The Road Taken (10 page)

Chapter Twelve

In the second year of the war, Peggy Carson’s social studies teacher suggested the students might want to boost the morale of their fighting men overseas by writing them letters with encouragement and chatty news from the Home Front. They would be like pen pals, the soldiers young and single and lonely, people from far-off places—in even farther-off places now—whom they would not have known in real life, where things would have been settled and preordained. Peggy thought that would be fun, as well as worthy, and volunteered. She was given the name of Private Ed Glover, age eighteen, formerly from Iowa, current address censored. She was only fourteen at the time, but she decided not to tell him. He would have a much better morale boost if he thought she was his age.

Peggy had so far not had a real boyfriend, the boys in her class too immature and too short, the older ones uninterested; and, except for her unrequited passion for Frank Sinatra, she didn’t even much like men, except at an unavailable and therefore romantic and sexy distance. Private Ed Glover, she decided after they had exchanged a few letters, his slashed through with black lines from the censor, was just that distant figure. Without meaning to be diabolical, she began making her letters more personal.

Her letters to him were the stuff of fantasy. His, what hadn’t been censored, brought that same sense of fantasy to her. Alone, separated, symbolic to each other, they told one another things they probably would never have told anyone else. Some of the things she told him were true; her opinions and feelings about all the issues of life that were beginning to be interesting to her. Their letters to each other arrived in clumps, with gaps, and they read and reread them as if they were chapters of a novel.

Since he didn’t have a photo of himself in the middle of a war, he had his mother mail Peggy a copy of his high school yearbook picture. He had written that he was five feet eleven with blond hair and blue eyes; his photo also showed that he was clean-cut and handsome. Looking at this gentle, somehow naked, face, Peggy now felt responsible for him, her own soldier, fighting to keep the world safe for her, and she began to care about him very much.

She had read in the
Reader’s Digest
that a four-year age difference, the man older of course, was ideal for marriage. When the war was over she wouldn’t be fourteen anymore.

When Ed Glover asked for her picture, which was inevitable, Peggy bought makeup at the five-and-ten and made herself look older, stuffed her bra with Kleenex, and went to one of those photo booths with the curtain where you could take a strip of photos of yourself for a quarter. Lips closed to hide her metal braces, her smile was the Mona Lisa’s. She even looked sultry.

He wrote back that she was beautiful and that he was longing to meet her. Of course that was what she had wanted, but the concept made her heart lurch, partly with romantic anticipation, partly with little-girl fear because this was going too fast, and partly with the knowledge that he would know her for a fraud. She was relieved that nobody was getting a leave, and that even if he did, he wouldn’t have one for long enough to come home. She prayed that he wouldn’t be wounded, not only for his sake, but because she didn’t want him here until she was older. How fast could she get older? How long would the war last? How could she be so vile and wicked to wish a war to go on because of her selfish interests?

At moments like this Peggy wondered if she was this way because she was immature or because there was some basic flaw in her nature. She suspected the latter. People were getting killed. No one wanted the war to go on even a single hour longer than necessary—only until the Allies won—and to desire this because of love, no, infatuation? She was glad she was powerless, that she had no control over the war.

Her family, of course, was incredibly nosy about the letters she was exchanging with her serviceman. Her sister Joan was impressed and thought it was grown-up. She begged Peggy to let her read the letters from Ed, and sometimes Peggy did, until they became too personal to share. Of course Peggy showed no one what she wrote to him. Her father was amused about the whole thing. He assumed it was completely innocent, rather sweet, and even cute. But her mother, hovering and worrying in her wispy way, made it clear that she had her doubts.

“Why would a soldier in combat want to hear from a fourteen-year-old girl?” her mother asked.

“I’m like a sister,” Peggy lied. “He’s an only child.”

“I can’t understand your teacher giving you an assignment like that,” Rose went on.

“Everybody’s doing it!”

Nag, nag, nag. Her mother was so old-fashioned, such a prude. She had been married late in life, and not only was she proud that she had been a complete innocent, but she was even prouder that she had let her own daughters have some information, as if she had done them a marvelous favor. Too little too late, Peggy thought, but what could you expect from someone that old?

It was 1944 now, she was sixteen, and Ed Glover was still alive. Or at least she thought he was, because the most frightening thing about the situation was that you could receive a letter from someone after he was dead. She told herself that if he had been killed his mother would have written to tell her, since she and Ed had been pen pals for two years; but perhaps, it occurred to her, his mother would be too grief-stricken to write to her at all. Whenever Peggy went to the movies and saw the Fox Movietone newsreels of the latest battles, she wondered if any of the soldiers shown might be him. They looked so tired, so dirty. She loved all of them, but especially him; yes, she was in love, she was sure of it, and the fact that the letters were so few and far between now because of his situation, and the fact that she could be getting a letter from a ghost, lost forever, only made her want him more.

In the real life she lived, she was dating now, although none of the boys meant anything to her. They seemed so young and boring. Anyone old enough to be interesting was in the Service. These pathetic contemporaries took her to the movies, where they held her hand until theirs began to sweat; or to school dances, where they became embarrassingly aroused and she pulled away; and at the end of the evening they kissed her good night and she was polite and unmoved. She went to Sweet Sixteen parties, and had one of her own, where the boys and girls danced and drank punch, and her parents hovered, missing everything, thinking they were missing nothing.

When she was little, Peggy had loved being Daddy’s girl, but now that she was older she found it suffocating; however, her mother was worse. Her father would back off if you approached him sweetly, but her mother never would.

Although she had more adult privileges these days, she still wasn’t getting along with her mother. Rose said it was normal—adolescent rebellion—and added firmly that didn’t mean she would put up with it. They had discussions about life and disagreed about everything. Peggy had already decided the best policy was to shut up before it turned into another argument.

That spring, her grandfather had a heart attack. Not knowing if he would live or die, the family went to Bristol so Rose could sit by his bedside. He was in the hospital, with an oxygen tent around him, and everyone was distraught. Peggy was sorry for him, because he seemed frightened, and sorry for her mother and the others who were choking back tears, but as for herself she was uncomfortably aware that she felt little because she hadn’t known him that well. Of course, that was another secret she would have to keep. The only person she confided it to was her sister Joan, who felt the same removed blankness. He had always been old and tired, it seemed to them, in his own world: if he wasn’t stubbornly at work he was lying on the couch, talking little, letting Grandma run everything. Luckily no one asked them to act upset; it was assumed they were as grief-stricken as the others, and that their calm was simply bewilderment.

Uncle Hugh had gotten a leave because of the family emergency. The family was bunking in the Smith house, in their usual visiting sleeping arrangement: Peggy and Joan sharing the room that had once belonged to their mother and their Aunt Maude, years ago, when they were girls; Uncle Hugh making do on the living room couch, although there was an extra, empty, room upstairs; while curious and feisty little Ginger, occasional sleepwalker, shared a room with their parents. Their Aunt Harriette, nervous talker, fashionable dresser, thirty now and still unmarried, still working as a secretary, lived there too. When they weren’t visiting the hospital, Aunt Maude and Uncle Walter, with at least one of their four children, came by the house every day, and Aunt Daisy with her husband and son came too.

There was a certain kind of tension in the house, Peggy noticed, that had nothing to do with the imminent death of their grandfather. It was more complex, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

Ben’s parents had died when Peggy was young, so Rose’s parents had to do double duty as grandparents. Now, Peggy thought, she would only have Grandma Celia, who in any case was her favorite. Despite what Grandma was going through, she managed to act normal, which Peggy thought was brave. She was trim and lively for a woman of her age, which had to be at least sixty, and she was generous. “Come in,” she said, the very first day, leading Peggy into her bedroom. “You’re a big girl now, you’ll be wearing earrings soon. Here.” And she gave her a pair of small clip-on pearls surrounded by gilt. “Take them, I don’t wear them. They’ll look pretty on you.”

“Oh, thank you, Grandma!”

In this chaotic situation Peggy was free to roam around as she wished, invisible. She saw, from her position in the hall outside the hospital room doorway, her Uncle Hugh standing solemnly by his father’s bed. “Papa, can you forgive me for disappointing you?” he asked quietly.

Whatever her grandfather answered, Peggy couldn’t hear him, but Uncle Hugh wiped away tears.

Later she wanted to ask what Uncle Hugh had done to disappoint his father so sorely, but she couldn’t, because she was not supposed to eavesdrop.

Their grandfather had his second, and final, heart attack a few days later. After the funeral everyone came back to the house to eat and drink and console each other. Peggy had never been to an event like this before, and found it surprisingly festive. When the party, because that was what it seemed, broke up it was midnight. Uncle Hugh, restless, had gone out for a late walk. Her parents and Ginger were in bed, Joan was asleep too. Peggy helped Grandma and Aunt Harriette wash the dishes and put them away.

“I’ve been thinking,” Grandma said, “that it’s high time I moved to New York.”

“For good?” Peggy asked.

“Yes.”

“That would be wonderful. Would you live with us?”

Grandma laughed. “Of course not. Ben can find me an apartment near the family. I’ve been thinking about Washington Square. There are some lovely town houses there with floor-throughs and apartments in them. He knows who’s dying; I’m sure he’ll find something nice like the house he bought years ago where you all live, Peggy dear. If I wait until the war is over there will be nothing. Now is the time. And Harriette, of course, you’ll come with me.”

“I don’t want to go to New York,” Harriette said, looking horrified. “When did you have this insane idea?”

“A while ago.”

“Then good-bye,” Harriette said.

“Oh no, you’re coming with me, and that’s that.”

“I am not,” Harriette said. “My life is here.”

“Exactly why you have to leave.”

“I am not having this discussion,” Harriette cried. She slammed down her dish towel and ran to her room.

“My goodness,” Grandma said calmly. “Where does she think she’s going to live if not with me? On her salary she’d be in some tiny rented room someplace, in the worst part of Bristol. She can’t live with Daisy or Maude. I’m selling this house, of course. The proceeds will get me something very satisfactory in New York. Harriette is so stubborn. I can’t imagine how she’d get along without me.”

“Why wouldn’t she want to move to New York?” Peggy said. “It’s a great place to live.”

“She’s just a little surprised,” Grandma said.

Later, when Peggy went to bed, she heard them fighting. Joan was a lightly snoring lump under the covers, so Peggy got out of bed and tiptoed into the hall so she could hear them better.

“My father isn’t dead a day and already you’re pulling everything apart,” Harriette was saying. She sounded hysterical. “This house is my home, I grew up here. The man I love is in this town. You want to destroy everything I care about. Go, I don’t care, but I’m staying.”

“What kind of life do you think you’d have here all alone?” Grandma said. “You’re a scandal and a pariah. The only reason people are kind to you is out of respect for me. It’s not enough for you that his wife knows, it’s not enough that his children know and you ruined their lives. He will never marry you and neither will anyone else. This town is too small. I’m taking you to New York where you’ll have a second chance.”

“No!” Harriette said. “I will not be dragged around like your property.”

“And whose property are you then, his?”

“No one’s.”

“You don’t act it.”

“You know nothing about it.”

“I know too much about it,” Grandma said. “I don’t ask myself where I went wrong with you, there’s no point. I’m putting the house up for sale next week, after a decent interval for respect. Your father left it to me, I know that. He left everything to me, understanding that I would provide for the others if need be. I should let you stew in your own juice, but I can’t, I’m your mother. But I’m tired of worrying about you. Where will you be when I’m dead? Who will take care of you?”

“I’ll take care of myself,” Harriette said.

“Just try it,” Grandma said. “You can’t take on the world.”

Peggy heard Harriette slam her bedroom door, and then there was silence. She crept back to bed.

So Aunt Harriette was having an affair with a married man and everyone knew! How glamorous and extraordinary to have something like this happening in her own family! Peggy smiled. She was not the only adventurous one after all. What would the poor thing do, give him up? Aunt Harriette could certainly find another married man in New York if that was what she wanted. If this was a movie she would be played by Joan Crawford. She looked like her, a little.