October 3, 1944

IOWA CITY, IOWA

Dear Glory,

Oh, hon. This is unexpected. I didn’t think you’d be the one jostling for position in your own home. I don’t mean that as a slight—it’s just that this particular scenario never entered my mind. I thought for sure those two would give each other a wide berth.

I’ve been sitting cross-legged in front of my garden for the past half hour, trying to put myself in Robert’s place. The only conclusion I can come to is this—Levi is the easy one to deal with. You, on the other hand...

You’re not the woman he left, Glory. I guess none of us are the same people we were before this war started, but even if Hitler had never stepped foot in Poland, over the years you’d show Robert aspects of your personality he’d never thought were there. We’re all so multifaceted, and it’s impossible to see all the sides at once.

I suppose some people would say he left a girl and came back to a woman, but I think that’s oversimplifying things. You were a woman a year and a half ago, just a different kind of woman.

Robert needs to figure out this new Glory. I’ve got to say, being sassy and petulant isn’t going to help; however, he’s going to have to learn to accept all your emotions, as you’re freer now, and they rise to the surface more easily.

And you’re going to need to accept Robert’s quirks. He may move quickly in that chair, but acclimating to this new lifestyle will take time.

I’m not an expert, but I believe marriage is about loving someone enough to accept whatever comes, be it pleasant or unpleasant without a thought of giving up. Sal taught me that.

Oh, Glory, I wish I could tell you these things with my arm around your shoulders and my head leaning against yours. The sun is brilliant this afternoon. And unlike the cement patio, the earth miraculously still holds the warmth of summer—I can feel it through the denim of my overalls. I’ve got my back against the wheelbarrow, and my paper is supported by some magazines Roylene left behind. On the back of one some Hollywood type is telling me to wear Victory Red lipstick to keep our troops safe. If only it was that simple.

And yes, you read that right. Roylene is gone.

Charlie and I brought her to Cedar Falls last Thursday. We acted like two worried parents dropping their youngest off at sleepaway camp. Charlie kept asking her if she needed anything, and I think if she’d requested a samurai sword he would have hopped on a plane and fought General Tojo for one.

Roylene was quiet and contemplative when we arrived—I’m sure she was thinking about Little Sal (we thought it best he stay in Iowa City with Irene, after much teary back and forth). She jammed her fingers in her mouth, a habit I thought she’d long since given up.

The camp was an impressive sight to behold. It’s located on the stately grounds of the Iowa State Teachers College, and I couldn’t help but think, if this were another life, we’d be dropping Roylene off in the students’ dormitory. But this is the life she’s been given, I told myself, and I can only help her live it. I slipped my arm around her shoulders as we took in her new home. Lines of girls dressed smartly in navy blue, sharply tailored suits marched by where we stood. Roylene’s eyes were glued to a gal holding the flag in front—she stood nearly six feet tall and held her figure as fine and elegant as the Statue of Liberty.

“We best get you checked in,” Charlie said, and picked up her small suitcase.

“I can’t,” Roylene whispered, and abruptly turned on her heel and started walking, away from us and away from the camp.

I turned to follow, but Charlie stopped me cold. “Give her some thinking time,” he said, and we wandered the campus for ten minutes or so, until I was just about ready to jump out of my skin.

We found her sitting on the hood of Charlie’s car, shoes kicked off, her eyes puffy and red. “What am I doin’?” she moaned when we approached.

I wasn’t sure I had a good enough answer for her. While I stood there with my mouth hanging open in the breeze, Charlie scooted up next to her and calmly said, “Why’d you go and sign up?”

“I come from nothin’,” Roylene said. “Worse than that, when you really look at it.” She stopped, took a breath. “Did you ever catch a glimpse of what you could be, if you really tried at life? The woman at the enlistment office gave me a peek. This war is terrible, she said, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t give us some opportunities. I could find a place for myself serving my country. Little Sal could always have something to be proud of, instead of feeling like he had to make up for where I came from. I just don’t know if I can leave him. Does that make any sense at all?”

Charlie sighed and asked if he could tell her a story. Then he told a tale I’d been waiting to hear for a long time. It came out in a torrent—his jailbird father, alcoholic mother, juvenile delinquency. He grew up in the back of a pool hall, was arrested for the first time at twelve years old when his father talked him into driving a getaway car after he’d robbed a drugstore.

“I got plenty to be ashamed of, and I’ve spent the past few years trying to catch my own glimpse of what I can be,” Charlie said after he’d finished. “I wanted the war to help me get there, to make me whole. That didn’t play out, but it might for you. I don’t have a child, but if I did, I’d do everything I could to make sure I could look him in the eye when he asked what kind of man I was. Now, you got nothing to be ashamed of besides being born to a real SOB, but life is long, and if you feel you’ll look back on this experience and see it’s made yours a better one, then you need to consider it.”

I wanted to object. Roylene was already whole in my book. But some kind of understanding passed between the two of them, something outside of my comprehension, so I didn’t say a word. After a moment, Roylene slid off the car and walked up to me. “I need to do this, for Little Sal and Toby...and me,” she said, her eyes full of conviction. “I don’t take it lightly, and I know I’m taking a risk. I need your permission for leaving, though, or it won’t feel right. I trust your opinion more than any other, Mrs. Vincenzo. Do you think I should go?”

Every part of me wanted to scoop her up and take her back to Iowa City, to her son and the life I wanted her to live. She gazed at me expectantly, her eyes clouding up a bit when she guessed my answer.

“Every day I’ll tell Little Sal about his brave mommy and daddy,” I said, and pulled her trembling body close. “It’s only a year, hon. You go. Jump off some cliffs for both of us.”

I kissed her forehead and promised to send weekly updates of Little Sal’s progress. And then I let her go. It’s the third time I’ve given someone to this war and, oh, Glory, in some ways, it was the hardest.

On the way home, Charlie pulled over onto an embankment about three miles past Waterloo.

“Everything I told her was true,” he said, cutting the engine. “There’s more to the story. I want you to hear it, is that all right?”

The next decade after the drugstore robbery was one of petty (and not-so-petty) thefts and consistent arrests. He did some adult time in the Oklahoma State Pen. That’s what doomed him to 4-F status. “I thought if I could serve,” he admitted, “I could make up for what I’d done.”

Then Charlie went on, from the sordid mess of his mother’s death to his father’s final incarceration, to the guilt and pain and regret that tug at his pant leg like the unhappy, attention-starved child he was.

Given his bravery, I’m not proud of what happened next. As he talked, mean thoughts zipped through my head like bolts of lightning. Why was Charlie sitting next to me and not Sal? Why is my husband—a man who read Shakespeare and never harmed a fly—decomposing under a mound of Italian soil while this man wears shiny shoes and drinks hooch and plays Monopoly at my dining room table?

Charlie must have sensed something. He dropped forward, gluing his forehead to the steering wheel, arms slack at his sides. The droop of his shoulders announced his defeat.

His total immobility prompted me to act. I gently pushed him upright. I combed through his tangled hair, wiped the sweat from his brow, curled his fingers over the wheel. I turned the radio on to something low and melodic. “You are a respectable man out for a Sunday drive,” I said. “I believe it, so you should start believing it, too.”

“Do you?” he whispered. “Do you really believe it?”

I did. It was a side of him I had seen, and one I knew to be true. “I do,” I said, and we drove off into the heart of Iowa, two people under the wide expanse of cloudless sky.

This is the thing, Glory—sometimes it takes so long to see the best sides of a person. I’m not certain Robert has seen all you have to offer. I don’t even know if you’re aware of your many attributes. They lie in wait, like a tower of brightly wrapped gifts hidden in a cedar closet. When the door finally opens you have to be certain they won’t come tumbling out, overwhelming him.

Anna has the rare talent of seeing more than most. Levi, too, in his own way. Now it’s time for Robert to have his chance. Let him discover you, and you him. Take the time you both deserve.

Good luck, my friend.

Love,

Rita