The Chaperone (40 page)

“Hmm.” Myra didn’t smile, but the lines around her eyes deepened. “I somehow guessed you would get to that quickly.”

Cora put the pull toy back on the shelf.

“I’m not trying to pry,” she said. “I assumed she must be doing well. I saw her new movie last year.”

“Ah, yes. The western. You endured it, did you? I heard it was awful.”

Cora looked at the black buttons on Myra’s coat. Again, she didn’t know what to say. She’d gone to see the movie because it was the first one Louise had been in in years. It had clearly been made on a low budget, with silly special effects and men jumping off horses to fight one another. Howard and his family had been in town, so Cora took her two young grandsons to see it. The boys loved the film, with all its rough riding and gunshots, but Cora had found it both inane and depressing, as Louise seemed bored and dull in her simple role as a love interest. Her hair was different—the back reaching almost to her shoulders, her bangs swept back from her forehead. Cora couldn’t discern if it was really just the hair that had changed. Louise still looked young, and she was still pretty, though in a more common way. And even as she’d smiled and preened for the camera, her eyes appeared exhausted.

“I think she has to take what she can get these days.” Myra pulled the fur collar close. “But in my opinion, she should let Hollywood just take her out and shoot her, get it over with, rather than dragging out her death like this.”

Cora let her voice go cold. “Myra. What a thing to say.”

She shrugged. “I’ll say what I mean. It’s true. She’s already thrown everything away.”

Cora moved close and lowered her voice. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t, either. I only know Louise is an idiot. And an ingrate. She could have been Hollywood royalty by now. Instead she’s fast on her way to being nothing. And it was her own fault. She had every chance, but she was consistently stupid and difficult. You know she was offered the lead in
Public Enemy
? She didn’t take the part because she was running around with some man who never planned to marry her. Jean Harlow was the second choice, but she was smart enough to take on the career Louise threw away.”

“Is she still in Hollywood?”

“Oh, I’m not sure.” Myra waved her gloved hand as if clearing the air of the question. “Do you know what I would have given to have her chances?” She stared, as if waiting for Cora to give her the opportunity to actually list what she would have given. “I poured everything into that girl, everything.” She pushed back the sleeve of her coat and showed Cora a thin, blue-veined arm. “They sucked everything right out of me. I have nothing left. Nothing.”

“But is she all right, Myra? Is she all right? That’s what I’m asking.”

Myra seemed annoyed again. “Yes. She’s all right, to use your word. That’s all she is, it seems.”

Stupid woman, Cora thought. She was the ingrate. But any anger she felt was quickly subdued by pity. It was hard to feel much else, looking down on this frail, small woman spewing so much bitterness and rage because fate wouldn’t let her live her dreams, even vicariously. Even now that she was sick, Cora could see how beautiful she’d once been, certainly as lovely as Louise. And as talented. With the same love for music and books. It was hard to know what Myra might have been had she not married at seventeen, if she hadn’t been the unhappy mother of four. Would she now be a famous musician? A nicer person? Happy? An inspiration?

“I’m sorry,” Cora said, surprised by the sincerity she felt. “I don’t know what else to say.”

Myra, too, seemed taken aback. She nodded, gazing at Cora. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate that.”

“But if you do speak to Louise, please give her my best. Tell her I hope she’s doing well.”

Myra made no reply, though the red lips almost curved into a smile. Cora would later wonder if even then, Myra knew her daughter better than anyone. For it was Myra—even with all her failings as a mother—who seemed to know, before anyone else, that Cora’s good wishes would be in vain.

TWENTY

The reasons Wichita got the war contracts were clear:
several of its companies had already been producing aircraft for years, and it was nestled in the middle of the country, safe from enemy attacks. Coincidentally, as continually noted by its promoters, the city had one of the highest percentages of American citizens of any metropolitan area in the nation. The census of 1940 counted 115,000 people living in the city limits, and over ninety-nine percent of them were American citizens. Wichita’s entire foreign population consisted of 123 Syrians, 170 Russians, 173 Canadians, 272 Mexicans, and 317 Germans—not including Joseph, who’d been naturalized long before he was interned in Georgia during World War I. He fared much better in this next war, as his salary doubled when Wichita’s Stearman got the contracts for B-17’s. In 1941, Stearman became Boeing-Wichita and started hiring fifty people a day. The company would soon begin work on the new B-29’s, though Joseph would honor his confidentiality contract and tell no one about the new bomber, not even Cora, until the new weapon against Japan was formally announced to the press.

By then, Wichita would be a different city, having doubled in size in just two years, the population swollen with newly trained aircraft workers and the masses needed to feed, clothe, and house them. The city had to change the timing of the stop lights so the larger crowds on the sidewalks could cross. There were traffic jams, and long lines at the post office, and even when Cora had the necessary ration cards, trips to the market took twice as long as they’d taken before. Garbage blew about on the street, as the city’s services were overwhelmed, and it was nearly impossible to get a phone call through in the middle of the day. Still, there was energy in the air, a feeling of grand purpose. Everyone understood that the city and its newcomers were united in one endeavor: at any hour, day or night, the sky might be loud with Boeing’s new bombers racing overhead in neat formations of four.

Cora stayed busy. The number of unwed mothers boomed right along with the general population, but there was once again plenty of money in town, and she was determined to put some of it to good use. She raised enough funds for a new wing for Kindness House, and within a week of its completion, every room in the new wing was full. Most of the girls and women had sad stories about fiancés gone to war and killed. Cora guessed some of them were lying, having calculated that there would be less judgment against premarital sex that was at least patriotic. Either way, she nodded and listened, and let them tell the stories they wanted to, reassuring them all the same. She knew some could be telling the truth. She’d seen flags in windows with blue stars, and some with the devastating gold ones. Trudy Thomas’s son had been killed in North Africa, and Winnifred Fitch’s nephew was still missing in the Philippines. Not a day went by when Cora didn’t think about how fortunate she was—Howard still practiced law in Houston, and Earle was a physician in St. Louis. They had just turned thirty-eight. She was the mother of sons who’d been young men during a brief window of peace.

So she didn’t have any suspicions when, in October of 1942, Earle announced that he’d cleared a few days from his schedule at the hospital so he could come to Wichita for a spontaneous visit. He only explained that he wanted to spend some time with his parents, as well as Uncle Joseph and Greta, now grown up and a mother herself. He would maybe see some of his old friends and teachers while he was in town. He didn’t want to wait for the holidays. He would come alone, he wrote, as the children would be in school and their mother would of course need to be there for them in the evenings.

Cora and Alan were happy to welcome Earle home, even with the attending complications. They—along with Joseph and Raymond—had gotten used to having more privacy in the house since Greta had left for college. Greta had since returned to Wichita, but she’d married a schoolteacher and given birth to a baby girl, and she and her new family lived in a bungalow five blocks away. Greta rarely called before she came by, so there was still a need for caution. But Cora and Joseph weren’t as vigilant as they’d been when she lived in the house. Late at night, when the front and back doors were locked, they moved freely between their rooms. Raymond came over more often, though he still left before ten o’clock so as not to arouse the suspicion of neighbors. A few had made good-natured remarks to Cora about their bachelor family friend, and how good Cora was to open her home and give him some sense of family life.

It was certainly worth
the adjustment, those few days of having Earle at home. He did spend time going out and about in town, playing poker with friends from high school and visiting his and Howard’s old haunts. But he had breakfast at the house every morning, much to Cora’s pleasure, and he was as friendly as ever to Joseph and Greta, getting Greta’s baby to laugh as he bounced her on his knee. He was perhaps more quiet than usual, but Cora didn’t think much of it. One evening, he asked his father to take a walk to the river with him, and Cora was pleased by the sight of them headed down the street side by side, father and son looking so much alike.

It wasn’t until Earle’s last afternoon that she learned the real reason for his visit. Alan and Joseph were at work, and they were alone in the house together. She was out on the porch reading, and he came out and sat beside her on the creaking swing. It occurred to her, just then, how perfect the day was, bright with a gentle breeze, the leaves on the big oak just starting to turn red. There’d been plenty of rain in the last year, and the sunflowers along the gate had come in nicely.

She closed her book, smiling at Earle. He wouldn’t be home much longer, and she could read anytime. He didn’t smile back. That was her first hint something bad was coming. She watched his eyes, his gaze soft and thoughtful, so much like Alan’s, as he told her, in words that sounded firm and practiced, that there was a great need for doctors overseas, and he could no longer stand being a mere spectator at a time like this, especially as a surgeon. When she started to shake her head, he ignored her. He and Beth had already discussed the matter at length, he said. He’d signed up as a medical support to the infantry. He would leave in a month.

“What about your children?” Cora pressed her shoes to the porch so the swing would stop, her heels literally digging in. “Earle, think. You’re a father.”

He looked at her calmly, as if he knew everything she might say, every argument that would rise up out of her, as if they’d already had this conversation a hundred times. “I’ve talked with my family, Beth as well as the children. They understand.”

“Do they understand that you could be killed? Be reasonable.” Even as she said this, she heard the tremble in her voice. She didn’t want a flag with a star. Still, she worked to calm herself. She would be reasonable, too. “It’s good that you want to help,” she said. “It is. But you can help in St. Louis. We need doctors in this country. And what about the injured soldiers coming back? Why can’t you help them? How noble is it to leave your wife and children?”

He shrugged. “Why should I get to stay when so many others have gone? Plenty of fathers, you can be sure.”

They stared at each other. She had no answer. He was her child, still her child. That was her only answer.

“This is something I have to do,” he said. “Mother, you’re not going to change my mind.”

Cora closed her eyes. He didn’t need to tell her that. She knew exactly how stubborn he could be. Compared to charming Howard, Earle could seem passive and uncertain, but she’d long ago learned that really, he was the one with the ferocious will. When he was a boy, she’d been unable—despite threats, cajoling, and promises—to ever get him to wear a hat or mittens in winter, and when he was ten, he once jumped from the roof of the porch into a pile of leaves, though she was standing right there in the yard and shrieking at him not to. He’d always been a good boy, generally compliant, but once he made up his mind about something, that was that. Cora once shared this observation with Alan, who’d looked at her with amused affection and said, “Hmm, I wonder where he got that.”

She didn’t want Earle to be like her now.

“You’ve already talked to your father?”

He nodded. “I guessed he would go easier on me.”

“What did he say?”

“That he respected me. That for this war, he’d do the same if he were younger. Mostly that he understood. It meant everything that he said that. I wish you would do the same.”

She slapped her knee, angry. Alan. He always had to be so understanding.

“Mother, come on now. Please. You’re as bad as Howard. Listen, I’m just going as a surgeon. It’s very likely I’ll never see any fighting.”

“Where will you be?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t know what country?” The flaming top of the oak blurred before her.

“Well, the Pacific. I know that. I told them about you being German. And about Uncle Joseph. I know he supports the war, but they still thought it might be better if I went to the Pacific.”

She couldn’t breathe. She could only see it all horribly unfolding. Earle would be killed, killed in the Pacific, and it would be her fault. Her self-serving lie. She would be responsible for her own child’s death. But then, would he be any safer in Europe? In North Africa? She didn’t know.

“Did you tell your father this? What you just told me? About why you’d go to the Pacific?”

He nodded.

“What did he say?”

“He thought the Pacific made sense. He thought both fronts looked equally dang—… equally safe, I mean.” He sighed. “Do you have some secret information about the war, Mother? What have you got against the Pacific? I hear the Nazis are fairly tough, too.”

She shook her head. If Earle would be any safer in Europe or Africa, Alan would have told him the truth. She knew that. But soldiers were dying everywhere. Going to the Pacific might doom Earle, but it might just as easily save him. And he might have been sent to the Pacific anyway, even without her lie.