In the summer of ‘42, she was stolen by the sea. While she was still with us, my son wrote her letters from Vietnam. Day after day, I would stare through the shuttered kitchen window as she ran past on the way to the post office, chocolate curls flying, daisy skirt dancing. Some days, she would shuffle back, dragging her feet, ringlets catching on her wet cheeks, her hands empty. Other times, she dashed back to my kitchen, face flushed, eyes glittering. “We got another one, Mrs. Stewart!” she’d shout, and we would sit down to read my son’s love letters to her. He always ended in, Give my mother my love too...don’t worry, my heart’s big enough for the both of you! We sipped tea and exclaimed at his stories of muddy trenches and cried at stories of lost brothers. Anyone could see that he was proud of where he was, a little boy following in the footsteps of his father, willing to take a bullet for his country, if it came to that. Still, we always prayed for the next letter. And it always came.
The day his ship pulled into the harbor, Lily practically flew to the dock. The boat sounded its deafening foghorn, belched steam, and my baby was home. My frail shoulders shook when Peter walked down the salty metal ramp and at the moment he and Lily’s lips locked. He clung to her other as a barnacle clings to the bottom of a ship, without any inclination of ever letting go. To this day, I’ve never seen an such an act of pure love.
The next couple of years were filled with mugs of hazelnut coffee, Sunday roast turkeys, and busy chatter. Peter did most of the talking. He forgot about the war when he spoke of marriage and a new home and Peter juniors. Every night, I snuck out on the tired porch swing, my ancient needles flashing in the watery moonlight as I knit a baby blanket in secret. On summer days, I visited Lily in her hat shop. She worked long, hot hours in that shop, stitching ribbon around straw hats and counting bills in the cash register. I began to pick up small changes during those long hours, how her foot tapped on the polished wood floor, how a few times she struggled to fit a thread through its needle. Her wrist would shake and her eyes watered from squinting before she threw the piece down altogether. I noticed her wandering gaze as Peter rambled on about one case or another during dinner. She tugged at the hem of her dress as if it was too tight for her small frame.
I could see that he wasn’t her hero anymore. He cried in her arms on the sofa after dinner as the memories attacked in waves. She cradled him, making circles with her fingers on his back, and pleading with her eyes at something out the window on the water. There were nights when she could not help him forget. His sobs would build up to howls and he would run outside only to return a couple hours later, whiskey and childlike pleading on his tongue. I would awake the next morning to find her bustling in the kitchen, filling a picnic basket. He rushed by her to work, head down, and the picnic basket would be on the table with a checkered blanket still folded neatly atop it by the time I went to sleep.
One summer day, Lily told Peter over French toast and coffee that she needed a break. I was at the kitchen sink, always at the kitchen sink.
“I’m leaving,” she said.
I dropped the pan I was scrubbing and whirled around.
“Lily, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! What girl your agewould ever want to just leave? And to think you two were talking of marriage!” I wiped my hands on my apron.
“Yes, why would you want to do such a thing, sweetie?” Peter asked.
“Well, I’m not leaving, only going for a short trip, just for taste of salt air,” she said. “I should get away before I have to spend my whole life cleaning your underwear!” She laughed and tugged at her necklace. I knew she would go. I knew how she would console Peter, perhaps setting a date for their wedding before her leave and promising to write upon arrival. Of course Peter would consent.

But I would not have it. I, unlike them, had seen her frayed hems, her increasingly prominent collar bone, her absent minded stares toward the docks. I tried convincing her to stay.

"You simply can't go, Lily. You'll break his heart," I said. I thought of my own selfish desires. No more escapes to the hat shop, no more other set of hands to set the table.

"You're being silly, it will only be for a few weeks, maybe two," she told me. George flipped through an old newspaper in the other room and he started to howl. Lily tossed her dishrag in the sink and walked towards the door.

“Really. You have no reason to be so concerned.”
She packed her bags that night and laid out traveling clothes. She did not hold Peter that night. He lay sound asleep on the couch, content that he could do her the favor of letting her go. Lily would be back.
She left June 21, 1972, waving goodbye and blowing kisses to her mother and Peter from the stern of the great steamship. Her laugh blended with the cry of the seagulls, her ruby scarf danced out to her left. That was the last we saw of her.
A month went by, then two. Still no letters. Everyday, Peter ran to the post office, just as she did a lifetime ago. His steps turned from expectant and excited, to hopeful, to increasingly desperate. His desperation turned to panic as the leaves from the old sycamore began to fall. And still, I looked up from the breakfast dishes each morning to see him fly by, determined eyes straight ahead.
There came a day when I could no longer stand long enough to scrub a plate. My darling hired an old black woman, Christine, to help me. Her voice was honey to my worn and wrinkled ears, every other word “sugar” and “sweet thing.” Peter was smart to do that. He was smart in many ways. He earned an intimidating reputation as a lawyer in town, he presented himself well, he took care of his mother. But still, she held him back, or rather, he held himself back. His loyalty to her became a prison cell, the bars were steel promises of loves and homecoming. His food rations were his runs to the post box. He clung to her image in a dreamlike state, she became his angel, he was her servant. Her intoxicating and beautiful fingers wrapped around his waist, pulling him towards the connection with the outside world. When he didn’t find her, she pushed him back to his home. He never married, I never had grandchildren. I’m bedridden now. I’ve taken to reading the books Lily once loved. Tales of pirates and scandalous princesses and faraway dreams. The woman he hired carries a tray with chamomile tea and a butter cookie up the stairs every morning. And the sound of his frantic footsteps pounding against the asphalt drifts through the flyaway curtains of my open bedroom window.