repeated humiliations the United States had suffered at the hands of the Confederacy, Britain, and France before the Great War. And, though his own father was part of the cost of licking the Confederate States, he didn't think about that, either.
Well, why would he? went through Sylvia's mind. He hardly remembers his father. How do you miss what you didn't even know you had?
She stood on tiptoe to kiss George, Jr., on the cheek. 'Go to bed now. It's late. It's so late, it's getting early.' He laughed at that, though Sylvia knew perfectly well what she'd meant. She went on, 'I'm happy for you.'
'Connie's the most wonderful girl in the world.' He spoke with absolute conviction.
Did she already let him into her bed, to make him that happy? Sylvia shrugged. It hardly mattered, not if they were getting married soon. The worst that could happen was a baby, and most people looked the other way if a first baby came seven or eight months after the wedding instead of the usual nine. 'All right, son. Sleep tight tonight, and we'll talk more in the morning.'
In the morning, though, George, Jr., was still asleep when Mary Jane's alarm clock went off. He didn't wake up, either; in fact, his breathing didn't even change. Mary Jane got dressed while Sylvia made coffee for both of them. Her daughter had landed a typist's job. Neither of them knew how long it would last. They both knew she couldn't afford to be late. She'd got the job when the girl who had it before was late three times in two weeks.
Along with the coffee and eggs over hard, Sylvia gave Mary Jane the news. 'That's wonderful!' Mary Jane squealed. She hugged Sylvia. 'Wonderful!'
'Have you met the girl?' Sylvia asked. 'I haven't.'
'Once,' her daughter answered. 'We were at a dance together. We'd come separately, but we were both there at the same time. She's blond-green eyes. Pretty enough, I guess.' Mary Jane shrugged, as if to say what men saw in women was largely a closed book to her.
It was to Sylvia, too, but she said, 'George certainly seems to think so. Do you care that she's Catholic?'
'Not me,' Mary Jane said at once. 'As long as she gets along with George, that's what matters.'
'That's what I think, too. We're going to have to meet her and her folks, you know. I wonder what they'll be like.' Sylvia sighed. 'I wonder if they have a telephone. If they do, I could go to a booth and call them up and arrange it. But Lord only knows how many McGillicuddys there are in Boston.'
'If they have a telephone, George will know the number.' Mary Jane was bound to be right about that. She gulped down the last of the coffee, rose from the table, and put on hat and overcoat against the cold, nasty weather outside. She hurried to the door, then turned back. 'I'll see you tonight. Gotta run now, or I'll miss the trolley.'
Sylvia had been laid off from a job in a canning plant not long before, just as she had after the Great War ended. She wasn't hurting yet, not with Mary Jane working and with the money she'd made in the 1932 presidential campaign, some of which she still had. Not going out to look for work one morning didn't worry her.
George, Jr., emerged from bed, still yawning, a little before nine. 'They want to meet you, too, Ma, and Mary Jane,' he said when Sylvia asked him about the McGillicuddys. 'They haven't got a telephone, though. I'll set it up when I see Connie.'
Sylvia and Mary Jane went to the McGillicuddys' house-it was a house, not a flat-near T Wharf two days later, on Sunday afternoon. Constance's father, Patrick, was a redhead, going gray; her mother, Margaret, had hair whose defiant gold had to come from a dye bottle. George, Jr.'s, intended also had three strapping brothers and a kid sister who couldn't have been much above ten. A big black dog named Nemo barked and wagged his tail and generally considered the house to be his, with the McGillicuddys tolerated guests whose purpose in life was to keep him full of horsemeat.
'You've got a fine boy there,' Patrick McGillicuddy said, squeezing Sylvia's hand as she stood in the front hall. 'We're glad to have him in the family.' He didn't particularly talk like an Irishman. Looking Mary Jane up and down, he went on, 'And I think Connor and Larry and Paul will be glad to have his sister in the family.' His sons grinned.
'I'm glad to have her in the family, too,' said Constance's sister, whose name was Liz.
'Good for you, dear,' her father said, 'but I don't think you're glad the way your brothers are.' The young men's grins grew wider. Liz look confused. Whatever the McGillicuddys were going to tell her about the birds and bees, they didn't seem to have told her yet.
The way Connie looked at George, Jr., and the way she clung to him whenever she got the chance, told Sylvia everything she needed to know on that score. Her eyes met Margaret McGillicuddy's. The two women shared a moment of perfect understanding. Enjoy it while it lasts, their faces both said, because it doesn't usually last long.
'One of these days, I'm going to read your book,' Patrick McGillicuddy told Sylvia. She nodded politely; she'd heard that a good many times. He went on, 'You made a lot of people proud when you went down to the CSA and did what you did. Could have been me you were paying that sub skipper back for, easy as not.'
She could tell he spoke from the heart. 'Thank you,' she said. 'That means a lot to me, especially since George tells me you were in the Navy, too.'
'Only luck I'm still here.' He suddenly seemed to remember he had a drink in his hand. Raising it, he said, 'And we've got luck right here in the room with us. To Connie and George!' He drank. So did Sylvia. So did everyone else.
A nother lonely winter night. Lucien Galtier took some fried chicken off the stove. He would never make a good cook, but he'd got to the point where he didn't mind eating what he made. After he finished supper, he washed dishes and tidied up as meticulously as he could. Marie would have expected it of him, and he didn't want to let her down. It wasn't as good a job as she would have done, but he hoped she would give him credit for making the effort.
After he put the last plate in the drainer-no matter what his wife had done, he couldn't make himself waste time drying dishes-he left the kitchen and went out to the parlor: the living room, people were calling it these days. He turned on the wireless and waited for sound to start coming out of it.
As music began to play, Lucien tapped the cabinet. 'This is a marvelous machine,' he said, talking to himself as he often did while alone. 'It makes me feel I have company, even when I have none.'
The music stopped. The people on the wireless began to try to sell him laundry soap. He listened to the pitch with half an ear while he lit a cigarette. Not all the company was welcome. Another little skit proclaimed the virtues of a brand of tobacco different from the one he smoked. He shrugged and took another puff.
More music came out of the speaker-a concertina solo. He grinned. 'Welcome to Voyageurs,' the announcer said. Lucien settled down to listen. All of Quebec settled down to listen at half past seven on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. The comedy about fur traders and Indians was the most popular show in the country.
One of the Indians started complaining the voyageur had cheated him. That was a running gag on the show- in fact, the Indian got the better of the voyageur every time. He also spoke French not like an Indian but like a Jewish peddler, which made things funnier and made them funny in a different way.
As usual, everything turned out all right-and turned out absurd-within the appointed half hour. After the show was done, Lucien turned to a station that played music, poured himself some apple brandy, and settled down with a French translation of an American story: a woman who'd gone down into the Confederate States to avenge her husband.
It was a strange kind of French, extraordinarily terse and to the point. He wondered if the English was the same. Then he wondered if he could make enough sense out of written English to find out. He doubted it.
'But I can ask my son-in-law,' he said. He had to remind himself Dr. Leonard O'Doull was a born anglophone. Whenever the two of them talked together, they spoke French. O'Doull sounded more like a Quebecois every year, too, losing bit by bit the Parisian accent with which he'd originally learned his second language.
At about a quarter to nine, someone knocked on the door. Wondering who could be mad enough to pay him a call at this hour, Lucien put down the book and went to find out. It wasn't snowing at the moment, but it had been and it would be, and it probably was below zero outside.
When he opened the door, his younger son waited there. 'Oh, hello, Georges,' Lucien said. 'I might have known it would be you. What are you doing here so late?'
'Well, you wouldn't expect me to leave my house before Voyageurs was done, would you?' Georges asked reasonably. He stepped into the farmhouse where he'd been born and grown up. Lucien closed the door behind him to stop letting out precious heat. He went on, 'I am not a rich man, to have a wireless set in my automobile. I am
