Morning Glory (41 page)

 
"Thank you, Miss Beasley. She's a good sleeper, too."

 
"A blessing, I'm sure."

 
"Yes'm, she is."

 
To Will's surprise, Miss Beasley informed Elly, "Mr. Parker was quite, quite pleased that you named the child after him."

 
"He was?" Elly peeked over her shoulder at Will, who smiled and shrugged.

 
"He most certainly was."

 
Silence fell, strained, before Elly thought to offer, "Got some fresh gingerbread and hot coffee if you'd like."

 
"I'm quite partial to gingerbread, thank you."

 
They all trooped back to the kitchen and Will watched Elly nervously serve the sweet and coffee and perch on the edge of her chair like a bird ready to take wing. Given a choice, she would probably have forgone this entire visit, but nobody turned Miss Beasley out of the house, not even out of the bedroom when she came to call. Will studied the librarian covertly, but she rarely glanced his way. The entire get-together was being carried out with the same pedantic formality with which Miss Beasley conducted a library tour for the children. It struck him that she was no more comfortable being here than Elly was having her. So why had she come? Duty only, because he worked for her?

 
Eventually the talk turned to the war and how it was spawning the most fierce patriotism in memorable history. "They're signing up as if it was a free-ice-cream line," Miss Beasley said. "Five more today from Whitney alone. James Burcham, Milford Dubois, Voncile Potts and two of the Sprague boys. Poor Esther Sprague—first a husband and now two sons. Rumor has it that Harley Overmire received a draft notice, too." Miss Beasley didn't gloat, but Will had the impression she wanted to.

 
"I've been worried about Will maybe having to go," Eleanor confided.

 
"So have I. But a man will do what he must, and so will a woman, when the time comes."

 
Was this, then, why she'd come, to prepare Elly because she already guessed his decision was made? To ease into Elly's confidence because she knew Elly would need a friend when he was gone? Will's heart warmed toward the plump Woman who ate gingerbread with impeccable manners while a tiny dot of whipped cream rested on the fine hair of her upper lip.

 
In that moment he loved her and realized leaving her would make his going more difficult. Yet leave them he would, for it had already become understood that to be of military age and not join up was to be physically or mentally impaired, or the subject of suspicion and innuendo about one's condition and courage.

 
Right after Christmas
, Will decided. He'd wait until then to talk to a recruiter and to tell Elly. They deserved
one
Christmas together anyway.

 
He threw himself into holiday plans, wanting all the traditional trappings—the food, the tree, the gifts, the celebration—in case he never had the chance again. He made a scooter for the boys and bought them Holloway suckers, Cracker

Jacks, Bunte's Tango bars and Captain Marvel comic books. For Elly he bought something frivolous—the popular Chinese Checker game. It took two to play Chinese Checkers, but he bought it anyway as a portent of hope for his return.

 
December 22 brought news that a large Japanese landing had been staged just north of
Manila
. On Christmas Eve came news of another, just south of that city, which was in danger of falling to the enemy.

 
After that Elly and Will made a pact to leave the radio off for the remainder of the holiday and concentrate on the boys' enthusiasm.

 
But she knew. Somehow, she knew.

 
Filling the stockings, Elly looked up and watched Will drop in a handful of roasted peanuts, nearly as excited as if the stocking were his instead of Thomas's. She felt a stinging at the back of her nose and went to him before any telltale evidence formed in her eyes. She laid her cheek against his chest and said, "I love you, Will."

 
He toyed with her hair as she stood lightly against him. "I love you, too."

 
Don't go, she didn't say.

 
I have to, he didn't reply.

 
And in moments they returned to filling the stockings.

 
For Will, Christmas morning was bittersweet, watching the boys' eyes light up at the sight of the scooter, laughing while they dug into their stockings, holding them—still in their pajamas—on his lap while they sampled the candy and ogled the comic books. These were firsts for Will. He lived them vicariously with Donald Wade and Thomas as he himself never had as a boy.

 
Elly gave him a mail-order shirt which he wore while they played Chinese Checkers and the boys rode their scooters across the living room and kitchen floor.

 
For dinner they had no traditional turkey. Will had offered to take Glendon's old double-bore shotgun and try his hand at bagging one, but Elly would hear none of it.

 
"One of my birds? You want to shoot one of my wild turkeys, Will Parker? I should say not. We'll have pork." And they did.

 
Pork and cornbread stuffing and fried okra and quince pie with Miss Beasley as their guest.

 
Miss Beasley, who had celebrated so many wretched Christmases alone that she glowed like a neon light when Will came to pick her up in the auto. Miss Beasley, who had actually
excited
Elly about having an outsider at her table for a meal. Miss Beasley, who brought gifts: for Elly a beautiful seven-piece china tea set decorated with yellow birds and clover on a background of tan luster; for Will a pair of capeskin gloves; for the boys a pair of glass and Pyralin automobiles filled with colorful soft cream candies shaped like elephants, horns, guns and turtles, and a new book, 'Twas the
Night Before Christmas
, which she read to them after dinner.

 
Christmas, 1941 ... over too soon.

 
When Will returned Miss Beasley to her brick bungalow on

 
"I want to thank you for all the gifts you brought."

 
"Nonsense, Mr. Parker. It is I who should be thanking you."

 
"These gloves're..." He smacked them together and rubbed them appreciatively. "Why, they're just ... heck, I don't even know what to say. Nobody ever gave me anything so fine before. I felt awful 'cause we didn't give you anything."

 
"Didn't
give
me anything? Mr. Parker, do you know how many Christmases I've spent alone since my mother passed away? Twenty-three. Perhaps an intelligent man like you can figure out exactly what it is you and Eleanor gave me today."

 
She often said things like that, calling him an intelligent man. Things no other person had ever said to Will, things that made him feel good about himself. Looking into her fuzzy face, he clearly understood what today had meant to her, though her expression would never show it. She remained as persimonny-mouthed as ever. He wondered what she'd do if he leaned over and kissed her. Probably cuff him upside the head.

 
"Elly, she didn't know what to make of that tea set. I never saw her eyes grow so big."

 
"You know what to make of it though, don't you?"

 
He studied her eyes for a long moment. They both knew; that when he was gone Elly would need a friend. Someone to have tea with perhaps.

 
"Yes, ma'am, I reckon I do," Will answered softly. Then he put his gloved hands on Miss Beasley's arms and did what his heart dictated: he placed an affectionate kiss on her cheek.

 
She didn't cuff him.

 
She turned the color of a gooseberry and blinked rapidly three times, then scuttled into the house, forgetting to bid him goodbye.

* * *

Within five weeks after Pearl Harbor Bell Aircraft built a huge new bomber factory in Marietta. The last civilian auto rolled off the assembly lines in
Detroit
, and
Japan
had seized
Malaya
and the
Dutch East Indies
, cutting off ninety percent of
America
's rubber supply. National Price Administrator Leon Henderson was pictured in every newspaper in
America
pedaling his "Victory bicycle" as a stand-in for the automobile. The wealthy deserted their St. Simons Island mansions as German submarines began patrolling the coast, and the people of Georgia organized the Georgia State Guard, a citizens' army composed of those too young, too old, or too unfit for the draft, who set about preparing coastal defenses for an anticipated German invasion. Georgia convicts were conscripted and put to work round the clock to improve seashore approaches and build bridges over which the homegrown army would defend their state.

 
And up at the mill one day Harley Overmire set his jaw, shut his eyes and ran his trigger finger through a buzz saw.

 
The news had a curious effect on Will. It galvanized his intentions. He decided suddenly that not only would he join up, but he'd join the toughest branch—the Marines—so that when he came back cowards like Overmire could never look down on him or his again. It seemed almost fated that the very day he made his decision the draft board made it irreversible. The letter began with the infamous word that had already taken thousands of men from their homes and families:

 
"GREETINGS..."

 
Will opened the draft notice alone, down by the mailbox, read the words and shut his eyes, breathing deep. He gazed at the
Georgia
sky, blue and sunny. He walked at a snail's pace up the red clay road and sat for five minutes beneath their favorite sourwood tree, listening to the redbirds, the winter quiet. He'd rather do anything than tell Elly. Rather
go
than tell her he had to.

 
She was nursing the baby when he returned to the house, lying diagonally on the bed. He stopped in the doorway and studied her, impressing the image in his memory for bleaker days—a woman in a faded print dress with the buttons freed, her hair in a loose tan braid, one arm crooked beneath her ear, the infant at her breast. A lump formed in Will's throat as he knelt beside the bed and laid the backside of a finger on Lizzy's pumping cheek, then skimmed it over her delicate skin. He leaned on his elbows close to Elly's head, his gaze still resting on the nursing infant.

 
Don't tell her yet.

 
"She's growin', isn't she?" he murmured.

 
"Mm-hmm."

 
"How long will you nurse her?"

 
"Till she gets teeth."

 
"When will that be?"

 
"Oh, when she's about seven, eight months."

 
I wanted to be here to see every new tooth.

 
His knuckle moved from the baby's cheek to his wife's breast.

 
"This is my favorite way to find you when I come in. I could watch this till the grass grew right up over the porch step and into the house and never get tired of it."

 
She rolled her head to study him, but his eyes followed his finger, which glided over her full breast.

 
"And I reckon I'd never get tired of you watchin', Will," she told him softly.

 
Elly, Elly, I don't wanna go but I got to.

 
Contemplating mortality made a man say things he otherwise would hold inside. "I wondered so many times if my mother ever held me, if she nursed me, if she was sorry to give me up. I wonder every time I watch you with Lizzy."

 
"Oh, Will..." She touched his cheek tenderly.

 
At that moment his feelings for her' were convoluted and he struggled to understand them. She was his wife, not his mother, yet he loved her as if she were both. For some ungraspable reason he thought she had a right to know that before he left. "Sometimes I think I halfway wanted to marry you 'cause you were such a good mother and I never had one. I know that sounds strange, but I ... well, I just wanted to tell you."

 
"I know, Will."

 
His head lifted and their eyes met at last. "You know?"

 
Her thumb brushed his lower lip. "Reckon I knew all the time. I figured it out when I washed your hair the first time. But I knew it wasn't the only reason. I figured that out, too."

 
He stretched to kiss her, his shoulder pocketing Lizzy's head while the sound of her suckling and swallowing continued. He would never forget this moment, the smell of the baby and the woman, the warmth of the one against his shoulder, the other beneath his hand, which rested on her warm hair. When the kiss ended he stared into Elly's green eyes while his thumb idled on the part in her hair. Slowly he collapsed to rest facedown against the mattress, still embracing them both.