“So I can end up hurt like you?” she asks.
Oof. Sometimes Katy’s observations land like a sledgehammer.
“Without your dad, I wouldn’t have you. You’re worth ten times the pain of this divorce.” I wink before sliding into the front seat and setting the tin box in the console between us. Of all the decisions to second-guess, I don’t regret my marriage. Richard’s rising star changed us, but it also allowed me to dote on Katy—moments to treasure that melt away too quickly.
Katy sinks onto her seat and opens the box’s lid, peering at the items again. “Grammy doesn’t want to talk about this stuff—if she even remembers it.”
“She knows something. She mentioned someone named Billy twice . . .”
Katy grimaces. “She also called you Lonna, so don’t get your hopes up.”
“You don’t think I should pry?”
My daughter stares ahead, sighing. “What’s the point? We have bigger things to worry about, like having a kitchen.”
True. There is plenty on my plate right now. Yet this little mystery piques my curiosity in a big way.
“Gram raised me. She was my rock.” I followed her advice blindly—about college, about what to do when I got pregnant, and about how to manage Katy—even though she mistrusted therapists like Richard did. “I admit I’m a little shaken by the idea that she might not be who I thought. To think that she might not have loved her hometown, that she resented her sister, that she keeps painful secrets . . . It’s not like there’s much time to learn the truth, either. I don’t know. It feels like fate dropped this box into my lap because I’m at a crossroads.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Mom, if there’s a reason Grammy hid that box, you might not like what you learn.”
“True.” I nod, staring at the road as we drive along the bay.
Katy’s skepticism aside, I want to know about the elusive Billy T. and New York and what Gram wants to explain to his parents. At the very least, it’s a distraction from the aftershocks of my divorce.
Then again, it’s not often that buried secrets yield happy endings.
CHAPTER FIVE
MARIE
October 14, 1949
The pink wool swing coat I got for my eighteenth birthday is marvelous. The way it swirls when I spin and how its outsize pointed collar frames my face make me feel like a movie star, which is a welcome change from being plain Marie Robson. That sounds trivial compared with all the important things happening in the world. This coat won’t bring about the end of the Cold War, but I delight in its power to transform me.
“Stop spinning. You look silly,” Lonna says from my bedroom floor, where she’s playing with her doll.
I meet her gaze in the cheval mirror and shrug.
She’s only ten. What does she understand about fashion? “You still play with dolls,” I want to say but don’t.
Lonna wearily shakes her head and then gives her doll a fake bottle. “Drink all this milk, Annabelle. And when you’re finished, I’ll burp you and change your diaper so you’re comfortable.”
Her gentle voice racks me with envy because she’s exactly like our mother. Sweet and nurturing. Obedient. All the things I fake in order to please my parents and have invitations to school dances. If I pretend long enough, maybe I’ll learn to feel the things “Dr. Robson’s girls” are supposed to feel. I’ve no particular talent or gift—nor am I a great beauty—but I yearn to do something more exciting than spending the rest of my life in this town. Sometimes I regret reading about more interesting lives when I might be required to settle for one that fits me less well than this coat.
I lean over to pat Lonna’s head on my way downstairs. “Have fun with Annabelle.”
When I reach the living room, my father is encircled by lamplight and a hazy blue curl, reading and smoking his pipe. Like my mother and sister, I admire and want to please him. A conundrum, because to do so I must pretend to be someone else.
I hear my mother busying herself in the kitchen. Cook, clean, iron, repeat. The thought makes me shudder. My father came from Scottish immigrant parents who worked menial jobs to give their children a shot at the American dream. He met my mother while at medical school, where she worked as a secretary. Both of them strive to be their very best at all times. It’s exhausting.
“Good night, Daddy!” I wave.
“Where are you off to?”
“The movies.”
My father frowns, like he does whenever he deems something frivolous—which is not uncommon. “Come home directly afterward, please.”
Swallowing a sigh, I agree. Outside, a horn blasts. “I have to go.”
“Would you like money for your ticket?”
“Yes, thank you!” I rise onto my toes. His stern shell hides a soft underbelly. It gives me hope that one day I can talk him into letting me explore options other than college.
He removes his wallet from his pocket and hands me twenty-five cents, which will pay for the movie and two ice cream sundaes.
“Thank you.” I wrap my arms around his neck. “I promise I won’t stay out late.”
My mother—a short, blonde beauty with a curvy figure hidden by an apron—peeks out from the kitchen. “Have fun, dear.”
I blow her a kiss and then trot out the door to catch up with my friends. Susie’s father bought a new Ford this Christmas—pea green with whitewall tires.
I slide into the back seat. “Nice car.”
“Isn’t it?” Susie smiles, proud of her father, our school principal.
Janice is studying me from the passenger seat. “I love that coat.”
“Thank you.” Unlike my sister, my friends appreciate glamour. “Let’s hurry. I don’t want to miss the beginning.”
The car lurches away from the curb—Susie’s not the best driver. It’s chilly out tonight, so we’ll have to keep the windows rolled up for the whole ride to the next town over, where the movie is playing.
“Joe Johnson is planning to propose to SaraJane when he gets back from Georgetown for the holidays,” Janice says as we drive through Potomac Point.
I cringe at the thought of being married to Joe Johnson. He’s arrogant and will probably be a bossy husband. “Will she say yes?”
Susie laughs. “Who wouldn’t? He’s got a bright future. In a couple of years she’ll be a mom and set for life!”
I must’ve made a face, because Janice says, “You look like you’ve swallowed whiskey.”
My friends are conventional, so I temper my opinion. “Is that all we get—a husband and some babies? Nothing of our own . . . no adventure?” My gaze darts from one to the other, while they stare at me like my skin has turned purple.
“Who says a handsome, nice man can’t be an adventure?” Janice titters, unaware that she ranked handsome above nice, which highlights another difference in our priorities. “We can travel and do other things later, but we need to find husbands before we’re too old.”
I keep mum, but none of the mothers I know ever see the world. Maybe they’re living their own dream, which is fine for them but leaves women like me out of luck.
Susie swats my shoulder. “You’ll feel differently when you meet the right man.”