The Wartime Sisters

by Lynda Cohen Loigman

  “Thank you, but it’s already past eleven, and I need to get home to my son.”

  He put one hand on her shoulder and reached around her waist with the other. “Come on now. Don’t be that way.” Millie struggled to break free, but he only pulled her closer. The stench of alcohol on his breath filled Millie’s nostrils.

  “Take your hands off her!”

  The voice took him by surprise, and when he loosened his grip, Millie stomped on his foot with the heel of her shoe. Fred Peabody yelped and spun around. “Who the hell is that?” he growled into the darkness, squinting until he recognized the figure in front of him. “You’re the singer from the party. Why don’t you mind your damn business?”

  “This is my business. But if you’d like me to ask Colonel Walsh about it, I’d be happy to.” Arietta walked in front of the officer and placed herself between him and Millie.

  “You say one word to Walsh, and I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.” Fred spat onto the ground and glared at Millie. “You think I didn’t know who you were before your sister introduced you? My wife warned me about you, about both of you. I wonder what Walsh would think about the two of you being in cahoots.”

  Arietta crossed her arms in front of her chest. “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t think that big fire set itself, now do you?” He smirked. “Pretty suspicious, probably set by some new employees. Spies or sympathizers, folks who’ve got gripes.”

  “That fire was months ago, and everyone knows it was an accident. You’re crazy.”

  “I’m a well-respected officer is what I am. And at the Springfield Armory, that means something. You think anyone will take your word over mine? Who do you think the people here will believe? An officer of the armory—or a fat wop cook and a dumb kike whore?”

  After Fred limped away, Arietta walked Millie to her front door. “We should tell Ruth what happened,” Arietta insisted.

  But Millie shook her head. “I don’t want her involved. Arthur and Fred work together.”

  She didn’t tell Arietta about Walter Rabinowitz or Bobby Weinstein. She didn’t mention Howard Hoffman, Benjie Silver, or any of the others. She didn’t speak the names of all the boys her sister blamed her for—the ones Ruth accused her of smiling at or flirting with or worse. Millie didn’t want to tell her sister what Fred Peabody had done because a part of her was terrified that Ruth would blame her once again. Perhaps her dress had been too tight, perhaps her manner had been too coy, perhaps the perfume that she wore had been too enticing to resist.

  Since Millie had moved to Springfield, she and Ruth had come a long way. There had been hints of affection, even a bit of shared laughter at the party. But Millie was only too aware of her sister’s changeable moods. She had seen Ruth turn on her too many times before, and she knew her sister too well to make the same mistake again.

  Besides, when it came to men, Ruth had never been forgiving.

  PART THREE

  Millie

  Springfield, Massachusetts (February 1943)

  Millie wished she hadn’t bought that new pair of heels in December. She had gotten them on sale, right before Christmas, but now that shoe rationing had gone into effect, she regretted the choice. Her work shoes weren’t sturdy enough for the ice on the streets. She should have bought boots—warm, heavy boots for this endless Massachusetts winter.

  In Brooklyn, the snow had been more submissive—deferring always to the buildings, the trolleys, and the bridges. Here in Springfield, however, the snow asserted itself. It filled the streets and the sidewalks with no apologies, taking up space and stretching itself out on the lawns and the squares like a smug, self-satisfied cat.

  Luckily for Millie, Building 103 was never cold. There were too many people, too many machines, too much metal, and not enough time. The pressure to produce gave off its own kind of heat—not only the daily quotas and the numbers on the supervisors’ clipboards but the constant war chatter from the radio and newspapers. For the first time in history, the president of the United States had traveled by airplane on official business—Roosevelt had flown to Casablanca, Morocco, for a strategy conference with Winston Churchill. Speed and efficiency were on everyone’s minds. General Eisenhower had just been selected to command the Allied armies in Europe, battle plans were being made at an unprecedented pace, and the workers in Building 103 had sworn to keep up. They had signed a “Victory Pledge” mere months before—a promise to produce, a vow to push onward. When Millie read the words, she felt proud to sign her name. There was comfort in being counted, in standing up to say, I’m here.

  The work itself was tedious, unquestionably so. But for a woman like Millie, the work occupied the empty space her losses had created: her parents, her sister, her husband, her home—all of them absent, most of them gone. Putting triggers together filled her days with purpose. Hour after hour, she pushed the pins into place, weaving memory and metal to prove her worth and ease her sorrow. As she worked, she wondered about the other women at the tables. What secret stories did they tell themselves while their hands were occupied but their minds were free to wander?

  * * *

  When she first left the building that February afternoon, Millie welcomed the rush of fresh air on her face. Her feet were frozen, but the sun poked through the clouds. The walkways across Federal Square were slathered with melting slush and the refrozen detritus of the most recent snowstorm.

  Millie moved slowly over thawing patches of ice, keeping her head down so she wouldn’t miss any slippery spots. She was so focused on the ground beneath her that she didn’t look up, even after she passed through the gate.

  “Millie!”

  A passerby might have thought the man calling her name did so out of concern after watching her fall. But the truth was that the fall happened only after her name was called. The truth was that the sound of the voice caused a shift in her equilibrium—a sudden disintegration of her center of gravity. The afternoon sun flashed off the piles of snow lining Federal Street so that the dust specks in the air looked like pinpricks of light. She was temporarily blinded by the glittering particles and undone by the voice shouting into the wind. “Millie!” it called, and her chest thundered with fear. At the sound of her name, her body betrayed her, and she fell to the pavement in a muddled heap.

  She came to a minute later, surrounded by a flock of women she recognized from the shops. She had taken quite a spill—was she hurt? Did anything feel broken? But she shook her head. She was sure she was fine. They helped her up from the ground, and as she struggled to right herself, she saw him across the street, waiting for her. He was leaning on the iron fence that outlined Armory Square, a fence so black and cold that he blended in against it. That he hadn’t approached when she had fallen—hadn’t bothered to walk across the street to be sure she was unharmed—did not surprise her.

  She inched across the street, knees throbbing, back aching. Part of her wanted to run in the opposite direction, but she forced herself to walk toward him instead. As sore as she was, she held her head high.

  “Rough spill,” he said, but he didn’t sound sympathetic. He was still handsome as anything, with that dark, shiny hair and Hollywood smile. But his face was newly flawed by a raised scar across his right cheek—inflicted, Millie assumed, by an unforgiving acquaintance.

  “I’ve been through worse,” she said. “What happened to your face?”

  It was a question she wouldn’t have dared to ask him back in Brooklyn, but in the bright light of Springfield, his imperfections were glaring. He frowned at the question, surprised she had noticed.

  “Nothing.” He shrugged. He motioned to the workers pouring out of Federal Square. “So, you work there now?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’s the pay?”

  “It’s fine. Listen, Lenny, what do you want?”

  “Jeez, Mil, why the rush? That’s not very friendly. I thought we could catch up a little, thought you might be happy to see me.”

&n
bsp; She wanted to scream. Happy to see you? What kind of man disappears for a year and shows up out of the blue without any warning? What kind of man lets his wife think he’s dead and never even asks about the son he left behind? Anger Millie hadn’t known she was capable of seared its way through her, but she couldn’t afford to cause a scene. There were too many people she recognized walking by, too many familiar faces who might ask questions later. No one at the armory knew her husband was alive. She owed some of them explanations—her sister and her friends—but no good would come of strangers finding out first. “I have to go,” she said firmly. “I’m late for an appointment.” She began walking toward State Street, but Lenny pulled her back.

  “Listen,” he said, “I didn’t come to make trouble. I just want to talk and maybe borrow a little cash.”

  She should have known that there would be nothing noble about his return. “I don’t have any money. You left us with nothing but a pile of bills, remember? It’s going to take a long time before I can pay them all off. Besides, if you need money so badly, why don’t you ask your brother?”

  Lenny’s eyes clouded over. “Murray is dead.”

  It was true, then, Millie thought, what Mr. Solomon had told her. The brothers had been in trouble with some dangerous people. Lenny was probably lucky to have gotten away with just the scar. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know how close you were.”

  Lenny blinked a few times and squared his shoulders. “Yeah, well, what’s done is done.” He glanced nervously at the gloves on her hands. “Hey, how about that ring I gave you? The one I proposed with? You still have that?”

  “My grandmother’s ring? Of course I still have it.” His eyes lingered desperately on her wool-covered fingers. “I’m not wearing it now, though. We’re not allowed to wear any jewelry on the job. One girl almost lost a hand when her charm bracelet got caught in some gears.” She took off her gloves. “See for yourself.”

  “But you have it, you said. You know where it is. You could get it for me if you wanted to, right?” Lenny pushed his hands deeper into the pockets of his coat and shivered. “I’m really in a bind, Mil. The guys Murray owed … I’m still on the hook. If I don’t give them something soon, I don’t know what they’ll do. Murray used to say that ring was worth a fortune.”

  When Millie didn’t answer, he continued to plead. “Listen, Mil. I know I was a crummy husband. I started drinking too much. I stayed out all the time. When the war started, I thought the army would be a fresh start. But when they wouldn’t take me, I didn’t know what to do.”

  “That isn’t an excuse for abandoning your family. I thought you were dead!”

  He kicked at a pile of slush by his feet. “Whaddya want me to say? I’m sorry, all right? When I started working with Murray, everything got mixed up.” He reached one hand around her waist and tried to pull her toward him. “You missed me, though, didn’t you? Tell me you missed me.”

  The truth would have taken too much time to explain. She missed the young man who had knocked on her door back in Brooklyn, the one who’d rescued her from loneliness after Mrs. DeLuca had died. She missed the man who had looked at her like she knew all the answers—who had seen something more in her than just her good looks. She missed the man Lenny had been the night before he’d tried to enlist: the hopeful soldier-to-be, the one with purpose and pride. But she could never miss the man who had taken his place: the man who blamed her for his bad luck, the one who drank and disappeared, the one who hit her and showed up broke with nothing but excuses.

  Millie pushed his hand from her waist and shook her head. “No.”

  He began to whine then, like a child who’d lost a toy. “You gotta help me, Millie. If you gimme the ring, I’ll get out of your hair. I’ll get outta town, and I won’t bother you again. I swear it on my grave. It’ll be like you never knew me.”

  To give him the ring would be to give up a part of her history. But her desire to have him leave was greater than any sentimentality she could muster. What was a piece of jewelry compared to her peace of mind? What wouldn’t she give up to secure her son’s safety? Of course, Lenny might come back, even if she gave him what he wanted. But what choice did she have other than to trust what he told her? If the men Murray owed were to hurt Lenny again, she didn’t think she could live with the guilt of knowing she might have prevented it.

  “Fine.” Millie agreed. “Meet me back here tomorrow and I’ll bring it with me. But after that, I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  Lenny leaned forward to kiss her, but she stepped to the side. He hid his frustration with a plastered-on smile. “You look good, Mil, real good. I knew you’d come through. I swear you won’t be sorry.”

  A gust of winter wind blew through her thin coat. I already am.

  Ruth

  After the holidays, Ruth quit her job. She was too concerned about Arthur to do any of her work properly, and she wanted to make sure she spent enough time with her daughters. Word of her decision spread quickly among the other wives.

  “I don’t know how you managed to keep that position for so long,” Cecily Abbott said to her at the tail end of one of Lillian’s meetings. “It must have been terribly tedious.” Mrs. Abbott had the most seniority among the wives, having lived at the armory for the longest of all of them. She was in her late fifties, stout and silver-haired, with a fondness for entertaining and speaking her mind.

  “Ruth did the armory a great service,” Lillian insisted. “We are all grateful to her.”

  “I don’t doubt for a minute that it was the patriotic thing to do. But now that Mrs. Blum is finished with her professional duties, I assume she will have more time for socializing with the rest of us.” She turned to Ruth. “I’m having a baby shower for Captain Baxter’s wife tomorrow, a luncheon at my home. She’s such a sweet thing—I’m sure you’ll want to join. I’m adding your name to the list. We start at noon.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Ruth dressed carefully in a soft blue wool suit with a matching velveteen hat. Her stomach churned with nervous energy, and she changed her lipstick color three times. “You’re ridiculous,” she told herself as she reapplied her makeup. “You’ve known these women for years, and they’ve never been particularly nice to you. They’re not your friends, so stop worrying what you look like.”

  But she had never been invited to Mrs. Abbott’s home before, and despite the last-minute nature of the offer, she was flattered. To be included meant more to Ruth than she wanted to admit. What would she have given, back in Brooklyn, to have been asked to some of the high school parties that Millie had attended?

  After she was dressed, Ruth went to Forbes and Wallace to buy a baby gift. The line for gift wrapping took forever, and she had to rush back so as not to be late for the party. She hurried along the sidewalk, checking her watch, and waited impatiently to cross at the corner. Ruth noticed a man staring from the opposite side of the street, but when she looked in his direction, he ducked his head and turned. By the time she crossed the street, the man was halfway down the block. He was too far away for her to get a good look at him, but there was something about his gait she found strangely familiar—was it the bend of his knee or the tilt of his head? She wanted to call out, or to follow him, but she had no time for foolishness. She had someplace to be.

  When she arrived at Mrs. Abbott’s, Ruth’s mind was still racing. Inside, the gathering was more intimate than Lillian’s meetings—there couldn’t have been more than ten women in all. A formal luncheon had been set out in the dining room, complete with crystal goblets, cloth napkins, and handwritten cards to mark each guest’s place. Grace Peabody was seated directly to Ruth’s right. The silk dress she wore was the same one Ruth had seen in the window of Forbes and Wallace that morning.

  Ruth was certain that Grace would ignore her completely, but as the luncheon continued, it was obvious that Grace was anxious to tell her something. When the conversation turned to nursery decorations, Ruth felt a hand on her s
houlder and a voice in her ear.

  “I saw your sister yesterday, outside the main gate. She was talking to a very rough-looking young man.”

  Ruth reached for her water goblet. “Probably someone she knows from the shops.”

  “He wasn’t a shopworker. They were arguing.”

  Ruth had grown tired of Grace’s preoccupation with her sister. Despite having every financial and social advantage, Grace still seemed to see Millie as some kind of threat.

  “I don’t see why my sister is any of your concern.”

  “Everyone who lives in Armory Square is my concern.”

  Ruth refolded the napkin on her lap. Laughter filled the room as one of the women told a story about the first time she asked her husband to change their baby’s diaper. I told him if he refused, I’d have a chat with his superiors. “What’s it going to be, Paul?” I told him. “Active duty or diaper duty?”

  Grace droned on. “Armory Square isn’t for everyone, and your sister seems to be associating with all the wrong people. First the cook, and now this thug. She’d be better off if you sent her back to Brooklyn.”

  The clatter of silverware rang in Ruth’s ears. Send her sister back to Brooklyn? She would never admit to Grace how much she had once wanted to do that very thing. She flinched at the words, banishing from her thoughts the awful notion that she and Grace had something in common after all.

  * * *

  Ruth left as soon as the last gift was opened, thanking Mrs. Abbott profusely on her way out the door. Millie’s shift ended at three o’clock, and Ruth wanted to ask her about the man Grace had mentioned. How many other people had noticed Millie with him? Hadn’t her sister learned anything from what happened in Brooklyn? Ruth remembered the first time she’d heard about Lenny—when Arthur’s friend saw Millie kissing him at the movies. The last thing Ruth wanted was a repeat of that.