Letter From Home Read online

  Gretchen parked her bike behind her grandmother’s house and hurried up the wooden steps into the kitchen.

  Grandmother turned from the stove with a big smile. “So here you are. Just in time for supper so fine. We have salmon croquettes and fresh peas and Jell-O.” Grandmother’s German accent was still strong, her ws often sounding like vs. That was why she didn’t like to be in the front of the café anymore and let Mrs. Perkins handle the cash register. Once last year she forgot and said, “Danke schön,” to a man from out of town and he threw down his money and asked how come the café had hired a Kraut instead of a good American.

  Gretchen washed her hands at the sink. They sat across from each other at the white wooden table. Two more chairs were pushed against the wall on either side of the door to the living room. They pulled one to the table when her mother came on the bus from Tulsa. Jimmy’s chair had been against the wall since he went overseas. His letters didn’t come so often now and when they did, he didn’t write much, just how he wished he could be home and when he came home the first thing he wanted to do was have one of Grandmother’s big hamburgers with mustard and mayonnaise and homemade chowchow and lettuce and tomato. He said he hadn’t eaten a tomato in months. And he asked after Mike Thompson. They hadn’t written him that Mike was killed in the fighting in Italy, just three months before Millard’s ship went down. There were two stars in the window of Thompson’s Drugs. Mr. Thompson hardly ever came over to the café for lunch anymore and Mrs. Thompson’s clothes sagged against her wraith-thin body.

  Grandmother passed the bowl of peas. “I put your story by the cash register. Mrs. Perkins said everybody thought it was good. She said Mrs. Jacobs had some company with her and when they paid the check, Mrs. Jacobs pointed at the story and told everyone you were one of the best students she’d ever had and you were going to be famous someday.”

  Gretchen’s spoon stopped midway to her mouth. “Mrs. Jacobs said that?”

  Grandmother nodded. “Ja. When Mrs. Perkins told me, I wished I’d been there to hear. But we call your mother tonight.”

  Calling long distance was always exciting. Of course, they might not be able to get through. Sometimes there were long waits. They didn’t make long-distance calls very often. When they did or when her mother called them, they talked loud and fast against a buzzing, scratchy background. The phone company asked everyone to keep their calls to five minutes because so many people needed to make calls.

  Gretchen scarcely tasted the rest of her supper though she loved salmon croquettes. She told Grandmother about her day, finishing with her last rounds. “When I got to the courthouse just before five, there was a siren so I went over to the police station. Sergeant Petty was on her way to the Tatum house. Mrs. Crane had called and said there were shouts and screams. Mrs. Morrison said that Barb’s dad was home and getting ready to go overseas and maybe he and Barb’s mom got mad about something.” Gretchen didn’t want to tell Grandmother about Mrs. Tatum being out at night since Mr. Tatum had been gone. It might not be true and that was the kind of thing that would make Grandmother say that Gretchen shouldn’t go see Barb. “I stopped by on my way home. Mrs. Tatum looked like she was mad about something. So I guess she and Mr. Tatum had a big fight and Mrs. Crane called the police.”

  Grandmother put down her fork. “You won’t put that in the paper?”

  “I don’t think so.” Gretchen knew it wasn’t up to her. “But I have to tell Mr. Dennis.”

  Grandmother pushed the platter with croquettes closer to Gretchen. “I know. You have your job. You must do what Mr. Dennis says. But you see, I remember Clyde when he was a little boy. He was such a friend to your mama.”

  Gretchen’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know that, Grandmother.”

  “Oh, they played together all through school. Clyde was a nice boy though he liked to have his own way. And he didn’t like to share your mama. They’d fight about that sometimes and she’d say she wanted to be friends with everybody, not just Clyde. They were best friends until she got in the pep club. She was so busy then. Everybody was her friend.” Grandmother’s tone was proud.

  Grandmother pushed back her chair, went to the drainboard. She cut two generous slices of watermelon, set a serving at each place.

  Gretchen carefully poked out the big shiny black seeds, cut her watermelon into dripping chunks.

  Grandmother settled back in her chair. “I always thought perhaps someday . . . but your mama fell in love with your daddy in high school. She didn’t see so much of Clyde then.”

  Gretchen had only a dim memory of her father, thick dark hair and bright blue eyes and a smiling face. She couldn’t quite remember her father’s face, not really, but there were pictures in an album and she looked at them so often, she knew them by heart. She remembered laughter and being swung high in the air and nursery rhymes read in the glow of a flickering fire. And she remembered the gray, dark days after the accident and the fresh grave in the cemetery. They took flowers every month and put them there. Every time Mama came home from Tulsa they went to the cemetery. Her mother loved to tell stories about her dad, like the time he saw that Douglas Fairbanks movie and he made two wooden swords in shop and he and Clyde pretended they were French noblemen and everybody laughed when they staged a duel in assembly. . . . The words came back to Gretchen. She’d never thought about the Clyde in her mother’s story being the man who was Barb’s father.

  “Anyway”—Grandmother spoke with finality—“it would never have worked out for your mama and Clyde. I’m glad it didn’t because your mama loved your daddy. And once Clyde met Faye, he seemed happy as could be. She came to town when she was in high school. They got married soon after your mama and daddy. But sometimes I wonder if Clyde is jealous of Faye’s painting. A man doesn’t want to be second best in his home.” Grandmother finished her watermelon. “Now it comes to the police being called. That’s a bad way to send a man off to war. But Faye Tatum . . .” She gave a little head shake and sighed. “Well, we’d best be doing the dishes.”

  Gretchen popped up. She was suddenly tired to the bone, but she made her smile bright. “I’ll do them, Grandmother. You go relax, listen to the radio.” The six-thirty news would be on soon with Edward V. Kaltenborn. If Gretchen hurried, she’d hear most of it. And then they’d call Mother.

  GRANDMOTHER BENT CLOSE to Gretchen, trying to hear. She always had Gretchen do the talking. Grandmother didn’t like to talk on the telephone. She always spoke too loud and very fast and her accent weighted her words.

  Gretchen frowned as she tried to catch the words on the other end. “. . . not home . . . take a message?”

  The voice was unfamiliar, but her mother shared rooms with other war workers and people seemed to come and go. “This is Gretchen, Lorraine Gilman’s daughter. Please tell her we called.” So her mother would not know for awhile about G. G. Gilman. “Tell her we are fine.”

  A spurt of cheery laughter. “Will do. She’s fine, too. Out on a date with a navy man. Lucky gal.”

  GRETCHEN TOSSED RESTLESSLY on the bed. The small bedroom was hot. Not even a breath of breeze filtered through the screen of the open window. The electric fan’s whir was cheerful but the air didn’t seem cooler at all. Disjointed words and indistinct images moved in the corridors of her sleep-drenched mind: . . . lucky gal . . . Mrs. Tatum’s eyes . . . the shrill of the siren . . . G. G. Gilman . . . the smell of hot lead from the Linotypes . . . wooden swords . . . her fingers punching slowly but ever faster on the shiny keys of the tall Remington typewriter . . .

  The rattle of the window screen overrode the clacking keys in Gretchen’s dream.

  “Gretchen, wake up!” The shrill cry rose into a nightmarish wail. “Oh, help me, Gretchen, help me!”

  . . . but I don’t know if he was one of your husbands. You’ve been married twice. Hey, Gretchen, I was always ahead of you. Four trips to the altar—and I don’t know which one was the worst. Maybe you married for love. We never thought when we were girls tha
t we’d end up—well, everybody always believed you’d succeed. Me, I was the girl in the tight sweaters—but, damn them, they all looked, didn’t they? The last time I saw you was that terrible Saturday. Thirty years later I saw your picture in the newspaper. I was living in L.A. with Husband Number Three. You could have knocked me over with a feather . . .

  CHAPTER 2

  A LINE OF bricks, some broken, edged the plot. There were—I counted and realized I’d never done that before—seven graves. The oldest was that of Grandpa Pfizer. I didn’t recognize my father’s grave at first glance. The angel that had knelt on the granite stone was headless now. I’d always reached out to stroke the angel’s wings. How many years had it been since anyone brought flowers for him? I was sharply glad that I could pull memories out of my past. The dead live only so long as someone remembers. When I died, no living person could—or would—picture his young face. The photos in a dark brown album in my library held only faint interest for my children, the laughing eyes of the grandfather they’d never known. The pictures were black-and-white. They’d never know—not unless I told them—that his eyes were the blue of a northern sea and his hair black and shiny as sealskin; my eyes, my hair before streaks of silver marked the passing years; my daughter’s eyes, the glossy black of her hair. When I entered the cemetery, I’d looked for the family plot though I’d not come here today to visit these graves. But I had time enough to see them all. There had been no headstone on my grandmother’s grave when I left town. I took a step, leaned against my cane, and bent down to touch the graven letters:

  CHARLOTTE KLEIN PFIZER Beloved wife of Karl Gerhard Pfizer October 23, 1876-June 26, 1944

  Oh, Grandmother, I loved you so. . . .

  GRETCHEN SCRAMBLED OUT of bed, reached the window. Barb Tatum, her stricken face chalk white in the milky radiance of the moon, pounded on the window screen. “Gretchen, come quick. Mama’s in trouble. Oh, Gretchen, help me.” Barb’s pink cotton nightgown had thin white straps over her shoulders and ended above her knees.

  “Barb, what’s wrong?” Gretchen yanked the hook free, pushed against the screen.

  Barb stumbled back. She wrapped her arms across her front. Her chest heaved as she struggled to breathe. “I ran. I ran all the way. Oh, my foot.” She sank to the ground, clutched at her leg.

  Gretchen darted to the wall by the bedroom door, flipped the light switch. She ran back to the window, looked out at Barb, pinioned in a square of brightness. Barb’s head was bent. Her lustrous sorrel hair masked her face, tumbled over her bare shoulders. She held tight to her ankle. Blood spurted from a gash on the bottom of her right foot. “I must have run across some broken glass. I didn’t even feel it.” Blood puddled in the grass.

  Gretchen drew her breath in sharply. “Don’t move. I’ll get Grandmother—”

  “No!” Barb’s voice was stricken. “We have to hurry. Mama needs help. Oh, Gretchen, I have to get back. I shouldn’t have run away. Bring me something to bandage my foot.” She pointed at the blood.

  Gretchen had always wished she looked like Barb even though some of the girls didn’t think Barb was really pretty. Her features were chiseled, her nose thin, her chin pointed, but her lips curved into a funny half smile whenever the boys were near, the kind of smile that promised a kiss when nobody was around to see. Her laughter, a peal of delight, made everybody crowd around her. Her blue eyes glowed as if she saw things other people didn’t see. Now those eyes were glazed and staring.

  “You’re hurt. I’ll get Grandmother.” Gretchen started to turn away.

  “No!” Barb’s cry was desperate. “I don’t want anybody to know. If you won’t help me, I’ll go back by myself.” Barb was crying, swiping at her eyes, struggling to get up.

  “Wait, I’m coming.” Gretchen pulled on a tee shirt and shorts, slipped barefoot into her loafers. Her glance swept the room, then she reached for the pillow, shook the case free, rolled it into a long strip two inches wide. She carried it in one hand as she pushed the screen out, swung over the sill, and dropped softly to the ground. She hurried to Barb, knelt, and peered at her foot. “You’ve got dirt in it. We need to wash it up. I can get some water, but we need to call Dr. Jamison.”

  “We can’t take the time.” Barb yanked the strip of cloth out of Gretchen’s hand. She slung the rolled pillowcase under her foot, crossed the ends over her instep, tied them tight. “Help me up.”

  They stood close together. Barb’s fingers gouged Gretchen’s arm. “Come on. I heard Mama scream.” She pulled on Gretchen’s arm, leaned against her for support, and limped across the lawn.

  The moon rode high in the sky. Gretchen knew it was very late. Archer Street lay quiet as a ghost town. All the houses were dark. All of them.

  “Barb, what happened? Why did your mom scream?” Were Faye and Clyde Tatum fighting again?

  “I heard somebody knock. Mama spoke and her voice was real loud and then the front door slammed against the wall. That’s when Mama screamed.” Tears streamed down Barb’s face. She clung to Gretchen, tried to walk even faster. They kept to the grassy verge of the street, avoiding the gravel.

  When they reached the front porch of the Tatum house, bright moonlight showed the front door open, open to darkness within and without.

  “Mama? Mama?” Barb’s voice was shrill in the silence.

  Gretchen pointed at the dark doorway. “Were the lights off when you left?”

  Barb pressed her fingers against her cheeks. “When I got out of my window, I ran toward the front of the house. Light was coming around the shades in the living room. Then the light went out. I was scared. I turned and ran and all of a sudden I was at your house. I came to your window. Like we used to do a long time ago.” One summer when they were eight or nine, they’d played a game, slipping out of their rooms late at night, going to the other house, whispering, then coming home again in the darkness and no one ever knew they’d been up and out. “Remember? Anyway, I came to your house.” Barb stepped toward the screen door. “Mama? Mama?”

  No answer.

  Barb reached out, yanked open the screen. She stepped into the dark living room, her hand brushing to her right. When the light came on, she clamped her hand over her mouth, but the sound of her scream pulsed against the dreadful silence in the room.

  After one look, Gretchen grabbed Barb’s arm, pulled her outside to the porch and down the steps. The screen door banged shut. “Your dad—where’s your dad?” Gretchen turned away from the house, wishing she could run and scream and cry.

  Barb lifted one hand, clawed at her throat. She made a bubbling noise. She struggled to break free of Gretchen.

  Gretchen held tight to Barb’s arm. Gretchen’s throat ached, too. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t rid her mind of that terrible glimpse of Faye Tatum, slumped on her back near the sofa, her blond hair splayed against the braided rug, eyes wide and staring, tongue protruding from blanched lips, throat mottled with purplish bruises. Most hideous of all were the pansy purple splotches on the gray white of her throat.

  Barb wavered unsteadily. “Mama.”

  “We have to find your dad.” Even as she spoke, Gretchen realized Mr. Tatum wasn’t there. If he were in the house, he’d have heard Barb’s scream and their high frightened voices. And the slam of the door. It was the middle of the night. Where was he? Why hadn’t he hurried to help Mrs. Tatum? “Who was in the living room with your mom?”

  Barb whirled away. She ran a few steps, dropped. “My foot.” She buried her face in her hands, rocked back and forth, her shoulders shaking.

  Gretchen hesitated, looking toward the house, light now spilling out onto the porch. They had to get help. But she wasn’t going back inside the Tatum house. She couldn’t do that. She looked across the Tatums’ scraggly, moonlight-silvered yard at the well-kept house next door. Mrs. Crane was a widow and Grandmother said she was lonely. She had a long sad face and sharp blue eyes. She’d called the police yesterday afternoon about the Tatums. She talked fast, her
thoughts skittering in every direction. Every year her apple pie won a blue ribbon at the county fair. She could call the police. But so could Grandmother.

  DR. JAMISON KNELT in front of the sofa. His graying hair was uncombed and his shaggy beard tousled. He’d only buttoned one cuff of his crumpled white shirt and his black trousers sagged without a belt. He wound a final strip of tape around Barb’s right foot, then pushed himself stiffly to his feet, giving a little groan. He patted Barb’s knee, gave Gretchen a swift look, his tired eyes kind and sad.

  Grandmother bustled out of the kitchen. She wore a blue cotton housedress and her everyday sturdy white shoes. Only her hair, hanging to her shoulders, indicated the oddness of the hour and the moment. “Here, Doctor, I have made coffee for you.”

  He took a cup. “Thank you, Lotte. Bad business. I told the chief I’d come back after I saw to Barb.” He sighed. “I need this.”

  Grandmother held out the lacquered tray with a china sugar bowl and a silver spoon. The tray was one of her most prized possessions. Two silver dragons faced each other, their snouts bright with flame.

  Dr. Jamison took a spoonful of sugar. “I’ve tried to give up sugar. I only use one spoonful now instead of three. My contribution to the war effort.”

  “You do your part.” Grandmother’s blue eyes were admiring, her tone firm.

  He sipped, smiled. “Thank you, Lotte. So do you. Best food in the county, rationing or no. Now”—he gave a weary sigh—“will you see to Barb?”

  Grandmother nodded, her hair swinging. “Oh, yes, she can stay here.”

  Barb pushed to the edge of the couch, the sheet that Grandmother had brought her slipping to her waist. “But Daddy will wonder where I am.”