by Helen Frost
homework, no more Mr. Sander, no more poetry
to memorize or history to learn or essays to
compose—but I’ll miss walking home with Emma,
and I’m restless: What will I do with myself
once the applesauce and peas and beans
are all in their jars on the pantry shelves and
the storm windows are washed and fitted
back in place, and…? Once I start thinking
about it, I can see the list goes on and on—help Papa
butcher the pig and hang the ham and bacon
in the smokehouse; get all our winter woolens
out of storage and check them thoroughly
for moth holes that need mending; let down
the hems of all the skirts and dresses
Grace has outgrown since last winter;
make Christmas gifts for everyone. And then,
when the earth warms up next April—start all over.
My life could go on like that forever.
Unless …
I hear they need nurses in the army hospitals,
they need workers in the factories; they’re finding
out that women can do almost all the things
that men have always done. What if,
some morning, I walk down our path and shut
the gate behind me, keep on going down
the dusty road to town, get on a train to …
somewhere? Wouldn’t something interesting
be bound to happen?
The Tide That’s Drowning Millions
Emma
School isn’t much fun
this year without Muriel, without
Ollie. Almost all the boys are gone now.
It’s spreading like an epidemic, all of them
following each other into the army, navy, air corps
(they all want to fly), or merchant marines. Whenever
one of the boys signs up, all the rest start talking big;
the teachers applaud the ones who go. Yesterday, Sig
Olsen left (when his sister brags about it, she never
says she tried to talk him out of going, of course).
Frank wrote to us: They’re hoping we can stem
the tide that’s drowning millions. But how,
I begin to wonder, will they set about
doing what no one else has done?
Unbreakable
Muriel
The paper has an article about Aunt Vera’s protest.
The day after she and seven others were arrested,
ten new women took their places on the picket line;
those ten were arrested that same day, and fifteen
more came to hold the banners. The articles
and cartoons are not complimentary—everyone
seems to think this is a big joke. When someone takes it
seriously, it’s only to chastise the protesters:
unwomanly, unpatriotic, a thorn in the side of the president
when he has more important things (The War)
to think about. But Aunt Vera managed
to smuggle a letter out of prison. (One of the
prison workers is secretly on their side.)
As long as there’s a shred of a banner
to hold up, Aunt Vera writes, there will be women
to stand in the rain (or snow, if it comes to that)
and hold it. We’re political prisoners—
they are doing their best to break our spirit.
Papa reads it out loud and says, Good luck to them.
My sister’s spirit has always been unbreakable.
He studies me. You’re a lot like her, Muriel.
I’m not so sure. Papa thinks I’m strong because
I speak up for my beliefs—but as the war
gets louder all around us, I’m becoming quieter.
If I were in Washington right now, even though
I’m certain that Aunt Vera and her friends
are in the right, I’m pretty sure I’d drop the banner
in the street and slink away before
I’d let them haul me off to prison.
Names
Ollie
Dig deeper, men, they tell us.
We’ve been digging five feet deep
through mud, with blisters on our hands, and
still it’s raining and the officers command us: Keep
on digging. So we do. The walls of this hellhole are all that
stand between us and the gunfire of the enemy. I’m digging furiously,
trying to keep up with Victor, Pete, and Phil. Trying not to think about the
dying men we carried on a makeshift stretcher to the ambulance last night,
and whether they made it to the Red Cross tent. What were their names?
Ron and James, I think, and Douglas. Less than a week ago I said to
Phil, Tell me your girlfriend’s name, and I’ll remember it. If
you … you know … I’ll write her a letter. He said,
Maeve McGill, in Omaha. What about you,
kid? Emma, I thought. No one, I said.
Against the Dark Space
Muriel
Look, Muriel, five peas in this pod—taste them.
Saturday afternoon, Grace and I are in the garden
picking the late summer peas. The sun is warm but not
too hot, the peas are bursting from their pods,
and Grace is being good, helping with the work
without complaining. We need her to be more
grown-up than usual, more than she probably feels;
she sets her doll, Eliza Jane, at the end of each row
and as she works, she looks up constantly to show me
and Eliza Jane how many peas she’s picked
(besides the ones she’s eating). And so it
happens that it’s Grace who sees him first—
the man in uniform, turning in our lane.
I see everything at once—Grace’s curiosity,
until she sees my face shift from calm
to terror, and instantly her face reflects my own.
The man’s slow walk, slower still as he approaches.
The paper in his hand. White against his clean
blue uniform. (Against the dark space
of the letters Ollie has not written. Why?)
Yesterday, I received a short letter from Frank,
and I see that, too, like a flash of lightning
across this suddenly dark place.
Grace, I say, go inside and stay there.
Tell Mama to come out. Tell her …
No, don’t tell her … Just say I need her
in the garden. Somehow I find my way
to my feet. A fly lands on my wrist, I flick
it off, it buzzes round my hair, follows
my slow steps to the gate. Its buzzing drones
a background to my prayer: Please, God, please don’t
let it be true. Don’t let it be Ollie. Anything
but that. God. I beg you. Don’t
let it be true. As I reach the gate, Mama
steps up behind me and speaks one word
with such authority I feel she could hold back
a breaking dam with that one word’s sheer force.
No.
The two of us stand side by side, facing
the young man, who looks from me to Mama,
back to me, down at his feet. He draws
in a deep breath before he asks, Is this the home
of Private Frank L. Norman, Jr.?
I Didn’t Mean
Muriel
Please forgive me, madam. You say Private Norman lives
in the next house down the road? I mean … He turns red, stammers.
That is … where I will find his family? This man stands before us
in his uniform, this is his job, he’s simply asking
for dir
ections in an unfamiliar neighborhood—
but must it be our task to give them? No!
I want no part of this! Don’t tell him, Mama! (Did I
say “anyone but Ollie”? No—I didn’t even think that.
Oh, God, you know I didn’t mean … don’t let this be true.
Please. Send this man back where he came from.)
Now Mama’s quiet voice: Left at the end
of the lane, across the bridge, around a curve
in the road, you’ll see a white house, green shutters.
Her voice quivers: Sir? Is it … as bad as it seems?
He shakes his head and turns away, but we can’t tell
if he’s shaking his head no to Mama’s question
or only (too gently) refusing to answer it.
I can get to the Normans’ house faster than he can
by running along the path, crossing the creek
on the crossing stones. I turn to go, but Mama
catches my elbow, pulls me close,
strokes my hair, and whispers,
Muriel, please stay here
with Grace.
I’ll go.
A Basket
Muriel
Why were you and Mama both so scared
of that nice man? Grace wants to know.
I can’t think of any way to answer
but the brutal truth. I kneel beside her,
push a strand of hair out of her eyes:
If a soldier is (oh, I want to say “hurt,” but Grace
stares me down) killed in the war (she doesn’t flinch),
they send someone to your house to tell you.
When he stopped here, we thought he was bringing
bad news about Ollie. I’m hoping I can stop
at that, but Grace is quick: Frank—she points
across the creek. Muriel, does this mean…?
I close my eyes and try to think, trying
at the same time not to think. I don’t know, Grace.
Mama has been gone a long time, hasn’t she?
Shall we take our peas to the Normans?
She nods. I gather a few eggs, five peaches,
all the peas we’ve picked, and put them in a basket;
Grace adds a small bouquet of hollyhocks.
It doesn’t help—the more we put into
the basket, the emptier it seems.
My Shepherd, I Shall Want
Muriel
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Emma repeats over and over, rocking
back and forth in a corner of their kitchen,
inconsolable. My arm around her shoulder, I
absorb the words she speaks, try to separate
them from her sobs: I shall not want,
I shall not want, the Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. The words twist and turn—
meaning, at the same time, God willing, I will always have
enough of everything I truly need, and God forbid
I should want anything I cannot have. Eventually
her crying quiets and her voice is still; silence gathers
like a storm around us—maybe Emma shall not want,
but I shall. I want Frank to walk through this door.
I want the door to slam behind him. I want him to be
laughing, making all of us laugh, too. I want to know
where Ollie is; I want both Frank and Ollie home, strong
and whole, sitting right here at this table; and when
it’s time for us to cross the creek and go back home,
I want Frank and Emma to walk halfway with me and Ollie.
I want the sun to shine tomorrow morning on Frank’s
brown wavy hair and dimpled smile, and while I’m at it,
I shall want what I don’t even want. I don’t expect
to fall in love and I don’t plan to marry,
but maybe I want someone
to try to change my mind. Maybe
I’ve been wondering if that someone
might be Frank. Oh, Emma, Mama,
Mrs. Norman—who will I
not love and marry now?
Nest Blown from Its Tree
Emma
The church is too small to hold so many crying
people. (We save a place where Frank always stood.)
Where did everyone come from, and how did they all hear
about this funeral? My place has been between Frank and Father.
All my life, their voices made a strong, clear arc my voice could climb
up to the rafters, soaring there on its own music, coming home to rest.
Now when the congregation sings this hymn Frank loved—“A Mighty
Fortress Is Our God”—my not-so-mighty voice struggles to take flight
and can’t. It gives up, like a bird trying to fly home to a familiar nest
that’s been blown from its tree in a storm. Such sudden change: I’m
an only child now, I suppose, one of those odd creatures Mother
feels so sorry for. How will she ever survive? I can hardly bear
to look at her, contorted with the effort to believe in God
on such a day. No doubt asking herself, Why sing?
Two Languages
Muriel
A mighty fortress is our God. Those words
Frank loved so well were written by Martin Luther,
a German. We sang them at the funeral,
though it was probably a German soldier who
killed Frank—can anyone make sense of this?
Who does God belong to, whose mighty fortress
is he, if people sing that hymn in two languages,
and in those same languages defend this war?
Who is the mighty fortress walling in, and who
does it keep out? A hard rain beats against our window
for the third day in a row—making mud out of our garden,
relentless in the way it pounds such questions
home. And where is Ollie now? Why haven’t we
heard from him these past seven weeks?
Muriel, you think too much, Mama says. (Am I
to stop thinking altogether? Would that be more ladylike?)
I have to get out of this house—I go out in the rain,
walk down the road, and meet the mailman. Hello, Muriel,
he says. I have a letter for you—from France. I don’t
even look to see if it’s addressed to me. I tear
it open in the middle of the road, letting the blue
ink smear in the rain: Dear Pa and Ma
and Muriel and Grace, Thank you for the socks
and cookies. This war is bigger than I expected.
I thought I might see Frank over here, but
I don’t know where he is. Do you?
It would be awfully nice to see a familiar face.
Tell Emma I said thank you for her letter.
I don’t have much time to write.
Your son and brother, Ollie.
I sob with the relief of hearing from him.
I know we have to answer. But I won’t be
the one to tell him. Let Mama and Papa
try to find the words—I’d feel like
I was shooting Ollie in the heart
if I wrote this awful truth to him:
You can stop looking.
Frank was killed in action
before you even got there.
Staring at Me
Ollie
night again fed myself today
better than last week ouch
Nurse— please tie my shoe
(Frank? Where is he? What happened?)
rat in the trench ran across my arm who killed the rat?
black eyes skinny tail staring at me
wouldn’t stop explosions all night
couldn’t sleep losing
track of time how many days weeks?
(tank stuck in mud ambulance)
worse. Shall we write a
letter for you? Don’t be
frightened. You’ll go home soon.
Invisible Thicket
Muriel
Our home is your home—the Normans’ house
and ours have always felt like two rooms
in one grand mansion. Now an invisible
thicket of grief surrounds their house—
I can barely make myself walk through it.
In the kitchen, the barn, the fields, Frank’s absence
hovers over everything—he isn’t climbing up the windmill
to see who might be coming down the road; he isn’t
teasing his mother, pretending to cut into the cake
she’s made for the church supper; he isn’t brushing
burs out of the horses’ manes and tails; he isn’t
spreading hot raspberry jam on the first slice
of bread, warm from the oven; he isn’t singing;
he isn’t smiling; he isn’t whistling while he mends
the broken fence where the rooster escaped last night;
he won’t be hitching up his team to drive us all
to the dance next Friday night (he won’t ask me to dance—
the smell of shaving soap, the thoughts we hid so well
from one another, forever hidden now). The place
we’ve tried to hold for Frank to fit back in
when he returns refuses to close over
or fill in. It gapes and glares around us everywhere:
Here I’m not, says Frank, and here, and here.
Gray
Emma
It’s almost October. Shouldn’t
the maple leaves be changing color?
Those four sunflowers must be yellow,
but all the flowers’ faces look dirty gray
to me. The purple asters are so brave, trying
to offer us a bit of color while they can, before
they’re killed off by the frost. The red rooster’s
cock-a-doodle-doo barely wakes me up. It used to
have me jumping out of bed, onto the cool floor,
and getting quickly dressed so I could go flying
downstairs to breakfast. At five a.m. today,
awake already, I clutch my damp pillow,
debating: Should I go to school or
not? Can I still be a student?
