Harry stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the table; it had burned down to his fingers. He clutched the dog tag in his fist. “It doesn’t change anything, Mom.”

“What?”

“Even if you don’t touch them,” Harry said. “He’s still dead.”

She narrowed her eyes; he felt himself shrinking from her. “Do you think I don’t know that? You little smart aleck. As if I haven’t been punished enough, as if I haven’t had everything taken from me, you—”

“For Pete’s sake, Mom,” Harry broke in. “Jack came home, didn’t he?”

“You don’t understand, Harry. You couldn’t understand.”

Harry felt his eyes going blurry; he blinked to clear them. “What about me and Jinny?” he said, despite himself. “You’ve still got us, don’t you? And Dad?”

She looked at him a moment, and finally sighed. “You’re like me, you know, Harry. Always trying so hard. My poor boy.” She came to him then and took his face between her hands, kissed his forehead. “My poor sweet boy,” she said.

He felt like he’d been granted a reprieve. But the sad way she looked at him, shaking her head a little, was a dismissal, too. “Good night, Harry,” she said, sliding her hands down his face and away. She turned and walked back toward her room. Her footsteps made no sound.

Later, it would seem to him that it was the first and last time she had really seen him. Just that one fleeting moment—if he hadn’t dreamed it. But he had worn Chase’s dog tag around his neck for years, as if to prove to himself that night had existed; that his brother, too, had existed.

Dream or real, it had been enough, over the years, to kindle the hope that Wilma would one day see him again. Just as he did his brothers, Harry loved her and hated her at once. She was blind and arrogant, too, he thought, though it made his eyes blur again—made him feel worthless and guilty and shot to hell—to think such things about his own mother.

Chapter 36

In your preoccupation with the practical demands of homemaking, don’t overlook your husband’s need for your understanding and love.

—“Making Marriage Work,”
Ladies’ Home Journal, March 1950

PINE RAPIDS WOMEN’S CLUB MEETING
Thursday, July 27, 1950