Morning Glory (34 page)

“Oh...” She continued fondling the fine black hair on the baby’s head. “No, this one’ll just be Lizzy. Elizabeth Parker, I think.”

Will’s eyes shot to Elly’s. “Parker?”

“Well, you delivered her, didn’t you? Man deserves some credit for a thing like that.”

Lord, in a minute he was gonna burst. This woman would give him everything. Everything, before she was through! He reached for the baby’s head and stroked her temple with the back of a finger.
Lizzy,
he thought.
Lizzy P. You’n me gonna be buddies, darlin’.
He stretched one hand to Elly’s hair, and circled Donald Wade’s rump with his free arm and touched Thomas’s leg, on the far side of Elly. And he smiled at Lizzy P. and thought,
Heaven’s got nothin’ on being the husband of Eleanor Dinsmore.

Will’s smile announced the news to Miss Beasley even before his words. “She had a girl.”

“And
you
delivered her.”

He shrugged and quirked his head at an angle. “It wasn’t so hard after all.”

“Don’t be so humble, Mr. Parker.
I
would collapse in fright if I had to deliver a baby. It went all right?”

“Perfect. Started yesterday around noon and ended around three-thirty. Her name’s Lizzy.”

“Lizzy. Very fetching.”

“Lizzy P.”

“Lizzy P.” She cocked an eyebrow.

“Yes’m.” He fairly twitched with excitement, a rare thing.

“And what is the P for?”

“Parker. Feature that—she named that little girl after me. After a no-count drifter who doesn’t even know where he got that name. Wait’ll you see her, Miss Beasley, she’s got hair black as coal and fingernails so small you can hardly find ‘em. I never saw a baby up close before! She’s incredible.”

Miss Beasley beamed, hiding a swift pang of regret for the child she’d never had, the husband who’d never rejoiced over it.

“You must congratulate Eleanor for me and tell her I’ll expect Lizzy to begin visiting the library no later than her fifth
birthday. You cannot get a child interested in books too early.”

“I’ll tell ‘er, Miss Beasley.”

Those were special days and nights, immediately after the baby’s birth—Will awakening to the sound of Lizzy tuning up in the basket, rising with Elly to turn her over and talk soft nonsense to her. The two of them together, laughing when the cold air hit the baby’s skin and her face puckered in preparation for the adorable soft sobbing that hadn’t yet grown to be an irritation. And each morning, Will cooking breakfast for the boys, delivering Elly a tray and a kiss, then giving Lizzy P. her bath before washing diapers and hanging them out to dry. He changed Lizzy’s diaper whenever Elly didn’t beat him to it. He dusted the house and put the bluebird on her bedside table. He sterilized the rubber nipples and prepared the watered-down milk and got the bottles ready during the days before Elly’s milk came in. He prepared supper and got the boys all fed and changed into pajamas before kissing them and Elly and Lizzy goodbye and heading into town.

But afterward was best. After the long day when he’d return and there’d be lazy minutes lying in bed with the baby between Elly and him while they watched her sleep, or hiccup, or cross her eyes or suck her fist. And they’d dream about her future and theirs, and look into each other’s eyes and wonder if there’d be another like her, one of their own.

They had three such glorious days before the bombs fell.

On Sunday “Ma Trent” wasn’t on, but Elly was lying in bed listening to the Columbia Broadcast System while the New York Philharmonic tuned up for Symphony #1 by somebody called Shostakovich when John Daly’s voice announced, “The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor!”

At first Elly didn’t fully understand. Then the tension in Daly’s voice struck home and she sat up abruptly. “Will! Come quick!”

Thinking something was amiss with her or the baby, he came on the run.

“What’s wrong?”

“They bombed us!”

“Who?”

“The Japanese—listen!”

They listened, like all the rest of America, for the remainder of the day and evening. They heard of the sinking of five U.S. battleships on a peaceful Hawaiian island, of the destruction of 140 American aircraft and the loss of over 2,000 American lives. They heard the voice of Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” and the national army band playing the “Star-Spangled Banner.” They heard of blackout alerts along the western seaboard, where a Japanese invasion was feared and where thousands rushed to volunteer for the armed forces. There were amazing stories of men rising from restaurant tables, leaving unfinished plates, walking to the closest recruiting office to find the line of volunteers—within an hour of the first radio reports—already eight city blocks long.

In Whitney, Georgia—a short plane ride from another vulnerable shore—Will and Elly turned out the lights early and went to bed wondering what the next day would bring.

It brought the voice of President Roosevelt.

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

“Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.

“Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

“Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.

“Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

“Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

“This morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.... Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

“With confidence in our armed forces—with the unbounded determination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.

“I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December seventh,
a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”

Will and Elly stared at the radio. At each other.

Not now,
she thought.
Not now, when everything just got right.

So this is it,
he thought.
I’ll go just like hundreds of others are going.

He was surprised to find himself fired with some of the same outrage as that conflagrating through the rest of America: for the first time Will felt the righteousness of President Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” because for the first time he enjoyed them all. And being a family man made them the more dear.

In bed that night he lay awake and thoughtful. Elly lay tense. After a long silence she rolled to him and held him possessively.

“Will you have to go?”

“Shh.”

“But you’re a father now. How could they take a father with a brand-new baby and two others to see after?”

“I’m thirty. I’m registered. The draft law says twenty-one to thirty-five.”

“Maybe they won’t call you up.”

“We’ll worry about it when the time comes.”

Minutes later, when they’d lain clutching hands in the silence, he told her, “I’m gonna get that generator goin’ for you, and fix up a refrigerator and an electric washer and make sure everything’s in perfect shape around the place.”

She gripped his hand and rolled her face against his arm. “No, Will... no.”

At one in the morning, when Lizzy woke up hungry, Will asked Elly to leave the lamp on. In the pale amber lantern glow he lay on his side and watched her nurse the baby, watched the small white fists push the blue-tinged breast, watched the pocket-gopher cheeks bulge and flatten as they drew sustenance, watched Elly’s fingers shape a stand-up curl on Lizzy’s delicate head.

He thought of all he had to live for. All he had to fight for.
It was only a matter of making Elly and the kids secure before he left.

The radio was never off after that. Day by day they heard of an unprepared America at war. In Washington, D.C., soldiers took up posts at key government centers, wearing World War I helmets and carrying ancient Springfield rifles, while on December eighth Japanese bombers struck two U.S. airfields in the Philippines and on the tenth Japanese forces began to land on Luzon.

At first it all seemed remote to Elly, but Will brought the newspapers home from the library and studied the Japanese movement on tiny maps which brought the war closer. He worked in the town hall where recruiters were already posted twelve hours a day. Billboards out front and in the vestibule entreated,
DEFEND YOUR COUNTRY
—
ENLIST NOW—U.S. ARMY.
Across America it continued. The outrage. The bristling. The growing American frenzy to “join up.”

Will found himself in a frenzy of his own—to get things done.

He finished the wind generator and hooked it to the radio because their batteries were nearly worn out and new ones unobtainable. Since the wind generator wouldn’t create enough electricity to power larger appliances, he installed a gasoline-driven motor on an old hand-operated agitator washing machine and fashioned a homemade water heater fueled by kerosene. It stood beside the tub like a gangly monster with a drooping snout. The day he filled the bathtub for the first time they celebrated. The boys took the first baths, followed by Elly and finally by Will himself. But there was no denying that the elation they’d expected upon using the tub for the first time was tempered by the unspoken realization of why Will was hurrying to get so much done around the place.

Miss Beasley came to call when Lizzy was ten days old, surprising everyone. She brought a sweater and bootee set for the baby and
Timothy Totter’s Tatters
for the boys—not the library copy but a brand-new one they could keep. They were awed by a stranger bringing them a gift and by the book itself and the idea that it belonged to them. Miss Beasley got them
set up studying the pictures with a promise to read the book aloud as soon as she’d visited with their mother.

“So you’re up and about again,” she said to Eleanor.

“Yes. Will spoils me silly, though.”

“A woman deserves a little spoiling occasionally.” Without the slightest hint of warmth in her voice she dictated, “Now, I should very much like to see that young one of yours.”

“Oh... of course. Come, she’s in our bedroom.”

Elly led the way and Will followed, standing back with his hands in his rear pockets while Miss Beasley leaned over the laundry basket and inspected the sleeping face. She crossed her hands over her stomach, stepped back and declared, “You have a beautiful child there, Eleanor.”

“Thank you, Miss Beasley. She’s a good sleeper, too.”

“A blessing, I’m sure.”

“Yes’m, she is.”

To Will’s surprise, Miss Beasley informed Elly, “Mr. Parker was quite, quite pleased that you named the child after him.”

“He was?” Elly peeked over her shoulder at Will, who smiled and shrugged.

“He most certainly was.”

Silence fell, strained, before Elly thought to offer, “Got some fresh gingerbread and hot coffee if you’d like.”

“I’m quite partial to gingerbread, thank you.”

They all trooped back to the kitchen and Will watched Elly nervously serve the sweet and coffee and perch on the edge of her chair like a bird ready to take wing. Given a choice, she would probably have forgone this entire visit, but nobody turned Miss Beasley out of the house, not even out of the bedroom when she came to call. Will studied the librarian covertly, but she rarely glanced his way. The entire get-together was being carried out with the same pedantic formality with which Miss Beasley conducted a library tour for the children. It struck him that she was no more comfortable being here than Elly was having her. So why had she come? Duty only, because he worked for her?

Eventually the talk turned to the war and how it was spawning the most fierce patriotism in memorable history.
“They’re signing up as if it was a free-ice-cream line,” Miss Beasley said. “Five more today from Whitney alone. James Burcham, Milford Dubois, Voncile Potts and two of the Sprague boys. Poor Esther Sprague—first a husband and now two sons. Rumor has it that Harley Overmire received a draft notice, too.” Miss Beasley didn’t gloat, but Will had the impression she wanted to.

“I’ve been worried about Will maybe having to go,” Eleanor confided.

“So have I. But a man will do what he must, and so will a woman, when the time comes.”

Was this, then, why she’d come, to prepare Elly because she already guessed his decision was made? To ease into Elly’s confidence because she knew Elly would need a friend when he was gone? Will’s heart warmed toward the plump woman who ate gingerbread with impeccable manners while a tiny dot of whipped cream rested on the fine hair of her upper lip.

In that moment he loved her and realized leaving her would make his going more difficult. Yet leave them he would, for it had already become understood that to be of military age and not join up was to be physically or mentally impaired, or the subject of suspicion and innuendo about one’s condition and courage.

Right after Christmas,
Will decided. He’d wait until then to talk to a recruiter and to tell Elly. They deserved
one
Christmas together anyway.

He threw himself into holiday plans, wanting all the traditional trappings—the food, the tree, the gifts, the celebration—in case he never had the chance again. He made a scooter for the boys and bought them Holloway suckers, Cracker Jacks, Bunte’s Tango bars and Captain Marvel comic books. For Elly he bought something frivolous—the popular Chinese Checker game. It took two to play Chinese Checkers, but he bought it anyway as a portent of hope for his return.

December 22 brought news that a large Japanese landing had been staged just north of Manila. On Christmas Eve came news of another, just south of that city, which was in danger of falling to the enemy.

After that Elly and Will made a pact to leave the radio off for the remainder of the holiday and concentrate on the boys’ enthusiasm.

But she knew. Somehow, she knew.

Filling the stockings, Elly looked up and watched Will drop in a handful of roasted peanuts, nearly as excited as if the stocking were his instead of Thomas’s. She felt a stinging at the back of her nose and went to him before any telltale evidence formed in her eyes. She laid her cheek against his chest and said, “I love you, Will.”