The Letter. Elizabeth Blackwell

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      Now that the war had tripled his business, Lydia watched her father revert to the confident physician he had once been. The more patients he treated, the more his shoulders straightened, and the more Lydia heard the sound of whistling in the morning. He made fewer trips to the liquor cabinet after dinner. No longer was Lydia awakened by the sound of harsh voices from her parents’ room.

      After school let out for the summer, Mother took Lydia and Nell north to Wisconsin, to Grandmother’s vacation house on Lake Geneva. Mother claimed it would be good for the girls’ health—“The air here is oppressive. I can’t bear it”—but Father’s health seemed less of a concern, as he stayed behind.

      To one of Grandmother’s elderly neighbors, Mother explained the move to Knox Junction as a patriotic duty. “We all must make our sacrifices,” she said. “They don’t have nearly enough doctors there, and with the war on, David is needed more than ever.

      “It’s a simpler life,” Mother told one of her childhood friends, who lived in a three-story mansion on Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. “So much better for the children.”

      Whether these polite society ladies believed Mother’s explanations or merely pitied her, the result was the same. She was welcomed back into the world where she’d grown up, a world of garden parties and croquet matches and leisurely rides on family sailboats. A world Lydia had once believed she was part of. But now she saw it as a brief, idyllic escape. Come September, she’d be back in Knox Junction. That had become her real life.

      Lydia had given Henry the address in Lake Geneva on their last day of school, not expecting anything to come of it. But to her great surprise, he did write. And although his letters were short, to the point and distinctly lacking in poetry, she ripped each one open eagerly.

      Dear Lydia,

      How are things up there? Have you gone swimming in the lake? The only place I’ve ever gone swimming was the water hole behind our barn. It’s all dried up now. It’s scorching hot here. How’s the weather?

      Her letters back were chattier, but similarly superficial:

      The women here go to great lengths to track down nylons. They all whisper about who can get them as if they’re planning a bank robbery. But I don’t imagine you’re too interested in ladies’ fashions. Sorry I don’t have anything more interesting to write about—it’s a rather dull routine here. A morning walk, lunch out, afternoon swim, tea with friends of my grandmother’s, followed by dinner with someone even more boring. There doesn’t seem to be anyone here younger than forty. It actually makes me look forward to high school. Although, I still can’t quite believe it—high school! What do you think it will be like?

      Knox Junction was too small to support a high school, so students took a half-hour bus ride to nearby Fentonville. During the first few weeks of school, the bus seating settled into a pattern that remained for the rest of the school year. Lydia and Melanie would board the bus first, in town. Later along the route, Henry would get on and sit in the row in front of them. He’d stretch his long legs out along the seat and turn sideways toward the girls, nodding his head once. Sometimes he’d lean back against the window and drift off to sleep. Other days he would halfheartedly respond as Melanie attempted to drag him into conversation.

      “What do you think of those Fentonville girls, Henry?” Melanie asked one morning toward the beginning of their freshman year. She flashed Lydia a meaningful glance.

      “I dunno,” he said.

      “Some of them act like big-city girls, don’t you think?”

      Henry shrugged. “Maybe.”

      Melanie shook her head, annoyed. She told Lydia later, “Doesn’t Henry look like a big scarecrow?” A growth spurt had left Henry awkwardly tall and skinny; he walked as if he was still learning to work his new arms and legs.

      “Did you see him this morning, with his hair all pointed up?” Melanie giggled. “It’s just like straw!”

      To the girls at Fentonville, his lanky body, uneasy posture and obviously handed-down, too-short trousers marked him as a poor prospect. Melanie had stopped teasing Lydia about him. High school offered all sorts of new potential beaus—Henry Armstrong was old news.

      “He’s not that bad,” protested Lydia. But when he wore overalls to school—which he did far too often—he did look like a country bumpkin. Exactly the sort of person the ladies at Lake Geneva would disapprove of.

      Without ever discussing it, Lydia and Henry kept their interaction at school to a minimum. But somehow they found moments to talk away from school, Sunday afternoons when they’d stroll along the wide road out of town, searching for a perfect vista for Lydia to sketch. They talked about books, about his brother’s letters from overseas, about Chicago, which Henry had never visited. There were no nervous attempts to grab Lydia’s hand or stuttering declarations of feelings. They were simply friends. And Lydia never felt she needed anything more.

      By their sophomore year, Lydia and Henry had expanded their friendship to help navigate the perils of high school. He asked her to the homecoming dance, saving her from the embarrassment of not being asked by anyone else. They began doing homework together at her house. Lydia’s father would sometimes give Henry a ride home in his car, one of the few in town that received ample gas rations.

      They might have continued that way for years, neither of them breaking the rhythm of companionship. But the war shattered their comfortable routine.

      It was the spring of 1944. Henry didn’t board the bus one morning, and he wasn’t in math class at the start of the day. Mr. Andrews called roll and noticed that Henry was absent.

      “Has anyone seen Henry Armstrong?” he asked.

      “He wasn’t on the bus,” Melanie offered.

      “That’s an unexcused absence,” Mr. Andrews said, marking it down in his book.

      Even one unexcused absence was unusual for someone as conscientious as Henry, and when he wasn’t at school the next day, Lydia began to worry. She wondered whether she’d be brave enough to telephone his house later. She’d only met his parents once, when they came to the school’s annual concert. They were even more soft-spoken than Henry, nodding silently when Henry introduced them. Lydia wondered if they’d remember who she was.

      “Um, Mr. Andrews?” George Foster, known as one of the loudest boys in the school, raised his hand.

      “Yes, George?”

      “My mother heard something about the Armstrongs. I don’t know if I…” George seemed unsure, a rarity for him.

      “Please come up,” said Mr. Andrews. George whispered in his ear. Lydia, from the front row, heard the name of Reverend McDeal, the minister at Knox Junction’s only church.

      Mr. Andrews was quiet for a moment, gazing down at the floor. “Thank you, George,” he said finally. СКАЧАТЬ