A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [200]
Friday, she had to work straight through—a sixteen-hour shift—because the company was short-handed on account of an influenza epidemic. When she got home a little before two in the morning, there was a letter propped against the sugar bowl on the kitchen table. She ripped it open eagerly.
“Dear Miss Nolan.”
Her happiness died. It couldn’t be from Lee because he’d write, “Dear Francie.” She turned the page and looked at the signature. “Elizabeth Rhynor (Mrs.)” Oh! His mother. Or a sister-in-law. Maybe he was sick and couldn’t write. Maybe there was an army rule that men about to go overseas couldn’t write letters. He had asked someone to write for him. Of course. That was it. She started to read the letter.
“Lee told me all about you. I want to thank you for being so nice and friendly to him while he was in New York. He arrived home Wednesday afternoon but had to leave for camp the next night. He was home only a day and a half. We had a very quiet wedding, just the families and a few friends…”
Francie put the letter down. “I’ve been working sixteen hours in a row,” she thought, “and I’m tired. I’ve read thousands of messages today and no words make sense right now. Anyhow, I got into bad reading habits at the Bureau—reading a column at a glance and seeing only one word in it. First I’ll wash the sleep out of my eyes, have some coffee, and read the letter again. This time I’ll read it right.”
While the coffee heated, she splashed cold water on her face thinking that when she came to the part of the letter that said “wedding” she’d go on reading and the next words would be: “Lee was the best man. I married his brother, you know.”
Katie lying awake in her bed heard Francie moving about in the kitchen. She lay tense…waiting. And she wondered what it was she waited for.
Francie read the letter again.
“…wedding, just the families and a few friends. Lee asked me to write and explain why he hadn’t answered your letter. Again thank you for entertaining him so nicely while he was in your city. Yours truly, Elizabeth Rhynor (Mrs.)”
There was a postscript.
“I read the letter you sent Lee. It was mean of him to pretend to be in love with you and I told him so. He said to tell you he’s dreadfully sorry. E.R.”
Francie was trembling violently. Her teeth made little biting sounds.
“Mama,” she moaned. “Mama!”
Katie heard the story. “It’s come at last,” she thought, “the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn’t enough food in the house you pretended that you weren’t hungry so they could have more. In the cold of a winter’s night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn’t be cold. You’d kill anyone who tried to harm them—I tried my best to kill that man in the hallway. Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you’d give your life to spare them.”
Francie gave her the letter. She read it slowly and as she read, she thought she knew how it was. Here was a man of twenty-two who evidently (to use one of Sissy’s phrases) had been around. Here was a girl sixteen years old; six years younger than he. A girl—in spite of bright-red lipstick and grown-up clothes and a lot of knowledge picked up here and there—who was yet tremulously innocent; a girl who had come face to face with some of the evil of the world and most of its hardships, and yet had remained curiously untouched by the world. Yes, she could understand her appeal for him.
Well, what could she say? That he was no good or at best just a weak man who was easily susceptible to whoever he was with? No, she couldn’t be so cruel as to say that. Besides the girl wouldn’t believe her anyhow.
“Say something,” demanded Francie. “Why don’t you say something?”
“What can I say?”
“Say that I’m young—that I’ll get over it. Go ahead and say it. Go ahead and lie.