I'll Be Seeing You. Loretta Nyhan
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Irene is a few years younger than me, shy and unmarried, but I’ve come to realize those types of differences become mere trivialities with the passing of time. She and I meet for lunch almost every afternoon, freezing our behinds off on a metal picnic bench because the navy shut the cafeterias down for aviator training. I would think that kind of instruction would mostly take place in the air, but what do I know? We moan and groan, but I honestly don’t mind the chill. In fact, the lunch hour is the highlight of my day.
So that’s me. Marguerite Vincenzo. Almost forty-one years old. Garden Witch.
It’s nice to meet you over these many miles, Glory. You said you need some magic? Well, I need something glorious. This town doesn’t provide much in the way of that.
Sincerely,
Rita
P.S. The people here call me Margie. I hate it. Sal calls me Rita sometimes, so I’d like to go by that. I hope you don’t mind.
February 14, 1943
ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS
Dear Rita,
Rita? Like Rita Hayworth? Oh, gosh, I love that name. Do you have red hair? Oh, Rita, I’m so glad you wrote back. I was scared I might have chased you away.
And then I read your letter every night. Thinking about your boy and your husband, Sal. He’s Italian? I wish I was. I think it would be very romantic to be Italian. I spent some time in Italy when I was growing up. Sometimes now, when I think about this war, I wonder about the beautiful places I’ve been, the people I met, and worry. What will the world look like after all this violence?
Your words gave me a much needed respite from worry. Thank you for that. I laughed and laughed about the sunflowers. I want to learn to do something with this rocky patch of land I have here behind the house. It’s falling down due to a lack of upkeep, but lovely just the same. Robert wants me to move in with his mother who lives in Beverly, but I can’t leave this place. It was my family’s summerhouse (though since I married Robert, we’ve called it our permanent home). It’s so soothing, with the sea on one side and the woods on the other. I’m only ten minutes from town and the bus stops right at the end of our road. I wish he wouldn’t worry so much. I’ve been independent all my life.
So, your Sal is in Tunisia? How exciting! My Robert is in Sparta, Wisconsin, training. I guess it’s going to be cold over in Europe. Funny, I always remember it being warm there. I find myself thinking more and more about the past the bigger my belly gets with this baby. Isn’t that strange? But I suppose this war makes thinking about the future too difficult.
Tell me more about you, Rita. Tell me what else you grow in your garden and how you grow it. Should I be doing anything now in my yard? Tell me what it’s like to have a grown-up boy. Robbie might just kill me. He already hates the baby. I’m trying to tell him everything will be all right, but how can I say it with a straight face? My son’s no idiot. He knows when I’m lying.
The medicine won’t taste bad.
The bath is not hot.
Daddy will be safe.
Lies.
I’m so big now I can’t do much. And the snow...it falls and there isn’t any relief. I go to the market once a week and then come home.
So thank you, Rita. Thank you for writing back. Because life is so closed up...and now it feels more open, like a wide, wide field in Iowa.
I’m enclosing a sketch of my square bit of earth here on the cliffs that I call a backyard. It’s sunny. Tell me what I should plant in my victory garden, Garden Witch.
And tell me a better lie to tell my son so he grows up as good and open and pure as yours seems to be.
With great newfound affection,
Glory
February 19, 1943
IOWA CITY, IOWA
Dear Glory,
I wish I had red hair! Once my hair was as vibrant as Toby’s, but now it’s faded and pale. I wear bright coral lipstick all the time so people have something else to look at. Thank heavens for Mr. Max Factor.
Anyway, your letter came just before lunch yesterday. I read it while picking at a hamburger plate in a dark leather booth at the Capitol Café. Irene is in Omaha visiting family, so I’d planned on staying inside with some egg salad and a cup of tea. Then the postman arrived and I got ants in my pants so I grabbed what he brought and hoofed it into town.
The emptiness is hard to get used to. It’s the middle of the academic term, yet I could roll a bowling ball down Washington Street and not hit a soul. I’m sure the weather has something to do with it (a whopping eight degrees at noontime), but more likely it’s this war. With so many boys gone overseas the university might as well rename itself Sister Josephine’s School for Educating Ladies. And those gals have no time for meandering—they are busy bees indeed.
It sounds like you have your hands full as well. Robbie will come around, but he is at a tough age. Now that I think about it, all the ages are difficult, even after they leave the house. Take my Toby, for instance. Turns out you were slightly mistaken in your assessment of him—he isn’t quite on the shortlist for sainthood.
I had just returned from the café yesterday when someone knocked on the front door. My heart nearly stopped beating—the unannounced visitor is about as welcome as the devil these days—and I ran to the window to see if a government vehicle sat in our driveway. I wanted to start dancing when I saw it was a girl standing on the porch. She was a colorless, skinny thing, mewling like a cat, and when I ushered her inside she started crying, tears so big and fat I worried she’d drown.
Her name is Roylene.
“My daddy owns Roy’s Tavern? On Clinton Street? By the co-op grocery?”
Everything is a question with this girl, like she doesn’t trust herself enough for the declarative. I took her coat and snuck a sly glance at her tummy (flat as a pancake, thank God), and poured a cup for her. She slurped at it like a Chinaman.
Apparently when my Toby turned eighteen he headed straight for the enlistment office, and then took a detour through Roy’s Tavern on his way home. Instead of going to class last November he sat on a bar stool writing in his notebooks and spouting poetry to Roylene. “My daddy says I’m no good behind the bar? So I work in the kitchen? Toby sits between the sacks of flour and potatoes and keeps me company?”
At that last question she started crying again. I swear, Glory, I did not know what to do. I patted her hand, which was all bone. That girl might work in a kitchen but she sure isn’t doing any eating.
“Have you tried writing to him, hon?” She cried harder at this, her small frame racking over my kitchen table.
“I’m no good at it? I thought I’d just wait until he came back? But I can’t wait anymore?”
“Do you want me to include a message from you when I write to him?”
Her face lit up, and for a few short seconds I could see what kept Toby interested.
“Please?”
So she’s coming back next Monday, her day off. I have no idea what Toby really thinks of her. I’m tempted to write him a letter first, to ask, but now that just seems mean.
I have been giving some thought to your garden. I’m spoiled—Iowa’s soil is rich and loamy. I was stumped, so I asked Irene. She said to think about the rocky places we’re reading about in the newspapers—the shores of Italy, the mountains of Greece. What do they grow there? Oregano? Lemon balm?
Or, you could simply throw down a few inches of compost and fake