An hour after finishing a phone call to Dot, Dart begins his letter to her with “My Darling ‘Me-Too’.” I suspect that when he ended the call, which she would have received in a public area of her boarding house, he would have said “I love you,” and she would have responded with “Me, too.” She’s still a little shy about public displays of affection.
In the first paragraph of the letter he admits to drifting off into a pretty dream of ‘what-ifs.’ He writes, “I won’t tell you what they are because it would get your hopes too high. Ask me a month from now if they came true.”
He was tickled to get all the Thanksgiving mail. The poetry letters from Dot and his folks have just about convinced him to stop writing poetry, if their offerings are what she thinks poetry is. The Round Robin from Greenwich was a delightful surprise. He says he’ll have to draft some help to write a response to it.
He and Jack Blevins had another nice liberty in Charleston yesterday. Lots of walking and picture-taking, followed by some letter-writing at the Lutheran Serviceman’s Club. If I know Dart, I’m sure they also stopped for a meal or two.
One of these days he says he just may go to the USO or YWCA and display his “elephantine clumsiness” on the dance floor. Most of these dances have a disproportionate number of “gobs” to “frails,” so a guy can wait a long time for a dance.
His mail delivery still has some kinks in it. A money order that he expected last week had been delivered to the ship, buried under paper, rediscovered and returned to Western Union. Some of his letters are sent to the transfer station and some directly to the ship. If he doesn’t check both places often enough, letters are returned to sender. More Navy bungling, but as long as some of Dot’s letters get through, he seems to be patient with the process.
And now some thoughts from their phone call: He’ll honor her request to take some photos of the places he sees on this cruise. He says he’ll go one better and even keep a journal of places and events. After all, with the war over, there will be no restrictions on keeping ship movements secret.
At the risk of disillusioning her, he’ll tell her his theory about why he seems to be taking news of this extended cruise so calmly. She thought he was simply accepting the inevitable and being mature about the whole situation. He’s a little more cynical about it. He feels he has had so many disappointments from his Navy experience that each one brings a certain degree of numbness. Now he simply doesn’t feel things as deeply. After he was cheated out of a pre-deployment leave when he finally got out of the hospital, he believes he can handle anything the Navy wants to shove his way. “After a certain amount of pain, a threshold is reached, beyond which the nerves will carry no stronger impulses.”
He comments that men “aren’t supposed” to feel the way women do. He chimes that women are more lovable when they cry and feel things deeply. “What are women for, except to be loved by men? (Don’t answer that – might lead to bloodshed – if you can heave a hatchet this far.)” I’m relieved to know that his apparent chauvinism is all in jest.
Here, he thanks her for being such a marvelous person and for falling and staying in love with him. Sometimes his sweetness makes my heart hurt.
How he likes the scene she described in her recent letter of their clothes hanging side-by-side! He also likes her daydream of more clothes, bigger closet, together forever. “I get a thrill out of things like that. Things that remind me of being with you. Things that remind us we’re planning to be together, always. Naturally, they don’t give me as much of a thrill as actually being with you, but isn’t anticipating those things fun?”
He ponders where they’ll spend their first married night together. Will it be Sunapee? That would be a perfect spot, but will they be too tired and nervous after a big wedding to make that trip? He’s also been thinking about silverware. Are they supposed to pick a pattern together, or does the bride choose? Maybe somebody gives them a spoon and then everyone who knows them rushes to the store to buy matching pieces for that spoon. If he’s allowed any say in the subject, he’d prefer a simple, pattern – nothing too frilly or fancy. I suspect Dot will share that vision, but isn’t he an exceptional guy to be thinking about such things?
Now, who the heck is this Mary Koehler who showed up for a visit over Thanksgiving? Dot mentioned her, but Dart doesn’t know who she is. “Mom mentioned that she showed up once out of the clear sky and has been a ‘regular customer’ ever since. Somebody says I know her but I disclaim all acquaintance with her.” Who is this mystery girl that shows up to visit Dot and his parents?
Dart begins to daydream again. This time, he and Dot are kissing and then they stop to share their thoughts on the topic. He catches her off guard and kisses her while she’s laughing. He squeezes her while she’s laughing and feels the quakes of her diaphragm. Now there’s a little wrestling and some tight holds thrown in “for good measure.” Then he adds, “Golly, Dot, I tingle all over and have a hollow feeling inside when I think of things like that.”
“It’s supper time. These sessions of lovemaking make me hungry. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love only you, from the beginning to the end of every minute, hour, day, and month. Goodnight, Darling.”
Dot begins her letter on a rant. There’s an 18-year old housemate who is about to get a divorce from a man she never loved in the first place. She’s holding court and filling some of the girls’ heads with all kinds of obscene and unsavory notions about “married life.” It makes Dot so disgusted and she wishes that girl would stop talking. She wonders why there is so much indecency in the world and why some people seem happy to spread it around.
She’s so thankful for Dart and all he stands for. She can’t imagine two happier people in the world than they. “Before I met you, I never thought much about life or the future; after I met you, I wondered how I’d managed to live without knowing you and loving you, and now that we’ve been separated again, I wonder how I can live until we start our lives together for always.”
His phone call tonight meant the world to her – to hear his voice and sense his smile was almost like being with him. She was happy to hear him laugh and know that he’d not forgotten how. She began to wish she could see him and touch him and kiss him. But then she realized how much harder it is to dwell on what you want than to focus on what is possible and she came back to her senses.
She’s impressed that he has received fan mail and wonders if the Navy would provide him with a private secretary to handle the volume. She certainly hopes he responds to that young man who wrote to him. She’s a little jealous that Hal Martin is awaiting his discharge, but thinks it’ll be nice that he’ll have to pay for the weenie roast. Wouldn’t it be great if she and Dart were married by the time that happened? She just hopes it’s not two years from now.
Perhaps referring to part of their phone conversation, she asks if he’d rather be happily free and dependent on no one, or would he rather be in love and sometimes feel deep pain as a result of that relationship? She suggests that happiness that comes from “living each day, taking nothing and giving nothing is thin-skinned and easily dies.” Dart, we’re lucky to have those low moments, for without them, how would we know our love is true?”
Continuing a theme that emerges often in their recent letters, she would be delighted for him to wake her some morning with a kiss. She knows she’d like it, because she dreamed it last night. When she awoke, she was clutching his picture that had been on the night stand when she went to sleep. “I dreamed something else, too, but I don’t want to make you blush again.”
She must get to sleep because she has an early class tomorrow. In her next letter, she’ll tell him all about what she and his folks did on her last day with them. She loves them more every time she sees them. “And I love you more every second.”
