Earlier today, Gracie had called and invited Gemma to come by and retrieve the box. At the end of the workday, Gemma had driven her Vespa to Marigold Manor and stayed to share a cup of tea with Gracie, whose demeanor had been uncharacteristically anxious.
“The letters between me and Paul are beautiful but distressing,” Gracie said. “I don't know what to make of them.”
“Why are they distressing?”
“It's clear from the letters that something went wrong between us.” Her hand shook and she wrapped the fingers of her other hand around it. “I don't remember what went wrong. I can't imagine . . .”
Gemma had anticipated that the letters would answer Gracie's questions and bring solace. It was disorienting to learn that, in some ways, they'd had the opposite effect. “If something did go wrong, you have to rest in the fact that you and Great-Grandpa Paul overcame it and went on to a fantastic life together.”
“Yes, but did I do something to cause him pain when he was a young man? I can hardly bear the thought that I did something to cause him pain.”
“I'll read the letters,” Gemma had told her, “and do everything I can to get to the bottom of this.”
She thumbed through the first few and noticed two black-and-white photos tucked into the pile.
The first one showed Gracie and Paul with the Washington Monument in the background. They stood very close, their hands resting on one another's lower back. Both were dressed beautifully, as had been the norm in the forties. Gracie had on heels and hose, a pleated skirt, a tailored shirt. She'd caught the front of her hair back in a barrette, the rest she'd worn down and curled. Paul was dapper in a cable-knit sweater and trousers. They were both strikingly attractive, their faces youthful and smooth, their demeanor hopeful. Though Gemma had only known Gracie and Paul when they were late in life, she easily recognized the younger versions of the people she loved. She flipped the photo over. Gracie had writtenOctober, 1943on the back in faded blue ink. An intricate hand-drawn doodle in black ink formed a border around the date. Flowers and hearts connected by swirling leaves.
The second photo captured the two of them holding hands on a crowded train platform, a suitcase waiting near his feet. This must be their goodbye. Paul was looking at Gracie gravely. She was looking toward the camera as if the photographer had just called her name. Her eyes appeared puffy and, beneath her brave smile, Gemma saw grief. The writing on the back of this photo readJune, 1944.
Carefully, she unfolded the earliest and top-most letter, written that same month from Paul to Gracie. His words made clear that they'd fallen in love during the time they'd spent living in Washington, D.C.
Gemma now believed that Gracie had been working there as a Code Girl. The letter didn't mention that, though, and Gemma had to wonder if even Paul had been privy to her true purpose there. Likely not, if the Code Girls had taken their vow of silence as seriously as Professor Rusk claimed.
In the first letter, Paul noted that their nine months together had been precious to him, despite the terror and sorrow of the war raging across the globe. He’d been recalled to France after France's liberation from the Nazis, while Gracie had remained behind to fulfill her responsibilities in D.C.
I miss you, Gracie. You're with me when I wake in the morning. You're the one who motivates my days. My work, my errands, my eating, my sleeping. I get through them all because of the memory and promise of you. The thought of seeing you again as soon as all of this comes to a close is the fuel that gives me strength to wait until you're in my arms again. I love you with all of my heart.
Like so many young couples of that era, her great-grandparents had been deeply in love and separated by war.
In the next five letters, written both by Gracie and Paul, they reported details of their lives and expressed their love and their joy in receiving letters from the other. The five letters spanned a two-month timeframe. Careful reading made it obvious that more letters had been written by the couple during those two months. Gemma concluded that these were the only five from that period that had survived eight decades.
After the first two months of their separation, a strange thing began to happen with their letters. For some reason, Paul was not receiving Gracie's letters. And Gracie was not receiving Paul's letters. Instead of responding to each other's questions, they were both longing to see a letter from the other, both imploring the other one to write.
Gemma grabbed her phone and googled information on mail between America and Europe in the latter part of World War Two.
Apparently, US intelligence offices intercepted incoming or outgoing mail that they thought might contain sensitive information. How much more vigilant would they have been with the mail of an American Code Girl?
She googled the end date of the World War Two conflict. For America, it ended in the Pacific, September 2, 1945.
Gracie would still have been hard at work codebreaking when her letters with Paul had been interrupted in the fall of 1944. Perhaps her correspondence had come under suspicion for some reason and intelligence offices had held her incoming and outgoing mail? The fact that these letters existed among Gracie's keepsakes supported that theory because some of the letters—theseletters—had been given to their rightful owner eventually.
As fall of 1944 turned into winter of 1944, Gracie and Paul wrote more worry and desperation into their letters. They were each yearning for information from the other, yet each seemed to be conducting a one-way conversation.
Gracie, do you still believe in me? Do you trust my love and fidelity? I'd give my life for you, I love you so. Letter from Paul dated November of 1944.
Paul, I'm so very, very worried that you've moved on from me. Do you know how often I write? Do you hear from me? It seems most likely that you do.
I wholeheartedly trusted in our love, in us. How long should I wait before I conclude that you returned to Europe and came to your senses and wondered why you'd gotten so carried away with an American girl? Did you decide that it's too difficult to maintain a relationship with someone separated from you by culture and miles and ocean? Did you deem me not worth the effort? Did you meet someone else who stole your heart?
As you see, I can imagine your reasons but that doesn't help me accept the truth. It doesn't stop the pain and grief and anguish. Letter from Gracie, December 1944.
Please write to me, Gracie. I beg you. I am ruined. Alone. Terrified that I've lost you. If your devotion has moved on from me, write to me and tell me so because, as it stands now, I fear that something awful has happened to you. I can go on living if I know, at least, that you are well and whole. Letter from Paul, December 1944.
No wonder Gracie had been distressed by these letters when Gemma had seen her earlier today. A stone had gained weight in the center of Gemma's own stomach as she'd read. Their despair and heartbreak were jagged to experience, even all these years later, even knowing they had found their way to a happy ending.
At the time they'd written these letters, these two twenty-somethings hadn't known the future and Gemma could feel their stress lifting off the ink and creating an electrical presence in the room—buzzing and upsetting.
The last nine months of letters, from January to early September of 1945, had been written only by Paul. None by Gracie.
