“And marry someone of her choosing, I suppose.”
“Probably.” Ralph leaned in close. Had he been in love with me, he might have kissed me. “You and I are leading our own lives, making our own choices. You, especially. Besides, what do you care what my mother thinks? The day you want out, you can get out. I envy you that.”
And then he’d dropped his arms, grabbed his coat, and took me out for spaghetti.
As we now made our way through the slow-moving traffic, I kept seeing Higgins’s eyes in the rearview mirror as he glanced back at me. When Higgins picked us up at the airport, Ralph had simply introduced me as Elise. Not his wife. Just Elise. As in, “Hello, Higgins. Great to see you again. This is Elise.”
And Higgins, tall and gray, and who obviously had learned long ago to respond to everything a Dove family member said with courtesy, had replied, “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Elise.” He’d even kissed my hand.
After our luggage was stowed in the trunk and Higgins was back behind the wheel, he’d asked politely if Miss Elise would be accompanying Ralph to the house.
“Most definitely, Higgins,” Ralph had said cheerfully.
Higgins had nodded like it was a question he’d needed the answer to, but he’d seen the ring on my hand when he’d kissed it, and then the one on Ralph’s hand. He’d figured out who I was, so he couldn’t help glancing back at the young wife Ralph had come home from the army with as he drove. And I couldn’t help but wonder what he was imagining about me and the reception I would likely get at the Dove house.
Soon we were off the highway and the busier boulevards and entering a neighborhood with long sloping driveways on tree-lined streets. The houses, the ones you could see from the road, were enormous. They sat back from the street in shades of white and ivory and cream, many with red tile roofs and decorative wrought iron, and boasting curving walkways neatly hedged and trimmed.
I had never seen such beautiful homes before. There had been nothing like them in Davenport, certainly nothing like them in Crystal City. There might have, once upon a time, been houses as grand as these in Stuttgart and Pforzheim and Munich, but not now.
I sucked in my breath and Ralph reached over and took my hand, thinking I was nervous about meeting his family. “They’re going to adore you. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
I just smiled and glanced at the rearview mirror. Higgins’s gaze darted away.
We climbed a little hill and then another, and then we were turning into a circular brick driveway. Ahead of us was a massive home, three stories high, stuccoed in a cream hinting at coral. Huge terra-cotta pots, filled with blooming lobelia and impatiens, were arranged on the wide covered entrance. The enormous wooden front door opened as Higgins came to a stop in front of it. A woman stepped out onto the threshold, trim and stately looking, her graying hair elegantly swept back. She wore a dress in periwinkle blue, and a strand of pearls graced her neck. I recognized Ralph’s mother, Frances, from a photo he’d shown me of both his parents. A dark-haired man was just at her elbow, dressed in a gray suit. He was taller than Ralph, but with a slighter build and paler skin, and yet he was quite handsome. Ralph’s brother, Hugh. Behind him was another woman, much younger, blond and pretty, with a cigarette in her hand. Irene. A little girl of about five dashed out after her, as did a young boy, who tried and failed to keep up with his sister. He started to stumble, and Hugh reached down to steady him. The boy looked to be about three. Irene’s children. The little girl had been just a baby when Ralph left for basic training. The little boy had been born during the war. Pamela and Teddy.
“Here we go,” Ralph said as he squeezed my hand and started to open his door.
I reached for the handle on my side.
“Let Higgins get it,” Ralph said, as he let go of my other hand and pushed his door open.
I waited for Higgins to get out and open my door, by which time Ralph’s mother had already taken him in her arms.
As I stepped out, Frances, Hugh, and Irene were circled about Ralph, smiling and talking to him. Frances was delicately dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. The two children, neither of whom knew their uncle Ralph other than by his letters, had turned from the clutch of adults to face me as I stood by the car door while Higgins pulled suitcases out of the trunk. Teddy stared. Pamela cocked her head and smiled at me. I smiled back.
Frances was the first of the Doves to notice me. Her eyes widened a bit at my presence, but years of social graces visibly kicked in. A careful smile spread across her face.
“And who is this?” she said.
Ralph’s brother and sister turned to look my way, too. Hugh’s eyes were steel blue and stunning, like his mother’s. Irene favored Ralph and their father in looks. Her gaze on me was hazel-eyed and curious. A splash of freckles lay across her cheeks, though I could tell she had put on makeup to try to hide them. I could also tell now that her hair had been dyed blond and that she was probably more of a redhead, like Ralph.
Ralph turned to me. “This is Elise.” He hopped down the three steps to where I waited, took my arm, and led me up.
I had on a pale pink suit, the most expensive set of clothes I had ever owned. Ralph had bought them for me when he insisted that if he was buying new clothes for himself, I should have some, too. With the amount of money he’d been wired, we could’ve gone to Manhattan and shopped on Fifth Avenue, but I already knew Ralph was not a devotee of indulgence and luxurious designer clothing that was no better in function than what you could get from the Sears catalog.
Ralph had taken me to Abraham & Straus, located a short bus ride from where we were staying. It was the nicest department store I’d ever been inside, and we’d found the pink suit on the rack. The outfit looked good on me; even I could see that. And the new hat I was wearing was a pretty little thing with a quintet of bubblegum pink rosebuds sewn onto its creamy satin band.
But even in my finery I felt naked standing there as five sets of eyes took me in—even the children were staring at me. Frances Dove had probably thought her youngest son’s surprise was that he’d bought a car in New York or a puppy or that he’d secretly applied to and been accepted at Harvard or Yale. She was not expecting a girl in a pink suit.
Frances’s smile did not waver, though. “How very nice to meet you, Elise,” she said, and then she turned to face Ralph before I could respond in kind. “And does our guest have a last name?”
“Dove,” said Ralph. Confidently. Triumphantly.
Irene giggled. It was more of a snort, really. Hugh didn’t blink or make a noise or move a muscle; he just stared at his brother.
“What was that?” Frances said.
“Her last name is Dove.” Ralph put his arm around me without taking his eyes off his mother. “Elise is my wife.”
“You got married?” Hugh finally said, incredulous.
Irene laughed, not unkindly, but not good-naturedly, either. It was almost as if she were congratulating her little brother on the most audacious surprise ever.
“I did,” Ralph said. Then he turned to me. “Sweetheart,” he began, and I felt my eyes widen in surprise at his use of an endearment. “This is my mother, Frances. And my brother, Hugh, and my sister, Irene.” Ralph removed his arm and bent down to look golden-haired Pamela in the eye. “And this little princess must be Pamela. You were just a baby last time I saw you.” He tickled the little girl under her chin and she laughed and stared up adoringly at Ralph when he straightened. The curly-headed boy, bored, was at the open front door, ringing the doorbell just to hear it chime. “The little fellow is Teddy,” Ralph said, completing the introductions. Irene told Teddy to stop.
“It is so wonderful to meet all of you,” I said, as self-assuredly as I could, but I sounded young, like a child. I could hear the youthfulness in my voice as surely as the Germans in Pforzheim had heard my American accent. “Ralph has told me so much about all of you.”
“Has he really?” Irene said, smiling as if I’d told a joke.
“You got married?” Hugh said again.
“Yes. A month ago.”
Frances switched her gaze from me to Ralph. “A month ago you were in Germany at an army base.”
“Elise is from Iowa but we met in Germany. Her father worked at the army base where I was stationed.”
Frances turned back to me. I could see plainly that she wished very much to have a private conversation with Ralph, but she had to be courteous first, damn it.
“My dear, forgive me my manners,” Frances said, with forced kindness. “I am just so surprised, you see.”
“Of course. I’d be surprised, too,” I replied.
An awkward pause followed in which no one said anything.
“Well, let’s go inside, shall we, and get caught up.” She looked beyond me to Higgins standing by the car, with our suitcases lined up like dominoes. “Higgins, just set everything in the library for now.”