youngest of three girls. Her sisters were both married and living within a square mile of where they had grown up in Westport, Connecticut. Tom’s attention was a welcome draw away from the small-town life that had always felt so stifling, and the future of interminable bridge games and rotary club meetings that seemed inevitable if she stayed.
She and Tom married after her high school graduation and rented a house in New Haven while he was in college, making plans to move to Boston when he finished. They spoke of a belated honeymoon, a cruise to Europe perhaps upon the Queen Elizabeth II or another ocean liner. But then the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and Tom had insisted on signing up for officers’ school after he graduated. He’d been training down at Fort Benning and about to deploy.
“I’ve gotten weekend leave,” he said that last night on the phone, arranging things as he always had. “It isn’t long enough for me to come up to Connecticut, but meet me in Manhattan and we’ll have a weekend. You’ll see me off at New York Harbor.”
That was the last she’d heard from him. The jeep carrying him had crashed, going too quickly around a curve on the way to the rail station, a stupid accident that might have been prevented. Grace often looked wistfully at the yellow ribbons, the flowers that the other women wore. Not just the trappings of war widowhood but the pride and the purpose—the sense that all of the loss and pain had been for something.
Grace had gone back to Westport briefly after Tom’s funeral. Marcia, a childhood friend who wanted to help Grace, had kindly offered to host Grace for a visit at her family’s place in the Hamptons. Grace had felt such immense relief at being away from her family’s sympathetic gazes and the too-close town of her youth. She had found the silence of the coast out of season deafening, though, and so she had left for Manhattan. But she had told her family she was going to stay with Marcia and recover for an extended time, knowing they would never agree to her living alone in the city. Marcia had gone along with the scheme, forwarding any letters from her family that came. That was nearly a year ago and Grace still hadn’t gone back.
Grace finished eating and returned to the office. The ragtag queue of clients had dispersed now that morning-intake hours were over. Frankie was nowhere to be found, but he had left her a pile of correspondence to be typed, letters to various city agencies on behalf of their clients. Grace picked up the first one and studied it, then inserted a sheet of paper in the typewriter, losing herself in the repetitive clack-clack sound.
When it was finished, she reached for the next paper, then stopped. She opened her bag and pulled out the envelope containing the photos, splaying them out in front of her in a fan shape. Twelve girls, each young and beautiful. They might have been part of a sorority. But most wore uniforms and beneath the smiles their jaws were set grimly, eyes solemn. The photos had been wrapped lovingly in the lace. They were still worn from handling, though, cupped like the shape of a palm. Putting her fingers beneath, Grace could almost feel the energy radiating from them.
She turned one over and there was a name scrawled on the back. Marie. Madeline, read another, and Jean and Josie. On and on, sounding like attendees at a garden party. Who were they?
She glanced up. Frankie had returned and was on the phone across the room, gesturing animatedly to whomever was on the other end of the line, verging on angry. She could show the photos to him, ask his advice. He might know what to do. But how could she explain having reached in the suitcase and looked, much less taken something that was not hers?
Grace ran her finger lightly over the first photo she had seen, of the young, dark-haired beauty called Josie. Look away, a voice inside her seemed to say. Studying the photographs, Grace was suddenly overcome by an uneasy feeling. Who was she anyway, stealing photos and sleeping with strange men? This wasn’t her business. She needed to return them to the suitcase.
Frankie started across the office toward her and she scooped up the photos hurriedly, tucking them back into her bag. Had he seen? She held her breath, waiting for