Elizabeth Blackwell - The Letter

Father rubbed his hand over the top of her head. If hiding her fear and anger would keep her family together, if pretending happiness could somehow erase the shame hovering over them like a fog, Lydia was determined to put up a brave front.

“Yes,” said Father. “Home.”

The house, while smaller than the one they’d had in Winnetka, wasn’t nearly as bad as Lydia had feared. For Knox Junction, it was positively palatial: four bedrooms, a deep porch lined with white columns, an enormous kitchen with walk-in pantry. Even Mother nodded approvingly. Living in such a home seemed to bode well. Surely the family of the town’s new doctor, living in one of the finest houses in town, would be greeted with excitement and respect?

Lydia’s hopes of being embraced by Knox Junction were soon shattered. On her first day of school, she could feel the eyes of her classmates focus on her with confusion rather than welcome. Had Henry been the only one to look at her as more than a suspicious outsider? He must have been there, in that room, but she couldn’t remember him. To Lydia, all those faces blended together, a blank wall she could never penetrate. Cheery Nell had an easier time of it. Within a few weeks she was walking home from school chattering about the funny rag dolls she’d played with at recess.

But for Lydia, school was a disaster. In her first school year at Knox Junction, she made exactly one friend, Melanie Dixon, whose parents ran the town’s hotel. Being raised among travelers had broadened Melanie’s outlook. She was the only classmate who treated Lydia as a normal person, rather than an interloper.

Lydia had developed a habit of reading during recess, a routine that shielded her from the fact that the other girls ignored her, while simultaneously insuring a reputation as stuck-up and proud.

The book that day was Little Women. Lydia had only gotten through the second chapter when she saw Melanie’s face peering at her over the top.

“Do you like to sew?” she asked.

The question was so unexpected, Lydia didn’t know how to respond. Was Melanie trying to make some connection between sewing and the book? Was this a test, something she’d be teased about later?

Lydia shrugged. “I’m not very good,” she said.

“I could teach you if you want,” Melanie said. “But, you see, I thought I’d make something for the social, and if you want some help with your dress…”

“The social?” Lydia asked.

“Don’t you know? We always have one on a Friday afternoon in June, to celebrate the end of the school year. We don’t have dates, exactly, but there’s dancing with the boys.” Melanie smiled in anticipation, and her round cheeks and kind dark eyes were such a welcome sight that Lydia smiled back.

“Oh, I don’t know if that’s the sort of thing I’d do….” she began, then stopped herself. She heard how her own words sounded the second they flew out of her mouth—“not the sort of thing I’d do”—and she realized that distancing herself to be protected from rejection could only lead to more rejection.

“That is, I’m not a very good dancer,” Lydia said. “But I’d be happy to help you with your dress, if you want.”

“Can you do embroidery? There’s a darling pattern I’d like to put along the bodice.”

Lydia nodded. “That sounds like fun. Could you show me how?” Lydia’s previous sewing experience had been strictly practical—mending holes and finishing hems—and Mother never failed to criticize her crooked seams and uneven stitches. But Lydia was willing to risk bloody fingers if it meant having a friend.

The friendship that blossomed between the two girls was rooted in pity (on Melanie’s part) and gratitude (on Lydia’s). But lasting friendships have been built on shakier ground, and gradually Melanie softened Lydia’s wariness. Lydia absorbed Melanie’s passion for sewing, and Melanie marveled over her ability to sketch a dress pattern. Lydia had never thought much about her talent for art. She’d been drawing and painting as long as she could remember. But through Melanie’s admiring eyes she began to see her way with shapes and color as something special. Her own particular gift.

But encouraging Lydia’s love of art was only one of the ways Melanie changed Lydia’s life. The other had to do with Henry Armstrong.

It was a week or so before the social, an event Lydia had grudgingly agreed to attend. The future had seemed especially precarious then, in the spring of 1942. Adults talked worriedly about Pearl Harbor and France and the draft. A sense of unease had penetrated even isolated Knox Junction, as boys from the surrounding farms talked about joining up and the men gathered at the general store talked ominously of gasoline rations. The glares between Mother and Father continued to make Lydia’s home a battlefront.

The social would at least be a distraction from Lydia’s daily routine, although she dreaded spending the afternoon as a wallflower. She’d secretly experimented with different hairstyles in the bathroom mirror at home, taking out her pigtails and attempting to brush her thick, chestnut-brown hair into glamorous waves. But once she’d achieved the desired effect—her dark brown eyes, framed by long lashes, peeking around the swirls of hair—she could tell it wasn’t enough. Her thin lips and narrow nose accentuated the suspicious gaze with which she greeted the world. She would never be pretty enough to make boys overlook her schoolmarm reputation.

“Of course someone will ask you to dance!” Melanie declared when Lydia threatened once again not to go.

“Who? Lyle Shea?” Lydia threw out the name of a boy who was best known for bragging about his hogs. Lydia doubted he’d ever read anything other than the Farmers’ Almanac.

“Oh, I know someone who’s sweet on you,” said Melanie with a teasing grin.

“Who?”

“Henry Armstrong.”

Lydia knew who he was by then, but not much more. Henry. Slim, wiry, with lightly freckled cheeks and thick blond hair that stuck up in a cowlick on the back of his head. Henry, who sat in the back of the classroom and never spoke. A farmer’s son who disappeared for a week or two in April to help with the planting. Indistinguishable from all the rest of them—or so Lydia thought.

“Henry? What makes you say that?” she asked Melanie.

“The way I’ve seen him stare at you,” Melanie said. “He looks at you more than any other girl.”

“Did he say something?”

“No. But you know how boys are,” Melanie said with a wise nod. Lydia wondered about her friend’s qualifications as an expert in male behavior. As far as she could tell, Melanie’s interactions with boys consisted of fluttering her eyelashes, giggling and not much else. Still, this news about Henry was intriguing. Not that she cared about him, particularly; she hardly knew him. But the idea that anyone might be paying attention to her was encouraging.

Despite Melanie’s promising news, the social itself went as badly as Lydia imagined it would. The boys lined up against one wall, the girls against another, and a good half hour passed before anyone dared cross to the middle of the room. Eventually, a few awkward pairings stomped across the floor, under the watchful eyes of parental chaperones. Melanie even danced with Lyle Shea, rolling her eyes behind his back for Lydia’s benefit. Lydia remained with her back pressed against the wall, despite Melanie’s whispered attempts to find her a partner when she thought Lydia wasn’t listening.

Henry Armstrong wasn’t there.

Unable to bear the humiliation any longer, Lydia finally strode outside, wincing at the sun hovering over the horizon. She saw Mrs. Glover, the woman who ran the general store and acted as local postmistress, sweeping up the store’s front porch before closing. Lydia dashed across the street.