extends the meat. (Serves 4 to 6, but keep it in the fridge and have lunch for a week!) I like it with gravy!
August 2, 1943
V-mail from Gloria Whitehall to Sgt. Robert Whitehall
Darling Robert,
How are you? I hope you are keeping yourself safe and warm. Everything is good here, so I don’t want you to worry about one little thing. The kids and I are fighting a little summer cold. Sweet Corrine looks so cute with her red nose! The garden is beautiful. I’m so happy I struck up this friendship with Rita. You remember, the woman from Iowa? She’s giving me such good advice about all sorts of things. Mostly it’s nice to have another woman who’s waiting and worrying to talk to. I know there are plenty of women in town, but there’s something about Rita. I trust her. I’m enclosing a current picture of Corrine and Robbie. See how fat she is! She’s such a delightful baby. We look at your picture every night. I’m trying to teach her to say, “Da Da.”
Love and kisses,
Glory
August 8, 1943
IOWA CITY, IOWA
Dear Glory,
My sunflowers have grown taller than me. They guard the house, like good soldiers, blocking me from the assault of Mrs. K.’s disapproving glances, but also from the sun, the sound of street traffic, the children playing hopscotch down the block. I’m cowering behind them, Glory, but you are not. Obviously your sunflowers have not reached the same heights. Or maybe you took hedge clippers to them? Or made Levi do it?
I was surprised by the contents of your last letter, but not shocked. I tried to muster a fair amount of outrage, but it seems I already know you too well for that. Did it feel like jumping off a cliff when he kissed you? I imagine it did.
I’m not one for cliff-jumping. You were right about the fear. It’s getting into everything—my thoughts as I make the bed, the fibers of my dress, the dust settling on our dining room table, the lettuce on my sandwich. It whispers in my ear as I tend the garden, calling “Sal” or “Toby” or, sometimes, my own name. I’m afraid, Glory. Afraid of what I read in the papers. Of not knowing if Western Union will deliver a telegram from someone I’ve never met, telling me my husband or son died on soil my feet have never touched.
I’m also afraid of what I might do, that without my family I am unmoored and untethered, about to float into the horizon, never to be seen again.
Is this weakness? I don’t know. The first time I read your letter I blamed Levi for catching you in a moment of weakness, the skips in the phonograph record where we forget who we are, no longer mothers or wives or citizens, but simply beings without a thought to the past or future, just the present. It sounds crazy, but I wanted to yell at him, to force him to give the moment back to you, so you could decide what to do with it. But then, you took it, didn’t you? You didn’t push him away.
Which makes me want to yell at you. Why aren’t you hiding? Why aren’t you sitting in your front parlor, the windows darkened by the flowers planted with your own hands? Why are you kissing men on sunny days, your hair wild, your conscience untroubled?
I’m sorry, Glory. My mind and heart are skipping beats. I’m looking at the photograph of your mother right now, holding her baby, and I can’t help but wonder that if she knew—if any of us really understood the nature of things at the start—she’d have scooped you up and run like hell.
Rita
August 9, 1943
V-mail from Marguerite Vincenzo to Pfc. Salvatore Vincenzo
Sal,
Big news on the Iowa front: Irene has a beau. His name is Charlie Clark. He’s younger than our gal, but not by much, and probably 4-F, though he looks healthy as a horse. Flat feet, maybe?
Irene and I still meet for lunch every day, but our movie nights at the Englert have been replaced with romantic rendezvous about which she is curiously tight-lipped. I don’t bug her for details. Instead, I’ve been spending my expanding free time at the American Legion helping Mrs. K. and her minions prepare for the massive canning campaign this fall. I hope some of it gets to you, hon. Should I slip a fiver in with the sweet corn? Maybe then you could get your hands on some cigs.
Well, take care. Please write soon if you can.
Miss you,
Rita
P.S. Now that you and Toby are ganging up on me, I’ll go back to the tavern to see how she’s doing. I did try once, but it was closed for inventory. Ha! I bet that Roy fellow can’t even count.
August 28, 1943
IOWA CITY, IOWA
Dear Glory,
After I sent that last letter to you I almost ran down to the post office to steal it back. But when I thought about digging through all those V-mails, burying myself under a mountain of hopes and fears and flop-sweat, well, I just couldn’t. I let my words go.
And now I’ve offended you, haven’t I?
I treasure Sal’s and Toby’s letters. When they come I breathe a little easier, and let myself think of the future.
But when I receive a letter from you I make a pot of tea, and sit down with it like an old, dear friend. My life would be darker without them, Glory.
Please write back.
Sincerely,
Rita
Sept. 1, 1943
Telegram from Mrs. Anna Moldenhauer to Mrs. Marguerite Vincenzo
MESSAGE FROM GLORY. ALL FELL ILL WITH FLU. IN HOSPITAL. CORRINE AND GLORY RECOVERING WELL. ROBBIE CRITICAL. PRAYERS.
A. MOLDENHAUER
Sept. 2, 1943
Telegram from Mrs. Marguerite Vincenzo to Mrs. Anna Moldenhauer
HEARTBROKEN. SENDING PRAYERS. HOW CAN I HELP?
M. VINCENZO
September 5, 1943
ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS
Dear Rita,
