Summer of '69(118)

“No, no, go with your grandmother,” Kate says. “And take Kirby.”



Kate is sitting on the edge of the bed with the picture of the family from last summer resting in her lap when David arrives. She’s afraid to go down to greet him in case he has bad news. As it turns out, he meets her halfway up the stairs and says, “Nothing.”

Nothing. No one came to the house last night, no one called. How long does it take? Kate wonders.

“Will you come with me to church?” Kate asks. “I need to pray.”

David raises his eyebrows. “Church?”

“Please?” she says.

He nods. “Let this be proof,” he says, “that I will do anything for you, Katharine Nichols.”

They head outside and down Fair Street. David is Jewish, and Jewish people generally don’t pray in Christian churches. Kate and David were married at the Massachusetts State House by a judge whom David knew through work. David’s parents, Bud and Freda, had flown up from Florida to serve as witnesses, and afterward they took the newlyweds to dinner at Locke-Ober. Exalta refused to attend, and she would not allow Penn to go—although Penn secretly arranged for a limousine to whisk Kate and David to an inn in the Berkshires for a three-day honeymoon. It was understood by everyone that Exalta objected to the marriage because David was Jewish.

In the time that Kate and David have been married, it has never mattered that he’s Jewish. Kate takes the children to church on Easter and Christmas, and once a summer they attend evensong services at St. Paul’s.

Kate initially thinks of going to St. Paul’s. It’s a beautiful church with a pipe organ and real Tiffany windows. The Nichols family have belonged to St. Paul’s for generations, although Kate acknowledges it’s more of a social pursuit than a religious one. She could get down on the needlepoint kneelers, gaze at the light filtering in through the sumptuous windows, and pray—and David would pray with her. But at the last minute, she changes her mind and crosses the street to the Quaker Meeting House. David relaxes. He pulls open the wooden plank door and they enter the simple house of worship. There are wooden pews on either side of an aisle that face a raised platform with bench seating; there are four unadorned twenty-four-pane windows. The room conveys a holiness and a purity and a luminosity that Kate craves; she knows that the Quakers value silent introspection. Church for the Quakers is when two or more people pray together; it has nothing to do with bricks and mortar.

Kate sits; David sits. Kate bows her head; David takes her hand.

They are a church.

Richard Pennington Foley. Tiger. When Kate closes her eyes, she sees his chubby infant legs and round cheeks. She hears his giggle when the girls tickle him. She sees him sulking about the lima beans on his dinner plate; later, Kate would find them, flattened, under the tablecloth at Tiger’s place. She remembers him chasing seagulls at the beach, skipping rocks, picking crabs up by their hind legs and waving them—snapping claw and all—at his sisters. She remembers rebuttoning his dress shirt correctly and wetting his hair down before dinner with Exalta at the Union Club. She recalls the way he smelled after football practice—sweat, grass, pride. She sees him leaping into the air for the ball, strong-arming his way into the end zone. He was such an excellent player that Kate had nearly been embarrassed. She sees him with Magee the night before he deployed, his chin resting on Magee’s head, his eyes closed, as if he’s memorizing how she felt in his arms. Kate had turned away, thinking the relationship wasn’t real because it hadn’t had enough time to steep. Magee would leave him for a boy who was available. But Kate would never leave Tiger. She would never replace him. She was his mother. She was forever.

If he’s gone, Kate thinks, she will never recover. That’s all there is to it.

She feels safe in the meeting house, buffered by the plain white walls. She can hear birdsong from outside, and through the window, she spies the green leaves of an oak, the piercing blue of the cloudless sky. God is up there, she supposes. She hopes.

Keep him safe, she says in her mind. This is foxhole religion at its most basic. The only person who wants the soldier to live more than the soldier himself is the soldier’s mother. Kate wishes she were praying with a pure heart, with a decent past. She wishes she had been more devout, faithful, penitent. All she can say for herself is that she is self-aware. She understands her sins, acknowledges her flaws, owns her mistakes.

So many sins.

So many flaws.

So, so many mistakes.

If he’s gone, it’s her fault.

She stands up. “Let’s go.”

“You sure?” David says.

“Yes,” she says. “Thank you.”



As they approach All’s Fair, they see Exalta and Bill Crimmins standing on the front walk.

Bill Crimmins has an envelope in his hands.

A telegram, Kate thinks. Dear Mrs. Levin, It is with great sorrow that we inform you…

She screams. She howls; she bends over in the middle of Fair Street and then she’s choking, retching, sobbing, and David grabs her around the waist in an attempt to pull her upright.

“Katharine!” Exalta calls out. Scolding.

Kate doesn’t care what she looks like. She doesn’t care who sees her or what kind of scene she’s making. Her son is dead.

Bill Crimmins runs down the street toward them clutching the envelope but Kate doesn’t want him anywhere near her. She waves her arms and cries, “Go away! Go away! You promised you would help him! You promised you would bring him home!”