Page 29 of The Blackout Book Club

If only she’d remembered that when it came to handsome suitors.

She read on. Martina could almost hear her mother’s stern voice, see the fierce nods that would punctuate each word. Her mother hadn’t told Patrick much, vaguely hinting that Martina had found a new job and specifically stating that they didn’t want to see him again. To her surprise, he’d apologized for bothering her and left.

Daughter, be careful. There was no trouble in what that man said or inhow he acted. But it worries me still. I think he spoke to some of the neighbors before coming to me, and who knows what they might have told him.

In the North End of Boston, the boundaries of family business could be broad, and when Patrick was in one of his hat-tipping and dimpling moods, no Italian mamma with a heart beneath her well-worn apron would think ill of him.

Unless they knew him, of course.The robes don’t make the monk, indeed. Or as Hamlet said,“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

She rubbed her temples, feeling them swell with a familiar pressure.

If Patrick knew she was here, he’d look for her at the churches near Bristol. That’s how he’d found her before, when she’d moved in with her mother and he’d gotten leave after boot camp. She could almost picture him, slouching in the back of the small Catholic church, where he’d be sure to see her before she could see him.

He hadn’t hurt or threatened her. He never did. But that smirking way he spoke to her, the way he begged for money and somehow made her feel it was her fault he was hard up in the first place, the unkept promises he made ... all of it took a toll.

No, she wouldn’t be going to Mass. Not this week.

A bubbling sound alerted her to the red sauce spilling out from under the lid in a violent burst, spattering the stovetop and the wall behind.

She nearly burnt her hand slamming the pot on an unused burner, then futilely tried to scrape what she could into a bowl until she reached the tar-like burnt crust on the bottom. There would be enough for the children, at least. She could eat later.

The dishcloth she applied to wipe away the stains gave her purpose, something to think about and do with her hands. She could repeat this during her shift. She could block out the news. Focus on Rosa’s art project, write a grocery list, plan what to say at the book club.

Think of Ophelia, driven to drown herself over the hurtful tirades and actions of a rejected lover.

No, do not think of that.

Martina was still cleaning when the children came home from school. Rosa immediately flopped on the divan, taking out the book with gorgeous painted pictures that the kind librarian had loaned her, escaping into the world of fairies, talking animals, and dancing princesses. A place where evil was easy to identify ... though often close to home.

Gio nodded at the discarded letter, abandoned in her hurry to salvage dinner. Sauce specked the envelope like drops of blood. “Is that from Da?”

Martina snatched the letter, with its incriminating first line, and tucked it into her pocket, displaying only the envelope. “No, son. It’s from yournonna.”

“Oh.” His face, though it was lengthening and losing its childlike chubbiness, still showed the sadness of a boy whose father so often disappointed him. “I bet he’s so tired from training he doesn’t have time to write.”

Martina didn’t answer. The last she had told them—the last she’d heard from Patrick—was that their father had gone to a center in Illinois for specialized radio training before deploying. Though he clearly was not there now.

“Did you know that the bullets they use in battleship guns weigh over a ton?”

She bit her lip. “I did not.”

You should tell him the truth, part of her admonished.That his da can’t write because you didn’t tell him where you were moving.

No—the separation of his parents was a burden he didn’t need to carry.

“I read about it at school.” Gio tossed his schoolbooks on the table, making no move to open them. “Last week, everyone with a family member in the service got to wear a red star sticker on their shirt.”

Wasn’t that what all of them wanted, deep down? To be noticed and praised?

She wouldn’t take that from him. Not yet.

“I’m sure your da would be very proud of you.” Martina reached out to tousle his curls, then stopped, remembering he’d asked her not to do that anymore. “Better start your homework.”

Only fifteen minutes until Ginny came to pick her up.Another shift of packing sand into molds for hours, too much time to think, to worry, to try to pray and hear nothing but the silence of an offended and long-ignored God.

She forced her mind from the thought. She would focus onHamlet. Think of something to say to impress the other women, something to help her fit in. Maybe she’d even gather up the courage to suggest that the book club read a romance next. The real world had far too many stories that ended in tragedy.

Notes from the Blackout Book Club—May 16, 1942

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