Prologue – 2005

This story begins with two unnamed characters. It is up to the reader to figure out their identity and their relationship and condition. The Prologue sets the stage for all to come, and for the novel's suprising conclusion.

       The couple sat quietly on the back veranda, slowly rocking and staring at the outgoing tide as though it could answer all their questions.
       A solitary loon bobbed on the current, occasionally ducking beneath the waves to search for fish, while an osprey sailed majestically overhead, no doubt looking for his evening meal before nightfall. No sound intruded on the pair’s solitude except the lapping of waves on the rocky coastline below and the rockers’ soft creak on hundred year-old floorboards--a steady, reassuring sound that promised some things lasted.
      “What really happened to us?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
      “I wish I knew.  All I ever wanted was to be with you. You’re the only woman I’ve ever known who only wanted to please me.”
      “And that always seemed to get me in trouble, didn’t it?
       Her low chuckle moved him, as always. The man reached out and took her hand across the narrow void between their chairs. “Yet, here I am, holding your hand again, and remembering all the joy you brought into my life…when I still had one. Now, I’m wondering how much of it I have left. I’m glad you came…one more time.”
      “You knew I’d come, soon as I heard. It’s been…too long.”

      The Maine breeze wafting off Penobscot Bay blew wisps of his newly graying hair over his forehead. Unconsciously, he brushed them back. His hand shook, she noticed, and his face was bloated and puffy, probably from the medication.
      She couldn’t draw her eyes away from his face. She struggled to conceal her heartbreak that his condition had so deteriorated since last they were together. That had been under such different circumstances. It’s hard to be with him now. It would have been harder not to be. Her thoughts brought tears, and she wiped them away with her palm, hoping he wouldn’t see.
     The man rose to his full height, pulled her to her feet and kissed her, softly and deeply.  “Don’t cry,” he whispered, as she buried her head on his chest. “This is just the way it worked out. We’re together for now, and even a few moments alone feels good.”
     It felt so natural to be in his arms--as though they’d never been apart. She could feel his long-remembered body against hers and closed her eyes.
    “The old fire is still there, isn’t it?” he said. “I can feel your heart beating…a sign…a comfort. This devotion for each other never really goes away.”
      She looked up at him with a sardonic smile. “I suppose we shouldn’t be feeling this now, in our sixties. Aren’t we supposed to be sedate and cool by now?”
       “I’d have to be dead before I’d regret feeling like this again.”

        His mischievous grin warmed her pained heart. Relaxing against him, she said, “I understand now why this is your favorite spot in the world. I can feel the peace, just watching the sea--or maybe it’s being here like this--with you.”
        Standing with their arms around each other, swaying a bit with the breeze in spite of the pain in his irradiated hip joints, the peaceful feeling extended longer than either realized. They watched the last errant folds of twilight sink into the black sea, neither wanting to break the communion of their spirits--or the touch of their bodies.

“Look at the stars--there’s the Big Dipper.” He leaned her back against him as he pointed out each constellation, one arm wrapped around the front of her shoulders.
       “Do you remember the first time you pointed out stars to me?”
       “In our attic in the Alps? One of the highlights of my entire life!” After a few moments searching the night sky, each remembering silently, he turned her to him again to kiss “…for old time’s sake,” he said

 “And this is all we’ll ever have, isn’t it? A chance to kiss good-bye, again.”
       “A pity. We dreamed of so much more. But this will have to be enough to last me until….” He didn’t finish the sentence.
       “We must be the poster children for bad timing,” she whispered.
       “It would be comic if it weren’t so tragic. Timing appears to really be, as the saying goes, ‘everything.’ It has certainly had its way with us.”
       “Even now, I don’t understand it.” She leaned her face back to look into his eyes, reaching up to caress his cheek. “Do you? We never meant to hurt each other, or anyone else. And everything seemed so…so right…so meant to be….” Her voice rasped into a sob. “I wish…before it all ends, I’d like to at least understand…where we lost the dream….”

With a soft touch to her temple, he pulled her head again to his chest and rocked her back and forth in his arms. “I don’t know, my dear. I wish I did. I would have preferred to spare you….” His sigh was laced with sad resignation. “Somewhere we missed a communication, I guess. The most difficult decision of a lifetime, regret from the choice, my fear-paralyzed inaction at a moment of truth--I’m not sure. It’s painful to remember….”

They fell into silence and the lapping of the waves finished his sentence.

     Regina’s steps slowed. Her neighbor was waiting near the gate as usual, balancing her young daughter on her hip. She dreaded the customary question.

    “Guten Tag, Frau Wolff. Any news? Have you heard from your husband?”

    “Not yet,” answered Regina. She didn’t need reminding. He’s been missing over two years with no word, she thought to herself for the hundredth time--but she quickly remembered to pretend he could not be dead. Never! Don’t think of it now.

    “And you, Frau Schmidt,” she answered evenly. “Has anything come from your Mann?”

    “Mail’s been scarce since the war’s so much worse. I’m afraid he may be lying dead in some frozen foxhole in Russia.”

     Regina saw tears form in the woman’s eyes and reached out to pat her arm “You mustn’t say that. You mustn’t even think it. None of the other women has heard anything either. The Russians can’t have swallowed up all our soldiers. The war will end, and they’ll all come home. You’ll see.” She forced a smile, waved, and moved away from their communal fear.

    Regina shuddered to block out thoughts her neighbor might be right. Were their husbands dead, captured, or terribly wounded? The disasters at Stalingrad with many casualties on both sides, had come and gone with no news. She sighed and walked on more slowly. She wasn’t sure she believed her own words of encouragement? At first, after Gustav’s last leave during Christmas, 1941, she had received his usual, loving letters--then nothing. Now, in 1944, she lived each day determined to lock her fear inside so the children wouldn’t see it. 

   She approached the house where her three little boys and their young nanny usually waited, but this time they came running down the walk toward her.

   Willi screamed, “Mutti, Mutti! Vati’s alive!”

   Regina reeled dizzily, grabbing a white picket fence to keep from falling. Willi screamed again at the top of his lungs, “Mutti, didn’t you hear? Vati’s alive!”

  “How do you know?” Regina gasped. “What’s happened?” 

   Elli pulled a letter from her apron pocket. “There’s no return address, but I think the envelope is in his handwriting.” 

   “Please, let me see!” Regina dropped her briefcase and ripped open the letter. Yes, it was from Gustav. Her hands shook. She wanted a moment of privacy to read it alone, but the children danced around her.

   Willi insisted, “What does Vati say?  What does he say?”

   She glanced at the opening line and froze.  Then she answered slowly, without looking up, “Vati says he is well and he loves you.” She felt guilty for making up the words, but she could not tell them what the letter really had said.

   Shaking her head and unable to speak further, Regina turned pleading eyes to Elli.

   The younger woman realized something was wrong, and began herding the boys back toward the house.  “Come boys, we must get our supper. We’re already late. Your mother needs some time alone.” 

   They skipped, chanting happily in singsong fashion, “Vati’s alive, Vati’s alive!” 

   Her husband’s first words burned in Regina’s mind. “Destroy this letter as soon as you’ve read it, and tell no one of its contents. You must get the boys out of Königsberg, now!”

And thus begins the journey of a lifetime that would change everything.

Megan James is a naive, grief-stricken widow in her early thirties who is leaving home for the first time in her life and traveling across an ocean to a temporary job with the Department of Defense Overseas Schools. She has no idea that her life will soon change in ways she never imagined as she confronts both the camaraderie and the secret intrigue of the Cold War Border running across a divided Europe. This excerpt is from her first introduction to flight, to Germany, and her shock at the less-than-modest  behavior of a new acquaintance. 

An ancient World Airways jet circled over Frankfurt Airport waiting its turn to land in the dense fog of morning.  Though most passengers were waking from naps with the aplomb of seasoned overseas military travelers, Megan James had not slept at all. She hated being the only person awake. Isolation brought thoughts of…well…ending things.

          Megan’s reverie was interrupted as the stewardess greeted each passenger with a hot morning towel. The stewardess paused as Megan pried her fingers loose from her death grip on the armrests and squirmed to ease the ache in her shoulders.

         “I’ve noticed you never got out of your seat,” said the stewardess. She smiled at the frightened young woman. “Apparently, you’ve been holding the plane up single-handedly this whole nine-hour flight from McGuire Air Force Base? You must ache all over.”

“I guess it was my vigilance, alone, that’s kept this plane safely in the air,” Megan tried to joke. “If these sleeping passengers only knew what a debt they owe me.”

The stewardess met her satire with a pat on the shoulder. “Good Girl. We’re almost there. Here’s a magazine to take your mind off landing.” She moved to the next passenger.

The date on the magazine was August 1974. Its well-thumbed pages fell open to the controversial cease-fire from the war in Vietnam flanked by photos of student riots and flag burning. Riot mentality sickened Megan, but she didn’t want to read about the ashes of Vietnam either. She slid the magazine into the seat pocket. She would learn about military life soon enough, and she wanted to keep an open mind.

What on earth am I doing here? I guess it was either take this job or slit my wrists--maybe both. Put any kind of face on it you want, though, you’re still running away. And now there‘s no going back. 

A ho-hum bustle identified the crowd as experienced travelers--mostly military men with families who moved every three years. Teens exchanged addresses with new friends made on the plane, youngsters played in the aisles, and long-time teachers chatted amiably as they returned for another fall semester. The pilot interrupted tired passengers with his announcement, “We’ve finally been cleared to land. Please return to your seat, put away carry-on items, and buckle up.”

But as the plane dove steeply through the clouds, bumping along with confidence and touching down to the applause of its passengers, Megan, a stranger to those on the plane, to Germany, and to herself, wondered what this new job held in store for her. It had been a long-held dream to do it together, and now… You can’t live a dream alone, she thought, but she caught herself drifting to the negative side, and forced away the idea for the hundredth time. With the rollout and taxi to the terminal, she noted among her peers a last sigh for an ended vacation, a last primp to the hair, a last stretch to the muscles, and the clicks from seat belts unfastened simultaneously.

Jet-lagged passengers waited to exit the plane and gathered in lines for passport control. Though Megan had no foreign language skill, a picture of a suitcase adorned every sign and passengers were funneled in the same direction as though the plane had been the only one arriving at dawn. Bags began bumping their way around the luggage carousel. Megan strained to see her hot pink Samsonite. The set had been a gift from her mother when she was hired for this overseas job. She’d never had luggage before. In fact, she had never traveled out of her home state of California before, and certainly she’d never before been on a plane.

She felt unsure why she had run away to Germany, and panic was setting in. “What on earth have I gotten myself into?” she whispered to herself. Everyone else seemed so casual about the whole international thing, while she wished there was a plane going right back home. But that would mean flying again--a frightening prospect. And home was no longer waiting for her, anyway. The person who’d made it home was gone.

           People at the front of the crowd began hooting with laughter, and Megan strained to see what was going on. A pretty young woman was grabbing all her dainty underwear and clothes from a section of misbehaving baggage belt that had mangled one of her suitcases.

          Megan gasped, as the blonde dove again and again at the belt, snatching up her belongings and dropping them into her luggage cart. Young men scurried to help, but they could not resist waving the lacy underwear like flags so their fellow soldiers could see.

How awful! How embarrassing for that poor girl! Forgetting her natural shyness, Megan dived into the fray to help. She gathered an armload of sweaters and slacks, dropped them into the blonde’s cart, and returned for another load.

          When it seemed that most everything had been recovered, the blonde spoke out loudly with a lazy southern drawl, “Now don’t any of y’all little soldier boys keep anything for a souvenir. I’ll be in this foreign country all year, and I won’t be able to shop for more frilly things over here in Germany. Now ‘fess up, please do.”

She flashed an unembarrassed smile that melted nearby observers. A small group of young GIs conferred, and one was pushed forward, sheepishly handing over a ruffled, lacy pair of panties to the blonde. Thanking him profusely, she kissed him on the cheek, and the crowd roared its approval.

Megan noticed the low cut bodice under the woman’s flapping coat. This person was not at all upset by the attention. Feeling embarrassed and vulnerable, Megan turned to her own suitcases, snatched them off the baggage belt, and swung them onto her cart. There was a vanity case under one bag. From its color, it could only have come from one place. She hurried with her cart over to the blonde and offered it shyly.

“Why, thanks, honey,” the younger woman said. “What a way to greet Germany--by losing my drawers.” She laughed and stuck out her hand. “I’m Lila,” she announced with husky force that denoted confidence. “What’s your name?”

            Megan looked around, wondering if anyone would think she knew this brazen woman. But she couldn’t ignore the proffered hand without being rude, and that was against her inner need to please others. So, with mixed feelings, she timidly offered her own hand. “Megan,” she said. “Do you think you found all your things?” She felt awkward at conversation.

            “Most of it.” Lila laughed loudly. “I saw one teen-aged kid slip some panties into his coat pocket, but I didn’t want to make a fuss and embarrass him. His hormones are raging, and I’ll bet he gets more mileage out of those skivvies than I ever will. He’ll be the hit of his class with his‘trophy.’”

Megan didn’t know what to say. She had never met anyone so open about such private things. She would have died of embarrassment had it been her own lingerie so exposed. Yet this young woman had carried off the disaster with ease and even now was returning the smiles of other amused passengers and patting her blonde curls into place.

Megan felt grudging admiration for one with such confidence, but became uncomfortable again as Lila bumped through customs with her open bag, piles of clothes and a disarming smile, saying, “I think y‘all might want to fix that luggage belt thingy next time you get a lil’ minute.” The customs officials didn’t speak English, but it was obvious what had happened as they moved Lila through the line with barely-concealed smirks. They offered a piece of rope. Megan lost sight of the young woman in the forward push of the crowd.

Outside the customs area, through frosted double doors, a mob of military personnel held up names and destinations on cardboard placards. Megan stood still, bewildered, not sure what to do next.  After a few moments, she heard someone a few yards away bellow out in a commanding voice, “Anyone else for Bamberg?”

Megan straggled up to a sturdily built female sergeant. “My orders said ‘Bamberg,’ but my friends at home couldn’t find it on the map of Germany. They claimed it must be a typographical error and Hamburg was where I was going. Is there really a Bamberg?”

           “Yes Ma’am,” said the sergeant, choking back her laughter. “There’s a Bamberg all right. Though some folks say there shouldn’t be one. It’s a small outpost, way out at the end of the food chain, but right at the edge of the Border. Are you my last teacher?”

“I guess so,” said Megan. She was engulfed in a bear hug from Lila.

           “Why Honey, you didn’t tell me you were going to Bamberg too. We’re going to have a great ol’ time. Kentucky men were rednecks and unadulterated morons, and I’ve had a steady progression of them. I have much higher hopes for some of those cute officers my mom said would lounge around any military base. I can’t wait for them to sweep me off my feet.”

            Megan cringed, wondering what she should say to such a woman.

                                   Chapter 1  -  First Impressions  -  August 1977

From my first glimpse of D.D. Otero, I realized why the old axiom “never volunteer” was a good one. The idea of being a “meeter-greeter” for a newly-arriving overseas teacher had seemed reasonable back in June when I was heading for summer vacation Stateside. But now I understood why the other teachers had slunk out of the room when the principal asked for volunteers. I must have been certifiably insane, but I never dreamed that this particular person arriving to be my temporarily assigned responsibility would change my life forever.
        It had already been a bad day.
        I’d slammed my finger in the car door trying to hurry, tripped over a curb that ruined my nylons, ran through the Frankfurt International Airport to the concourse where military transport planes arrived, and stood in the crowd with my hand-lettered sign held high. None of the arriving passengers showed recognition. Maybe the school office had the name wrong. They hadn’t even said if D.D. Otero was a man or a woman.
        As the last passengers cleared customs, only one person remained at the entry door. She had to be D.D. I bumped against a pole while hurrying to help her, and reached up to rub my head, while pasting on my best smile. I swept by the customs counter with a wave, hoping this was not the new teacher for whom I’d be responsible. She was unusual, to say the least. Again I waved my sign, but the woman staggered forward so bogged down she didn’t even notice.
        She stood about five foot four, rather thin, probably dangling between thirty-six and forty, certainly older than me. In addition to hand luggage criss-crossed over both shoulders, which pinned down a large purse, she lugged one bulging suitcase and dragged another. Her purple flowered jersey dress hit at her calves in front and hiked up alarmingly in the rear, no doubt pulled up by the straps of luggage weighing down her front side.
        Hair of a faded light brown straggled from what must have started out as a demure bun, under a mousy little hat perched precariously on her forehead. No lipstick remained, if there ever had been any, but she kept running her tongue over her lips as though she expected to find some. She clutched her handbag in a death grip.
        For this assignment I left a sunlit California beach early and bumped my way back to Germany on a rainy flight? How in God’s green world can I introduce this woman to my friends at the Officers’ Club?
        “You must be D.D, ” I said aloud, trying to sound encouraging.
        “Oh, my,” said the woman, struggling with her luggage, “Mama told me not to come.”
        She won’t last long here, I thought.
        But, I had to recant that thought, since I’d probably looked a little disheveled and bewildered when I’d first arrived in Germany, too. And besides, it was Department of Defense Dependent Schools, or DoDDs, tradition that someone had to be the greeter to help each new teacher get settled, find an apartment, a car, and learn the ropes socially and militarily. Teachers willing to leave their homes behind to teach children of military personnel in far-flung places are a special breed. And they welcome their own. Pay it forward, right? Reminding myself why I’d come brightened my spirit a bit.
       “I’m Megan James from Bamberg. I’m here to welcome you to Germany. Here, let me help you with that suitcase you’re dragging. Didn’t you see the luggage carts when you got off the plane?”
       The woman turned toward me with a guarded look, and we sort of tugged back and forth several times with the heavy suitcase. I won the struggle when she dropped it on my foot.
       I limped backward from the pain.
      “Are you sure you’re from Bamberg?” she challenged in a high-pitched, screechy voice, as though she thought I might try to steal her suitcase. Her stare was pointed enough to pick out my tousled head and freckly face from any police line-up. I could see uncertainty in her eyes as she surveyed my daily collection of cuts and bruises. The glancing blow of that pole was now an angry red bump erupting from my forehead, my finger still throbbed, and I could feel my foot swelling from the suitcase crush. I lifted the offending foot gingerly. What is she carrying in there, anyway?
       “Of course, I am,” I groaned. “How else would I have your name on my little sign here?” I held up the sign, but she was still staring at my protruding forehead. “Don’t mind me. I just had a couple of little accidents. It’s nothing new.”
        D.D. shook her head. “How do I know where to go? I don’t know anyone here, and I don’t speak the language.” She sighed, the lines in her face deepened, and her shoulders slumped forward, reminding me that she must be exhausted. “Mama told me not to come,” she repeated.
        “That’s why I’m here, and I’ll help you with all that.” I ignored the Mama thing coming from a grown woman. I reached out to remove one of the bags from her shoulder, but she grabbed it tightly, throwing her free arm across her breast as though fearful of mayhem.
        “I’ll carry it,” she insisted, pushing her purse more pointedly under the straps.
        After that little performance, I was ready to walk off and leave the woman. I was only trying to help. But to meet and greet, one must actually meet and greet. This is your last chance, Missy.
        D.D. trundled beside me, watching me suspiciously as I dragged her bag forward to the customs officer. She had enough luggage for a six-week safari.  I stifled my urge to throttle her and forced one more smile.
       “One just can’t be too careful,” D.D. said. “Mama told me to watch my pocketbook at all times, and I can see she was right. There were so many people on that plane, and they all jostled me. I was so scared that I waited until everyone else got off the plane.”
       Now, everyone knows I’m scared of flying, but since I’m always convinced the other passengers and I will be sharing a fiery death at any moment, it sure never occurs to me to be scared of the passengers! I couldn’t believe D.D. seemed afraid of everyone.
      “I was too scared to check my bags.” She shook her head with wide eyes and looked around to see if anyone was listening. We were quite alone. “I argued with the stewardess because she said I had too much for carry-on, and I had to ride with my feet up on one suitcase, and my shoulder bags in my lap the whole way. It was really uncomfortable, but I couldn’t trust my suitcases with my iron and sewing machine to those baggage handlers.”  She cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered, “I hear these airlines will steal you blind.”
       Well, now I knew what had crushed my foot.
       “D.D. It’s a military aircraft. These are all military people. They’re assigned to bases here in Germany, just like you. They aren’t going to steal anything of yours.” I tried hard not to sound irritated, but my finger, head, foot, and my patience, still felt battered. I helped D.D. peel off all her straps for the customs agent who drummed his fingers on the counter, waiting. Another agent strained to lift her suitcases atop the belt.
        “Where are they going with my bags?” It was a shriek.
        “Shh! They’re German customs agents. They just want to see if there’s any contraband.”
        Customs agents from the now-vacated belts gathered around us, barely concealing their amusement as Ms Otero got into another tug-of-war  for one of her shoulder bags.
        Pulling back and forth with the man, D.D. squealed, “Don’t let them open that bag. My unmentionables are in it!”
        Well, they’re hardly unmentionable any more!
        Her wild reaction convinced the customs man that she was carrying an atomic bomb in that bag. Everything was coming out of it into a growing pile. D.D. grabbed items out of the agent’s hands as fast as he picked them up, trying to stuff them into her purse.
        “Miss!” the beleaguered man shouted at her, and two more guards came rushing over.
        I squelched my own embarrassment long enough to pull her hands away before her actions single-handedly started World War III.
        “Look at me, D.D. This is important. They have the right to open whatever bags they want, and your struggling only makes it look like you’re trying to hide something. Back off.”  I tried to say it kindly, but there were tears running from her eyes as the agent popped the lock on every single bag and poked around inside.    
       “He shouldn’t be looking at my unmentionables,” she cried. “He could be a pervert. I want to go home.”
        I sighed. “D.D., everyone wants to go home when they first arrive in a foreign country. When I came, if there’d been a plane taking off from the parking lot, I’d have been on it, even though I hate to fly. You’ll get over it. Think of this as a great adventure, and you’ll love it your new home here in Germany.”
       She still looked scared. “I’ll help you. I promise. You’ll get through this.”
       As soon as I got the words out of my mouth, I regretted them. D.D. suddenly became pathetically eager, clinging to my hand and practically massaging it.
       I winced and tried to pull away when she squeezed my swollen finger.
       “Oh, thank you so much for taking me under your wing. I’ll try hard to get through all this, if you’ll just stay with me,” she gushed.
       “Great!” I tried to sound enthusiastic, but all I could think of was how much time and effort it would take to make D.D. even marginally normal. No hope for independent!  But, then, I’d be hard-pressed to say what normal was, anyway, given my background. I shrugged it off.
        As the agents closed up her bags and moved them down the glass cubicle, D.D. ran to grab her handbag. What was it she called it? Her pocketbook? I hadn’t heard that term since my great-grandma died. But, there was D.D., clutching it to her breast and again loading up with luggage over that terrible dress. That dress will have to go. Maybe I can manage to spill ink on it.
        I jerked my thoughts back to the present, asking carefully, “Is it okay if I help you with one of the shoulder bags to lighten your load?”
       A small, mincing smirk apparently was the best she could do for a smile. She nodded, so I guess I passed the test of trustworthiness. I threw the sign in the nearest trash basket, shouldered one bag and dragged another as we struggled through the myriad of underground passages to the trains and parking lots of Frankfurt Airport. The challenge to find my car was probably intensified as my mind frantically scrambled to figure how to avoid my new charge becoming my shadow for life. On the other hand, I grappled with my own mixed reactions. She really did need help, lots of it, and I had this empathy thing for puppies, babies, and the helpless.
       Finally, I spotted my nasty-tempered, yellow Fiat and managed to squeeze all D.D.’s bags in and still get the hatchback shut. “This is Bosco,” I said, by way of introduction to my car. “You’ll get used to him. He has a mind of his own.”
       Bosco started right away, which was a great relief. “Of course, that just means the Fiat is lying in wait to shut off at some more crucial moment,” I said, trying to make D.D. laugh.
       She didn't.

Oh well, nothing else has gone right today, either.

Soon we were out into the sunlight and onto the Autobahn, heading toward Nürnberg and eventually, 505 Highway north to Bamberg and the Border. I was on familiar ground now, and figured I’d try to draw this woman out on our two-hour trip, if only to make time go faster. “What does D.D. stand for?” I asked for openers.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             She looked up from digging in her purse. “Mama named me Dolly Dozie after my grandmother, and she always called me that. Daddy hated it, so he called me D.D. for short.  I have four older brothers and no other girls, so Dolly Dozie didn’t fit. The boys always made fun of it. I put D.D. on my DoDDS application because I didn’t want them to know I was a girl.”
         That’s odd. “Why not?”
        “Well, in upstate New York, they don’t hire girls as fast as they do boys. My brother said the Federal Government might be the same way, so I left the ‘m’ and ‘f’ spots blank and hoped.”
        I took another look at DeeDee and felt a little uncomfortable with someone her age putting herself in the category of “girls and boys.” From her dress and mannerisms, I guessed her at several years older than my thirty-five years.
       “I went to Catholic school,” DeeDee said. “The nuns said I was lucky my parents owned an Italian restaurant so I’d always have food. Mama cooks and Daddy’s the host, and my brothers wait tables—you know, a family business. They sent me to Catholic college, too, because Daddy said teaching was the only honorable place for a good girl, so I got my certificate. I taught five years in Ithaca, and we all lived at home, one big pasta-eating family.”
        DeeDee flashed a rare smile. “I make really good pasta, you know.” Then she sobered again. “My brothers looked out for me to be sure no one took advantage. They escorted me whenever I had a date.” She looked earnestly in my direction and said, “But it was the strangest thing. Even if I liked the boys who asked me out, they never came back after the first date, so I guess they didn’t like me. I must’ve done something wrong.” She shook her head slowly.
        She’s gotta be kidding? I avoided her pensive look. No, she was dead serious! Didn’t she realize no one would come back if they had to deal with her brothers? Was she really that naive, or had she just been sheltered too long? I heard no clue in her voice, so I changed the subject.
      “Didn’t you ever want an apartment of your own, or didn’t your brothers?”
       DeeDee’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, heavens no.” Whenever one of us wanted to move out or take a job in another city, poor Mama would have one of her sinking spells, so we always stayed together, don’t you see? We couldn’t let Mama get sick again.”
       “What’s a ‘sinking spell’?”
       “Oh, you know, she would clutch her heart and fall to the floor.”
       “Wow!” My head buzzed with the revelation in that statement. No wonder this woman is so unusual. I’ll be charitable and not think weird. “Did your mother have a heart condition?”
       “I don’t know. She would never tell, but she had sinking spells pretty often.”
       I’d better ignore that can of worms. “What happened to finally make you leave?”
       “I had my twenty-ninth birthday this year.”
       Twenty-nine! Boy, did I guess wrong. She was younger than me? Yikes!“
       My brothers had a council meeting and said I was going to be an old maid like my friends if I stayed there. They said I had to escape before that happened. Andy wrote off for the application to DoDDS and Tony helped me fill out the forms. They said I mustn’t tell Mama until it was time to go. But I was terrified for keeping a secret from Mama.” She shook her head slowly. “I always tell Mama everything, but Tony said I couldn’t tell her about leaving, and he made me double dare, pinkie swear, so I didn’t.”
       Double dare, pinkie swear? Whew! She was breathless in her rapid-fire tale by this time, and I was breathless listening to her. Were there still families like this in the mid 1970’s? Was it just Italian families, or families in upstate New York, or those with only one girl? It was like she’d sprung from another planet. Her monologue revealed undercurrents of being almost imprisoned by overprotective people. But, she obviously didn’t see that for herself.
      “I’m a virgin,” she announced, glancing out the car window as we passed Würzberg.
      Startled, I jerked the steering wheel back into my own lane with a BMW’s horn blaring behind me. Way too much information, I thought. This announcement was not what I’d expected for a first meeting. I hardly thought her sex life, or lack thereof was any of my business.
     “That’s nice,” I muttered. Well, what was I supposed to say to something like that?
Desperate for a safer topic, I asked, “How did it go when you left?”
     Tears again ran over her long lashes. “It was just terrible! The boys brought down my bags, and Mama followed me down the stairs crying and grabbing her heart. She almost fainted against the railing, and she said it would kill her if I left. She kept screaming, ‘Do you want to kill your own Mama?’ I felt so bad, I didn’t know what to do.”
      I handed DeeDee a tissue from the box I always carried between Bosco’s bucket seats.
      She honked noisily into it and mopped her eyes. “It was so awful, and I didn’t want to go, but Tony said he and Daddy would take care of Mama. Andy and Florio just picked me up by the elbows and dragged me out the door while Mario grabbed my bags. I could still hear Mama’s voice as they drove me away. Her last words were, “Keep your pants on.” I couldn’t imagine why she said that because I was wearing my best dress and she never approved of pants.”
      Don’t say anything, Megan, I told myself. You don’t want to touch that one!

What was that they told  me about never volunteering?

       Frank McCourt said of Angela’s Ashes, “Children are almost deadly in their detachment from the world ... They are absolutely pragmatic, and they tell the truth.” This is the tender story of a little girl who must tell the truth to gain insight into her abandonment and betrayal, and find a way to forgive and forget.

       Granddad smelled of cow manure and Burma Shave.
       It was a warm, friendly smell, because he was both a farmer and a barber. But smells didn’t matter to me much, then. Besides, there was no one except other farmers to compare him with, anyway.
       I’m Katie, and I’d sure like to find out why grown-ups always talk around kids like we weren’t there at all. Sometimes, I feel I’m just a flyspeck on the wall Granddad squished with a rolled up newspaper, and Miss Edna will wash me away on cleaning day.
       Do old people think we don’t understand what they’re saying, or that we’re too little to remember? I’ve thought about it a lot, and sometimes I think I remember most everything, but not the thing I most want to know. I do know that my living here on the farm will probably be as short as my stay in Kansas City with my real mama was. She didn’t want me, and she left me here on Morris Farm.
       It’s not that being here is so terrible. Farms are nice with lots of animals and not many people. Animals are nicer than people. It’s just that I can’t remember my mama’s face, and no one ever told me why she went away and left me. I need to know why, ‘cause I sure don’t want it to happen again.
       It doesn’t bother me that grown-ups keep secrets like when Miss Edna and Granddad talk about Mr. Weber down the road a piece courting Miss Ida, or about Mrs. Lena being in the family way for the twelve time. Those things don’t matter much.
       I mean like when the two of them argue, a lot, in the same kitchen, yet really apart with their words, and Granddad says, “Don’t ever mention Dianna’s name to me again, after what she did.” So I do know Mama’s name, though not her face. But just when I think maybe I’ll get some answers to the questions I’m afraid to ask about my mama, Miss Edna says, “Hush! The child.”
       Then I know I’m not going to get any answers at all, because they’ll stare all stony-faced and mad at each other, and not talking any more. Not that they ever talk much, anyway.
        I have to find out why my mama left me. I keep waiting for some clues, but I most never get them. I have nightmares at night. By day, when I climb up in the gnarly old mulberry tree, I think about it, too. Maybe some evil pirates came and took my mama away, and she’s trying hard to find me, but she can’t escape. I think I got that out of one of Miss Edna’s storybooks. Or maybe I was kidnapped and brought to this farm, and my mama is out there looking for me.
       I tied a little flag on the mailbox out on the muddy road, hoping maybe one day she’d drive her wagon by and see it. So far, she hasn’t come, and it’s been at least a couple of years that I can remember back. Before that I can’t remember anything, so I guess I was old enough to walk and talk, but not old enough to remember much when I came here. Nobody ever said.
       Besides, how would I know her if I saw her? Miss Edna once grabbed up a picture I found and put it away real fast. But I caught a glimpse of what looked like me still as a baby about a year or two old, and I hoped the pretty lady next to me was my mama. I’ve never been brave enough to ask why she left me here, or why Miss Edna hid that picture.
       Listening to Miss Edna count all my sins every day, though, I believe I have it figured out. It must have been because I was a naughty baby, so my mama didn’t want me. They never mentioned a daddy, even when they wouldn’t talk about Dianna, so I’m not sure if I had one. But even after all my thinking, and pretending and trying to help her find me, I can only come up with one reason that my mama might have left me. I must have been a terribly bad baby, and she just couldn’t stand me anymore. There just couldn’t be any other reason I can come up with.
       So now, what do I do? I’m no dummy. I’m going to have to pretend all the time that I’m the best little girl in the world. I’ll be so good that Miss Edna and Granddad will never want to send me away. I’ll be so good that Jesus will see it all and never let someone throw me away again. I’ll be so good that everyone wants to steal me away from Granddad and Miss Edna. But they’ll have to cry, because I’ll never leave Granddad. I hope I can be good enough that he’ll never leave me.
       The funny thing is that no matter how hard I try to be good, trouble always finds me, even when I’m hiding from it.

I‘m three-years old now, and big enough to follow in Granddad’s footsteps by daytime when he tends the milk-warm animals of the barn and then works in his crop fields. But by evening, men from other farms gather around the old, round wooden table Miss Edna and Granddad brought in a covered wagon from Indiana. A coal oil lamp glows in the center, casting wavering shadows around the room. I watch Granddad cut hair, shave faces, or trim beards of his farming neighbors, while pipe smoke turns the air all blue.
       I love listening to their man-talk of Depression, farm reports, news events, and their ideas about problems of the world, the country, and especially Milan and Green City, Missouri.  
       They know so much I don’t know, and their deep voices make me curious about things, whether I understand what they say or not. I huddle in a shadowy corner on a little three-legged stool, hoping no one will notice me and send me to bed.
       I don’t know if Miss Edna or Granddad are related in some way, or just old people willing to take in a little girl who had no place else to go. No one ever told me, and I wondered if other mamas ever gave away their children, too, but I didn’t know of any. I soon found that whether she was related or not, Miss Edna would never have allowed me to call her Grandmother. Maybe she thought it made her sound old. Granddad told me I could call him Granddad, rather than Mr. Bill, and he didn’t seem to mind at all.
       Miss Edna had a way of shaking her finger at everyone to make her words stick, but she wasn’t exactly mean, just far away somehow, as though everything and everybody were too much bother.  She was tall and very skinny, with her hair getting mixed with both black and white, “…because of me,” she’d say when she was fussing. Sometimes she sort of looked pinched around her mouth.
       One thing she always fussed about was Granddad’s having the Kansas City Star newspaper mailed to their farm. “It’s an extra expense we can ill afford,” she cautioned, “with the child and all.”
       “It’s little enough, Miss Edna,” Granddad said. “How else can we know what’s happening in the world? Besides, my barbering customers like to read up on news as much as I do. We need to know what’s going on, what with this Depression and threats of war, even if we’re living out here in the boondocks.”
        I never was sure what the “boondocks” were, or if I was the
“child” they talked about in whispers. But this was one of the few arguments Granddad won, because he called the newspaper “…a business expense,” and because he stood tall, tanned, and straight as a tree when something riled him up.

It was my job to run out to the county dirt road every afternoon and wait for the mailman to bring Granddad’s newspaper.  Mr. Sam, the mailman, drove a battered old truck that jounced along the ruts on sunny days and slithered from side to side and sometimes into the run-off ditches at the side of the road on snowy or rainy days.  He had a big beard connected to bushy sideburns, and was tanned dark from the Mid-western sun. He always greeted me with, “And how’s our little girl today?”
        I figured out that he said “our little girl” because there were few children among the farms, so these farm men and their wives seemed to think that I belonged to them all, especially since I didn’t really belong to anybody. I sort of liked him to say that.
        Mr. Sam would, on nice days, invite me to ride with him to the next farm and walk back. It was a treat for me, and we’d sing together some favorite hymns on the way. Old Mr. Forbes’ farm was on the next ridge over, with a valley, a holler, between them. We’d still be singing when the old man hobbled out to get his mail. He’d speak kindly to me, and they’d both caution me not to stop in the little stream down in the holler.
       “I seen a water moccasin down there, Katie-girl,” Mr. Forbes would say. “Use the bridge. Don’t go wading across, like you usually want to. Miss Edna will whup you if you get your shoes and stockings dirty again.”
       So I would jump out, wave to them both, and skip the half-mile back to Granddad’s farm, carrying his newspaper. And sometimes I’d stop on the wooden plank bridge that had no sides to it, and peer over to see if I could spot the water moccasin slithering among the mosses and rocks, or a bullfrog, or birds nesting in the bull rushes.
Miss Edna always waited for me at the top of the hill, with her arm lifted to shield her eyes from the sun. Her homespun apron flapped in the breeze. Somehow I always remembered Miss Edna that way, even long after she was gone--silhouetted against the bright Missouri sky. She would take me inside, pour a glass of milk and give me a biscuit before we settled down to the daily lessons she’d planned for me to read in the Bible.
       “What you can learn is all you’ll ever have to help you through life,” Miss Edna would say at every day’s beginning.  “Learning is never wasted.”                                                         
         “Miss Edna,” I’d asked once. “How did you know how to teach me to read?”
        She paused a moment and frowned, and I was afraid I shouldn’t have asked, but there was no way to get the words back in my mouth.
       “Why, you’re just full of questions, aren’t you?” Then her sharp voice softened a bit and she said, “I was a schoolteacher for a country school when I met Granddad. I loved teaching. But, in those faraway days, lady teachers could no longer teach children if they married.”
       “Why not?”
        Miss Edna twisted her fingers together a while. “Because they were no longer pure. It was a stupid rule, since they didn’t make men teachers quit when they married and were no longer pure. Men were even allowed time off to court a bride.”
        I could tell I’d hit on a sore point, because she looked all squinched up in her eyes.  She shook her head and scowled at me, as though I could have done something about this unfairness. I was always scared if I thought Miss Edna was mad at me.
       “It was unfair,” she said, “that at some point in your professional life, lady teachers had to choose to remain an old maid teaching other people’s children, or to have a husband and family of their own. I chose to marry Bill Morris, and look at me now.”
       I was almost afraid to look at her because her voice didn’t sound like the happily-ever-after kind of marriage we’d read about in the fairy tale books. I could tell that maybe it was a hard choice for Miss Edna, and she sounded still mad about it, too. I figured out that she was mad at Granddad for some reason, and I relaxed my attention a moment. At least it wasn’t me, this time. But that wasn’t good for her to be mad at Granddad, either, since she never seemed very happy about her place in life. But at three, I accepted every word Miss Edna told me. “It’s just the way of the world,” she’d say. “Just a woman’s lot in life.”
       I was glad I was just a little girl. Maybe I wouldn’t ever have to be a woman and have a woman’s lot.

Miss Edna taught me to read from the Bible. I thought there were lots of big words to learn, and she made me sound out each part to her satisfaction, but it got easier as we read together every single day. I had to answer her questions about the meaning, afterward. There were fairy stories and nursery rhymes she kept in a special bookcase for “…teaching little girls, not for little girls to touch.” She also taught me poetry, though the poems seemed almost a chore. She made me memorize a new poem every week, for my “edification and elocution,” she said. Edification and elocution must have been really important, because every Friday afternoon, I’d have to recite the poems when Miss Edna’s “church ladies” came to call.
       They were the only people ever let in through the front door to the parlor. Everyone else, including neighbors, farmers wanting barbering, and me, had to use the back door into the kitchen, through a screened-in porch which held the pedal machine that separated out cream for sale and Miss Edna’s scrubbing washtub hanging from a nail on the porch wall. The washtub moved to the kitchen on Saturday night for baths. Miss Edna poured in more hot water from an old teakettle, carefully, so she wouldn’t burn my knee or back, but with her face turned away. She always put a screen around me to “protect my innocence,” whatever that meant.
       But the “church ladies” came into the parlor from the front door and I, who was invited into the parlor only on those days, watched breathlessly from behind a curtain that temporarily hid the more frugal kitchen. It was exciting to watch the ladies “put on airs” as they paraded in. At least, that’s what Granddad called it. I quickly learned that it wasn’t smart to repeat anything Granddad said about Miss Edna, or anything Miss Edna said about Granddad. It scared me that they didn’t talk the same way together that they did separately.
       I thought the church ladies quite elegant. It was all I could do to sit still and try to be quiet, which was Miss Edna’s rule. They wore long skirts and tidy white blouses with stick up starched sleeves that got tight at the wrists, and huge hats with feathers and little birds or flowers on the brim. I hoped they hadn’t killed real birds for their hats, but I was afraid to ask. I tried to walk behind them when they sat down to see if I could tell if they were stuffed, but I was afraid to touch and find out for sure.
        Each one of them had some kind of brooch or cameo at her high neckline. And of course, Miss Edna dressed just like they did for this weekly occasion. I wondered if these were favorite clothes they’d saved from their young girl days just for special occasions and church, or if they were costumes from some storybook because, like Miss Edna, they wore only homespun housedresses and aprons the rest of the time. The ladies took teensy little steps in their long tight dresses, like they were hobbled. I’d seen Granddad hobble a horse to keep him from wiggling while he was harnessed, so I knew a hobble when I saw one.
      The ladies looked very old to me, including Miss Edna. I peeked from the curtain to watch them sit primly on the edge of the best sofas and chairs where, shortly before the ladies arrived, Miss Edna had whisked off and hidden the old sheets that covered them all the rest of the week. There were pretty, hand-crocheted doilies on everything, including the backs of the sofas. I wanted to touch to see how the doilies were made, but I knew I’d better not. The ladies would sip tea and nibble “crumpets,” but I think they were really just biscuits Miss Edna baked. They talked an hour about Jesus and the Bible, then the latest gossip, and then it was my turn.
       Miss Edna invited me inside the parlor. Of course, she had me dress in my Sunday clothes, and she brushed my unruly dark hair painfully into a semblance of order, and admonished me to “…sit still, don’t fidget, and don’t get dirty,” beforehand. Sitting still was a big problem, since Granddad said my normal gait was a bounce, a skip, and a run.
       The ladies called for me to “say my piece,” and I recited it just as Miss Edna taught me, with expressions and hand flourishes that I didn’t completely understand.  They listened quiet-like and dabbed at their eyes with their lace hankies. There was rarely a dry eye in the parlor, and I never figured out why they cried, even when my recitation for the week was a happy or funny poem. My favorite, and theirs, too, I think, was “Little Orphan Annie,” because they asked me to say that one again, even after whatever new poem I’d learned.
       “Poor little one,” said Miss Pansy, squeezing my hand as I went around to do the required curtsey to each of the ladies. Her face always looked pinched, like she ate from the kumquat tree, and she touched everything, even me, a lot.
       “She’s such a smart little thing,” said Miss Tate, the chubbiest of the ladies who kept straightening her cummerbund like she thought it would show up smaller. “I can’t figure out why no one wants her.” She patted me on the head. I hated that.
        Miss Edna nodded and said, “Yes, she’s quite precocious. That’s about all she has in her favor. I know she’s young, but it would be a shame not to teach her when she’s so eager to learn.”
        Miss Francis, the quiet one, said, “Do you think you’ll ever find her a home?”
       Miss Edna didn’t answer, and that scared me, too. Doesn’t she want to keep me here with her and Granddad? Where else could I go? Maybe they weren’t really talking about me.
        It was a bother that they always fussed over me, and they talked as though I wasn’t right there in the room. I wanted to interrupt them and say, “Hey, I’m here. Please talk to me,” but I didn’t dare. Miss Edna would have said it was rude.
       Miss Pearl fluttered her hankie next to her heart at all times. She said it was to better take the vapors. “Dear Edna,” she said, “you have such forbearance to take the child at our age. God will most certainly bless you.”
      “Please,” I asked. “What’s forbearance?” I liked hearing a new word.
       No one answered me. They just looked uncomfortable and clucked around like a bunch of disturbed hens in the henhouse.
       “Little girls should be seen and not heard,” caroled Miss Edna. “You may be excused to go out and play.” She always said the same thing, “Be sure to change into your play clothes, Katie. Don’t get your Sunday dress dirty.” 
        I made my escape as quickly as I could with every one of these old ladies wanting to touch my hair, or pinch my cheek, or cry a tear or two into their silky lace hankies with initials embroidered on. I didn’t like the cheek-pinchers much. But Miss Edna said I had to be polite to every one of them, because they were her only friends out here in the wilds of Missouri. At the first sign of a pause in the conversation, I’d dash to my little suitcase and put on my play clothes.
        Even in play clothes, no part of my body could ever show. Miss Edna always had me dress behind a screen, alone, even though I had trouble with buttons, some in the back, so they usually didn’t match up right. I wore a hand-me-down dress from some girl named Agnes I didn’t know who lived in Milan, Missouri. It reached almost to my ankles. “You’ll grow into it,” Miss Edna said. Then there were the long white cotton stockings that went all the way up to “there.” To hold up the stockings, there were little rubber clips that were hard to hook together. Miss Edna called them supporters. They hung from a narrow belt underneath my dress, but they could take my skinny fingers all of ten minutes just to fumble each one of them into the metal clasps that held them up. On top of it all, I had to wear a long-sleeved, red slipover sweater with a huge hole in the front, plus a sunbonnet.
        By the time I was dressed, the ladies had usually disappeared, and I could run out the back way unnoticed. I didn’t want anyone to notice me anyway, because I hated that big hole in the sweater. If I objected, though, Miss Edna always said it was still plenty good enough because it kept my arms covered. It seemed every summer day was too hot for a sweater, but I had to wear it anyway, just as I had to wear shoes laced over my long stockings when I wished I could go barefoot.
        When I sat in the outhouse, I looked through the Sears and Roebuck catalog hanging there on a nail, and I dreamed of a bareback sundress like the girls in the catalog wore. I peeked at them as the catalog disappeared page by page. I always saved those pages with little girl clothes for last. I had never seen anything like them. The little girls were always smiling and holding their mother’s hands. I wondered what that would be like. Did they all have mothers? Why didn’t I? Was mine dead, or just lost?
       But Miss Edna scoffed at the mere idea of the Sears, Roebuck clothes and said, “No decent little girl would show off her legs or back or any part of her body, sun or no sun, heat or no heat.” Under Miss Edna’s guidance, I learned that the human body was something very shameful, and I carefully hid from everyone while bathing or dressing. Baring anything, even bare feet, was sinful in her eyes, and therefore, in mine, as well.
        When she put her lips in a straight, flat line, I knew I had somehow displeased her, and I quaked in my knees. After all, I sure didn’t want her to get mad at me if I was a bad girl, because then she might leave me, too. The threat of being abandoned always seemed to hang over my head in everything I did. What if my mama never came back for me, and what if Miss Edna and Granddad got tired of having me on the farm? What if I couldn’t be a good enough girl? I promised every night to God that I’d try harder, but I didn’t know if God helped little girls out of trouble they usually managed to get into all by themselves.

        Working a farm during the Depression was a dawn to dusk workday to make ends meet, I think. Granddad was already out at the barn milking cows by the time I got up and dressed. Miss Edna cleaned in the house until Granddad carried the pails of milk to the back porch, and then she poured the frothy, thick milk into the separator before Granddad carried the separate tall milk cans out to the springhouse. I think the hum of her spinning the separator with a treadle foot contraption was what usually woke me. I stretched, yawned, then got up in the dark, and dressed behind the screen. I’d get to the kitchen just as Granddad came in for breakfast of biscuits and gravy and a cup of thin, watery coffee. Coffee was either hard to get, or maybe it was too expensive, so Miss Edna always made it thinner than Granddad wanted. He liked a lump of sugar in his coffee, but Miss Edna said the sugar lumps were for her church ladies’ tea on Friday.
        Sometimes, when Miss Edna wasn’t looking, I’d swipe a cube from the real Irish porcelain candy dish in her glass sideboard and carry it in my pocket. At breakfast, I’d sneak it out and just “accidentally” drop it into Granddad’s coffee. He’d pretend to be surprised, and we’d both hold our hands over our mouths when Miss Edna turned around and said, “What have you two been up to this time?”
       “Nothing at all, sweet Miss Edna,” he’d say.
       I never said anything, because Granddad said it would be a sin for me to tell a lie. But it was okay for him, because he already knew where he was going, since that’s where Miss Edna always said he’d go. I couldn’t figure that out because Granddad went to church with us, but he said Miss Edna was the “holy one.”