nothing to be concerned about, not yet. I’ll just be in training,” Al told her.

  “Oh, good. You mean so much to me, Al,” Jean said softly, and she meant it. She touched his hand lightly.

  Across the room, her father cleared his throat.

  “Look, Jean, Al and I are going to pick up Betty and go out to dinner. Why not join us?” her brother suggested.

  Jean saw the lights of Erich’s car flash in the driveway. “Oh, I’d love to, Bobby, but I’ve already made plans and I can’t get out of them.” She rose and moved toward the door. “I’m sorry. A bunch of us are going out for a meal”—she lied—“and we don’t want to be late, so I’d better hurry. ’Bye!” She was out the door before anyone could speak, skimming down the snow-edged sidewalk to Erich’s car. She jumped in before he could turn off the engine, and the moment they were around the corner, she slid across the seat and put her hand on his thigh.

  On the third of January, after Bobby had helped her pack her car, Jean said good-bye to her family and drove off, waving gaily, headed back to Boston and a new semester of college.

  She made one stop on the way, at Erich’s hotel. They had agreed that there wouldn’t be enough time for them to make love if Jean was to drive during the few remaining hours of daylight. But when they embraced, intending only to kiss good-bye, lust leaped like lightning between them. Erich pulled her on top of him as he sat on the sofa, he undid his trousers, she kicked off her shoes, yanked off her stockings, hitched up her skirt, and straddled him, feeling his hardness beneath her. She stared into his eyes as they moved together, shuddering with desire, consuming him with her eyes, her mouth, her hands, her tongue, her sex.

  When they’d finished, she slumped against him, her head on his shoulder.

  “I love you, Erich.” There, she’d said it.

  She felt the sharp intake of his breath at her words. After a while, he spoke. “I love you.”

  January 15, 1940

  Darling Erich,

  I love you and miss you more than words can say. I think of you constantly. I can’t wait to be with you again.

  Yet the hours are flying by. Erich, I’m so happy! I returned to Cambridge to discover that Hal Farmer and Stanley Friedman have moved up the publication date of the first issue of War Stories to the first of February. And everyone’s so frantic that they even assigned an article to me! Oh, Erich, I was nervous, but the story turned out to be so marvelous I couldn’t help but do a good job. I interviewed Penelope Farley, an Englishwoman in her sixties who has been living in Boston since the end of the Great War. Mrs. Farley lost her husband, her two sons, and a brother in that war, and her home in London was destroyed in a bombing. Hal and Stanley said my essay was brilliant, and it will be the second piece in the review. They didn’t cut a word. I’m so pleased. Erich, I might actually do some good, have an impact. I mean that with this article, I might tip the balance in a few people’s minds away from war.

  I’m so happy these days. I’m doing so much, working on War Stories, attending classes, and somehow even keeping my grades up.

  And always, always, every second of the day, I’m thinking of you. That’s why I’m happy.

  Please call me, darling. Please come up or let me meet you in New York. I need to be with you.

  All my love,

  Jean

  January 30, 1940

  My darling,

  It’s three o’clock in the morning, and I can’t sleep. I want to be with you. But since I can’t have that, I can at least remember our time together last week in New York. It was more wonderful than I ever imagined anything could be. Not just the lovemaking—you know I loved that—but every minute of our time together was perfect. I loved walking through Central Park with you, I loved having coffee and talking at the Algonquin, sitting together all warm and cozy while the snow swirled down outside. I’m glad you feel as I do, that war is wrong and we must work for peace. It means so much to me that you believe what I do and think it matters. My brother and my father are convinced of my insignificance just because I’m a female. Now, because of you, I feel absolutely smug about being a woman.

  I can’t wait to see you again.

  All my love,

  Jean

  On February 1 the first issue of War Stories was published. On February 4, Jean’s father called her and ordered her to come home at once. Although her father had refused to discuss the subject over the telephone, she knew why he was angry. He’d take this personally, of course; he’d consider War Stories subversive. He’d lecture her, reprimand her, and dole out some kind of punishment. She would have to listen, head bowed in penitence.

  Then she’d tell her parents she was going to visit Betty. Instead, she’d surprise Erich at his rooms in the Wardman Park Hotel. Perhaps she’d even figure out a way to spend the night with him before driving back to school.

  Jean drove straight from Boston to Washington in one day, stopping only for gas and coffee. It was almost ten o’clock at night when she finally arrived. As she pulled into the driveway, she saw her mother watching at the window. She grabbed up her overnight bag and, holding her chin high, strode to her front door.

  Her mother came hurrying down the hallway to let Jean in.

  “Darling, how was your trip? Are you hungry? I’ve made you a plate of sandwiches and some hot chocolate. Here, let Agate take your bag up to your room. Father’s waiting for you.”

  He really must be on a tear, Jean thought, because her mother was nearly twitching with nerves. Jean tossed her coat on the coatrack and went into the living room.

  “Shut the door,” her father ordered. He was standing in front of the cold fireplace, and he gestured for her to sit in a chair facing him. “I believe you owe me an apology, young lady,” he announced.

  “I don’t think I do,” Jean retorted, and the battle began.

  The first hour or so went fairly much as she had expected. Her father’s anger was even worse than she’d thought it would be. He delivered several low blows about how she’d hurt and shamed her brother, who might be killed in the coming war.

  “You are an ungrateful little fool!” Commander Marshall railed. “I’ve given you everything, and you repay me by insulting my work and my beliefs, by trying to undermine all I’ve fought for all my life!”

  “Father, please understand that that article has nothing to do with you. I didn’t write it to hurt you. I wrote it because I believe it.”

  “What are you, a communist?”

  “No—but I’m an American who doesn’t believe in war.”

  “And you don’t think that reflects on the father whose life work has been to
defend his country through war? No—don’t bother to answer me. We’ve spent an hour in here and gotten nowhere. You’re the most pigheaded, stupid child I’ve ever heard of. You make me ashamed of you, Jean. Do you hear me? I’m ashamed of you.”

  “I’m sorry, Father, but I have to stand up for what I think is right.”

  “Well, you’re not going to stand up for it anymore supported by my money. I’m withdrawing you from Radcliffe.”

  “What? Father, you can’t!”

  “Of course I can. Who pays your tuition? You don’t. Your goddamned anarchist friends don’t. I do, or I did. I won’t anymore. Unless you offer me an apology and a promise not to have anything more to do with that rag.”

  “You are behaving like a tyrant.”

  “It’s my right. It’s my money sending you to that damned liberal college. I knew it was wrong. From the start, I knew it was wrong.”

  “The tuition’s already paid up for this semester.”

  “Fine. Go on back. But we’re cutting off your allowance. See if those intellectuals will buy your clothes or gasoline or movie tickets or dinner at a restaurant. See if you can find someone to pay your tuition the next year and the next, because I’m not going to do it.”

  “I don’t believe this!”

  “Believe it, Jean. You’ve gone too far. I’ve had it. And I’m keeping the DeSoto.”

  “What? It was a Christmas present!”

  “It was a gift. To my daughter. You’re not acting the way my daughter should act. You have no legal right to it. It’s registered in my name, not yours. So if you think you’re going to drive back to your college and your rebellious ways on my nickel, you’re wrong. You can walk back if you want to. I’m not giving you money for a train ticket. I’m not giving you the money for a cup of coffee.”

  Jean was stunned into complete silence.

  “I’ve said all I have to say to you, Jean. You go on to bed now and sleep on what I’ve told you. If you’re ready to apologize to me tomorrow, I’ll be willing to accept your apology. If not, you know what the consequences are.”

  Commander Marshall stalked across the room and opened the door to the hall.

  “You make me sick to my stomach,” Jean said clearly.

  Her father’s back stiffened, but he did not turn around. He went out of the room, down the hall, and soon she heard him open and close the door to his study.

  Her mother came skulking into the room then, wringing her hands like a whipped servant.

  “Jean,” she began piteously, then stopped, helpless.

  “Poor mother,” Jean said. She rose, walked past her, and went upstairs to her room.

  That night Jean sat up in her bed struggling with her emotions and envisioning schemes for revenge that she knew she could never carry out. She longed to call Erich. She ached to see him—there she was in Washington, where he lay sleeping only a few blocks away, and he didn’t even know it! But she was too full of anger and bitterness to speak to him now. And she would not throw herself on him like some helpless maiden seeking a knight to rescue her. She had to think all this through and come to some solution herself.

  She would not apologize to her father.

  Would she give up college and all that it provided simply for her beliefs?

  Yes. Yes, gladly.

  Of course, she thought, as the sun began to rise, it did make a difference that if she didn’t return to Radcliffe she could stay here in Washington, and then she could see Erich every day. But her decision wasn’t based only on her desires. For once, her principles and passions were on the same side.

  Perhaps War Stories would like a Washington correspondent! This was the town where it was all happening. Even she had heard about the chaotic comings and goings of diplomats from the various embassies. At her mother’s weekly bridge parties, congressmen’s wives gossiped about the Rumanian ambassador’s wife taking a job as a saleswoman in a local department store and tsk-tsked because a German diplomat’s wife wouldn’t attend a party if a certain Italian envoy’s wife was also invited. Half the people Jean had gone to high school with had parents or relatives working in Washington.

  She knew plenty of people she could interview. She could get some kind of docile secretarial job, move into a boardinghouse, and write articles at night! That would show her father that she wasn’t a little girl to be ordered around anymore. Besides, most of her college courses had bored her—writing for War Stories was exactly what she wanted to do.

  Her head was buzzing. She stretched out on the bed and fell into a deep, brief, refreshing sleep, waking two hours later to the sounds of her mother and Agate bustling around in the other bedrooms. She arose, bathed, and put on clean clothes, her best tweed suit and her cocky little felt hat.

  Her mother heard her clicking on her high heels down the stairs and into the kitchen and came scurrying along behind. It was after nine o’clock; her father would already have left. Jean poured herself a cup of coffee and ate some toast with jam.

  “Darling, what are you doing?” Mrs. Marshall said.

  “I’m eating breakfast, Mother. Then I’m going out. Don’t worry, I won’t use Father’s new DeSoto. I’ll take the trolley.”

  “Oh, darling, really, I’m sure—”

  “Mother. Let it alone.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out.”

  She didn’t mean to take her anger out on her mother, yet why shouldn’t she? What had her mother done to defend her against her father? Jean gulped her coffee, grabbed her coat from the hall closet, and went out the door.

  Jean headed for Pennsylvania Avenue. She knew exactly for whom she wanted to work. For months she’d heard her father complain about Harry Woodring, formerly governor of Kansas, now secretary of war, and a fierce isolationist. He was completely opposed to going to war in aid of the British and French. If she worked for him, she’d infuriate her father and be able to collect information for War Stories at the same time. With Washington awakening to the possibility of war, more office workers were urgently needed, and almost anyone who could type was hired. By mid-afternoon, Jean had a job. It wasn’t, unfortunately, quite what she’d envisioned. She had been sent from office to office in the War Building, and finally over to the creaking old Munitions Building on Constitution Avenue. A harried supervisor named Polly Anderson had interviewed her for five clipped minutes before giving her a job in the secretarial pool.

  “I was hoping for something a little more—advanced,” Jean had said. “I’ve written articles for—”

  “Do you have a college degree?”

  “No, but I—”

  “You have a high school diploma and you can type, right? This is the job that matches your skills. If you don’t want it, go somewhere else. You’ll probably find what you want. Everyone needs help these days. I don’t have any more time. Good-bye.”

  “No—wait. I want the job.”

  “Good. You start tomorrow.”

  She had a celebratory lunch in Scholl’s Cafeteria, reading ads for rooms in the Times-Herald. Georgetown was her best bet. It was an area in transition. Many of its once-elegant homes had been turned into rooming houses, and Jean looked at three before settling on one on M Street. It was an ugly little closet of a room, but the bathroom down the hall was clean and modern, and the landlady was timid.

  “Do you allow men upstairs in the evening?” Jean asked.

  “Oh, my dear, I never thought … no one has ever asked. Well, I suppose I do …” Mrs. Connors blathered, looking at Jean’s raccoon coat and leather purse and gloves. “Great,” Jean said. “I’ll take it. I’ll move in tomorrow.”

  Riding the trolley back to her house, Jean calculated sums in her head. Her salary at the Munitions Building would bring her one hundred twenty dollars a month. The room would cost sixty. That didn’t leave much for food and clothing, especially since silk stockings cost three dollars a pair, but she thought she could count on her mother to keep her stocked with a few basic necessities.
She might not be able to afford bread, but her mother would certainly bring her cake. Jean smiled.

  It was quiet in her house. Her mother always took a nap in the early afternoon. Jean called Midge’s dorm and left a message for her friend to call her right away at home. Wouldn’t she be surprised! Then she put on some old slacks and loafers, went down to the basement to scrounge around for Bobby’s old summer-camp trunk, and dragged it up to her room. She began to pack. Midge called, shrieked with gleeful astonishment at Jean’s news, and promised to cut classes the next day to drive Jean and her things over to Mrs. Connors’s.

  It was almost time for her father to arrive home from work. Jean could hear her mother in the living room now, readying the cocktail glasses. Stafford came in through the back door, his arms laden with logs for the fire. Jean ate some of Agate’s homemade oatmeal cookies and drank a glass of milk standing up. Then she pulled on her snow boots, fur coat, and gloves and slipped out through the back door.

  She walked to the nearest drugstore, slid into the phone booth, closed the door, and dialed Erich’s number.

  Those few weeks in February would always last in her memory as the happiest days of her life. She loved her work, seated at a creaking desk typing endless forms on an ancient typewriter. Polly Anderson ran her office like a sorority house, and the air was full of laughter and chatter and the smell of perfume and nail polish. No one seemed to have a clue about what was going on, but everyone bustled with purpose and energy. A feeling of optimistic anticipation filled the air. Army officers and civilian executives came and went, flirting with the office girls.

  Her relationship with her parents had settled into an uneasy truce. Her father seldom spoke to her, but her mother was genuinely happy to have Jean living in Washington instead of so far away. She told Jean to come for Sunday dinner—or any other time she wanted to. “Your father will come around in time, dear,” she said. “He’s really glad you’re working for the government, you know.” Jean visited home often, partly to please her mother, but also to pick up any tidbits of Washington gossip.