BACK     CONTENTS     ARF!     ©

= Romantic Novel =

A New England Love Story

by Jean-Thomas Cullen

8.

Rose Otto, a woman of surprises, had called Marian over to give her a chance to meet him at the Checkout Desk.

Marian could kick herself. She had clutched. There he was, Adonis, and all she had to say was "I have checked you out" (meaning him, not the book) or better yet "I wish you would check me out sometime" but instead her whole head had become one gigantic lisp and no words came out. He looked at her as if she were on fire, and left hurriedly with the book hanging from his thumb and index finger as if it were plague-material.

Rose stepped back up after Mr. Moyer had left, and told Marian: "You scared him off."

"What do you mean?" Marian was baffled. Was this another of Rose’s odd mannerisms? Ever since Lillie had broken the ice, and Linda Damien had shown a protective side of Rose, there was a new sense of acceptance about the older librarian. For her part, Rose, somehow, inexplicably, seemed to have grown more sensitive to those around her. It was nothing major or definable, just something subtle and noticeable in the air around Rose. She even seemed to dress in a less dowdy and spinsterish fashion.

"I saw him looking at your hand," Rose said as they stood side by side, passing piles of children’s dropped-off books through the checker-inner machine as Lillie called it (who was off from work this evening due to a child emergency, a broken tooth on a playground).

Marian looked at her hand with shock. She touched the gleaming golden-yellow band with the fingers of her other hand. "You mean—?"

"He thinks you are married."

"Oh my god." Of all the things she could say just then (but I am married; I am not married; I am a widow; I cannot bear to part with this ring) she said nothing.

"I don’t want you to cry, honey." Rose had a little tremble in her rouged lips. Her glasses looked massive and owlish, like church windows. "If you cry, I’ll have to cry with you. It’s terrible, I know. It is contagious."

Marian was determined not to cry, but she vividly remembered the events of the day her world had been shattered, so suddenly and cruelly.

She felt the tightness in her chest that she’d become so used to—that cruel, unexpected, very real clutching like a nightmare fist around her heart, which she had gotten that moment which was engraved on her soul the way their names (Tommy & Marian) were engraved inside this ring. A black car with Federal plates had slid into a parking spot before the house. It was odd how they knew to engineer that. Unbeknown to her, ‘they’ (the dactyls or fingers of Uncle Sam) had contacted the local recruiters, who had many duties besides signing boys like Tommy up for war. The recruiting sergeants looked through their records dating to Tommy’s visits to them before he ever left for the induction center far away. He had given his new bride as a point of contact, as well as his parents, her parents (located in distant Oklahoma), and a neighbor lady.

All of a sudden, one morning about eight o’clock, Marian’s phone had rung. She was in the middle of ironing her clothes to go to work later that day at the library. It was Annette next door—Annette DeFrancesco, a housewife ten years older than Marian, who worked at a salon as a manicurist, while her husband Rocco worked as a machinist in Waterbury. How odd. "Honey, can you be home for the next hour or so?"

"Sure." Marian felt puzzled. What could this be about? "Is everything okay?"

In retrospect, what could Annette say? Yes? No? "I’m not so sure, hon. Please, this is really really important. I will be over to meet you in a short while. Okay? Give me a few minutes to get my face put on and some decent clothes."

"What is this about?" Marian said. Annette had several children. Was there an emergency? She had babysat the Second Grader, Amy, a few times late afternoons at the library, while Annette or Rocco rushed to pick her up after work. It was all the kind of thing you did in a small town where everyone knew each other.

"Put yourself together and wait for me. I’ll be there as soon as I can," Annette said and abruptly hung up. How else could she handle what she must do, and what was coming next?

Marian looked at herself in the mirror. She had showered, and needed to apply a little makeup and comb out her endlessly demanding hair. Without a clue, she changed from her nightgown into a summer dress that happened to be handy, since she didn’t have a house coat handy. She pushed her big fuzzy purple slippers under the coffee table and stood bare legged, barefoot, ironing until a frantic rapping came at the door. It was Annette—a dark-haired, small, wiry looking woman with dark eyes and growing jowls in an otherwise still attractive, pleasant face. She was on a cell phone, pushing her way in through the door as Marian held it open. "Yes, yes, she is here." With that, she slipped her cell phone into the pocket of her dark blue, loose house coat. She took Marian’s hands in both her hands, and looked into her eyes with a sense of tragedy that suddenly conveyed to Marian that her world had just been destroyed.

Annette could not speak. She simply squeezed Marian’s hands, and stood looking into her eyes until her lips started quivering and tears flowed freely down her cheeks, bouncing on her bare neck, on Marian’s hands, and on the coffee table nearby.

Overcome with a sense of catastrophic, paralyzing, horrifying dread, Marian began to sob as well. Over Annette’s shoulder, she could see Rocco’s red pickup truck slamming to a halt against the curb. What was he doing home at this hour? He was a regular man, who was always driving off to work at the machine shop just after six a.m. Rocco, a small, muscular guy with a shock of gray hair, a tough-looking reddish-brown face, very Italian, came jogging up the lawn toward Marian’s open door. Annette had called him home from work that day to help her help Marian. Rocco was a decorated U.S. Marine Corps veteran himself.

By now, Marian’s legs had grown weak. The air around her head seemed hard to breathe. Annette took her by one hand, while Rocco put an arm behind her back to steady her. They led her from the back door to the front door, where she could see—through the big window left of the door—the Federal sedan that pulled up. There were three men in it, all in uniform. One was the recruiter sergeant who had signed Tommy up. He was driving, and stayed in the car. From the front passenger seat, an older Army Reserve sergeant with much gold on his dark uniform sleeves stepped out. He held the rear door open for a tall, grizzled old colonel, also in dark dress blues, who stepped out. They looked very grim as they walked up the driveway and rang the door bell.

At the sight of the sergeant holding the door open for the officer, Marian knew.

Before they reached the door, she turned her head toward heaven and emitted a wail of sorrow and pain that must have echoed through the neighborhood. Her legs gave out and she fell over backwards into darkness. Rocco caught her, she was later told, and together with Annette laid her down on the living room couch.

Annette opened the door.

The men stepped into the small house, respectfully removing their saucer caps and putting them under their elbows. Each wore white gloves. Their trousers were knife-creased. Their black shoes gleamed as if they had lights inside.

Marian refused to be seen lying down. She stood erect, but not at attention. Through the haze of shock, she balled her fists at her thighs, and hollered hoarsely, over and over again: "No. No-o. No-o-o…" until her voice broke and she sat down abruptly as if all the energy and tension had gone out of her body. She felt as if she were made of numb, unfeeling rubber.

She heard the colonel’s voice—sharp as a cutting knife, hard as a flint grind stone—say: "Mrs. Thomas Charles, it is my deepest sorrow and regret to inform you that your husband, Sergeant Thomas Charles, has died in the service of our country. He was killed in action near…" He mentioned some forsaken road stop on the other side of the earth, went on to say a lot more words that made no sense after that. Marian sat like a rock letting it all wash over her. Annette sat beside her, and took her in her arms, and Marian cried heartbrokenly on Annette’s breast. Big cries, big sobs, like she had not felt since she was a little girl, from deep in her convulsing gut; her cries just went on and on while the men waited silently like broken statues.

Later, the colonel sat beside her and held her hands. "I was a field commander once in battle, and held more than one brave young man while he died. Your husband passed away surrounded by his comrades, who were able to comfort him. He was unable to speak, but they say he showed them his wedding ring." He reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a plain sandwich baggie, in which was Tommy’s wedding ring. "We have other effects in the car for you. There will be a special service with an honor guard at Arlington…"

Back to reality: "If you are going to cry," Rose Otto said in her usual direct but sincere manner, I will cover for you here at the desk for as long as you need me to. You can go into Linda’s office."

"I am not going to cry," Marian said in a very small, quiet voice. "I have cried enough. Thanks though, Rose."

Rose opened up for the first time. She took Marian’s hands into her own. "I was married once, long ago, myself. It isn’t the same thing, but I just want you to know that I feel for you, hon. I made a bad choice, like I often do, and married a man who drank and hit me. He could be quite pleasant when he was sober, but he drank more and more and got more abusive. Finally, one day, someone came to the office where I worked—that was the water company office downtown—and told me they had found him in the park. He took his gun there with him, and shot himself in the head. He died instantly. I don’t mean to say it’s the same—"

Marian gave Rose’s hands a shake. "No, it is something terrible that happened to you in your life. I understand. I had no idea because you are always such a mouse about things."

"I don’t like to talk about it," Rose said in her bland, ever surprised looking manner. "I can’t." She suddenly started crying. "It makes me cry."

Marian held Rose, and rubbed her back while Rose cried. Marian saw that Rose would never heal from the things that had happened to her. Marian just as instantly understood that she herself was going to grow beyond her sorrows and start a new life. Poor broken Rose. But...

Later, Marian did cry a little bit in the bathroom, alone and privately. She washed her face and put on fresh makeup. Then she slid the ring off her finger and thought about where to put it. She held the ring in her hands, bouncing it lightly on one palm, like the precious relic it was. She must not make this mistake again. She stared at it, kissing it several times. It gleamed yellow-golden on her palm. "I love you, Tommy. I will love you forever."

At last, she opened her purse, which had among its compartments a little leather change pocket, which had a nice secure zipper. She put the ring in there beside Tommy’s ring, which she had been carrying with her all along. On her lunch break, she walked three blocks down along the main street to the bank, and rented a safety deposit box.

"What size would you like?" asked the dapper little old bank manager in a gray suit and pink tie, who was the. He had a kindly manner about him, and a patient air.

"The smallest one you’ve got," Marian said. "I don’t have anything big to put in it."

"Must be very important," he said with a sober, respectful attitude. He must have sensed the air of gravity about her.

"Yes. Here." She reached into her purse and handed him the two rings.

Just my heart, she thought.