The last few nights I haven’t been able to help it, or push it away like I used to. In my mind I try to follow Teddy into those last moments. I imagine what it’s like to be that afraid. I try to think what he must have been thinking, as if the one thing I can do for him now is to experience what he experienced and feel what he felt. I know you’ll say this makes no sense because I can never know. But I can’t control it.
And the truth is something I don’t want to admit: it’s been a year since Teddy died, and every day I’m strange to myself and getting stranger all the time. I think I was wrong and that I’m not Rapunzel at all, locked up and stuck away by an evil witch. I think I am the witch. At these times, when I lie awake and I can’t stop thinking about Teddy’s last moments, I’m the one who tries to put Hansel and Gretel and all the good and innocent things in the oven to burn. When I really think about Teddy, when I really let myself think about him, I want to eat people alive.
And now I’m up and wide awake and my parents are away and I have this whole beautiful empty house to myself, which anyone would be lucky to have. And all I can think is that James’s fiancée doesn’t see his scars at all, while I can’t forget them. And even he—even my friend—seems enragingly lucky to me.
Despite his courage and all that he’s given up for the greater good, he could be the one who is dead and Teddy could be alive. And then, terrible as it is to say, I would be happy.
JUNE 6, 1919
Beth,
I didn’t hear from you after my last letter, and I can understand why. In this particular letter I will be sane and funny and bright.
Here’s something completely lovely. James gave me a surprise.
I came home from work hoping to find a letter from you, but instead there was one from him, mixed in with all the other letters, sealed in an envelope addressed to me, and with—in the return address section—the words The Royal Ladies’ Society of Grail Seekers and Their Lowly Male Friends.
I opened it with eager curiosity.
Surprise for you. Waiting at the cottage. Any night you can get away.
Though I wanted to, I couldn’t get away until Thursday because we had visitors. I hadn’t given James any notice I was coming, but when I arrived around nine, he had candles going as if he’d been expecting me. He opened the door with a grin and said to my puzzled gaze, “You have the loudest tread known to man or beast of the forest. I’ve told you that.”
He’d picked up a bottle of wine and poured us two glasses (we have those now), and then he led me outside and around to the side of the house. We arrived at the bottom of the ladder and stood there looking at each other dumbly.
“Here, I’ll give you a leg up,” he offered.
I looked up. “Onto the roof?”
He nodded.
I waved his hands away. “I know how to get up a ladder.”
I climbed up ahead of him and then looked around.
“What am I looking at?”
“Keep going up.”
“It’ll break.”
“It won’t. I promise you.”
I crawled out onto the threaded sticks of the roof. The moon above, as I caught sight of it above the tree line, was enormous and full. The roof held solidly beneath me as I made my way farther out.
“You finished,” I said.
“Yes.”
“It’s wonderful,” I said. And then, “Send up the wine.”
He appeared, coming over the side and then settling to sit beside me, sliding the bottle into my lap.
We were quiet for a couple of minutes, each taking our first sip as we surveyed our kingdom, such as it is.
“You did it,” I said. “You fixed an unfixable house.”
“You helped a smidge.”
Why I was so excited over this one small victory, I can’t say. I think for both of us, it’s just having something complete.
I kept trying to think of what the moon reminded me of, and then I realized it: the zeppelin in my dream. Only because it was equally bright, but it felt like its polar opposite. What I’m trying to say is, it felt like the moon might be a beautiful thing sent from God to make up for zeppelins.
We sipped our wine in silence, perfectly comfortable. I think James and I could never say another word to each other and still be content in each other’s presence.
“Do you want to get married, Lenore?” he suddenly asked.
I choked on my wine.
James propped himself on his hands stiffly and laughed. “No, no, not to me. I’m taken, you saucy minx.” He shoved my leg with his foot. “I just mean in general. Someday. In the future.”
I couldn’t answer for a long time. “I don’t think about it, really. Beth and I always used to talk and tease about marrying film stars. But now I don’t know. What about you? Will you and your fiancée have lots of babies?”
He picked at his trousers, got those shifty eyes again. “I don’t know. I want us to be free to do what we want and go where we want.”
I ran my hands along the branches.
“I never said thank you,” I said. It seemed the right moment.
“For the roof? You can say it now.”
I shook my head. “No. For the war. For being in it.”
He looked off at nothing. “Don’t thank me.”
I took another sip of wine.
“Okay. Well then, thank you for the roof,” I finally said.
“Thank you for letting me share your house.”
“Well,” I said, “if you really want to thank me, you can go with me to the Fair of Lights. I don’t know the city very well, and I can’t stand anyone else. Come on an adventure with me. Let’s go be young somewhere for a while. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re young.”
He studied me, making a face that was exaggeratedly exhausted. “But my aching back,” he said.
So it’s official. I’m going to see the great wonders modern man has to offer with my friend who thinks there’s nothing wondrous about man’s achievements at all.
And I haven’t told you the biggest thing, Beth. I’ve purposely been sly and saved it to the very end, without any warning whatsoever. So here it is.
I’ve reached an important milestone in my savings. I reached it three days ago.
Yesterday morning, after my late night on the roof, I got up early and went downtown on a special outing. I walked into the ticket office. And I bought my ticket to America.
After a five-day sail, I’ll arrive in New York in two weeks exactly, on June 20.
And I’ll make my way to you from there.
I’m sure I’ll write you again before I come.
This is really going to happen, Beth.
Love, Lenore
JUNE 7, 1919
Dear Beth,
I’m not sure if I’ll send this letter or not.
I woke up last night thinking the room was shaking, but it was me. Once, before we met—I must have been five or six—I got food poisoning from bad fish, and before I knew I was going to vomit, I thought it was just that I was going to shake apart into a million pieces. That’s what it felt like last night. It seemed to me that I couldn’t go on being anywhere, in my bed or my room or anywhere else. So I got up and, in my pajamas, I hurried down the stairs and outside, and because it still felt that way—like I couldn’t be in the yard either—I kept going, into the woods and all the way to the cottage, and pounded on the door, and when James pulled it open, confused from sleep and blinking at me, I made him open his arms so I could push into them.