sort of way. Something was missing. I felt it in my heart, but I wasn’t willing to face it. Not yet.
I squeezed his hand. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m glad we got to do this.” And it was the truth.
It was late; Bee had already gone to bed. I hung up my sweater and looked down at my empty hands. My purse. Where’s my purse? I retraced my steps. Greg’s car, the rock, the restaurant. Yes, the restaurant—it had to be under the table, where I’d left it.
I looked out the window. Greg’s car was long gone, so I grabbed Bee’s keys hanging on the hook in the kitchen. I hated being away from my cell phone. She wouldn’t mind if I borrowed the car, I reasoned. If I drove fast, I could make it there before the restaurant closed.
The Volkswagen handled as it had when I’d driven it in high school, sputtering and choking between gears, but I made it to the restaurant unscathed. As I opened the doors and walked inside, I noticed an elderly couple making their way out. How cute , I thought. The man’s right arm was draped around the woman’s frail waist, gently steadying her with each step. Her eyes shone with love, as did his. My heart knew it when I saw it—it was the kind of love I yearned for.
As I passed, the man tipped his hat to me and the woman smiled. “Good night,” I said as they made their way outside.
The hostess recognized me instantly. “Your purse,” she said, holding up my white Coach bag. “Right where you left it.”
“Thanks,” I said, less grateful to be reunited with my bag than to have witnessed such an endearing display of love.
Back at Bee’s, I undressed and crawled under the covers, eager to read more of the love story unfolding in the red velvet diary.
Plenty of people got letters from GIs. Amy Wilson received at least three a week from her fiancé. Betty at the salon bragged about the long, flowery letters from a soldier named Allan stationed in France. I didn’t get a single one—not that I really expected to—yet I made sure I was home at precisely two fifteen each day, which was exactly when the postman made his way to our door. Maybe, I thought. Maybe he’d write.
But nobody had heard from Elliot. Not his mother. Or Lila. Or any of the other women he’d dated—and there were many—after me. So I was shocked the day the letter came. It was a dark, early March afternoon, colder and grayer than usual, even though the crocuses and the tulips were pushing their way through the frozen ground, eager to usher in spring. Yet Old Man Winter refused to relinquish his grasp.
The postman came to my door and delivered a certified letter, addressed to me. I stood there in my light blue housedress on the front porch lined with flowerpots—pansies, Bobby’s favorite—and gulped, hard. The envelope was wrinkled and battered, as though it had endured a harrowing journey to reach my doorstep. When I saw “First Lieutenant Elliot Hartley” on the return address, I prayed the postman wouldn’t notice my trembling hands as I signed for it.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Littleton?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m just a little jittery today. Too much coffee. I was up with the baby last night.” I would have said anything to get him to go away.
He grinned in a way that told me he saw through my story. Everyone in town knew about Elliot and me, even the postman. “Good day,” he said.
I closed the door behind me, and I ran to the table. The baby was fussing in the nursery, but I didn’t go to her. I was capable of doing only one thing at that moment, and that was tearing the letter open.
Dear Esther,
It’s dusk here in the South Pacific. The sun is setting, and as I sit here under a palm tree I have a confession to make: I can’t stop thinking about you.
I’ve thought a lot about whether to write you, and my conclusion is this: Life is too short to worry about the consequences when you love someone as I love you. So I write you this letter as a soldier
Lisa Mondello, L. A. Mondello