He pulls me to him, his kiss saving both of us from my inability to keep anything to myself. My right foot is twisted in the strap of my backpack, and the gear shift is digging into my hip. But it’s the most right I’ve felt since I left his arms this morning. Hollis releases his own seat belt so he can adjust the angle, and his hands are in my hair, gripping, gently pulling to tilt my head back more.
“Good,” he says against my lips. I have no idea if it’s commentary on my needing him or my kissing performance; either way, I’ll take it.
I practically throw his glasses onto the dashboard, then reach for the hem of his T-shirt and slide my hand inside to touch the warm skin of his stomach. Hollis’s tongue leaves my mouth, and I whimper in protest until it reappears against the sensitive skin under my ear.
“Condom?” I gasp.
His response is either a nuzzle or a head shake. “Buried in my bag in the trunk,” he says.
For the briefest of seconds, I imagine declaring that I don’t care, that I want him inside me right now and Rule Number Two be damned. Even though the madness is extremely fleeting and I am almost certain I haven’t said anything aloud, Hollis freezes. “No. We... No, Mill. We can’t.”
Rule Number Two might be discarded in a fit of passion (or, let’s be real, stupidity). But Rule Number One is nonnegotiable. Besides, I know that the heat and tension twisting through my body is more emotional than physical. Sex isn’t going to ease it—not completely. And do we really want to have to pay to get Ryan’s car detailed before returning it to him?
I cradle Hollis’s stubbled jaw in my hand and turn his head until our lips match up again. Our kisses are slow, soft. A cooldown stretch after an ill-advised sprint.
“I’m nervous not knowing how this ends,” I whisper against his mouth.
“Me too,” he responds as he retrieves his glasses. His full attention shifts to removing a fingerprint from one of the lenses with the hem of his shirt. “But let’s go find out together.”
We’re pulling into the nursing facility’s parking lot by the time I realize we might not have been talking about the same thing.
Chicago, Illinois
August 1952
Covered in so many stamps and markings, the envelope looked more like something Richie had practiced his writing upon than a returned letter. Rose had sent Elsie many over the last two years, and all of them had reached her promptly and without incident (except the one a few months ago where Walter had pried off one of the stamps without her noticing). The postage was intact on this one, but perhaps she had made some other silly mistake. At least it came back just in time; by tomorrow they would no longer be living in Chicago. They were headed to Washington, DC, where they were staying with a buddy of Dick’s from the army until they could find an apartment. It was wonderful that her husband had been hired at George Washington University, but the logistics involved with the move itself were proving to be a bit of a test of their marriage.
She stared down at the envelope in her hands. If only she could read through the bold red lines and faded black and maroon ink declaring this and that to determine which one held theexplanation for why this letter hadn’t made it to Elsie. At least she could focus better now with Richie and Walter finally asleep.
She stood in their living room among dozens of moving boxes, stacked three high in some places, trying to navigate the envelope’s cluttered markings. Then finally, on the front, under the address and the several lines striking it out, she saw it—dark pinkish gray and worn from travel, the type blunt and offensively nonchalant in its message.
Verified Deceased
Rose fell to her knees, clutching the letter to her chest as if putting pressure on a mortal wound in a futile attempt to keep from bleeding out. That’s how Dick found her when he arrived home half an hour later—kneeling on the carpet behind a tower of boxes, her eyes painfully swollen, the skin of her cheeks uncomfortably tight as her tears evaporated, her body reft of its moisture and left trembling.
“Rose? What’s happened? Are the boys all right?” he asked, dropping to the floor beside her.
“She’s gone. Elsie. She’s... she’s dead.”
Dick swept Rose into his arms and carried her to their bed as he had on their wedding night. She sat on the edge of the mattress and allowed her husband to remove her shoes, her stockings, to unbutton the eleven buttons on the front of her dress and slide the fabric away. Her underthings posed a slight challenge, but Dick coaxed his wife to cooperate enough to relieve her of the constricting brassiere and girdle. He dressed her in one of his pajama shirts, since it was one of the few articles of bedclothes they hadn’t yet packed. As he pulled the flannel over her arms and shoulders and buttoned the front, Rose felt like a small, helpless child. Then Dick tucked her under the covers and slid into the bed beside her.
He pulled Rose against him, and for a split second she resented the sound of his heart, beating so strong inside his chest when Elsie’s was forever stilled. The shame she felt at the thought managed to unbury some previously unknown store of tears, and she sobbed against her husband’s strong, warm chest.
“Shh,” he whispered into her hair. “I know, sweetheart. I know.”
Rose very much doubted that. How could he know what it was like to lose someone who felt like part of you when he didn’t even know that his wife had never been wholly his?
“Dick, I... I...” She couldn’t say she loved Elsie; it refused to come out after all these years of practice keeping it to herself. The shame washed over her again, this time because she suspected that Elsie knew all along that Rose wasn’t brave enough to love her aloud.
Dick adjusted Rose until he could cup her face in his hands. “Elsie was more than a friend to you, wasn’t she?” His voice was quiet, and his eyes glistened as if he too were on the verge of crying.
Rose managed to dip her chin, the smallest nod.
“You loved her,” Dick said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” Rose whispered, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to alleviate the ache settling into every crevice of her body. “So very much.”
“Oh, sweetheart. How I wish I could bring her back for you.”
