by Cat Gardiner
Incessant chiming sounded from the front door. Lizzy shut the box, wiped her eyes, and descended the steps. Following a quick fix to her hair in the foyer mirror, she opened the door to see Kitty standing there. She stood awkwardly; a large shopping bag barely containing a bulky white box was gripped in one hand as the other hand retreated from pressing the doorbell button yet again.
“Sissy, what a wonderful surprise,” she greeted Kitty, aware that the forced cheer sounded a bit false, even to her own ears. “Come in!”
They kissed and hugged. Kitty smiled meekly. “I’m sorry to spring in on you, hon, but … but … can you put up some coffee?”
“You came for coffee? Oh, that sounds heavenly. I could use a good strong cup and am so in need of my baby sister.”
Lizzy attempted to remove the bag from her sister’s grip but Kitty grasped it tighter. “No that’s okay, I’ve got it.”
“Of course you do. No crutches today?”
“I feel pretty good actually. It helps to have a son who’s a physical therapist. It’s truly helping.”
“What’s in the bag? That box looks pretty old, from B. Altman’s, isn’t it?”
“Something long overdue for discussion between you and me.”
Lizzy sighed. “It’s been one of those days. So I’m not surprised by anything. Coffee and chocolate sound like just the thing.”
One sister followed the other into the kitchen and Kitty took a seat in the breakfast nook overlooking Lizzy’s herb garden. “Do you have anywhere to go today?” Kitty asked.
“No.”
“Good because what I have to discuss with you is really important.” Kitty pulled the oversized box from the bag, tracing the burgundy B.A cursive insignia design on the lid with her finger nervously. Her eyes fixed upon the cadet pin that her sister had once worn as a young woman, surprisingly adorning her collar.
Lizzy stopped scooping the coffee into the filter. “Does this have to do with Lillian’s granddaughter? Don’t look so surprised. Jack beat you to it. Oh, and by the way Ingrid’s dead.”
“Really? So … finally. Well, you must be devastated.”
“Relieved actually.”
Kitty sobered. “Is that why your eyes are red and your irises vibrant green? Were you crying over Ingrid?”
“I admit to shedding a tear, but not out of grief. I’m just more cognizant of the reality that someone so evil has left us as we still continue to try to do good in direct response to that evil.”
“I’m cold to her death. I know that’s wrong of me, but I have no feeling or emotion to your news.”
Lizzy pressed the button on the automatic drip coffeemaker. “I can understand that. Truly, I can.”
Kitty shifted in the seat, looking over her shoulder at her older sister, attempting to read her for any sign of anger or regret. “How do you feel about this Juliana discovery?”
“I feel unsettled. This whole situation has brought back a flood of memories about Ducky that have me completely …” She sat down across from Kitty who took her sister’s hand in hers over the glass top.
“Tell me … what you are feeling.”
“Confused. Guilt-ridden, of course. Joyful to know I could see him again and fearful that so many, many years have passed that we’ll hardly recognize, let alone, know one another.”
“You are very different now than you were at twenty, Lizzy.”
“Yes, and I’m sure he’s very different from the deeply introspective, tender man I knew in my youth. I’m sure he’s still angry with me for having left him the way I did in ’49.”
“I’m sure if you do see him after all these years that spark will be just as powerful as you explained it was that night.”
“Please … For the last three days, I have spent literally every minute remembering that day and the shock of seeing him alive. Yes, it was as though seven years apart hadn’t separated us at all. We spoke briefly at the christening, but always with the children nearby and John never far from earshot. It was strained and awkward, and I could see the pain and anger in his eyes, but I had no idea why he would be angry with me. It was he who never responded to my desperate letters, ignoring my pleas for help. To know that he had been alive and never acknowledged my pregnancy was devastating, yet I couldn’t resist going to him, forgiving him, and unwilling to discuss the disappointments we both felt.”
“You never said, but did you ask him about the letters? About his not replying to you?”
“No. We didn’t discuss much. That night … that night was passionate and combustive, but so very foolish and unguarded. I should never have gone to him so impetuously, so … so Lizzy like, but my initial intent of telling him about Annette was cast aside the moment I saw him. I just had to hold him as though we were one again.”
Kitty patted Lizzy’s hand, the pain twisting in her heart and enveloping her conscience to an even darker degree of remorse. But she knew she had to hear this as her own punishment for her acts. “Lillian mentioned he left in 1950 after his father passed away. Do you think he expected you to leave John after learning he was alive?”
“I’m sure not. Will was a moral man, and I could never have left John, not after everything he did for me. He was too sick for me to abandon him. You know. You saw how I grew to love my husband—not like I loved Will, but with a respect and friendship that gave us a meaningful marriage and a child of our own who was only six months old when I found out Will was alive.”
Lizzy looked away from her sister’s intense gaze, feeling as though Kitty was trying to dissect her innermost thoughts with her eyes.
“My chickens have come home to roost, and I have to tell Will about Annette and why I married John.”
“He’ll understand.”
She sighed. “Will he? Further, will Annette understand?”
“Yes, when you explain how it was back then. Love and forgiveness go hand in hand, Lizzy. Sometimes, out of love … and fear … we do things we think are for best. Sometimes, we make mistakes that come back to bite us. Sometimes, we can’t know the ramifications of the road chosen until it’s too late, but it’s part of human nature to err, just as nature spurs our human heart to know that forgiveness is divine. You married John because you loved William. You’d thought him dead and wanted to protect your baby from censure as an unwed mother—or worse yet, marrying and raising her as a Gebhardt. You remember how Father was relentless in that pursuit and John ostensibly saved you from that hell.”
“Yes, both are true. I was also afraid they would take her away from me. Further, at that time in our family, the baby needed the protection of a Christian father, and John needed a safe haven and a strong partner to see him through life.”
Kitty looked down, swallowing hard and slumping her shoulders. “Yes, I felt that way, too. I … I wanted to protect your baby from death.”
“I know.”
Kitty closed her eyes tightly, vividly remembering each time she wheeled her way to the silver mail tray beside the door of Meercrest. Entrusted with the delivery of all of Lizzy’s incoming and outgoing mail, she had done the unspeakable—perhaps even the unforgiveable. The sound of her wheelchair screeching through the cavernous hall remained with her for fifty years. It echoed in her psyche symbolically reviving the repercussions of her actions through time, affecting the lives of those she loved.
Kitty’s lip trembled and her tired eyes pooled with unshed tears. “I failed you. In my young, immature mind, I made the decision to do the unthinkable in order to protect you.”
Lizzy slid her hand away, her brow furrowing, the tone of her voice emitting the measured question, “Kitty? What are you saying?”
Shame-faced, her sister shook her head, biting her lip.
“What did you do?! What was unthinkable?”
“I knew William wasn’t dead because I took his letters, and yours, too. I also took your letters to and from the Martel family, everything up until we left for Sister Kenny’s on the train. But by that time, they had
stopped coming.”
Kitty stared at the box, unable to witness the expected shock and anger on her sister’s face.
Dumbfounded, Lizzy’s voice trembled. “You stole … our letters? You?”
“I did. I am so, so sorry to have separated you and William.” She hung her head and stared at her clasp hands before her.
Lizzy abruptly stood, towering over Kitty. “You? You!”
Shocked, she yelled, “You were the reason I never heard from him? You mean to tell me that all of the letters I entrusted to you, you stole?”
As though seventeen again, Kitty fearfully looked away.
“Look at me!”
“No. I can’t.” Her voice cracked and her eyes brimmed over with tears.
Lizzy’s hand flew to her heart and she gasped, her own tears releasing, her vehement words a cry of dismay. “Why would you do that to us? You broke his heart! Because of you he must have believed I dumped him! Why would you deliberately separate us? You of all people knew just how much we loved each other?”
“Why? Why do you think? Father, Gebhardt, and Ingrid knew William was Jewish, and here you were pregnant with his baby! Even at seventeen, I could see what would happen if you had waited for William’s return, no matter what his letters said?”
“That was for me … for me and Will to decide—not you! You took away our choices!”
“You had no choices, Lizzy. John was your only option, and you dragged your feet in taking his offer of marriage up to the very last minute, optimistically holding out for some miraculous end to the war and a happy ever after! Even if you had decided to wait for William, you still would have been unwed and pregnant with no guarantee of his survival in the war! No marriage and no husband’s surname to give to your baby! You were already starting to show, foolishly believing that stupid maternity girdle concealed you. Did you think Ingrid would let a Jewish baby live as a Renner? I knew what she was capable of—remember? Don’t pretend as though you didn’t know just how anti-Semitic she and Father were! Annette could have been killed!”
“How dare you! Don’t you think I knew what Frederick and Ingrid were capable of? I was the one to telephone the FBI after making sure you were safe, far away from their reach!”
“Lizzy, I was afraid! A scared teenager who looked over her shoulder at every trapped turn, afraid of everyone and everything!”
Lizzy grabbed the box from the table, clutching it against her chest, yelling as the tears streamed down her cheeks, “Are these our letters?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe you did this! I protected you. I was your greatest champion! I did everything for you and this is how you repaid me—by keeping me from the only man I have ever truly loved, ever felt I belonged with, …” Her voice cracked and she blubbered,“ … felt whole with, felt one with? You let me believe he was dead! I cried for months! I secretly cried for years!”
Astonished she added, “And you just sat by and watched.”
“If I hadn’t misled you, then both you and Annette could never have survived at Meercrest! I could never have survived!”
Still clutching the sizeable box, Lizzy paced as though a tigress before Kitty. “This was about you! You pushed me to marry John so that I could remove you from Meercrest and take you here or send you to Sister Kenny.”
“No! This was about your unborn child!”
“Don’t give me that shit. Had you given me the opportunity, I might have gone to Will’s parents for help after writing them, but that would have left poor crippled Kitty Renner stuck in her wheelchair without her sister to protect her from the big bad Nazi wolves!”
“Don’t be cruel, Lizzy. It’s not like you!”
“And I thought it wasn’t like you to hurt me as you did. To not trust that I would have protected you above all things breaks my heart! To not have trusted the Martels to take us both in! Leading me to believe that Will was killed and that his family wanted nothing to do with me left me with only one choice. You took away his parentage!”
“No, you took away his parentage. You yourself admitted that you chickened out in telling him about Annette the night of your affair. That was your doing, not mine!”
Turning her back to Kitty, Lizzy sighed. Her sister was right on that issue. No amount of rationalizing could take away her own reproach, especially not upon hearing that Will hadn’t been indifferent to her plight—he was ignorant of it. “That is none of your business. Don’t put this back on me when you know that I could never have betrayed John!”
“But it was all right to betray him by sleeping with Will!”
“Shut up!”
“Why were you not this angry with Lillian for not telling you that he was alive?”
“Because Lillian didn’t steal my letters! And I was mad at her. But don’t bring her into this. She is not alive to defend herself. Her silence wasn’t outright deceit, just her insane need to shelter her beloved family from the evils in ours! She didn’t put the wheels in motion that separated two young lovers for fifty years! Unlike only you—she had no concept of the depth of Will’s and my love. To her, we were just a wartime couple who dated and corresponded. In her opinion, there was no reason to tell me—I was a married woman with children by the time she returned from Europe.”
Kitty rose from her chair, attempting to walk around the table. “Please forgive me.”
“No. I don’t think I can. You ruined my life—my dreams. I sacrificed everything, including him, for everyone and I—we—can never get it back.”
“I’m sorry. I am so sorry, Lizzy. Please try to forgive me. I was scared for all of us. I was so young. I was only seventeen for G-d’s sake, isolated in that house for years by then, and did what I saw as the only feasible option, but I was wrong, so, so wrong.”
Lizzy stood face to face with her sister, as the tears poured forth. Her arms circled the white box tightly. Nostrils flared and her lips sneered when she stated with icy calm, “Feel free to enjoy your coffee then let yourself out. I don’t care to remain in your presence.”
She left Kitty standing beside the breakfast table and ran upstairs, clutching the box to her heart.
~~*~~
Thirty-Six
Tears in My Heart
February 16 & 18, 1943
Bitter winter cold, unabated morning sickness, and a subway ride south from her doctor’s visit in the Bronx was an unwelcome combination for Lizzy. Tired and dismayed, overjoyed and terrified, she arrived at the Greystone townhouse in Murray Hill for a warming cup of tea before taking the railroad back to Glen Cove. She knew that she would have time to kill before the 2:15 train. Returning to the scene of her father’s infidelity four months prior was unnerving, but she had given herself an important mission to accomplish.
Entering the mansion, she was greeted by the usual stoicism of Mr. Krauss the butler and the cloyingly sweet scent of fresh baking cookies that almost immediately turned her stomach.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he said, taking her coat, hat, and leather gloves. “It is a pleasure to see you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Krauss. Is Father in residence this afternoon?”
“No, Miss.”
Maintaining the requisite air of indifference toward the help, her low-heeled spectator pumps crossed the rotunda as she glanced up at the daunting spiraling staircase to the five flights above. Her fingers unconsciously toyed with Will’s cadet wings upon her sweater, pinned above a terribly heavy heart. Her effervescent spirit had finally evaporated with the reality of what she had to face—Will had not written her, had not replied to a single letter, nor had his mother or brother. She had no choice but to accept John’s offer of marriage. Her baby needed a father—someone other than Gebhardt. Her sister needed a safe shelter and a future.
“Is Mrs. Albrecht in the kitchen?”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Please tell her that I’d like a cup of tea. I’ll wait in my father’s study. Can you arrange for a fire, please?”
“Yes,
of course.”
“Do you know when Father is expected to return?”
“Not until Monday, Miss Elizabeth.”
Krauss gave an ingrained formal nod, maintaining his position until Lizzy pushed open the study door. The scene before her sat in stilled silence, the sun streaming through the vibrant colors of the stained glass creating glorious rays of light. A strange chill ran up her spine when she immediately recalled her father hovering over the unknown woman, a visual image that surfaced frequently throughout these past months.
In truth, she could have chosen any room in which to unwind with her tea. In this townhouse she disliked so much, the library or the music room had, at times, both provided peaceful refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city. Though she hadn’t really spent much time here, not long ago she had thrived on the energy and excitement of New York City. But there was a worldwide war on, and now she knew there was more to life than the society debutante girl she had embodied. Being schooled at the College of William Martel had helped her to see that.
Lizzy chose this room for the specific purpose of examining her father’s desk in his absence. Her mother’s inadvertent admission the night of the Christmas ball and the wording of Gebhardt’s proposal had resulted in a persistent tug to continue fact-finding into her father’s activities. All hope in his innocence was not entirely lost, but before she left Greystone she needed to be sure. She sincerely wanted to find him above suspicion of un-American acts!
She took a seat on the divan in the corner of the room as one of the housemaids entered to start the fire. Polite conversation lasted until the amenable entrance of Mrs. Albrecht bearing a plate of Frankfurter Brenten marzipan cookies and a “Köppke Tea,” as she referred to the East Friesian beverage, all lay upon a silver tray. The housekeeper’s grandmotherly manner and caring nature was a warm welcome as she handed over the cup of tea and gingerly placed the lap blanket across her chilled legs. It was as if the woman knew something was amiss.
