A Cup of Tea - Amy Ephron [25]
Dora held the hat out to her. “Would you mind…? We have a delivery to make. Mrs. Lawson—her husband,” said Dora as if no other explanation were necessary. “I’ve grown to hate this war. But my mother always used to say, one should always be prepared and keep a black hat in the closet.”
Eleanor couldn’t tell whether she’d just been told a life lesson or one of Dora’s eccentricities. She took the hat from Dora gingerly and put it in a hat box. Forgetting that the letter was in the pocket, she took her apron off and hung it on a hook. She nodded as Dora handed her the address.
“Although,” said Dora as Eleanor turned to go, “I guess I could understand wanting a new hat under the circumstances.”
It was terribly hot and humid. A group of children were playing around an open fire hydrant, barefoot, unmindful of the fact that their clothes were getting wet. Three women, presumably with some relation to the children, sat exhausted, legs splayed, fanning themselves on a stoop. Eleanor walked by carrying the hat box. She felt like a messenger of death. And as she walked down the street, the words in Philip’s letter, the letter she’d been reading, the letter she hadn’t expected to get and hoped for every day, sounded over in her mind.
“I have heard of people having flashbacks when they returned from war,” he wrote. “But I began to have them as soon as I arrived. Flashbacks of you. They come unbidden. I’m hoping you can forgive me and give me a chance to make right what is wrong. In the meantime, I am left with memories of you. The way you looked when you opened your door at night…And how it felt to lie beside you…”
A taxi honked at Eleanor as she crossed the street. She hurried on oblivious. The sounds of the city became intermingled with the sound of war in her imagination, an explosion in the distance, planes flying overhead.
“Did I speak to you about duty. I meant to…”
Eleanor walked down a residential street that was lined with brownstones with a uniform facade.
“Duty and honor. And what it is like to be bound to one thing when your heart wishes you to do something else…”
The sound of a bomber overhead, intermixed with traffic noise as it strafes the sky.
“What it is like to fight a war when nothing about a war makes sense except a sense of duty.”
The sound of a single bomb now on a swift trajectory to the ground as if for one moment she were by his side.
“Don’t question my love. Try, if you can to forgive me. And know that I am coming home to you.”
And then, unmistakably, the sound of a bomb as it hit and exploded on the ground.
The Lawson house stood out because of the yellow ribbon on the door that was tied like a Christmas package, but in the center where the bow would be, hung a black wreath. Eleanor walked down the stairs of the brownstone to the servants’ and delivery entrance and knocked.
The door was opened by the fat cook, Emma, whose normally cheerful countenance was stained by tears. The sight of the hat box was enough to start her off again, but she had always run a gracious household. “You must be scorched,” she said to Eleanor. “I’ve got fresh lemonade.”
Eleanor was feeling flushed and queasy from the heat. She held the banister to steady herself.
“Come in out of the sun,” said Emma. “Not that it’s much better in here. What with the baking for tomorrow.”
“Have you a—” Eleanor was going to ask for a Powder Room but she was too polite.
Emma guessed her meaning. “You do look as though you might be sick,” she said and directed Eleanor to follow her through the kitchen to the servants’ bath. Emma, protective of the house from strangers, waited outside the door and heard the unmistakable sound of retching even though Eleanor had turned the water on to mask it.
A moment later, Eleanor opened the door. She had splashed water on her face and her color had returned a bit. The two women looked at each other. “It’s the heat,” said Eleanor apologetically.
“If I were you,” said Emma who guessed her condition immediately, “I would