“You sure?” Art Cummings asked.
She wished he wouldn’t let go of her. She wished, in that instant, that he would walk up her driveway tonight, slip his keys into her front door, and call to her that he was home. A dog that she did not own, a cocker spaniel or a Scottie, would run to meet him, and she would step into the living room with a pitcher of martinis for the two of them. Art Cummings would kiss her lightly on the cheek, ask her what smelled so good, follow her to the gold sofa, and sit beside her.
“Ma’am?” he was saying.
Margaret Lefleur stepped forward. “Do you need me to drive you home?” she was asking.
She stuck her pale round face right in Francie’s, so close that Francie could smell the tuna salad Margaret must have had for lunch.
“She lives right by us,” Margaret explained to the crowd.
“Really,” Francie said, straightening, “I’m fine.”
Art Cummings released her. He studied her to be certain.
“Thank you,” she said.
Someone started to pick up all the bruised apples. Art nodded at her, satisfied. When he raised his hand to his head in a kind of salute, she saw a plain gold wedding band on his left ring finger.
“Anchors aweigh,” Francie said. But everyone had dispersed as quickly as they’d gathered. She was standing there, alone.
MANY OF THE HUSBANDS had been in the war too. Paul Lefleur had lost his arm in the Pacific and walked around on hot summer weekends in a sleeveless T-shirt, showing off his stump. Some of the men limped, or had bad nerves. Some of the men walked the streets of Meadowbrook Plat at night, unable to sleep; the war gave them bad dreams, guilty consciences, insomnia.
One summer night, Francie was in her backyard deadheading her lilacs when Mike Macomber from two doors down appeared out of the shadows. Mike was tall and wiry, like a baseball player, with pale blond hair tinged green from chlorine. Francie could see his yard from her back steps, but she’d never been invited over. His wife, Elaine, had a pinched, anxious face, like she was waiting for bad news.
“You nearly gave me a heart attack,” Francie said that night Mike showed up.
“Sorry,” he said without a hint of apology. “Once Jack Paar’s over, there isn’t much left to do.”
“Where’s Elaine? Isn’t she watching Jack Paar with you?” Francie said. She was peeved at this interruption and she didn’t try to hide it.
Mike laughed and sat in one of her woven plastic chairs. That weave would leave crisscrosses all over the backs of his legs, Francie knew. Mike lit up a cigarette and offered it to her, but she shook her head no and went back to her lilacs.
“Pretty,” he said just when she’d forgotten he was there.
She turned to him.
“The lilacs,” he said.
“They’re hard to take care of,” Francie said. She had struggled with these lilacs since she’d bought the house in ’51. Her grandmother had told her that lilacs need sun and pruning and attention. She’d said it like Francie was incapable of making lilac bushes bloom, and that made Francie even more determined.
“They smell so pretty,” Mike said. “Like France.”
Francie sighed and sat in the chair next to him. She took his half-smoked cigarette from his slender fingers and put it in her mouth. After she inhaled and blew the smoke out in a slow, long breath, she said, “That’s where my husband died. Normandy.”
It used to be that she would grow teary when she said those words: “husband” and “died” and “Normandy.” She used to tell anyone who would listen how the military officer who came to tell her the news had cut himself shaving that morning and had a small piece of tissue stuck on his cheek, dotted with blood. She used to add how her mother had fainted at the news, how her grandmother had yelled at the officer in Italian, lunging for him as if he had killed Mac himself.
But Francie had stood still and calm. The garlic her grandmother had been browning in olive oil burned as she stood there accepting the news, and the acrid smell filled the room. She could hear the hot oil splattering. Then she thanked the officer, led him to the door, and watched him walk away. That was when Francie began to shake. It started deep inside her and radiated out—giant, uncontrollable shaking. Her arms and legs jumped, her head shook so hard on her shoulders that her grandmother thought she was having a seizure and jammed a wadded up handkerchief into Francie’s mouth so she wouldn’t swallow her tongue. Francie took another drag from Mike’s cigarette, then lifted the bottle of anisette she’d brought outside with her and poured a shot glass full.
“Here,” she said, offering it to him.
Mike drank it in one long swallow, then coughed.
“What the hell?” he said, sputtering. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Francie laughed and refilled the glass. She took a sip, then held it out to him. “You sip it,” she said.
He did as she told him.