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Checking to ensure our windows covered, and the doors latched, I observed with dread the clock ticking away. Chores completed. Smell of aged furniture, stale, used bedding, cleaned and re-cleaned, still, what other bodies occupied these quarters. At home bedding washed and hung outside by mom refreshed by nature under a blue sky. Disinfected by the sun. There free to walk outside, wander freely, with family. Here constricted, restricted, a nomad, separated from family.
Aware that soon it would be time, time for lights out, our room, the hallway, the staircase, all filled with darkness. Someone had already dimmed the hallway lights to warn all. The time was near. I hated the dark. Claustrophobic, each breath an effort. Every night encased in a void, alone while Dick was at his post protecting us, protecting America, choosing to reenlist, having already served at the end of World War II in the Pacific, receiving an Honorable Discharge. What about me? Only married a few years now with a 3-year-old child to care for, far away from home and relatives, in a strange city, now supposedly secured in a cellar. It is time, I state quietly, “lights out,” to which Keith simply mumbles his acknowledgment.
In the dark I hear jets pass overhead and attempt to count thinking about the wives, like me, at home, in the dark with or without a child to attend to while wondering when their mate would return. Married at seventeen, changing diapers at eighteen, still too young to drink legally. I wonder what the future has in store? My parents, deeply religious, showed by example what the marriage relationship should exemplify. God, family, others and self, in that order. Parents questioned my choice. Married while still in high school. The oldest daughter was already married, divorced, remarried, and had a son. What advice would she offer? If only I had listened.
We are living in a cement box. Isolated. Concrete floor, concrete walls, concrete ceiling, even the hallway outside our door leading to the building’s exit was a gray nondescript concrete. The building held several families. We lived in the cellar near the front of the row house. Our rental space filled with white generic appliances, mix-matched utensils, dishes, pots and pans, and aged furnishings. One rule, never go outside the building. Rules were important. Rules were not to be broken. Each day is the same as yesterday. This is all I knew, this, and that dad worked on a big boat, out there, somewhere.
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