The Home Front

THE HOME FRONT

by bookelf

and paigeomalley

Journal

It must be by force of habit alone that I’m still writing here, after all that’s happened today. I suppose it speaks well of my ability to commit myself - as if I didn’t already know that. I wish to God that Katherine knew it too – or rather, understood it. How can I trust myself to commit to her, anyways, if I don’t commit myself to my country first when she needs me? And she does need me – but now I’m just repeating all the old arguments and to no purpose. Writing in here is supposed to organize my mind, and so I suppose I’d best start at the beginning.

I saw in the paper today that England and France had declared war on Germany.

Pretty trifling stuff, most of the American folks here say. Nothing to do with us on the other side of the Atlantic. Best to stay out of the whole nasty affair. But I’m not an American – and I must say that most of the people here understand that, it’s only Katherine who’s gone off all half-###### about it – but in any case, I knew right off that I’d have to go back home to London and sign up. It’s what my family would expect of me, and, moreover, it’s my duty to aid my homeland in any way I can. Looking back on that sentence, I can see how pompous it sounds, but it’s true all the same. England needs all the help she can get. I know my uncle Walter says that she’ll trounce those Germans straight off, but he’s a fool to think that. I’ve been reading the papers here, and I know that Germany’s built up an awful lot of strength in these past years. No one ever thought Austria would fall, but she did, and no one ever thought Czechoslovakia would tumble, either, but there she went, and then Poland. France is next. She’s taken next to no preparations; both England and France have been far too busy handing this Hitler lollies in the name of keeping the peace. I mean, I did have to read Caesar and all that in grammar school, I do know bad military planning when I see it. That’ll leave England all alone – well, save for America, and the old U.S. of A. isn’t going to lift a finger to help until she has to, I can tell that right off. I’ve got to go. I’ve got to, and every able-bodied man of British birth should do the same. I’m excluding Uncle from this - he’s far too old, though he did make a half-hearted offer in that direction when I told him my intentions after seeing that article in the paper. Of course I told him that wouldn’t be necessary, someone would have to stay here and run the fort, as it were, and if he really wanted to help he’d donate some of the things he sells in his shop to the war effort – tinned foods and such. Everyone always needs tinned foods, don’t they? I suppose they feed them to the soldiers. Odd to think that in the army I might still be eating tinned foods from Uncle’s shop. Well, in any case, after that, I rushed off to telegraph Mum and Dad and tell them I was coming straight home on the next steamer to enlist, and then I ran over to Katherine’s to tell her the news.

That was probably the worst bit – telling Katherine. I thought she’d be proud, pleased, you know – maybe worried, sad at me being gone for so long, or at least, I hoped sad. But when I told her - God help me, I’ll never understand women until the day I die. If I didn’t know her better, I’d think she was jealous, as if the War was another bloody woman I was leaving her for. Katherine thinks she’s above that sort of thing, though. She was absolutely furious at me for interfering in a battle that was none of my business – and when I tried to point out that it certainly was my business, seeing as I’d not even lived here in the U.S. a year, she shouted even louder. Apparently she wants me to adopt this American policy of isolation – to cheerfully carry on cashiering in Uncle’s store and ignore the fact that my country is at war! If anyone else had come up with that tomfool idea, I'd have told them what they could do with it and walked away. But this – this was Katherine. So, I sat myself down on her porch and tried to explain it to her, but, of course, being Katherine, she wasn’t having any of it. In essence – well, in essence, she slammed the door in my face.

She said, over and over, it was a matter of principle, but the more I think on it, the more I’m beginning to come to the conclusion that she thinks I’m choosing the bloody army over her. Well, she’s just going to have to admit that there are problems a little more pressing than her and me. I love her, everyone knows that, but I love my country too, and Great Britain needs me just a tad bit more, I think, when people there are going into battle to die!

I hope she comes round before I leave. It would be awful to go without having a chance to say a proper goodbye.

Edwin

Diary

I’m so mad at Edwin right now I’m seeing red. He came by today, before he left. I didn’t want to see him, but he came in anyway and begged me to speak to him. If only he would listen to me when I do speak to him. I told him so many times that he can’t get involved in a war overseas that we have no part in. He, of course, insists that he does have a part in it, but he doesn’t see, and couldn’t see, no matter how hard I tried to make him see. I told him he was an American now, no matter where he was born. He didn’t understand, and I explained that he was going to take over Walt’s store one day and that if he wanted to marry me one day he would have to be an American, accept himself as one, even if he was British once.

Not that he’s ever actually asked me to marry him. I think he wants to wait until he can offer me a life before he "pops the question", but I’m getting a little impatient with his meandering around it. It’s pretty much understood between us that we will wed someday, even if no ring has changed hands, but I wish he would just get on with it. I wouldn’t object to a prolonged engagement. And we’ve, well, behaved as a married couple on several occasions. Not that I had any grand ideas about waiting until I was married, as though my life couldn’t begin until I wore a white dress and veil, but I’d feel a little better about it if I had a solemn promise from him in more than just rhetoric.

Don’t mistake any of that for doubt about whether or not he loves and intends one day to marry me. I know that he does, and I love him, with every portion of my soul. But I think we’ve got different ideas about love. He thinks it’s giving your girl all those things: a house with a yard, healthy children, a dog, and a comfortable life. And yes, I suppose I want that, but I don’t need a man to give me anything. I love him for the times that he holds my hand when no one’s watching or the bouquet of wildflowers he brought me for my birthday or how he’s always watching out for me. I guess I love that he wants to give me a house with a yard and a dog and all of that, but I have to be honest, part of me hates it too.

Anyway, my objections to the war. He didn’t understand. His family is there, he said. Britain is his mother country. He doesn’t understand that America getting into this war is wrong. And he is an American by now. He would still be here if it weren’t for this war. Who knows? Maybe he wouldn’t have left at all.

You know, I think that he thinks this whole thing is about me wanting him here, about me not wanting him to leave. What an idea! As though because I wear a dress on occasion I can’t have an opinion about the propriety of America entering a war half a world away. We can’t be a part of every conflict the world over, just the ones that concern us. He and Peter, between the two of them I think they sometimes forget that a woman’s mind works for more than raising children and cooking dinner.

But the point. Edwin’s gone now. His steamer left an hour ago. I said only the smallest of goodbyes, and we didn’t kiss before he left. I am almost afraid to tell my mother about it. She will say that if he were to die and I were never to see him again I would get what I deserve. That’s a horrible thing to say out loud, and she might not say it, but she would certainly think it. I think I thought it myself. Yet, what’s done is done. Edwin’s gone to some imbecile war in Britain and I’m here, supposed to be waiting in sorrow for the moment he returns home. I’m sad, of course, but I won’t spend all my time pining over him. I suppose I should write to him and apologize for being so cold. Yet in some way, I feel like apologizing for hating the war gives him permission to be in it, and even though I can’t do anything about it now, I will not give him permission to betray his adopted homeland and his (hopefully) future wife.

Katherine

Journal

Well, it's me again. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m writing in here now. After all, there’s nothing else to do on this bloody ship. Well, there is that thirty-year-old blonde reporter woman who keeps flirting with me – she’s pleasant enough, I suppose, and I might pass a few hours chatting with her, but I can’t get Katherine out of my head. God knows I ought to stop sitting around in my cabin and brooding, but I can’t seem to muster up the energy to do anything else except sit, write a line or two about how miserable I am, and sleep. All I can say is, I’d best recover from this whatever-it-is before I join the army, or I’ll never make it through the first battle. I can see it now – the krauts firing shell after shell, the lads shooting off all about me, and me nodding off for a quick forty winks. Wouldn’t that be a fine surprise for those waiting for me at home! Wonder what Katherine would think then. Maybe she’d be sorry she sent me off so bloody coldly. Bloody women. Bloody Katherine. Bloody world.

I need to shake this off, or bloody’s what I will be, without a doubt. Just because my heart’s lady sent me off without a kiss to speed me on my way, or any kind of token – just because all I’ve got in the way of a picture is the fourth-grade photo from Uncle Walter’s scrapbook that makes her look like a juvenile ostrich – that’s no reason to sit about moping for all eternity. I should have asked her to marry me before I went. I know I should have. Uncle said so himself. And all the lads in the shop thought it was a sure thing; they were bloody congratulating me when I went to say goodbye, and I didn’t know how to tell them that they were rather premature. Not that I’m not going to marry her one of these days, if she’ll have me, which is beginning to seem more and more unlikely the more I think on it – but what kind of man ties a woman to him when he’s going off to do battle, and could come back maimed, or diseased, or with heaven-knows-what kind of disability? A fine picture I’d cut, hopping up to the pulpit on one leg with half my face burned away. A fine life Katherine would lead, tied forever to a penniless cripple and cursing the day she’d ever said yes to me. Penniless, because Uncle couldn’t in a million years leave the store to someone with that kind of trouble, favorite nephew or no.

Anyways, Mum and Dad wouldn’t approve at all. I was going to travel back to see them eventually, in any case – but I was hoping to go with Katherine at my side. Ask their permission to tie the knot. Just make sure it wouldn’t give them a collective heart attack when they saw my engagement ring; after all, they’ve never exactly been fond of the Yanks. Mum wasn’t pleased in the slightest when Uncle decided to go into business over there. I was hoping Katherine could exercise a bit of her famous charm – oh, yes, she’s charming when she chooses – and win them over, that sort of thing. But now I suppose it’s not going to happen. They’ll have to agree, sight unseen, and I don’t know if they will. Not that it depends on their approval, of course, not by any means, but it would be nice if they could give us their blessing.

What am I on about? There’ll be no marriage until I get back safe and whole, and, most especially, until Katherine gives her consent. Which, in the light of her recent behavior, doesn’t seem too likely now, does it? I daren’t make the mistake of expecting a hero’s welcome when I return; more likely, she’ll spit on my face, turn on her heel, and march off to join the Suffragettes. Perhaps I should come back tragically wounded. At least she’d be forced to be a little kinder to me. Why is she such an Ice Queen sometimes? One minute all sweet and soft – but that, I’m not saying more on even to you, o Journal my Journal – and the next Frosty the Snowman, without the cheerful smile. What is she playing at? And why do I miss her so bloody much?

Enough. Enough. I’m going to go play canasta with the blonde reporter woman. Chat up that frog of an engineer, see what he thinks about this bloody war. Do normal things for once. And, if I do all that, then maybe I'll be calm enough tonight to compose a letter to Katherine.

Edwin

Diary

I should kill myself now and get it over with. My mother would probably be less ashamed of me. I can't believe it; here Edwin is, gone, and here I am, alone. And pregnant.

I was, well, late in my cycle this month. I'm never late, I'm as punctual as a sunrise, so I was a little surprised. The more I thought about it, the more worried I became, remembering Edwin and some of what we have shared. I had no idea what to do, and no one to confide in. Who could I tell? Walt? My mother? Marjorie or Cheryl or any of the other girls? Pete? I feel like I haven’t seen any of them in an age. I work so hard in Walt's shop that I have little time to go out with friends, and anyway these past months I have been with Edwin so much that little else has mattered. So I walked right to Doctor Bradshaw's office. Pete happened to be driving by. We’ve been neighbors for years and friends for many of them, since we were children together, but I couldn’t tell him what I was on about. He asked if he could give me a ride, but what could I say? That I was going to the doctor’s to find out if I was pregnant? I told him I was just out walking and thanks anyway. Pete is always so thoughtful, but I simply couldn’t take him up on his offer this time. So when I got to Doctor Bradshaw’s, I took a deep breath and asked him if he could tell me if I was pregnant. I didn’t bother to explain any more than that. A few tests later, I knew that I was, but I had less of an idea what to do about it. I was confused and depressed when it was just a theoretical possibility, but now that I know that it's true, I feel more lost and alone than ever.

How am I to get through this without Edwin here with me? If he were home, not in this idiot war, we could get married and offer my child a proper life, with two parents. Instead, I am faced with horrible choices and a ruined future. And all for a man that may, like it or not, I have to admit it, never come home. I love Edwin, I really do, and every day without him is one of the worst of my life. I've cried more in the month that he's been gone than I ever did in my life before, though always in my room where no one can see. I hate myself sometimes for letting him go with so cold a sendoff. Sometimes I just wish I had kissed him once before he left. I couldn't keep him from leaving, why didn't I see that then? So better, then, to leave him with some expression of the love I truly do feel for him than to leave him with this cold and empty feeling that I am sure he feels too. How could he not? He loves me, I am sure of that. He loves me and I love him. And now...

I haven't cried this much in years. I can hardly write, the paper is getting wet and my hands are shaking.

The way I see it there are three options left to me. I can end this pregnancy now. But I could not do that to my child. This baby deserves to live, and besides, how could I be whispered about as the woman who had an abortion? My mother couldn't live with it, and to be perfectly honest, I don't know if I could either, though I would never admit that to anyone. The second option is to raise my baby on my own. I wouldn't know how though. I could keep my job at Walt's store, but how to work and raise a baby? I know that women do it, but in poverty and shame, and that is not a life for a child. I don't want to hang my head. I don't want to be ashamed. I want to provide for this child, to make its life sweet and fulfilled. The third option is too terrible to think about, too terrible to put onto paper or into words. But it is becoming clearer and clearer that it is my only choice. The others are not viable. The others are not acceptable. And though the third is bought with pain, it is the only way. There is nothing but pain now.

I don't know how to write Edwin. After the love that we had between us, after the way he left, after all the things I've done to him and the way he loves me yet, how can I tell him that I am having his child but that we can never be together?

Katherine

Journal

I shouldn’t be writing now. I have other things to do – important things, things that’ll help my country to right itself and not just get my fairly unimportant thoughts in order. We’re not supposed to think a great deal here, anyways. If we thought too much, we might start wondering what in hell our ever-wise government was doing. Not the royal family – they’re all right and dandy, not that they do much, but they’re showing backbone when it counts, and all the lads here can honestly say that they’re proud to have them as our monarchs. But Prime Minister Chamberlain with his bloody umbrella closing his mind to the truth, and Our Allies The French depending on one little wall to protect them from the entire German army – my God, it makes me sick. If they plucked a ####### sparrow from the street and set him up as our General, he couldn’t do a worse job. At least he’d have some sense of self-preservation.

But enough. I’m not writing in here to rant about the government – I do plenty of that with the lads. They’re pleasant enough, and it’s not half bad, living with them, chattering about whatever strikes our fancy or playing a good round of Rummy on our off hours. Like being back in the dorms at school, except of course for the fact that any of us could be killed off any second. But none of us have gotten hit yet. Seamus, our Irish rebel-type, says we’ve the devil’s own luck and soon enough it’ll run out on us. Until then, though, we’ll go on pretending we’re in our favourite bar back home, with no other concerns than how much money changes hands over the course of an evening.

Joyous and all as it is, though, living in a kind of permanent Boy's Club setting, we all miss the company of women. Not for that sort of thing, of course – there’s only one girl for me and there always will be – but just to talk to. Most of the lads have some sort of sweetheart waiting for them at home, and a good number tied the knot before joining up, I suppose so that if they die their girl can be a respectable widow. Or maybe they’re just afraid their women will get tired of waiting for them and marry the boy next door. At least I’ve no need to worry about that. Katherine may decide to hate me forever upon my return – who knows, with Katherine – but I think I can safely say that if she doesn’t say yes to me, she won’t say yes to anyone. I know my girl. Anyways, things are back on an easier footing with us now. I sent her my first letter the minute I set foot on English soil, and she wrote me back, and if any of the lads knew how I’d carried on when I first got that letter I’d be the laughingstock of the regiment. Of course, the mail service is slow, but we’re at war and the mail isn’t exactly top priority. Of late, though, I’ve been a bit worried. I’m beginning to get the feeling that there’s something she’s carefully skirting around telling me in her letters. She chatters on brightly about this and that, talks about going to see the new film reel with some of the girls or her neighbor Peter or working in the store with Uncle, and doesn’t say anything of importance until the end, when all of a sudden she reels out a whole string of sentimentalities and cuts off. Not that I’m objecting to the sentimentalities, mind. My letters to her are more syrupy than a maple tree in autumn, and I wouldn’t change of word of them. But I keep thinking that there’s something she thinks is going to upset me, and she’s trying to decide whether or not to break it to me easy or sock me in the stomach. Not that Katherine has any objection, generally, to socking me in the stomach. Which is why I think that whatever it is, it must be fairly important. I hope it’s nothing about Uncle. Now that I’m gone, Katherine and her mother probably see the most of him, and if he took sick or something she’d be the one to let me know. Horribly ironic, it would be, too, if I came out of the war unscathed only to go back and find that Uncle had been crippled by devastating attack of the pox or something equally outrageous.

Anyways. The one other thing of moment that Katherine’s said to me – the thing I tell myself at night when I’m feeling down and trying to raise my hopes about her one day agreeing to be my wife – is that she wants me to send her something from me, here. I was racking my brains, trying to think what kind of thing from the front one could send to one’s lady-love, when I saw a lovely conch shell on the beach where we’re stationed. Since then, I’ve been collecting shells to send to her by post. They’re absolutely gorgeous things – it’s amazing what Nature does sometimes, isn’t it? Although, of course, none of them can hold a candle to Katherine.

I can hear Jack and Seamus and Forrest calling; they need a fourth for a game. The lads have already dubbed me ‘Well-Read Ed’ because I spend so much time writing in here, and really there isn’t anything more to tell except for the dull, mundane stuff, and why would I want to write about that? I don’t need to organize any of that in my mind, it’s all far too organized already. In fact, looking down at this book, I’m beginning to notice a definite trend in the subject of my writings. I’m going to have to make a concerted effort to stay off the subject of Katherine for once. She takes up far too many of my thoughts as is.

Edwin

Diary

Every day I feel worse and worse about myself. Every letter to Edwin feels like a lie and every time I get a letter from him I cry before I even read it. It’s strange, I never used to cry about anything. Then, suddenly Edwin leaves and I get pregnant and I can’t stop crying. It must be hormones. I'm sure that's all it is.

He sent me another package today. I don’t know why I asked him to send me something from the front. I guess I just wanted something I could hold from him, something I could touch and feel, something besides another letter. The letters he sends are a reminder of all the things I can’t tell him. He writes about how much he loves me, how much he misses me, how he is proud to be doing his duty and still eager to come home to me. But the shells that he’s sent me – every time I read one of his letters it reminds me that he doesn’t know about our baby. The shells don’t, somehow. They just remind me of him, and for a moment I am happy just holding them. I love him, and it makes everything that happened so much worse. Every part of me wants to be with Edwin, to be his wife. I hate myself for what I am doing to him, but even more I hate that I don’t have the courage to tell him anything.

I knew I would have to tell my mother about my pregnancy, and I knew it would be difficult, but I had no idea, really, what she would say. She was doing needlepoint when I went down there. I just took a deep breath and told her, with no beating around the bush, no excuses, no explanation. Just, “I’m pregnant.”

She sighed, like I thought she would, but she looked across the room towards the armchairs. In my head I had the sigh followed by the furious expression and the rushed standing and the loud screaming that I usually have to live through when she gets angry. But never the glancing towards the armchairs. I was confused so I followed her eyes. Walt was sitting there, which I suppose was all right, since I would have to tell him anyhow, but sitting next to him in the wing chair was Pete, and I felt my face flush. If I had known he was there I wouldn't have said anything: I'm not about to spread this about the world! I’m not ready to tell anyone, but my mother had to know. But not Pete, or Marjorie or Cheryl or anyone else, for that matter. Their presence must have been what lead to my mother's mild reaction. I'm sure the more emotional one is coming.

But what Pete did is what is so terribly important. Immediately he stood, took my elbow, and led me outside. I don’t know why I let him. I could have shaken his hand off, it was so gentle, but I guess that I was so surprised to see him there I could have been led anywhere. Anyhow, he brought me into the garden and then faced me, holding my hand, looking into my eyes. I never noticed the color of his eyes before. They are such a clear blue, with nothing but gentleness in them. Edwin’s eyes are deep brown, an enveloping, warm, lively color, sparkling with both mystery and humor. Pete asked me if Edwin was indeed the father of my child, and I had to look away as I answered yes. Then he dropped to one knee, holding my hand out in front of him.

“You may be carrying Edwin’s child,” he said, “but I would like to be its father. I want to care for you, help you. I never told you this, but I love you. I always have, Kit. I don’t have a ring, but I have all the desire in the world to make you happy. Please, Kit, will you marry me? Will you be my wife?”

At that point I started crying, which I think he took as a good sign, but really I was simply too confused about what to do to keep my tears in anymore. Through my babbling I told him that I wasn’t sure if I could marry him, that I wasn’t sure about what to do about anything. He nodded and said he understood, and he looked like he wanted to kiss me, but he kissed my hand instead and went back inside, telling me to answer him whenever I was ready. I followed him, intending to go back to the front room, but I found I couldn’t just then, so I came up here, to my room and my trusty diary.

What do I do now? This baby will wait for no man to return from a useless war he should not have gotten involved in anyway. And I can’t wait either. I must give my baby a family. And there are worse men than Pete. He loves me, he said, and it may not be the kind of love that Edwin gave me but it’s love. He is willing to give his life up to help me, and I suppose it’s my turn to give my life up to help my baby. To think that I will never feel Edwin’s touch again, or the sweet tenderness of his lips – now I’m getting all sentimental and foolish. That isn’t going to help me gather up my courage and accept Pete’s proposal.

What else can I do? I am alone, I am painted in a corner, and I am determined to do the right thing for my baby. Nothing else matters now, not me, not Edwin, not love, not ideals of what a life should be. Those ideals are only for my child now – our child, Edwin’s and mine – no, Pete’s and mine, Pete shall be his father and I shall be – what? A mother that loves her child and not her husband.

I have no other choice. If Pete loves me, then surely I can love him, in some way. Part of my heart will always be Edwin’s, but that is over. It has to be over now. Only one question remains, only one more choice to be made. How can I tell him of this terrible, unavoidable betrayal? How can I read or write another letter without it breaking my heart?

Katherine

Journal

Well, here I am again. Funny, isn’t it – here I am on leave in London, where all the lads in the regiment have been longing to be since we signed up for basic training, and all I can think about is how much I want to get back there and check my mail to see if I’ve anything from Katherine. With the time it takes for letters to get across the ocean and back, it wasn’t worthwhile to tell her my address at home so she could write me there, but it does make it horribly frustrating to sit here and wonder. Especially since I know she’s hiding something from me – and the longer I wait, the more I worry.

Not that I’m not having a good time, of course. It’s my first visit home in two years, so naturally there’ve been more than a few emotional scenes involving my mother and my grandmother and so on and so forth. Well, now that I’ve been back a few days, Mum and Dad I can take or leave – of course I love them, but it’s not exactly as if I’ve been pining to be back in the bosom of my family – but I am glad to see Cary again. Of all the things about moving suddenly to the U.S., the oddest bit was probably being used to having a brother right close by, when all of a sudden he’s however many thousands of miles away. He’d never come to visit me, of course – Cary’s a raving patriot, he’d never see any reason to go and hobnob with those Yanks overseas even if one of them was his own brother – so with him getting old enough to move away and me being tied up back home with the store and Katherine it might have been a good few years before we saw each other again, if the war hadn’t intervened. I suppose the bloody thing had to be good for something; every cloud’s got a silver lining and all that. It was more than a bit strange at first, him being seventeen now and taller than I am, the wretch, and he’ll be going off to university next year if the war’s ended by that time, although of course he’s mad to go off and play at soldiers. Cambridge, can you imagine? He always was the brainy one, though now he’s spending a good deal less time at his studies, as I could see for myself even if Mum wasn’t complaining to me about it nonstop. The reason for that is clear – back when I was home, he was still pretending the opposite sex didn’t exist, but it’s rather obvious that that’s changed, as shown by his reaction to that blonde reporter-woman when we bumped into her in front of the wax museum. Cary and I had been running about doing all the usual tacky touristy things – after all, I do need to practice for when I bring Katherine over here and show her the sights, and I’ll be a good deal less convincing if I can’t remember where any of the more famous places to visit are – and she was standing there, so of course I was obliged to talk a bit with her, and Cary, of course, was no help at all. Afterwards, I had to take him aside for a nice little chat about how it’s rather inappropriate to stare at a woman’s chest the entire time you’re in her company, especially when she’s at least twice your age. Naturally, this conversation segued into a discussion about Katherine – nearly every talk with anybody I have these days seems to do that; odd, isn’t it? – when Cary asked if I had a girl I was seeing now.

Of course, I’d written to my family about Katherine in my letters, but I don’t think any of them – especially Cary – realized how serious I was about her. I have a suspicion that Cary’s always rather cherished the idea that someday I’m going to give up this silly idea of living among the Yanks and come home, despite multiple attempts on my parents’ part to bludgeon it into his head. Naturally, when I told him I was planning to ask an American girl to be my wife, it came as rather a shock to him. He said some rather vulgar things – I’m sure he didn’t mean them, but he needed to be taught a lesson regardless, so obviously I was obliged to bloody him a bit. He may be taller than me now, but I can still deal him out a good thrashing. He was rather quieter with his opinions after that. I’m planning to tell Mum and Dad tonight – after all, once Cary knows, the cat’s automatically out of the bag. Hopefully they’ll agree without an argument, and if not, well, I’m sure I can talk them round. At least now maybe Thomas-the-butcher-down-the-road will stop trying to get me to marry one of his six daughters. Honestly, it’s embarrassing, although from the way Cary looked at me when I mentioned that to him earlier I’m fairly sure he doesn’t agree with that analysis. But Cary’s got a lot to learn yet.

Well, so do I, for that matter, but some things I venture to say I can do right. I found the perfect shell for Katherine a few days ago. Mum and Dad took Cary and me down to Bath for the day, like they used to when we were both in grammar school, and while I was there I found the loveliest conch anyone ever saw. I’ve been thinking – if Mum and Dad do agree tonight, I might slip a ring inside it when I send it. Not to pressure her to say yes or no or anything, not ‘till after the war when it’s a guarantee I’ll make it back in one piece, but that way if the worst happens at least she’ll know I did intend to pop the question to her and not just leave her in the lurch. Not that she’s likely fretting about that now – out of sheer contrariness, she’ll have made up her mind to become a nun the day before my shell arrives, or something equally outrageous – but that doesn’t mean I don’t fret about it. I’ll feel easier if I do it. I suppose it’s rather clearing the air, making sure we both know the stakes between us – although if she doesn’t know by this point, considering the amount of sentimental rot that makes its way into my letters, it’s beyond me how she’d manage that – and perhaps I’ve just been affected by the marriage bug, like everyone else in my regiment, but that doesn’t make what I want to do any less valid, and as I could go back and forth on this for days it doesn’t seem like this sentence is ever going to end, so I’m cutting it off right here. It’s time for dinner anyways.

Edwin

Diary

This is my last entry as a single girl. I am on my way to married life; I'm already in my wedding dress. I'm afraid to cry, because the tears might get on my veil and ruin it for the ceremony. In fact, I haven't much time left. But I had to write. I had to, just once, to make sure I go through with it.

I wish I'd never given Edwin the stupid idea of sending shells. I got one today with a ring inside. Imagine, today of all days, my wedding day, and Edwin finally proposes. If he knew what I know he'd be home, and today's groom instead of Pete, but I can't tell him. A part of me doesn't want to tell him, doesn't want him to know how much I'm hurting him. There is no turning back now, and it's better for him if he doesn't get in the way. He wouldn't understand, he wasn't here to see the kind of choices I had to make and what I had to go through to make them. He didn't see the hell I've been through and how it's changed me. And I never want him to. It's better that he remember the Katherine he loved, the proud, strong girl who wouldn't kiss him goodbye. He hated it but he loved it, the same way I loved and hated him. I was too strong for him, and he was too idealistic for me, but that's why we loved each other, that's what worked about it. Pete is none of that, and I've changed since I said yes to him, even I know that. I had to give up my strength. I am becoming a wife, and that is a sacrifice, no matter who the husband is. Compromise is a word I have to learn now, just as love - true love - is something I have to forget.

I could sit here all afternoon and bemoan the past, and I want to. I want to drown myself in tears and regret and tell Edwin to come home and marry me this instant. His letter with the ring said that I shouldn't commit to anything, because he wouldn't tie me to a maimed and broken man. If he knew what I was committing to now! The lies I've told him by omission kill me, but they are all I have left to hold on to.

In my heart I know the right thing to do is to send back Edwin's ring. I should return it and tell him the truth, once and for all. Perhaps I should omit the part about our child and spare him that heartbreak too. Let him think it was just Katherine being Katherine, too stubborn to wait, too proud to beg. But I could never do that. Lies by omission are easier than lies by implication: if I say nothing, it is better than saying half the truth, knowing what he would think of me. So I can't return the ring. It is a beautiful thing, and simple, with one diamond flanked by two more modest ones on a thin band of gold; all in all it gleams larger than it is and sends shivers through my heart. I couldn't get rid of it either - couldn't sell it or throw it into the sea or anything half so sentimentally foolish. Perhaps I will keep it in some back drawer and never look at it until my son (assuming it is a son) is ready to wed the girl he loves, and then I'll bring it out for him. If it's a daughter, I'll slip it quietly to her husband-to-be. I think it would ease my heart to see it on someone's true love's finger, especially our child's.

Everything I do now I do for my baby. All that I give up, all that I leave behind, I do so that I can offer this child a better life and a family and a house with a dog and a fence - I know what I sound like, don't mock me for it. Ideals are one more thing I have to give up now.

I can hear the processional starting. Soon will come the wedding march, and I will walk down the aisle with Walt (who better to give me away, with Father long since passed and him so close to our family, besides which he is the only other person who knows my secret for sure) to Pete and a new life. Not what I had imagined, but when is life what we dream? Edwin, you were always the one who told me that two people's affections were not as important as some other things. Only in your case it was Britain, and in mine it is our child.

Kit

Journal

I almost wish I’d gotten hit by a shell. It would have been better than this. Anything would be better than this. My God, how could she do it? How could she betray us both?

I don’t mean that, really. I mean, about the betrayal. I do know why she had to do it – in my head, at least. But – oh, God, I would have come back for her, war or no. I would have demanded a six-month leave, I would have bullied and bribed and begged, and, all else failing, I would have just high-tailed it out of there and hopped on the first ship back to America. I would have come back for her. Why couldn’t she just tell me the truth?

She hasn’t told me, even now. I found out from, of all people, Uncle Walter. She told Uncle and she hasn’t told me – the father of her child. Our child. Their child. Will the kid even know who I am? Of course he won’t – Uncle’s stark raving mad if he thinks I’m going back there to watch my girl and my child with another man. He can bloody well leave his bloody shop to Peter and Katherine to set up their bloody perfect little suburban life together – after all, if he’s such a trusted confidante of theirs, he might as well go the whole nine yards. That’s not fair, I know – but nothing about this whole business is fair, is it? Not to me, not to Katherine, not to Uncle who’s losing his hair and his heir over the whole business, not to Peter who’s getting a wife who doesn’t love him and a kid who doesn’t belong to him – because I know she doesn’t love him, she never has loved him and she never will, and she’s deluding herself if she tries to tell herself she can make it happen, because it won’t – and, most especially, not to our child, who’s going to grow up living a lie. Ironic, isn’t it – the only one who’s getting a good deal out of all of this is Cary. I’m losing all I ever had going for me in the U.S.A., which is, of course, exactly what he wants.

I wonder if she ever got the shell I sent when I was on leave. I wonder if it made her pause and think at all that maybe, just maybe – but what’s the use of pretending? I know Katherine. Once her mind is set, it’s set. She would have gone through with that farce of a marriage even if I’d marched in on the ceremony shouting “I object!” and waving a ring set with a fourteen-carat diamond in my right hand. Why did I ever leave? No – I will not do this to myself. I was right to leave, I know I was – or at least, it was the right thing to do at the time. If she’d only told me before it was too late . . . but no, that’s just bloody Katherine all over, clamming up the minute things got a bit messy and deciding she’s going to handle them all in her own little way, even if that way brings misery to herself and everyone else involved. If she ever wises up – well, I suppose I won’t know now, will I? I’ll be here in this bloody neverending war, and then off home, to get a job in the greengrocer’s and marry Thomas-the-butcher-down-the-road’s daughter or some other girl who won’t talk too much and won’t cause any trouble and won’t remind me of her . . . while she’ll be back in the U.S. of A., dandling my child on her knee, surrounded by everything that she and I were supposed to have. Why did it have to work out like this? If she could only have waited – even if she didn’t want to take the stigma of unmarried motherhood, which of course I can’t say I blame her for, she wouldn’t have had to deal with it forever. When I got home I could have taken her away – we could have gone to New York or San Francisco, just the three of us, her and me and Baby I’ll-Never-Know-His-Name, and why am I fantasizing all this now when it’ll only make things worse? When Seamus got his first wound in the side, I used to wonder why he kept prodding it all the time, but now I know. And no offense to Seamus, but I think I’ve much worse a wound than he.

I won’t think about this any more. I won’t. I’ll think about the here-and-now. I’ll drown myself in the bloody war, let the sound of gunshots fill up my head completely, and muffle the memory of her voice. If she can bring herself to marry Peter for all the wrong reasons, I suppose I can do that much at least. But before I do that – before I block out the memories for all the foreseeable future – I want to send her one last thing. Rather to remind her of where I was when it all happened, why I couldn’t be there for her – and a prophecy, too, in a way. Because I’ve been looking at the reports, and I’ve been watching the news, and I’ll say now, us expatriots were only the beginning. Soon enough, America the Aloof will be pulled into this war as well. Maybe then at least she’ll understand – understand, if not forgive. In a case like this – well, I don’t think forgiveness for either of us is in the cards. But you just play the hand you’re dealt, I suppose.

Edwin

Diary

You set your face to something. You set your mind on a course of action and even complete that action. You grow to be able to live with yourself, and the constant nagging pain becomes a small ache you sometimes forget for days at a time. You even, from time to time, convince yourself that you're happy, and sometimes you forget to be unhappy, especially when you look at your son.

And then you get a package, no address, no note, nothing, and it sends you into a spiral of tears.

Stephen is almost two months old. He is the sweetest little boy, all smiles. Fortunately, he looks more like me than Edwin, though in a certain light they have the same eyes. Deep, enveloping brown. I don't think I could look at him if every glance reminded me of Edwin. And that would break my heart. Stephen is - he is my joy. I love him more than I ever did Edwin - ironic, isn't it, since he is a part of Edwin. In a way. In some way.

Pete and I have been married for just over three months now. If nothing else, he never lied to me. He has done everything to take care of me. I couldn't ask for anyone better. Well, I could. But I won’t. That is over, and it’s time for me to forget.

I don’t know who told him I was married and that I had a child. I’m certain he can subtract eleven months of pregnancy and since birth from ten months since he left for England and knows Stephen is his. I don’t even know that he knows for sure. He sent no note. But I’m sure he knows, because today I received another package. I opened it this afternoon. Pete was sitting with Stephen on his knee and I opened the box and found shells. Not the seashells Edwin’s been sending me, not like the one he proposed to me in. Heavy, metal, cartridge shells. The shells of war. I knew what it was immediately and started sobbing, ridiculously sobbing. Pete walked over to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and looked down into the box. When he saw it he knew too, and he put his arms around me, setting Stephen on the floor. Stephen just looked up at me with his brown eyes, confused at what his mother was doing. And I took a breath and dried my tears and put on a brave face. I shall have to wear that face for the rest of my life.

I can’t ever speak to Edwin again. What would I say?

Perhaps it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Perhaps Edwin will die in that terrible war and I would have been left alone regardless. Or perhaps he would have come back to me and been Stephen’s father. Who am I kidding with that? He believes in this war, it is more important to him than I was, and surely he wouldn’t come home for a son when there was a country to protect. I will never know for sure now.

I am certain he will never come back to America. Edwin’s brother Cary will probably get the store and probably sell it. He hates America, I understand. Edwin will marry some British girl of whom his family approves. And I will stay in this little town with my little family, bear Pete children of his own, and raise Stephen as though I’m not lying to him. I can’t ever tell him that his real father is an ocean away.

I did the best I could. Everything I did I did for my son, and his life will be better for it. I made the choices I made to protect my son and give him a better life. And he will have that life now, though it kills me. Stephen brings me to life again. I did what I did for him alone, and for him it was worth it.

The only other thing I know for sure of the future is that I will throw all the shells Edwin has sent me, seashells and otherwise, into the sea.

Kit

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