The party line was long gone, and there was a phone upstairs now too, so Evelyn, a recent letter in hand, went to the chair next to the phone in the hall, Margaret and Gertie following her. She dialed directory assistance and gave Frank’s information, then agreed to be connected through.
On the third ring, a man answered, the craggy tone of a longshoreman who spent his life smoking, and with the “r”-dropping accent of someone who had never left the north shore except to go out to sea.
“Hullo?”
“Mr. Corrigan?”
“Who’s there?”
“Mr. Corrigan, my name is Evelyn Gold—er—Evelyn Bergman. I’m Miriam Bergman’s daughter.”
There was a long pause. “She’s gone, then?”
Evelyn took a deep breath. “She is. We—her daughters—we found your letters.”
“She kept ’em?”
“She did. We—well—three of us—we’d like to meet you. If you would.”
Another pause. “Ayuh.”
Evelyn suggested the diner in town the following afternoon, when Joseph usually took his nap and their absence would be less noticeable. He agreed, and they returned to Miriam’s bedroom to complete their work. Evelyn sat on the floor, attempting to match letters to envelopes before stacking them in order and retying them carefully with their ribbon.
The man who entered the diner the following day looked much older than their father, his skin browned and spotted from years on the water. But he was kind, shaking each of their hands.
“You look like her, all of you. Different ways though.”
He waited until they sat to sit, his hat in his lap. “How’d she go?”
“Cancer. But it was quick.”
He nodded. “Thought she’d have more time. But in my mind, she’s seventeen still.”
Evelyn pulled out the stack of letters and passed them across the table. “We thought you’d like to have these back.”
He reached for them, touching the ribbon gently. “She used to wear this.”
The three daughters looked at each other, trying unsuccessfully to picture their mother ever wearing a ribbon in her hair, being young enough to do such a thing.
“Can—can you tell us how you two met?”
“Ayuh.” He ran a crooked finger across the top letter. “She was seventeen. Walking home from school, and she dropped her books. Later, I find out she did it on purpose.”
Frank picked up the books for her and carried them home. He was two years older, already working on the ships, but he started meeting her and walking her home every day that he could.
“Her father wouldn’t allow it, of course. Threw me out. He was a mean one. Not a’cause of me. I’da understood that. But her ma was sick. He said if Miriam left, her ma’d die. So I left fo’ a couple years. Figured it’d be easier for her. Then her ma died, and she married your father.” He took a sip of the water that the waitress had placed in front of him. “I understood. He gave her a good life. Better than I coulda.” He looked down at his hands. “Much better.” He wiped at his eye with a gnarled hand. “Was she happy?”
“Yes,” Gertie said defensively at the same time that Evelyn said, “I don’t know.”
“This explains a lot, I suppose,” Evelyn said quietly. Margaret reached over and patted her hand.
“Means the world to me that she read ’em though.”
“She di—” Evelyn kicked Gertie under the table, and Gertie stopped talking.
He rose, wiping at an eye again and picking up the letters. “Thank you for these. An’ for telling me she’s gone.”
“Thank you,” Evelyn said softly. “And I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “She was your ma, after all.”
They nodded. He said goodbye, apologized again, choking up, and then he left, quite suddenly.
“That’s why she . . .” Margaret trailed off.
“I know.”
“And Vivie—”
“I know,” Evelyn said again, standing. And without another word, she walked out of the restaurant, leaving her sisters staring at each other, wide eyed.
She nearly ran two blocks, then turned down a side street, realizing with a hysterical half laugh that it was the same spot where she had told Tony, years ago, that she would run off with him instead of marrying Fred. “Oh,” she gasped, leaning against the wall, pressing her hands to her face. “Oh, Mama.”