Chapter One
Meredith McKenzie could remember almost perfectly the day her father left for the war in February 1942. In her mind’s eye, she could still see the buttons on his uniform and how tall he looked and could almost smell his shaving soap when she kissed his face. If she closed her eyes, he was standing before her. There were other parts of the day she recalled less vividly. But she had a perfect mental picture of her mother crying, and her father’s parents watching him go. Her grandfather had said it was a proud moment. Her father had enlisted as an officer immediately after Pearl Harbor, and had been assigned to the legal corps in Washington, D.C. He was thirty-seven years old, and her mother, Janet, was thirty-three. Meredith was almost six. Her father had promised that they could come to Washington to visit him as soon as he got settled, and her mother had clung to him with tears streaming down her face. Her grandmother had faced it stoically. They had come to the apartment to say goodbye. Robert had said that it would be chaos at the train station, and it wasn’t as though he was going overseas, like many of the men who would be there.
After he left with a last wave and a smile, carrying his duffel bag, with his officer’s cap smartly on his head, in his heavy coat, Meredith’s grandfather had taken her for a walk to get some air, so Janet and her mother-in-law could talk, and Janet could compose herself before Meredith and her grandfather got back. Janet’s parents had died many years before, and she had no other family, only her in-laws.
“You know why your dad is going away, don’t you?” he asked her, as they walked along the edge of Central Park. She thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. Two of her friends at school had said that their fathers were enlisting in the army. But they were being sent to New Jersey for training, and then taking a big ship to Europe. Her daddy would be stationed in Washington, to be a lawyer, just like he was in New York. Her grandfather was a lawyer too. Her mother didn’t work, although she had volunteered for the Red Cross, and so had Meredith’s grandma. They were going to do it together, and Meredith’s mother had already shown her the uniform she was going to wear. It made her look like a nurse. She said she would be helping with something called a blood drive, to help soldiers who would get hurt.
“Your father will be defending our country, to keep us safe from anyone who wants to hurt us, and he’ll keep us free from bad people,” her grandfather explained to her. “That’s a very important thing to do. Freedom is the most important thing we have. Do you know what that means, Meredith?” he asked her solemnly, as they stopped and sat down on a bench in the park. Merrie thought about it and shook her head again. Her grandfather talked to her about important things that she didn’t always understand, but she liked it when he explained them to her, and treated her like she was grown up. “Freedom means that we can do what’s right and make our own choices and decisions, and no one can stop us or make us do something wrong. Sometimes we have to fight for freedom, like your daddy. If we’re not free, we become slaves. There are bad people in the world, like Mr. Hitler in Germany right now, who want us to become their slaves. And all the free people in the world are going to Europe to stop him. They’ll come back heroes when the war is over, just like your dad.”
“Is Daddy going to meet Mr. Hitler in Washington?” she asked with interest, and Bill McKenzie smiled.
“I hope not. He’s in Germany. Your daddy is going to do legal work for his country, the army, and the president of the United States.” Meredith knew that her father and grandfather were lawyers, but she was never sure what that was, or what it meant. “Your dad might go to fight Mr. Hitler one day, but not yet. He has work to do in Washington first.”
“Will you meet Mr. Hitler one day, Grampa?” she asked with interest, and he shook his head. She wondered if her grandfather was going to fight him too. He sounded like a bad person to her.
“No, I won’t. I was in a war a long time ago, and I went to France.” He had been in the First World War once the United States got into it. And he’d been one of the lucky ones who came back. He’d been two years younger than Robert was now when he went. Meredith’s grandfather, William McKenzie, had just turned sixty.
“Can girls be lawyers, Grampa?” she asked after she thought about it for a few minutes.
“Yes, they can,” he said firmly, taking advantage of the fact that they were alone. He knew Robert hated it when he said things like that to Meredith, but there was no reason she couldn’t be a lawyer and join the family firm, where he and Robert worked. It was a big decision for a woman, and a choice she’d have to make. But Bill knew the war was going to change a lot of things, just like the last one had. Women would be joining the workforce, taking jobs that men held in peacetime. And one day, fields that had only been open to men previously would be accessible to women too.
Robert wanted his daughter to follow in the footsteps of her mother and get married, have children, and stay at home. Bill loved the idea of his granddaughter accomplishing more than that, although her grandmother had never worked. Bill had married her when she was nineteen. She had Robert at twenty, and had been a wonderful wife. But this was a new world, and a new generation, and Bill’s dream for his granddaughter was that she would be part of a bigger life. They were fighting for all kinds of freedoms, not just in Europe, but at home.
“Maybe I’ll be a lawyer too,” Meredith said pensively, “or a doctor, or a nurse.”
“You can do whatever you want,” he said, as they held hands, crossed Fifth Avenue, and headed home. He liked his private moments with her. She was a bright child, inquisitive about everything and full of questions and ideas of her own.
Her mother and grandmother had tea and sandwiches and cookies waiting for them when they got back. Meredith was hungry after their walk in the cold. She ate two of the delicately trimmed sandwiches, and a cookie and a glass of milk. She went upstairs to play with her dolls then, while the grown-ups stayed to talk about the war. Later, she couldn’t remember what happened after that, but she could always hear her grandfather’s words echoing in her ears, about freedom, and telling her that she could do anything she wanted when she grew up, even be a lawyer like him and her father. It sounded just right to her.
Her mother visited her father in Washington every week, but she didn’t take Meredith with her. Meredith stayed with her grandparents when her mother was away, and she didn’t see her father again for several months, until he came home on leave. He was thrilled to see her, and he spent a lot of time talking to his father, and he was startled to realize that Meredith knew a surprising amount about the war in Europe. Her grandfather had explained it to her, and she had a good understanding of it for a child her age. Robert scolded his father for discussing it with her.
“You shouldn’t tell her about the war, Dad. She’s only six, she doesn’t need to know.”
“I think she does. Don’t underestimate her. She’s a smart girl, and I just tell her what she can understand in broad strokes, not the details. So what do you hear about how the war is going in Europe?” Bill was hungry for information. Everyone was.