Chapter
16

C ynthia gazed at her reflection in the darkened bus window, the laboring engine droning in her ears as the bus swayed down the now familiar route from Bensenville to Riverside. The rural road was deserted this late at night, and with blackout curtains shrouding the windows of any houses they passed, Cynthia felt as though she traveled beneath the sea. She could see Eleanor’s reflection beside her own, gazing silently into the darkness, and she wondered what was wrong. Eleanor usually came alive at night, entertaining Cynthia and everyone else with her laughter and witty jokes as they rode back to Riverside after a dance or the movies. But Eleanor and Rick had both been subdued all evening, huddling together at one of the corner tables at the USO. They hadn’t even gotten up to dance.

“Did you have a fight with Rick or something?” Cynthia asked her. “You’ve been awfully quiet all evening.”

“No, we didn’t have a fight,” she said with a sigh. “But we’re living on borrowed time.”

“What do you mean?” Cynthia couldn’t imagine their relationship ending. They seemed so deeply in love, so happy together.

Eleanor sighed again. “Rick finishes his training in two weeks. We’ll have one more Saturday night together. He’ll get a three-day furlough to go home and see his family, then he’s being shipped out.”

“Oh, Ellie. You poor girl.” Cynthia turned to give her a hug. Eleanor usually seemed uncomfortable with such emotional displays, but she accepted Cynthia’s embrace with a sniffle. They rode in silence for the remainder of the trip, then hurried through Riverside’s deserted streets to the funeral home. Eleanor still seemed troubled when they reached their room.

“Cynthia…? Can we talk?” she asked.

“Of course. I’m your best friend. You can tell me anything.” Cynthia sat down on the sofa and gestured to the place beside her, but Eleanor remained standing, too upset to sit. She hesitated for a long moment, as if afraid of something.

“Rick wants us to be together on his last weekend,” she finally said. “I don’t know whether I should or not.”

Cynthia stared at her, not comprehending. “Why wouldn’t you want to be together?”

“Not together, like we are every weekend,” Eleanor said with an irritated frown. “He wants to sleep with me before he ships off.”

“Oh.” Cynthia looked away, embarrassed by the subject matter—and by her own nai . “I think that’s a bad idea,” she finally said.

“I know, I know,” Eleanor said as she paced across the rag rug in front of Cynthia. “I’ve been telling him no because of my—never mind. But I keep worrying that something terrible will happen to Rick and I’ll never get another chance to be with him. I would regret it for the rest of my life.”

“Listen, I know I’m pretty nai ve,” Cynthia said, choosing her words carefully, “and I’m not nearly as knowledgeable about these things as you are. But the girls in school always said that a boy wouldn’t marry a girl who gave in to him. And what if you get pregnant?”

“I know, I know. But so many men are dying, and… and I may never see Rick again… and I want to know what it’s like to be with him. I love him so much!” She bit her lip, trying to stop her tears.

“Everyone can see how much you love each other, Ellie, but it’s still not a good idea. I know this sounds old-fashioned and all that, but the Bible says it’s wrong to do it if you’re not married.”

Eleanor’s shoulders slumped, and she sank down in the armchair as if the nervous energy that fueled her had abruptly discharged, like a pinpricked balloon. “I know. That’s the main reason why I’ve been saying no. I was brought up in the church, too.” She must have seen Cynthia’s surprise because she added, “Leonard stopped going to Mass when we were in high school, so I eventually stopped, too. But I do believe in right and wrong. And I know that there are always consequences when people break God’s laws. I’ve seen it in real life.” She paused, then added, “But I love Rick so much! I wish we could get married right now.”

“You’re both so young, Eleanor.”

“I’m almost twenty. Rick has never been with a girl… that way. He knows he could die, and he wants to know what it’s like. … And he wants it to be with me. I don’t want to make him mad, Cynthia—not now, not right before he leaves.”

“If he gets mad that’s his problem. Besides, he’s wrong to use anger to talk you into this. Stick to your principles. He’ll respect you for it.”

“You’re right,” Eleanor said with a sigh. “Thanks for your help.” She braced her hands on the arms of the chair and stood. But she still looked preoccupied as she put on her pajamas and climbed into bed, and Cynthia couldn’t help wondering what she was really thinking.

The following weekend, as Eleanor was preparing for her last Saturday night date with Rick, Cynthia decided to bring up the subject once again.

“Please don’t do it, Eleanor,” she urged. “It would be a mistake that you could never undo.”

“I won’t. I know you’re right.” Eleanor smiled, but it seemed forced. “Listen, don’t wait for me at the bus station. Rick says he’ll bring me home.”

Cynthia worried about her friend all evening. She rode the bus back to Riverside alone and was in her bathrobe, pacing the floor long after midnight, when she finally heard Eleanor’s key rattling in the downstairs door. A moment later Eleanor burst into the room, dancing with excitement. She grabbed Cynthia’s hands and whirled her around in a circle saying, “Guess what? Guess what? Guess what?”

Cynthia was afraid to guess, worried that she had given in to Rick after all.

“Rick and I are getting married!”

“Married? After the war, you mean?”

“No! Next weekend. He has a three-day furlough before he ships off, so we’re going to go before a justice of the peace and get married. Rick says we can renew our vows with a priest and get the blessing of the church when he comes home.”

“Are you sure you want to do that? You’ve only known him a short time.”

“I’m positive. If the war has taught us anything, it’s that life is very short and time is precious. If something should happen—well, at least I’ll know what it was like to be his wife. And Rick says it will get him through all the rough spots ahead if he knows he has a life with me to look forward to after the war.”

“And what if you don’t feel the same way about each other after the war?”

“We will! What a dumb thing to ask! I want to spend the rest of my life with Rick. I can’t imagine living without him.”

“Is he this certain, too? Are you sure it’s not just a way for him to… you know?”

“No! For pete’s sake, Cynthia! How could you think that of Rick?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve never been in love, so you’ll have to excuse me. I don’t know what you’re going through.”

Tears filled Eleanor’s eyes. “It hurts so much whenever we’re apart; it hurts to breathe and to eat and to sleep. … I feel like I’m only half of a person without him. But when we’re together… oh, the world is such a wonderful place, and I feel like I’m bursting with life! I never imagined that falling in love would be this terrible and this wonderful, did you?”

“My parents never talked about love very much when I was growing up. They believed that people got married so they could work together and raise kids. I never saw much affection or anything between them.”

Eleanor gazed into space as if she’d forgotten that Cynthia was there. “My mother told me once how much love hurts, but I didn’t believe her. She was crazy about my father and would have licked his shoes clean for him. I never wanted to be so hung up on a man that I would lose myself that way. And now, here I am—completely lost! Oh, I don’t think I could live without Rick—” She covered her face and wept.

Cynthia gathered her into her arms. “Hey, there’s no time for tears. We’ve got a wedding to plan—one week from today, right? You’ll need a marriage license and a dress and a place to honeymoon. … I’ll be your maid of honor or your flower girl or your best man or whatever you want me to be. Just name it.”

Eleanor laughed through her tears and hugged her in return. “Thanks, Cynthia. You’re the best friend I ever had.”

A week later, Cynthia witnessed Rick and Eleanor’s vows as they stood before a justice of the peace in Bensenville. They looked deliriously happy as they gazed into each other’s eyes and promised to love each other, for richer or for poorer, until death parted them. Three other couples waited in line behind them, and the grooms were all soldiers from Rick’s military base, about to be shipped overseas.

Mr. Tomacek had grudgingly excused Eleanor from work on Monday and Tuesday—without pay, of course—so she could go on a brief honeymoon, then see her new husband off at the train station. When Cynthia returned home from work on Tuesday afternoon, Eleanor was already there. She wore an apron tied around her waist and a kerchief on her head, and the music of Glenn Miller blared from the radio as she turned the room upside down in a cleaning frenzy.

“Well, if it isn’t Mrs. Richard Trent,” Cynthia said as she set her empty lunch pail and thermos in the sink. “Married only three days and I see you’ve already become a busy little housewife.”

Eleanor smiled as she bent to sweep a pile of dust into the dustpan.

“Rick’s train left this morning. I didn’t know what else to do with myself.”

“How’s married life, Mrs. Trent? Is it as wonderful as you dreamed it would be?”

“It’s heaven!” Eleanor said, laughing. “We barely left the hotel room for three whole days. Being with Rick is—” She couldn’t finish. Eleanor’s fac ade crumbled, and she sank to the floor in the pile of dust and wept.

In the following weeks, Eleanor kept her false front carefully in place in public, but Cynthia knew how thin and brittle her calm, poised veneer really was. Eleanor approached everything she did with a fevered intensity, as if trying to distract herself from thoughts of Rick. Her emotions rose or sank with the daily mail. Eleanor raced home every afternoon after work to see if Mrs. Montgomery had shoved a letter from Rick under their door, then sat at the desk every night, crying her heart out as she wrote back to him. Rick wrote to her nearly as often, and if she didn’t find a letter from him one day, there likely would be two from him the next.

Eleanor’s worry over her husband was a constant, simmering flame that fueled a restless energy. She attended Mass every day, offering endless prayers for him. She cut out maps of Europe and the Pacific islands from the newspaper and pinned them to the wall so she could follow the battles on the radio and in the news. She knew all of the generals’names and their divisions, charting their movements as if only her daily vigilance would keep Rick safe.

Cynthia worried as her friend grew increasingly nervous, and she worked hard to find distractions to help Eleanor relax. “Come to the movies in Bensenville with me,” she begged. “There’s a Mickey Rooney film playing—The Human Comedy.” They went, but Cynthia had forgotten that they always showed a newsreel about the war before the main feature.

Too late, she noticed Eleanor’s pale face as she stared intently at the grainy images, as if searching for Rick among the many soldiers.

They donated blood at all the Red Cross blood drives. Cynthia taught Eleanor how to knit, and they made scarves and mittens and socks to send overseas. But all the while she worked, Eleanor seemed to be marking off the days and hours and minutes like rows of knitting, waiting until the war would end and Rick would come home to her. She still looked like the same old Eleanor on the outside, but Cynthia saw the act for what it was. Inside, Eleanor was a tightly wound bundle of false brightness, trying to keep Rick safe and will him home again by sheer determination.

As winter changed to spring, then summer, Cynthia grew tired of it all. She was sick of following the news, sick of hearing about the ups and downs of war, sick of the devastation and death. Since Eleanor would no longer go to the USO dances with her, Cynthia decided to go by herself on Saturday nights. She had gained self-confidence and enjoyed playing the field and meeting all kinds of guys. She agreed to write letters to several of them, but none of these relationships became serious. Then, after a while, Cynthia no longer enjoyed the USO dances, either. As the war dragged on, the new recruits she met were younger and younger, and seeing their vitality and fresh-scrubbed eagerness depressed her. She knew what they would soon face.

Cynthia’s life began to feel as though it had ground to a halt. Shortages of everything from food to shoes to new clothes made shopping a chore, not a pleasure. Eleanor wasn’t interested in buying makeup or new clothes or shoes. She saved every spare cent of her paycheck, as if believing that Rick would be allowed to come home if only she saved enough.

Every day seemed the same to Cynthia, as if she were stuck in a monotonous film that had no ending. She wanted to get on with her life— to fall in love, get married, have children. And she was deathly tired of her factory job.

“This work is so boring and repetitious,” she complained to Eleanor as they sat on the grass eating their lunch one warm summer day. “I can’t imagine working here for the rest of my life, can you?”

“When I’m bored, I just think about how much I’m helping our troops,” Eleanor replied. “I only wish I could do more.”

Cynthia shook her head as she took another bite out of her bologna sandwich. “I have a hard time imagining that connecting hundreds of wires all day has anything to do with what’s going on in the rest of the world.”

Eleanor picked at the crust of her bread, tearing it into little pieces but not eating it. “Every time I solder a wire, I think of Rick. His life or one of his friends’lives might depend on that very gauge or bomb switch.” Her fixation with Rick was starting to grate on Cynthia’s nerves.

More than a year after Rick and Eleanor were married, the longawaited D-day finally arrived. The Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe finally began. Rick’s squadron of paratroopers took part in the assault, as did most of the soldiers that Cynthia wrote to. Eleanor’s brother, Leonard, was marching up Italy’s boot with the Allies to liberate Rome.

Rick wrote from liberated Paris eleven weeks later. But his letters became less and less frequent once he began fighting in Europe, and Eleanor became more and more anxious and preoccupied. Cynthia worried about her.

One afternoon after Eleanor had volunteered to take their ration coupons to the store and stand in line for coffee and sugar, Cynthia spotted a tissue-thin V-mail letter from Rick lying open on the desk. She couldn’t resist the urge to snoop.

Dear Eleanor,

It’s a beautiful fall day and I have a few minutes to spare before we march, so I thought I would spend them visiting with you. We’ve had trouble getting our mail lately. I didn’t get any letters from you for three days, then I got three all at once. Please keep them coming. They’re a lifeline to me, reminding me that there is still a sane world out there and a woman who loves me.

I’ve told no one but you, darling—but I’m so afraid. No one who hasn’t been through it can truly understand what this war is like, and there aren’t enough words to describe it. It’s days and days of boredom and waiting, then hours of sheer terror when you’re certain that each second is your last. I’ve confessed and prayed and prepared to die so many times now that God is probably tired of hearing from me. But I’m still here, still miraculously unhurt. I know that when the war finally ends I’ll never be the same.

I wish I could explain to my father that all of the things he values aren’t what really matters. Life and love and the people God gives us are the most important things, not how much money we have, or how many possessions and titles and honors we accumulate. Your love is priceless to me, Eleanor, worth much more than my father’s money.

I’m tired of keeping our marriage a secret. I know we said we would wait until the war ends, but I’ve thought it all through and I’ve decided to write to my family and tell them about us. My dad will hit the roof, but I don’t care. I’m sick of lying. He needs to know that I’m not coming home to the phony life he planned for me after the war.

We’re hearing good news from—the censors had cut out the word, leaving a hole—that we have the enemy on the run. Maybe this war will be over soon. I want to come home so badly and hold you in my arms again. You’re all I think about, and I’m so afraid that after surviving the war this long, I’ll end up dying just when I’m close to coming home. I’m not afraid to die, but I want so badly to live—to share my life with you and grow old together. … Cynthia dropped the letter on the desk when she heard Eleanor running up the stairs. “I got the sugar,” she said, breathless from the climb, “but I don’t know what good it will do us without any coffee to put it in. They ran out again.”

“No coffee?” Cynthia repeated. “Honestly, I wish we didn’t live in such a dinky little town. They’re always running out of things…” Cynthia hardly knew what she was saying. Rick’s words had upset her, and she knew they would have had a worse effect on Eleanor.

“The guy that runs the Valley Food Market is as crooked as all get out,” Eleanor continued. “He sells all the coffee to his friends, whether they have ration stamps or not. But look what I did get—” She unwrapped a packet of white butcher paper to display two tiny pork chops. “Ta-da! Real meat, Cynthia.”

“That poor pig must have died of malnutrition.”

“Hey, don’t look a gift-pig in the mouth—I waited in line for more than an hour for these.”

“I know. And I’m grateful.”

“I’m going to cook them up for us, too,” Eleanor said as she dug through their small stash of cooking supplies. They kept all their pots and pans and spices hidden in the bottom drawer of their dresser so Mrs.

Montgomery wouldn’t find out that they were cooking in their room. “I told Rick that I was going to learn how to cook so I’d be an expert by the time he gets home. I thought I’d practice with these chops.”

Cynthia heard the anxious determination in her friend’s voice, as if learning to cook was the latest project that would guarantee Rick’s safe return. But in reality, Eleanor was helpless; nothing she did—or failed to do—would change the course of the war or alter Rick’s fate. And Cynthia was just as helpless. All she could do was try to keep up her friend’s spirits and hope that the worst didn’t happen to Rick.

“I don’t know,” Cynthia said, forcing a smile. “It’ll be pretty hard to become a gourmet chef with only a hot plate to practice on.”

“I cut out this recipe from the newspaper. It calls for a can of tomato soup. Open the windows,” Eleanor said, gesturing to them with the frying pan, “so Mrs. Montgomery doesn’t smell meat frying.”

“Isn’t Rick’s family rich enough to afford a cook?” Cynthia asked as she tugged open the sash. Cool, fall air flooded the room.

“He’s not going back to that life—I told you that.”

“How is he going to make a living?”

“He has a college degree from Princeton, remember? We’ll be fine.”

“Have you talked about where you’ll live and all those things?”

“We’re going to live in ‘Paradise, New York,’of course. As long as we have each other, any place will be heaven!”

The pork chops came out nearly as tough as shoe leather. Eleanor held up one of her worn out work shoes as they tried to gnaw the leathery meat.

“We should have used the chops to patch our shoes instead of trying to eat them.” Her laughter sounded too bright, her smile too phony. Cynthia thought of Rick’s letter—how he was afraid he would die—and she knew that it was what Eleanor feared, as well.

Just when the Allies seemed to be winning in Europe, the news turned gloomy again. Hitler had gone on the offensive in what was being called the Battle of the Bulge. It raged from mid-December until the end of January in frigid, snowy weather. Rick’s letters always arrived at least a week behind the news, and Cynthia feared that Eleanor would have a nervous breakdown as she waited to hear if he was among the more than 81, 000 casualties in the long months of fighting. “I don’t know what I would do without Rick,” she said over and over. “I don’t know what I would do.”

Rick came through the battle unscathed. Eleanor wept as she read his letter describing the allied victory. Everyone said that the European war had reached the turning point, and that the Nazi retreat had begun.

“I’m so tired of being brave,” Eleanor said. “I want this all to end… but I’m so afraid…”

Cynthia could guess what she was afraid to say. “We’re close to the end now,” she soothed. “Rick made it through some tough battles, Ellie. He’ll be okay.”

The warm spring weather made everyone hopeful. Cynthia saw daffodils and crocuses as she and Eleanor walked to work, and robins singing in the trees outside their window. When three days passed without a letter from Rick, Cynthia helped Eleanor dream up excuses—the troops were too far inland; the letters got put in the wrong mailbag; Rick was too busy to write.

A week passed. Then two. Neither of them could sleep. The workdays seemed endlessly long as they waited to hurry home and get the mail.

On Monday of the third week, Eleanor broke into a run as soon as the funeral home came into sight. She raced up the stairs far ahead of Cynthia. When Cynthia finally caught up to her on the third floor and saw Eleanor standing in their doorway holding a letter, she nearly collapsed with relief. Then she noticed the deathly pallor on Eleanor’s face, and her heart speeded up.

“What’s wrong?”

“This letter came for me. It isn’t Rick’s handwriting.” Tears spilled down her face. “Y-you open it for me. I-I can’t.”

Cynthia was terrified for her friend. She tried to rationalize it away. “Wait a minute. It’s probably not what you think, Eleanor. If something bad happened, the army would notify you. They always send a telegram to the wife—‘We regret to inform you…’and all that. The telegram has one red star if he’s wounded, two red stars if… And besides, they’d ask your priest or your minister to come if they had to deliver that kind of news.”

Eleanor shook her head. “The army doesn’t know we’re married. Rick didn’t list me as his wife.”

“Why not?”

“He didn’t want his parents to find out about us. He was afraid that his father would do something drastic to break us up. His father has a lot of connections with judges and politicians up in Albany. That’s why Rick waited until the war was almost over to tell him the truth. …” She shoved the letter into Cynthia’s hands. “Open it! Please! I can’t!”

“Let’s at least go in and sit down, okay?” She pulled Eleanor through the door and forced her to sit on the sofa. But Cynthia felt just as sick as Eleanor did as she ripped the envelope open with shaking hands and pulled out a folded letter. A second letter fell out from inside the first one, and she saw Rick’s signature on it. So did Eleanor. She went very still.

“Oh, no. Please, God, no. …” Eleanor murmured.

Cynthia scanned the first letter. It was from one of Rick’s army buddies. Rick had been killed in action. Cynthia closed her eyes as her vision blurred, unable to read the rest.

“Rick is dead, isn’t he,” Eleanor said.

Cynthia couldn’t speak. She didn’t want to say the words out loud, knowing that when she did, Rick’s death would suddenly become horribly real.

“Rick told me about the pact he and all his buddies have,” Eleanor said.

“I know they all wrote good-bye letters to their loved ones, and their friends are supposed to mail them if anything happens to one of them. Rick had to send letters after three of his friends died. … This is my letter, isn’t it.”

Cynthia nodded.

“Oh, God!”

Cynthia pulled Eleanor into her arms, and they wept together for a long, long time.

“Why, God?” Eleanor raged. “Why did you have to take my Rick? All I ever wanted from you was for Rick to live! Why did you take him away from me? Why couldn’t you let me be happy—just once?”

Cynthia sobbed as hard as Eleanor did, grieving for her friend, remembering Rick’s handsome, smiling face and the way he looked at Eleanor, his eyes shining with love. It was so unfair.

At last Eleanor freed herself from Cynthia’s embrace and wiped her eyes. “Read Rick’s letter to me,” she whispered.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Cynthia swallowed. She could barely speak as tears choked her voice.

“Dear Eleanor,

If you’re reading this letter then the worst has already happened. I’m in heaven where there’s no more pain and no tears. How I longed to spend the rest of my life with you, making you happy every minute of every day—but God has decided otherwise.

My beautiful, sweet Eleanor, promise me that you won’t grieve a long time. This war has caused enough suffering, and we’ve shed too many tears already. I could have died a hundred different ways back home, but at least my death counted for something over here. The world will be a better place, where you can raise your children and live in freedom. That’s what you need to do, Ellie. You’re a beautiful, wonderful woman, and I have no doubt at all that you’ll find someone who loves you as much as I do—it’s impossible to find someone who could ever love you more. Spend your life with him and be happy again.

That’s the best way to honor my memory. God is in control, and He knows what He’s doing.

Our brief time together gave us a little taste of paradise, didn’t it?

And I know we’ll meet each other in heaven someday and be together forever. Neither one of us will ever have to shed another tear. Until then, I’ll love you in heaven even more than I did on earth. God bless you, my love.

                                                                                                                            I’ll love you forever,
                                                                                                                            Rick”