CHAPTER
sixty-two
On the day Norman came home from the war, I got us locked out of our apartment.
All afternoon and into the evening we’d been busy with a parade and picnic and celebration, all in Norm’s honor. LaFontaine’s favorite war hero received an apt welcome home.
By the time it was all over and we’d gotten to the door of our place, I knew that Norm was antsy to get inside with me. It had, after all, been a very long time since we’d been alone together. He kissed me long and deep while rummaging in his pockets.
When he found only loose change and a jackknife, he asked where my keys were.
My eyes widened when I realized that I’d left my handbag on Mom and Pop’s kitchen counter, my keys safely tucked into the inside pocket.
I felt awful.
Norman groaned at the realization.
We sat on the concrete slab, our backs leaning against the door, our shoulders touching.
“What should we do?” I’d asked.
“No idea,” he answered.
“Maybe we could walk to your folks’ house.” I turned my head to look at him.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’d rather just stay here with you.”
“I don’t mind at all.”
At first we didn’t talk. I put my head on his shoulder and he rested his hand on my thigh. When I shivered, he gave me the jacket of his uniform. When he yawned, I told him I wished I could make him a cup of coffee.
“I thought of when I’d get to see you again every day I was over there,” he said. “It got me through some awful things.”
“And here I’ve locked us out of our home.” I leaned my head back against the door. “I feel horrible.”
“It’s not all that bad.” He turned his body so he could face me. “Someday we’ll look back on this and laugh.”
“Oh, I don’t know that I’ll ever think it’s funny.”
He drew in a long breath, holding it as he shut his eyes.
“What are you doing?” I’d asked.
Opening one eye just a crack, he shushed me.
“Norman . . .”
“Quiet.”
I pinched my lips together and tried to stifle a laugh.
“Okay. I think I got it.” He opened his eyes and leaned over to kiss me. “I want to remember this moment for the rest of my life.”
“Why? It’s frustrating and disappointing. Why remember this?”
“Because it’s another scene in our story.”
I lifted a hand and touched his face.
“You are such a good man,” I said.
“We’ll see if you still feel that way after I break into our apartment.” He winked before getting up.
We’d had to pay the landlord for the broken glass in the window. It was worth every penny.
Clara would come home from the sanitarium to a quiet house. There would be no parade or confetti or banner to welcome her. I’d asked Marvel in the nicest way I could to let us have a day to ourselves. She’d agreed.
I didn’t think she had it in her to celebrate. No one did, really.
If I knew her, she’d spend the day watching the news so as not to miss a single update about Kennedy’s assassination. I only hoped Stan would remind her to eat something.
As for me, I couldn’t have the television on. It was too much and I dreaded seeing Mrs. Kennedy, a new widow just like me. A woman who lost her husband far too soon.
Hugo came down for breakfast, still wearing his clothes from the day before, and I was glad I’d agreed to let Albert pick up Clara. I needed to talk to the boy. I needed to have a little bit of time with him, just us.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi.” He rubbed his eyes.
“Are you hungry? I made oatmeal.”
He nodded. “Can I have brown sugar, please?”
“Of course.”
I fixed a bowl for him, pouring just a little cream into it, swirling it together with a spoon.
“Did you sleep okay?” I asked, setting the oatmeal in front of him.
He told me he had. “I’m still sad, though.”
I knew he meant about the president. It seemed impossible to explain something so difficult, so ugly to a boy of five and a half. Especially since I didn’t fully understand it myself.
All I could think to say was that I was sad too.
“Why would someone want to hurt him?” His eyes, big and round and watery, met mine.
“I don’t know.”
Hugo dipped his spoon into the oatmeal but didn’t scoop any to eat.
“Would you like to hear some good news?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Your mommy is coming home today.” I touched his cheek. “What do you think about that?”
“Is she better?”
“I think so.”
“Then why are you crying?” he asked.
“Because I’m happy.”
He slid off his chair and climbed into my lap, his arms wrapped around my neck. I rested my cheek on his head, his hair tickling my skin.
“We’ll have to take care of her,” I said. “She’ll need rest and good food and lots of snuggles.”
“Will she be as tired as she was before?”
“I hope not.”
“Can we take her for adventures?” he asked.
“I think we can.” I held him closer. “Maybe we can all go see Santa Claus together.”
“Santa isn’t real.”
“Nick and Dick.”
“They were just pulling your leg.” I smoothed his hair with the palm of my hand. “In fact, I have a story about Santa. Would you like to hear it?”
He nodded.
In all the months I’d known him, Hugo had never said no to a story.
I hoped he never would.
We stood at the living room window, waiting for Albert to bring Clara home. Hugo nibbled his thumbnail and I kept my arms wrapped around my middle, holding myself together.
I wondered if I’d be able to do for her all she would need. The doubt settled like a lump of raw dough in my stomach.
Flannery slinked in, hopping onto the stool between us, and I thought how if anyone looked in from the street they’d think us an odd trio.
It had turned out to be a gloomy, gray, drizzly kind of morning, and before long, we were fogging up the glass with our breath. I used my fingertip to draw a heart.
“Mommy says we shouldn’t do that,” Hugo said. “It just makes the window dirty.”
“Well, who is it around here that cleans the windows?” I asked. “I’ll give you a hint. It’s me. And I say we can draw pictures on the glass just this time.”
He got a little sparkle in his eye and huffed air onto the window before tracing the shape of a star. I made a heart and he made a squiggly line.
“What’s that?” I asked.
After a few minutes his space on the window was covered, finger drawings fading away little by little. I picked him up, even if he’d gotten quite a bit heavier over the past few months, and held him higher so he could fill the area at my eye level.
That was when we saw a pair of headlights slicing through the gloom, cutting all the way until they stopped in my driveway.
“Is that her?” Hugo asked, his voice just a whisper.
“I think so.”
I let him down and he ran across the living room, swinging the front door open and leaping off the porch. I didn’t try to stop him and I didn’t warn him of how soaked to the bone he would get out in that rain.
Albert got out of the car first, opening an umbrella over his head and rushing around to the passenger’s side to let Clara out. He offered her his hand and she took it, rising up out of the car.
Hugo launched himself at her and I worried that he would knock her over. She didn’t fall, though, and she didn’t stumble. She caught him, letting him wrap his legs around her waist.
I hadn’t been that happy in far too long.