PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
ILLINOIS, UNITED STATES, JULY 1943
ELLA
Ella turned her face up toward the sun and stretched, her neck still sore from the hours she’d spent at her typewriter the night before. She grimaced as her shoulder groaned painfully, and vowed not to sit for so long without moving again.
There was an envelope poking out of the mailbox and she walked quickly down the steps from her front door to the path, plucking it out and checking to see if it was the only letter. Her heart thudded as she turned it over, hoping to see her brother’s familiar scrawl, but instead of finding Brendon’s hand, she found the formal stamp from the publication she wrote for.
Frowning, she slid her finger beneath the seal and took out the letter. Why would they be writing to her? Ella tucked the envelope under her arm, quickly scanning the perfectly printed words on the page.
Her heart sank.
Dear Miss Franks,
It has come to our attention that, despite submitting your stories under the name of Ernst Franks, you are in fact a Miss Ella Franks. As you will be well aware, we are strictly forbidden from hiring women as journalists at the United Press, and as such we will no longer be able to publish your writing. Whilst we appreciate the work you have done for us, writing under a pseudonym, we nonetheless see this as a deliberate and fraudulent attempt to conceal your gender and therefore obtain a job with us under false pretenses.
We wish you all the best with your future endeavors.
Ella read the letter again, her eyes traveling more slowly over the words this time, before crushing the paper in her hand and squeezing it until her fingers hurt. Tears formed against her lashes but she refused to let them fall, chewing hard on her bottom lip as she battled her emotions.
I’ve been fired.
Just like that, for being a woman, she’d been fired. After a year of cleverly turning in her stories as Ernst Franks, and asking for her checks to be made out to simply E. Franks to ensure she could still bank them, it was all over. It seemed so archaic that publications like the United Press strictly forbade the hiring of women, but they weren’t the only publication, far from it.
Ella walked silently into the house, kicking the door shut behind her and going straight to her bedroom. She stood and looked around at her perfectly made bed, at her desk beneath the window, papers stacked neatly beside her typewriter. At the cigarette discarded in the ashtray with a pen propped against it—a birthday gift from her brother, who believed so genuinely in her talent as a writer despite her gender.
It’s over.
She dropped the balled-up piece of paper to the floor and stalked toward her desk, standing over it as she breathed heavily, her nostrils flaring as her shoulders trembled. Anger tore through her, pulsated like a living, breathing force.
In one fast movement, she swiped the papers off her desk, batting her beloved pen to the ground, too.
Ella dropped to her hands and knees, chest heaving, her shoulders bunched up as she collapsed. Then, no longer able to contain her emotions, tears ran down her cheeks and fell to the carpet as she rocked, sobbing, guttural noises erupting from her as the weight of her failure consumed her. She may as well have been grieving a loved one, her pain so acute it stole her breath away. She thought she’d been so clever, writing about the effects of war on the local economy, how it was affecting politics, businesses and the everyday person struggling to get by on newly introduced rations, and they’d liked it when they thought her articles were written by a man. But of course no one cared for her reporting skills when they knew her gender. Heaven forbid if anyone had dared to employ her knowing she was a woman; then she’d have only been allowed to write about the latest Veet Cream hair removal product or the perfect new Brylfoam shampoo. It made her shudder just thinking about it.
She heard footsteps echo out on the wooden hallway floor and she scrambled up, reaching for her chair to steady herself as her body trembled. She wiped furiously at her cheeks with her fingertips, clearing the salty tears from her skin as they fell to her mouth, and attempting to catch her breath between hiccupping sobs.
“Sweetheart, are you home?”
Her mother’s voice was like a warm song drifting down to her room, and Ella took a few more gulps of air before answering her, not wanting her to hear the waver in her tone.
“Ah, just a moment,” she stammered.
But she felt her mother’s presence without turning, knowing she was already standing in the open doorway behind her. And then Ella heard her drop to her knees, quietly picking up the scattered papers.
She should have bent down to help her, but instead she wanted to scream at her to leave them, to burn them for all she cared. But she didn’t. Because this was her mother’s house, and because she had no right to be angry with her mother when it was her editor she wanted to scream at. And also because they were in the middle of a war, and her mother would make her feel like a petulant child for being upset over a job given the times they were living in. But despite knowing all that, it didn’t make the news hurt any less.
“Ella, I’d like you to come with me tonight,” her mother said, touching her arm as she passed. “We need more young women volunteering with the Home Guard, and we have a rifle drill this evening near the university. Please come.”
Ella swallowed. Her mother asked her all the time, but usually she had a deadline to wield as an excuse.
“Yes,” she whispered, nodding her head as if to convince herself. “I’ll come.”
Her mother’s brows rose in obvious surprise. “You will?”
Ella took the papers from her and dropped them beside the typewriter, glancing up and finally making eye contact with her. “Yes. I will.”
“And does this sudden interest in joining me have anything to do with the mess in here?”
Ella’s breath shuddered from her lips and she clenched her fists so her mother wouldn’t see her hands shaking. “Yes,” she said evenly, refusing to shed another tear. “It appears I’m going to have a lot of free time on my hands for volunteering.”
Her mother pursed her lips, her eyebrows drawing together as she studied Ella.
“You won’t be writing anymore?” she finally said.
“Oh, I’ll be writing,” Ella muttered stubbornly, “just not for that stupid goddamn newspaper.”
“Ella!” her mother scolded. “No swearing in my house.”
She chewed on her bottom lip, fingers suddenly itching to type, wanting to belt out a story about the injustice of being a woman and not having a voice, even though she knew no one would publish it. She could almost see the look on her editor’s face when he read that type of story—not that she’d ever actually write it. She hadn’t ever written anything for publication that involved her personal opinions, instead reporting the facts as she saw them.
“And now she’s smiling again, just like that,” her mother groaned, throwing her hands up into the air. “But there’s no getting out of coming with me tonight, do you hear? There are plenty of capable young women there, all doing well with their rifle training. It’d do you good to meet them instead of hiding away in here with that blasted typewriter all day.”
Ella stifled another smile as her mother crossed the room and opened the window, smoothing down the bedcovers as she passed.