At last Elly asked, "What should we name her?" She glanced up. "You know a pretty name, Will?" But his mind went blank. "How 'bout you, Donald Wade, what do you wanna call her?"
Donald Wade had no more notion that Will.
"You got a name, Thomas?"
Of course he didn't. She'd asked him out of courtesy, so he wouldn't feel left out. Touching the baby's hair with a knuckle, Elly said, "I been thinkin' about Lizzy. What you all think o' that?"
"Lizzy?" Donald Wade scrunched up his nose.
"Lizzy the lizard?" Thomas put in.
They all laughed. "Now, where'd you get that?"
Donald Wade reminded her, "From the story you told us about how the lizard got bumps."
"Oh..." She continued fondling the fine black hair on the baby's head. "No, this one'll just be Lizzy. Elizabeth Parker, I think."
Will's eyes shot to Elly's. "Parker?"
"Well, you delivered her, didn't you? Man deserves some credit for a thing like that."
Lord, in a minute he was gonna burst. This woman would give him everything. Everything, before she was through! He reached for the baby's head and stroked her temple with the back of a finger.
Lizzy
, he thought.
Lizzy P.
You'n me gonna be buddies, darlin'. He stretched one hand to Elly's hair, and circled Donald Wade's rump with his free arm and touched Thomas's leg, on the far side of Elly. And he smiled at Lizzy P. and thought,
Heaven's got nothin' on being the husband of Eleanor Dinsmore.
Chapter 14
W
ill's smile announced the news to Miss Beasley even before his words. "She had a girl."
"And you delivered her."
He shrugged and quirked his head at an angle. "It wasn't so hard after all."
"Don't be so humble, Mr. Parker.
I
would collapse in fright if I had to deliver a baby. It went all right?"
"Perfect. Started yesterday around
and ended around three-thirty. Her name's Lizzy."
"Lizzy. Very fetching."
"Lizzy P."
"Lizzy P." She cocked an eyebrow.
"Yes'm." He fairly twitched with excitement, a rare thing.
"And what is the P for?"
"Parker. Feature that—she named that little girl after me. After a no-count drifter who doesn't even know where he got that name. Wait'll you see her, Miss Beasley, she's got hair black as coal and fingernails so small you can hardly find 'em. I never saw a baby up close before! She's incredible."
Miss Beasley beamed, hiding a swift pang of regret for the child she'd never had, the husband who'd never rejoiced over it.
"You must congratulate Eleanor for me and tell her I'll expect Lizzy to begin visiting the library no later than her fifth birthday. You cannot get a child interested in books too early."
"I'll tell 'er, Miss Beasley."
* * *
Those were special days and nights, immediately after the baby's birth—Will awakening to the sound of Lizzy tuning up in the basket, rising with Elly to turn her over and talk soft nonsense to her. The two of them together, laughing when the cold air hit the baby's skin and her face puckered in preparation for the adorable soft sobbing that hadn't yet grown to be an irritation. And each morning, Will cooking breakfast for the boys, delivering Elly a tray and a kiss, then giving Lizzy P. her bath before washing diapers and hanging them out to dry. He changed Lizzy's diaper whenever Elly didn't beat him to it. He dusted the house and put the bluebird on her bedside table. He sterilized the rubber nipples and prepared the watered-down milk and got the bottles ready during the days before Elly's milk came in. He prepared supper and got the boys all fed and changed into pajamas before kissing them and Elly and Lizzy goodbye and heading into town.
But afterward was best. After the long day when he'd return and there'd be lazy minutes lying in bed with the baby between Elly and him while they watched her sleep, or hiccup, or cross her eyes or suck her fist. And they'd dream about her future and theirs, and look into each other's eyes and wonder if there'd be another like her, one of their own.
They had three such glorious days before the bombs fell.
On Sunday "Ma Trent" wasn't on, but Elly was lying in bed listening to the Columbia Broadcast System while the New York Philharmonic tuned up for Symphony #1 by somebody called Shostakovich when John Daly's voice announced, "The Japanese have attacked
Pearl Harbor
!"
At first Elly didn't fully understand. Then the tension in Daly's voice struck home and she sat up abruptly. "Will! Come quick!"
Thinking something was amiss with her or the baby, he came on the run.
"What's wrong?"
"They bombed us!"
"Who?"
"The Japanese—listen!"
They listened, like all the rest of
America
, for the remainder of the day and evening. They heard of the sinking of five
U.S.
battleships on a peaceful Hawaiian island, of the destruction of 140 American aircraft and the loss of over 2,000 American lives. They heard the voice of Kate Smith singing "God Bless
America
" and the national army band playing the "Star-Spangled Banner." They heard of blackout alerts along the western seaboard, where a Japanese invasion was feared and where thousands rushed to volunteer for the armed forces. There were amazing stories of men rising from restaurant tables, leaving unfinished plates, walking to the closest recruiting office to find the line of volunteers—within an hour of the first radio reports—already eight city blocks long.
In
Whitney
,
Georgia
—a short plane ride from another vulnerable shore—Will and Elly turned out the lights early and went to bed wondering what the next day would bring.
It brought the voice of President Roosevelt.
"Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between
San Francisco
and
Honolulu
.
"Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against
Malaya
.
"Last night Japanese forces attacked
Hong Kong
.
"Last night Japanese forces attacked
Guam
.
"Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
"Last night the Japanese attacked
Wake Island
.
"This morning the Japanese attacked
"With confidence in our armed forces—with the unbounded determination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.
"I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by
Japan
on Sunday, December seventh, a state of war has existed between the
United States
and the Japanese Empire."
Will and Elly stared at the radio. At each other.
Not now
, she thought.
Not now, when everything just got right.
So this is it
, he thought.
I'll go just like hundreds of others are going.
He was surprised to find himself fired with some of the same outrage as that conflagrating through the rest of
America
: for the first time Will felt the righteousness of President Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" because for the first time he enjoyed them all. And being a family man made them the more dear.
In bed that night he lay awake and thoughtful. Elly lay tense. After a long silence she rolled to him and held him possessively.
"Will you have to go?"
"Shh."
"But you're a father now. How could they take a father with a brand-new baby and two others to see after?"
"I'm thirty. I'm registered. The draft law says twenty-one to thirty-five." "Maybe they won't call you up."
"We'll worry about it when the time comes."
Minutes later, when they'd lain clutching hands in the silence, he told her, "I'm gonna get that generator goin' for you, and fix up a refrigerator and an electric washer and make sure everything's in perfect shape around the place."
She gripped his hand and rolled her face against his arm. "No, Will ... no."
At one in the morning, when Lizzy woke up hungry, Will asked Elly to leave the lamp on. In the pale amber lantern glow he lay on his side and watched her nurse the baby, watched the small white fists push the blue-tinged breast, watched the pocket-gopher cheeks bulge and flatten as they drew sustenance, watched Elly's fingers shape a stand-up curl on Lizzy's delicate head.
He thought of all he had to live for. All he had to fight for. It was only a matter of making Elly and the kids secure before he left.
* * *
The radio was never off after that. Day by day they heard of an unprepared
America
at war. In
Washington
,
Springfield
rifles, while on December eighth Japanese bombers struck two
U.S.
airfields in the
Philippines
and on the tenth Japanese forces began to land on
Luzon
.
At first it all seemed remote to Elly, but Will brought the newspapers home from the library and studied the Japanese movement on tiny maps which brought the war closer. He worked in the town hall where recruiters were already posted twelve hours a day. Billboards out front and in the vestibule entreated, DEFEND YOUR COUNTRY—ENLIST NOW—U.S. ARMY. Across
America
it continued. The outrage. The bristling. The growing American frenzy to 'loin up."
Will found himself in a frenzy of his own—to get things done.
He finished the wind generator and hooked it to the radio because their batteries were nearly worn out and new ones unobtainable. Since the wind generator wouldn't create enough electricity to power larger appliances, he installed a gasoline-driven motor on an old hand-operated agitator washing machine and fashioned a homemade water heater fueled by kerosene. It stood beside the tub like a gangly monster with a drooping snout. The day he filled the bathtub for the first time they celebrated. The boys took the first baths, followed by El and finally by Will himself. But there was no denying that the elation they'd expected upon using the tub for the first time was tempered by the unspoken realization of why Will was hurrying to get so much done around the place.
Miss Beasley came to call when Lizzy was ten days old, surprising everyone. She brought a sweater and bootee set for the baby and
Timothy Totter's Tatters
for the boys—not the library copy but a brand-new one they could keep. They were awed by a stranger bringing them a gift and by the book itself and the idea that it belonged to them. Miss Beasley got them set up studying the pictures with a promise to read the book aloud as soon as she'd visited with their mother.
"So you're up and about again," she said to Eleanor.
"Yes. Will spoils me silly, though."
"A woman deserves a little spoiling occasionally." Without the slightest hint of warmth in her voice she dictated, "Now, I should very much like to see that young one of yours."
"Oh ... of course. Come, she's in our bedroom."
Elly led the way and Will followed, standing back with his hands in his rear pockets while Miss Beasley leaned over the laundry basket and inspected the sleeping face. She crossed her hands over her stomach, stepped back and declared, "You have a beautiful child there, Eleanor."