LaVyrle Spencer - Morning Glory

In time, when they had spoken of home and necessary things-the temperamental wind generator, the fall butchering, the gold mine of used auto parts-he lit another cigarette and lay with his shoulder pillowing her cheek.

She stared at the sheet draped over his toes and took the plunge she’d been dreading. "Where they sendin’ you, Will?"

He took a deep, slow drag before answering. "I don’t know."

"You mean they haven’t told you yet?"

"There’s scuttlebutt about the South Pacific but nobody knows where, not even the base commander. The CO’s keep using the word "spearhead’-and you know what that means."

"No, what?"

He reached for an ashtray, laid it on his stomach and tapped it with the cigarette. "It means we’d lead an attack."

"Attack?"

"Invasion, Elly."

"Invasion?" She lifted her head to search his eyes. "Of what?"

He didn’t want to talk about it and, in truth, knew nothing. "Who knows? The Japs are all over the Pacific, controlling most of it. If they’re sending us there we could end up anyplace from Wake to Australia."

"But how can they send you someplace and not even tell you where you’re going?"

"Surprise is part of military strategy. If that’s how they plan it we follow orders, that’s all."

She digested that for long minutes, while his heart beat steadily beneath her ear. At length she asked quietly, "Are you scared, Will?"

He touched her hair. "Course I’m scared." He considered and added, "At times. Other times I remind myself that I’m part of the best-trained military unit in the history of the world. If I got to fight, I’d rather do it with the Marines than anybody else. And I want you to remember that when you get worried about me after I’m gone. In the Marines it’s everybody for the group. Nobody thinks of himself first. Instead, everybody thinks of the group, so you always got that reassurance behind you. And every Marine is trained to take over the next higher position if his CO is injured in battle, so the company’s always got a leader, the squad’s always got a leader. That’s what I have to concentrate on when I start gettin’ the willies about maybe being shipped to the Pacific, and that’s what you got to concentrate on, too."

She tried, but images of bayonets and guns got in the way.

He saw the images, too, the ones from the movie theater in the black and white newsreel. "Hey, come on, sweetheart." He crushed out his cigarette and gathered her close, rubbed her naked spine. "Let’s talk about something else."

They did. They talked about the boys. And Miss Beasley. And Lydia Marsh. And the way Will had filled out. And the way Elly had learned to apply makeup and fix her hair. When dark had fallen they took a bath together, touching and teasing, giggling behind the closed bathroom door. They made love against it and ate the cold hamburgers and he talked about the food at the base and taught her all the "leatherneck lingo" he’d learned in the galley. She laughed at canned milk called armored heifer; eggs, cackleberries; pancakes, collision mates; tapioca, fish eyes; and spinach, Popeye. Around midnight they made love on the maroon rug with its green leaf design. Sometimes they laughed-perhaps a little desperately as they felt the hours slipping away. He told her about his buddy, Otis Luttrell, the carrottop fellow from Kentucky, and how they were hoping they’d ship out together. He said Otis was engaged to a pretty young woman named Cleo who worked in a grenade factory in Lexington, and that he’d never had a friend he liked as much as Otis.

The night sped by and they sat on the windowsill, watching the distant darkness where they knew ships rested at anchor. But all was pitch black, blacked out lest some German submarine be slipping through the East Coast defenses.

The war was there… happening… no matter how they tried to block it out. It was there, coloring each thought, each touch, each fleeting heartbeat they shared.

Toward dawn they slept, against their wills, touching even in slumber, then roused again to hoard each wakeful moment like misers counting pennies.

When Lizzy awakened shortly before seven they brought her into bed with them and Will lay on his side, head braced on a hand, watching once more the sight he’d never grow tired of. After the feeding he said he wanted to give Lizzy her bath. Elly watched, wistful and yearny while Will knelt beside the deep tub and took joy in caring for the baby. He did it all, dried and diapered her and dressed her in clean rompers, then lay on the bed playing with her and laughing at her gurgling baby-talk and teddy-bear poses. But often his eyes would lift to Elly’s, on the other side of the baby, and the unspoken sorrow would be rife between them.

They ate in their room and remained in it until a different bellgirl came to inquire if they were staying a second day. They packed their meager bags and stood in the doorway, looking back at the room that had provided a haven for the past eighteen hours. They turned to each other and tried to look brave, but their last kiss in private was one of trembling lips and despairing thoughts.

They took to the streets of Augusta, ambling along the hot pavement until they found a park with a deserted bandstand surrounded by iron benches. They sat on one and spread a blanket on the grass where they settled Lizzy to play with Will’s dog tags. They looked at the trees, the clear blue Georgia sky, the child at their feet-but most often at each other. Occasionally they kissed, but lightly, with their eyes open, as if to close out the sight of the other for even a moment was unthinkable. More often they touched-his hand lightly grazing her shoulder blade or her palm resting on his thigh while he toyed with the friendship ring which had, indeed, turned her finger green.

"When I come back I’m gonna buy you a real gold wedding ring."

"I don’t want a real gold wedding ring. I want the one I wore the day I married you."

Their eyes met-sad eyes no longer denying what lay ahead.

"I love you, green eyes. Don’t forget that."

"I love you, too, soldier boy."

"I’ll try to write often but… well, you know."

"I’ll write every day, I promise."

"They’re gonna censor everything, so you still might not know where I am, even if I tell you."

"It won’t matter. Long as I know you’re safe."

Another extended gaze ended when he rested his forehead upon hers. They sat thus, fingers loosely entwined, for minutes. Somewhere in the park a pair of herring gulls screeched. Out on the water a steam whistle sounded. From nearer came the clink-clink of Lizzy flailing the chain and dog tags. And over all rested the smell of purple petunias blossoming at the foot of a tiny fountain.

Will felt his throat fill, swallowed and told his wife, "It’s time to go."

She suddenly radiated false brightness. "Oh… course it is… why, we better get Daddy to that station, hadn’t we, Lizzy?"

He carried the baby and she carried their bags until they stood again in the noisy, crowded depot where they faced each other and suddenly found themselves tongue-tied. Lizzy became fascinated with a button on his blouse, trying to pull it off with a chubby hand.

"The two-thirty for Columbia, Raleigh, Washington and Philadelphia now boarding at gate three!"

"That’s me."

"You got your ticket?" Elly asked.

"Yes, ma’am."

Their eyes met and he circled the slope of her neck with his free hand, squeezing hard.

"Give the boys a kiss from me and give ’em those chocolate bars."

"I w-will. And send me your address as soon as th-they-" She couldn’t go on, afraid of releasing the choking sobs that filled her chest.

He nodded, his face doleful.

"Last call for Columbia, Raleigh-"

Her eyes were streaming, his filled to glittering.

"Oh, Will…"

"Elly…"

They hugged awkwardly, with the baby between them. "Come back to me."

"You damn right I will."

Their kiss was a terrible thing-goodbye, keep low, keep safe-with tongues thickened by the need to cry.

A whistle wailed. "Booooard!" The train lumbered to life.

He tore his mouth away, thrust the baby into her hands and ran, leaped and boarded the rolling car, turning at the last possible moment to catch a blurry glimpse of Elly and Lizzy waving from amid a crowd of strangers in a dirty train depot in a hot Georgia town.

Eleanor Parker no longer prayed, so perhaps it was more imprecation than prayer when she choked against her fist, "Damn it, k-keep him safe, you hear?"

18 June 1942

Dear Elly,

What a crazy life this is. Yesterday I was with you and today I’m on a train heading for San Francisco. Red is with me but he isn’t as much company as you. Ive just been thinking over and over about how wunderfull it was being with you and how much I love you and how glad I am that we had that one day together it was like being in heaven green eyes…

June 18, 1942

Dear Will,

I’m writing this cuz I just got to. My hearts so full and feels like its gonna spill over less I tell you how I feel about our night in Augusta. I don’t know when this will get to you cause I don’t know where to send it but feelings are feelings and mine will be just as true even if you read this a month from now. (I’ll save it and send it when you send me your address.) You know Will when I first met you I said I still loved Glendon and I thought I did. Glendon was the first real nice person that ever come into my life. He treated me like I was put on this earth for something besides repenting and being poked fun at. He was a real good man Glendon was and at the time when I was married to him I was real happy for the first time in my life so I thought that meant I loved him somethin fearful. And I did love him don’t get me wrong but when Glendon and me did private things together it was never like it is with me and you. I never told you before but the first time Glendon and me ever did it was in the woods and we did it cause his daddy died and he was greevin. I remember how I layed there on my back lookin up at the green branches and thought about the sound of this one bird that kept calling and calling off in the distance, and I wondered what it was and much later I found out it was a common snipe doing his flight call which is this mournful whistle that lifts up & up & up with each beat. Its funny now to think back on how my mind was always on other things when Glendon and me got private. He and me begot three children and that ought to mean we were as close in spirit as a man and woman can get but Will I had two nights being close with you and they are the two nights that showed me what love really is. The flight call of the snipe was the farthest thing from my mind when you and me were making love Will. I can’t quit thinking about it and how I got to feeling just looking at you before you even got undressed. I watch you move around taking off your tie and your jacket and I feel like heat lightnin is going thru my insides Will. I says to myself nobody moves like him. Nobody unbuttons his cuffs like him. Nobody’s got eyes as pretty as him. Nobody’s luckier than me.

I went back and read what I wrote and it still don’t seem to say it like I feel but telling what love is like is a lot like telling what the call of a bird is like. You hear it and you reckoniz it and its in yourself so strong you think for sure you can repeat it for someone else. But you can’t. I just wanted you to know though that I love you different from what I loved Glendon. They say everybody goes through life searching for the other half of hisself and I know now you’re the other half of me cause when I’m with you I feel hoel…

July 16, 1942

Dear Mr. Parker,

Eleanor shared your last letter with me and together she and I have looked at the atlas and tried to imagine exactly where you are. I have taken her books about the Pacific Islands so that she can see what the flora and fauna are like there, also the weather and the ocean itself.

Things are changing here. The town seems quite deserted. Not only are our young men gone, the young women are leaving, too. The latest billboard pictures a woman and the slogan, "What job is mine on the Victory line?" So many are leaving to find jobs at Lockheed in Marietta, the shipyards in Mobile and at Packard and Chrysler up north, making engines and fuselages and landing gear. When I was young there were few choices given to a woman who did not marry. Teaching, becoming a domestic, or a librarian. Even female nurses were frowned upon then. Today the women are driving city buses, using acetylene torches and running cranes. I cannot help but wonder what will happen when the Allies are victorious and all you men come home. Rest assured, your job will be waiting.