My heart aches for you as I know how you must feel. When Robbie was sick in the hospital I’d watch over him and think, Where did he go? Where is he now? But mostly the thing I thought and still want to scream is, “I want my boy back!” You want your boy back. You’re his mother. It’s what we do.
My mother, when she was sick, told me she thought I’d take to mothering more than she ever could. She didn’t apologize for being distant or for sending me away. I didn’t expect her to. But she did say that I was different and she thought I’d make a good mama. And when Robert was there, next to me at her funeral, I saw my children in his eyes.
Then, when I found out I was pregnant I was thrilled. And I do love being a mother, but I can almost understand my own mother’s reservations. When you put your whole heart in something you risk just that. Your whole heart. It’s a high roller’s type of gamble. I can tell by your letters that you love with your whole heart. As I love with mine. Too much lately, but I’ll save that for another letter.
It’s coming on Christmastime and my Christmas wish for you is a letter from Toby telling you he’s just fine and that he’d like nothing more than to curl his grown body up in your lap in front of your tree. I’ve already put mine up. Levi cut it down from the back of some property we own up the road. I’m full of Christmas this year, I don’t know why—but the whole town is. Festive, festive, festive. I’ve bought an ornament, a ceramic sunflower and I had the jeweler etch Rita across the base. It hangs at the front and dangles in the firelight. I do wish you were here.
Do something for me if no word has come from him by the time you get this letter. Try to think of Toby as a ball of light. A ball of shimmering light bounding across the ocean and running through forests, over mountains and into the fields next to your sweet home. Anna calls this “Creative Visualization.” I use it. It works.
Love,
Glory
P.S. OH! I almost forgot. I made my first speech at the Women to Work forum. I was so scared, Rita. I could HEAR my heartbeat in my ears. I thought I might pass out or even toss my lunch. But Anna told me something that helped. She said, “Just picture thirty Robert Whitehalls out there. Tell him your speech as you would have practiced it in your own living room in your own sweet, white house. Oh. And speak slowly, Glory. You talk much too fast.”
And you know what? Those words just came right out of me. And before I knew it there was applause. APPLAUSE! (Can you believe it?)
But Anna said I talked too fast anyway.
December 14, 1943
ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS
Dear Rita,
I wasn’t expecting your second letter. I was Christmas shopping with Corrine and Marie in town. Levi was watching Robbie—the wind is too cold for him and sets him coughing. Yes, I haven’t sent him away altogether. We just go on as if nothing happened...but there’s something in the air between us. I wish I could forget all of it.
Marie took Corrine to play in the toy store (They have a miniature carousel, it’s grand!) and I was looking at the bustling people all around me, with ruddy cheeks and shining eyes. Christmas is everywhere in Rockport. A garland on every light pole. A wreath on every door. But what captured my attention was the color of the sunset. Do you see the same sunset as me, Rita? In the winter our sunsets are like red fiery jewels lighting up the sky in a tapestry of color. I hadn’t realized that I’d stopped to stare at the way the colors played against the tall, white steeple of Christ Church. People had to walk around me, but no one mumbled or bumped me. I suppose they all surmised I’d lost someone.
Then the postman, Sam, came flying out of the post office with your letter. “Here! This came on the last train, Glory!” At first I thought it must be V-mail...but the envelope was wrong. When I saw it was from you I sat on a bench in front of the church and I read it and I cried.
How I wish I could be there with you or you with me. How unfair that the war keeps us apart from those we love the most, both overseas and here at home. And then I thought of our letters traveling toward each other, out of rhythm, like a fast and necessary conversation. They may have mingled in the same postal bag!
And this war. How skillfully you sum up what we have danced all these months around. I’m glad we feel the same way.
What can I say about this war that you don’t know in an even greater way than myself? That it is necessary? It is. There is an evil out there, Rita. An evil that must be taken care of or we are at risk of the same pathogen. Sometimes I wish I could go over there, too. That I could wear that uniform and spread the Good News that freedom and Eden do exist and open their arms to all who would like to partake in it.
I suppose I need to copy those words down as they may be the beginnings of my first speech at Anna’s ministry. Impassioned, yes. But from my heart, Rita. From my heart to your heart. Our boys are dying all around us. Every day. But they are dying for a reason. If there is such a thing. If there was ever a time to put our lives on the line, it is now. Don’t you feel it, Rita? The being one with history?
Please let me know when you get news. I’m sending love and joy.
Merry Christmas, Rita,
Glory
December 24, 1943 (very, very late at night...)
IOWA CITY, IOWA
Oh, Glory!
The postman delivered a letter this morning—from Toby! It’s dated the third of December, days after that horrible battle, so he is alive!
I danced in my front yard until Mrs. K. came out, cross as the dickens, wondering why I’d gone stark-raving mad. When I told her the good news she ran into the house and came out with two small glasses of kirshwasser and we drank to Toby’s health at ten o’clock in the morning!
I think Mrs. K. holds a sweet spot for him. She always yelled at Toby when his ball bounced into her yard, but then, on Christmas, we always found a new ball on the front porch with a very formally written card from “Your next-door neighbor.” Before he left for training, Toby did pay his respects to the woman, and I know she worries about him, even when she is making voodoo dolls of me.
Speaking of dolls, I hope the children received my package. I’ve been in such a daze I didn’t mail it until last week. Corrine’s doll is wearing a dress I made myself, and Robbie’s ball was once Toby’s. I hope he can chuck it into the neighbor’s yard very soon. I also hope my Lebkuchen traveled well. I included the recipe in the box as it doesn’t require sugar, just honey.
Oh, it’s been a good, good day, Glory.
Roylene stopped by for lunch. Her gift to me was the sublime pleasure of feeling my grandchild kick a Morse code greeting against my open palm.
Later, Charlie and I talked Irene into skipping midnight mass and heading out on the town instead. A few miles from my house there’s this real juke joint—Sal and I used to go when we first moved here. Back then there’d be folksy singers holding court and communists meeting in the beer garden, yelling about the evils of capitalism to the stares of wide-eyed students. Like everything else, though, it’s changed.
The place was done up in red, white and blue tinsel, and the folk singers were gone, replaced by some real swingers, a five-piece band made up of guys serving stateside who’d gotten leave. They were in uniform, and it was a sight to see. The holiday had everyone full of cheer, and the drinks were flowing, lighting faces up like the Christmas tree suspended from the rafters! Yes, it was hanging there like a children’s piñata! The barman said they didn’t have room for it anywhere else. We laughed like crazy!
At the end of the night, when everyone got red-faced and sentimental, the band started playing “When the Lights Go on Again, All Over the World.” They had no singer, so we all took over, every person in that tavern, holding on to one another’s shoulders. I had Irene on one side and Charlie on the other, belting away, and I could feel the heat of their bodies through their clothes and the sweet smell of liquor on everyone’s breath and the hope in that r
oom lifted me up, up, up till I felt like that Christmas tree, hanging over the world, twinkling like the stars.
I’m drunk, though more with happiness than whiskey.
Toby’s alive, Glory. And my Sal. And Robert and Robbie. Corrine and Levi and Mrs. M. and Mrs. K. Irene and Charlie. Roylene and the baby she is carrying. Us. We’re alive!
The Merriest of Christmases to you and yours, my beloved East Coast friend, and may 1944 treat you well. It will bring Victory, and our heroes will come home. I just know it.
Love,
Rita
January 1, 1944
ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS
Dear Rita,
Happy New Year! And it is a happy new year. Especially with your letter and the good news it contained. Relief flooded through me as if he were my own son. Oh, Rita, we are so fortunate, aren’t we? In so many ways.
It’s my birthday today. I’m a New Year’s baby. Twenty-four years old. I feel much older than that. Levi helped Robbie make me a beautiful candlelight meal—we combined New Year’s Eve and my birthday. The children were so well behaved. Corrine is such a happy, sweet baby. She sat smiling and eating her macaroni in her high chair. They made me Pasta Puttanesca. Do you know it? Quite fancy and something I ate frequently when my parents returned from Italy. (Mother used to have our cooks experiment with dishes she liked when she returned from exotic places.) I think its meaning has to do with women of the night.
Which could have something to do with what happened after the children were asleep. Can I blame it on the dinner, on the wine, on the name of the meal...? Can I blame it on the war? Or should we blame Robert? Robert who wrote to Levi (not me) about the horrors of the war. About fearing he would not return. About Levi taking his place in my home and my heart if the worst should happen. Imagine.
On my wedding night I was ready for the moment. The giving in to pent-up passions. Robert is a quiet lover. Gentle and graceful. A comfortable breeze of a man.
Tonight started innocently enough. Most terrible things do, right? We were cleaning up together, and dancing around the living room to “The Pennsylvania Polka.” I just love the Andrews Sisters! But then, as luck would have it, an older song came on the radio, “Someone to Watch Over Me.” It never fails to make me cry. So I started to sing along to it...and teared up a bit while I did.
“You okay?” Levi said from behind me, putting his hands on my hips and meeting their sway. And I should have pulled away, but the music...that song... A weaker moment there never was. A weaker woman there never was. I turned around and we were in an immediate embrace. We danced a lovers’ dance, his head buried in my neck, mine taking in all of the familiarity of years and years of wondering what it would have been like if I’d chosen Levi and not Robert. The curiosity overwhelmed me.
“I love you, I love you, I love you,” he crooned into my hair.
And that was all it took. I closed my mind to the world. To propriety. To everything.
Levi was a storm. We stumbled together across the living room like clouds in the sky full of rain. Falling half on the couch and the floor. Buttons flying, fabric tearing. I think I was crying. I don’t remember. Clapping thunder and lightning all around. Fierce and frightening. Not like the love that Robert and I make. This was the sort of thing that even in the act felt doomed, but like flying off a cliff...exhilarating.
I doubt I’ll recover soon. My heart flutters in my throat and a shiver goes up my back just thinking about the placement of his hands. That, above all else, is what made me toss up my entire birthday meal after Levi left. The Guilt. Shame. Oh, Rita. What have I done?
“I am a wretched wife,” I said to myself after I scrubbed my body raw in a scalding hot tub. I might be able to wash the sin from my body, but how do I purge it from my mind?
Please don’t hate me.
So, so much love,
Glory
P.S. I’ve been thinking so much about your Roylene lately. Maybe because she had a fall from grace, too? I don’t know. But, please let her know that if she needs anything, I’m here to help. Okay?
January 6, 1944
IOWA CITY, IOWA
Glory,
Today we celebrate the day the magi brought gifts to our Lord. We Catholics call it the Epiphany. And yes, I do realize I’m not being subtle.
You must stop. Levi must stop.
There are complexities to this situation to which you are not giving sufficient thought. I don’t know if it is because you are young or a blithe spirit or simply a girl caught in a rough spot. The reason doesn’t matter as much as the actions you take from here on in.
Think about it this way—our actions speak truths our words cannot. So whatever you decide to do next is telling the world what you think of your husband. It doesn’t matter that Robert’s not there to see it. You’ll know, and Levi will know where you stand.
So you need to figure out exactly how you really feel.
It is clear to me that your husband loves you very much. If he is discussing the possibility of another man taking his place, then he is a man who feels death is imminent. There could be no other reason. It must be very, very bad overseas, possibly worse than we are led to believe, or worse than our imaginations will let us construct.
So you must honor Robert’s sacrifice by making one of your own. Levi will accept this, as your friend, as Robert’s friend.
Glory, if you intend to speak before sensible women and expect to give power to your words, you must be as free of moral ambiguity as you can. I’m not a big believer in fire and brimstone, but I do think a certain purity of heart and intention is necessary when we expect to be heard. We often realize too late that passion only lasts when it is married to truth.
Now before you say I should go find a ladder to climb onto my high horse, let me state this—I do understand. I haven’t been intimate with anyone but Sal since our wedding, but that’s not to say there haven’t been offers, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered those offers. Sal spent the past ten years of his life standing in front of coeds, and he is still an attractive man. I’m certain he’s been tempted as well. But for a marriage to work you both need the ability to see all the possible outcomes of a moment’s weakness. Most of them are less than satisfying. And none of them end with “happily ever after.”
I’m certain Mrs. Moldenhauer would say the same should you ask her. Have you spoken to her about this? To Marie? There are times in a woman’s life where she requires a veritable Greek chorus of women’s voices to keep her on track. Even if one of them is shouting from Iowa City.
Which brings me to my next topic—Roylene. I believe your postscript sprang from both your generous spirit and a need to connect with a gal at a similar stage in life. You can help Roylene. Be her friend. Write to her, hon. Even if she doesn’t respond, it’ll do your heart good.
Rita
January 11, 1944
V-mail from Marguerite Vincenzo to Pfc. Salvatore Vincenzo
Sal,
Damn you for being so good at reading between the lines. You’re right. I am shamed. Every time Mrs. K. clucks her tongue at Roylene’s growing belly, or that Hansen woman asks me when the wedding is, I want to shut the door and never come out.
But then I’m ashamed of my shame. He’s our son. And this situation might not change much after all, right? Toby can still go to college. He can still meet his goals. Did he mention signing up for classes after the war?
Did he mention marriage? He hasn’t with me. I know what you’re thinking—I won’t jump all over the two of them once this war’s over. A few months after...maybe.
I secretly love a big wedding. And we clean up pretty good, the two of us. I should start pressing your gray suit now. You do love a sharp crease.
Love,
Rita
January 12, 1944
V-mail from Marguerite Vincenzo to Seaman Tob
ias Vincenzo
Son,
You’re right, but sometimes being right doesn’t amount to much. No, it isn’t an ideal world to bring a child into, but if we all waited for that this planet would only house dandelions and cockroaches.
And... I am quite often a hypocrite, but not in this situation. I was mad—spitting mad—but that was just my initial reaction. An understandable one at that. I don’t dislike her. To tell you the truth Roylene’s growing on me, maybe not as quickly as the baby growing inside her, but steadily, incrementally. It began when I noticed the brightness in her smile. She shines like a new penny if you catch her at the right moment.
Her daddy is another story. I haven’t seen much of Roy, but I know he’s around, crawling on his belly, a cobra ready to strike. Irene’s boyfriend, Charlie, had a talk with him. I didn’t ask for specifics, but whatever transpired has kept things status quo.
When you get home you’ll take Mama Vincenzo’s ring to the jeweler, and then we’ll work out the living situation. And yes, you are coming home. Stop that kind of talk—you don’t want to give the universe any ideas.
I love you, Toby.
Your ma
P.S. I’d like to be called “Nana” instead of “Grandma.” It’s more elegant.
January 20, 1944
ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS
Dearest Rita,
Please forgive me if you hear a bit of nervous laughter in my letter today. I mean no disrespect, at ALL. But I have to say I could fairly feel the spit of your rage and worry in that last letter. I imagined you in my own kitchen banging around pots and pans, only stopping to point at me, throw your hands up in disgust and bang around some more.
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