Читать книгу I'll Be Seeing You - Loretta Nyhan - Страница 9

February 14, 1943

ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS

Dear Rita,

Rita? Like Rita Hayworth? Oh, gosh, I love that name. Do you have red hair? Oh, Rita, I’m so glad you wrote back. I was scared I might have chased you away.

And then I read your letter every night. Thinking about your boy and your husband, Sal. He’s Italian? I wish I was. I think it would be very romantic to be Italian. I spent some time in Italy when I was growing up. Sometimes now, when I think about this war, I wonder about the beautiful places I’ve been, the people I met, and worry. What will the world look like after all this violence?

Your words gave me a much needed respite from worry. Thank you for that. I laughed and laughed about the sunflowers. I want to learn to do something with this rocky patch of land I have here behind the house. It’s falling down due to a lack of upkeep, but lovely just the same. Robert wants me to move in with his mother who lives in Beverly, but I can’t leave this place. It was my family’s summerhouse (though since I married Robert, we’ve called it our permanent home). It’s so soothing, with the sea on one side and the woods on the other. I’m only ten minutes from town and the bus stops right at the end of our road. I wish he wouldn’t worry so much. I’ve been independent all my life.

So, your Sal is in Tunisia? How exciting! My Robert is in Sparta, Wisconsin, training. I guess it’s going to be cold over in Europe. Funny, I always remember it being warm there. I find myself thinking more and more about the past the bigger my belly gets with this baby. Isn’t that strange? But I suppose this war makes thinking about the future too difficult.

Tell me more about you, Rita. Tell me what else you grow in your garden and how you grow it. Should I be doing anything now in my yard? Tell me what it’s like to have a grown-up boy. Robbie might just kill me. He already hates the baby. I’m trying to tell him everything will be all right, but how can I say it with a straight face? My son’s no idiot. He knows when I’m lying.

The medicine won’t taste bad.

The bath is not hot.

Daddy will be safe.

Lies.

I’m so big now I can’t do much. And the snow...it falls and there isn’t any relief. I go to the market once a week and then come home.

So thank you, Rita. Thank you for writing back. Because life is so closed up...and now it feels more open, like a wide, wide field in Iowa.

I’m enclosing a sketch of my square bit of earth here on the cliffs that I call a backyard. It’s sunny. Tell me what I should plant in my victory garden, Garden Witch.

And tell me a better lie to tell my son so he grows up as good and open and pure as yours seems to be.

With great newfound affection,

Glory