A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [199]
“Yes, I’m engaged all right. But it isn’t the same between her and me as it is between you and me.”
“But you’re going to marry her?”
He waited a long time before he answered.
“No.”
She was happy again.
“Say it, Francie,” he whispered. “Say it.”
She said, “I love you, Lee.”
“Francie…” there was urgency in his voice, “I may not come back from over there and I’m afraid…afraid. I might die…die, never having had anything…never…Francie, can’t we be together for a little while?”
“We are together,” said Francie innocently.
“I mean in a room…alone…Just till morning when I leave?”
“I…couldn’t.”
“Don’t you want to?”
“Yes,” she answered honestly.
“Then why….”
“I’m only sixteen,” she confessed bravely. “I’ve never been with…anybody. I wouldn’t know how.”
“That makes no difference.”
“And I’ve never been away from home overnight. My mother would worry.”
“You could tell her you spent the night with a girl friend.”
“She knows I have no girl friend.”
“You could think of some excuse…tomorrow.”
“I wouldn’t need to think of an excuse. I’d tell her the truth.”
“You would?” he asked in astonishment.
“I love you. I wouldn’t be ashamed…afterwards if I stayed with you. I’d be proud and happy and I wouldn’t want to lie about it.”
“I had no way of knowing, no way of knowing,” he whispered as if to himself.
“You wouldn’t want it to be something…sneaky, would you?”
“Francie, forgive me. I shouldn’t have asked. I had no way of knowing.”
“Knowing?” asked Francie, puzzled.
He put his arms around her and held her tightly. She saw that he was crying.
“Francie, I’m afraid…so afraid. I’m afraid that if I go away I’ll lose you…never see you again. Tell me not to go home and I’ll stay. We’ll have tomorrow and the next day. We’ll eat together and walk around or sit in a park or ride on top of a bus and just talk and be with each other. Tell me not to go.”
“I guess you have to go. I guess that it’s right that you see your mother once more before…. I don’t know. But I guess it’s right.”
“Francie, will you marry me when the war’s over —if I come back?”
“When you come back, I’ll marry you.”
“Will you, Francie?…please, will you?”
“Yes.”
“Say it again.”
“I’ll marry you when you come back, Lee.”
“And, Francie, we’ll live in Brooklyn.”
“We’ll live wherever you want to live.”
“We’ll live in Brooklyn, then.”
“Only if you want to, Lee.”
“And will you write to me every day? Every day?”
“Every day,” she promised.
“And will you write to me tonight when you get home and tell me how much you love me so that the letter will be waiting for me when I get home?” She promised. “Will you promise never to let anyone kiss you? Never to go out with anyone? To wait for me…no matter how long? And if I don’t come back, never to want to marry anyone else?”
She promised.
And he asked for her whole life as simply as he’d ask for a date. And she promised away her whole life as simply as she’d offer a hand in greeting or farewell.
It stopped raining after a while and the stars came out.
53
SHE WROTE THAT NIGHT AS SHE HAD PROMISED—ALONG LETTER in which she poured out all her love and repeated the promises she had given.
She left a little earlier for work to have time to mail the letter from the Thirty-fourth Street post office. The clerk at the window assured her that it would reach its destination that afternoon. That was Wednesday.
She looked for but tried not to expect a letter Thursday night. There hadn’t been time—unless