July 7, 1944

ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS

Rita,

My telegram came. He’s alive. Seriously wounded in action. In the hospital.

I was swimming down in the cove with Levi and the kids. It was Corrine’s first time there...a baptism of sorts. She took to the water right away like a little chubby mermaid. Her hair has grown (finally) and the blond curls turned the color of caramel when wet. Just like Robert’s. I was thinking of him. Wishing he was there to watch his children—Corrine so like him, Robbie so like me.... And Robbie was swimming, too. It was like a miracle. We were laughing and healing in the deep salty ocean.

The bicycle on the road above glinted in the sun. Caught in my eye like sand.

I swam for the rocks, and took the trail up the road. I ran fast, hiding behind trees...pretending I was a forest fairy. I kept thinking, He’ll go past the house, he’ll go past the house, but no one else on our road has anyone in need of a telegram.

I met the boy before he got to the door.

Has it ever happened to you, Rita, that you see a young person that you think you recognize, only to remember that it couldn’t be that person at all, because you are all grown up? Well, for a moment that boy looked exactly like Robert when he was fourteen. Shaggy-haired, too-tall, graceless teenage Robert. All arms and legs. My love. But it wasn’t him at all, was it? No. It wasn’t.

In the time it took for him to meet me with his outstretched hand I lived two lives. One without Robert, and one with him wounded.

I’d not stopped (for fear of losing him in my sight) to towel off, so when I reached for the telegram, drops of seawater fell from my fingers and wet the paper before I could grasp hold of it.

Salt from the sea, not from my eyes as it should have been.

It’s punishment is what it is. It’s my fault.

I should be dead. Or in a hospital in France. I can no longer face Levi or this house or this town.

I’m going to Connecticut to be with my mother.

Glory