Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [112]
Don’t you think it could be good for us to talk about him? her granddaughter had asked preposterously, and in front of a complete stranger. Alice assumed she wanted to know only for the sake of that goddamn book she was writing. She wasn’t about to bare her soul to fulfill Maggie’s literary aspirations. The story of how she met Daniel, of how she lost her sister, would remain hers alone. It wasn’t anyone else’s business. But now Maggie had her thinking about all of it, and she hated to think about it.
Alice walked back out to the porch for a cigarette. In the distance, the waves were crashing against the rocks. This had been Daniel’s favorite time of night, sitting out here with a cup of peppermint tea, listening to the surf before bed. She missed him—there was a pit in her stomach where he had once resided.
A short while later, she went to the bathroom and switched on the radio to have a bit of noise. She changed into a cotton nightgown and removed her teeth, brushing them gently before she placed them in a glass of cold water on the edge of the sink. The dentures were a new acquisition this year. She was happy at least that Daniel hadn’t lived long enough to see them.
Alice pulled back her hair and washed her face with cold cream. Her skin had gotten so terribly dry as she aged. It was as thin as tissue paper now, and could tear from the slightest bump. She dipped her fingers into a tub of Eucerin, as she did each night, rubbing the jelly into her cracked legs and pulling a pair of stretchy black pants over the top to seal in the moisture. Tomorrow she was having lunch with Father Donnelly. Maybe that would cheer her up.
She shut off the radio and got into her bed, which was far too big for only her. The memories plunged forth and she had to leave the light on, as if she were her own timid child.
The Holy Cross–Boston College football game at Fenway Park fell on November 28, 1942, two days after Thanksgiving. Alice’s brothers Timmy and Paul and so many of their friends were home on leave for two weeks, and they were giddy, running around town in their uniforms, making the girls swoon. Her other brothers hadn’t come home: Jack was on the USS Augusta, somewhere off the coast of North Africa. Michael, only fifteen, was fighting in the Pacific. He was technically too young, but he had snuck into the military, afraid to miss out on the excitement.
With two of the four boys home and their mother a nervous wreck, convinced that all of them might be dead by Christmas, that Thanksgiving was a feast unlike any they had ever had—their mother cooked a turkey and gravy, buttery mashed potatoes and au gratins, too, and Mary baked apple pie and peach cobbler. By the time Saturday came, they were still stuffed.
The boys all hoped to go to Boston College once the war was over. They had been rooting for the Eagles since they were kids. This year, BC was undefeated, and winning this game would mean a trip to the Sugar Bowl. But in an upset that sent her brothers into a tizzy (no doubt they’d lost plenty gambling on the game), Holy Cross won, fifty-five to twelve.
Alice didn’t give a fig about any of this; she hadn’t even gone to the game with the boys. But she had been preparing to meet Daniel Kelleher at the Cocoanut Grove later that night since right after breakfast. Mary wasn’t coming. She was supposed to, but at the last minute her Henry got tickets for a show at the Shubert, and she pulled out.
“You’re making me go alone?” Alice had moaned that morning in the bathroom as they washed their faces.
“You won’t be alone, you’ll have the boys there.”
“Mary, you’d better come meet us after the show.”
“We’ll see what Henry wants.”
“What Henry wants!