As for how to get here, you can take a bus to Knoxville, and I’ll come pick you up. I’m so excited that I’ll get to see you again! Hurry!

Your favorite cousin,

Louise

P.S. My lips are sealed. I won’t tell a soul, so you won’t have to worry about your mother finding out.

Mary finally lowered the letter. This really was happening. She was going to get on a bus with a packed suitcase and leave Sam, and Meyer’s, and her mother behind. The last gave her a pang. It didn’t feel right to leave her mother all alone. Then again, she’d be making more money in East Tennessee, and she could send most of that home. Best of all, what she’d be doing would be for the war effort. She could do something meaningful that would help bring her father home soon. Surely, that would justify her decision. And, when they succeeded, her father would come home and her parents would have each other. She was eighteen for cripe’s sake. It was time for her to be out on her own.

She began to pace. There was so much to do. She needed to pack, tell Doc she was quitting, find the bus schedule, and get a ticket. Maybe she should make a list. But if she made a list, her mother might find it. No, better to keep everything in her head.

She would have to tell Doc at just the right time, or else her mother would know something was up. That would be disastrous. She’d insist that Mary stay, and they’d have a terrible row. Secrecy was paramount. She was sure of it.

She bounced on the bed and barely kept herself from squealing with joy. Mary Trask was striking out on her own. She’d show the world what she could do, oh yes, she would.

It’s the last day you’ll have to be subjected to this. It’s the last day you’ll have to be subjected to this. It’s the last day you’ll have to be subjected to this. Nora kept repeating the mantra in the hope that it would prevent her from an ugly verbal confrontation with these over-confident, bilious, buffoonish boys. Every day since she’d arrived, it had been the same scenario. After today, she would graduate from training on the XAX to working with her cubicle operators. She couldn’t wait to get started.

“The output would be vastly improved if the ratio…”

Nora tuned out Berkeley Boy C. She’d taken to using letters to delineate between the Berkeley Lab scientists, all of whom were convinced that they alone could improve production outputs and the efficiency and efficacy of the calutrons. Except for Del. Del had been universally respectful and kind.