(no subject)
Author: genarti
Title: On The Home Front
Recipient: perlaret
Rating: PG-13 (for themes of PTSD, a marriage disintegrating, and minor allusion to violence)
Characters/Pairings: Mrs Knox, Dr. Knox
Summary: It's not easy to be the one picking up the pieces. And sometimes, hard decisions have to be made.
Notes: I had tons of fun with this! Admittedly, in a slightly masochistic way. Thanks for the prompt, and I hope it suits!
2 February, 1908
Dearest Leonard,
I write to you from the little cafe by the corner park where we'd always get lunch when we were dating. You remember that? They've changed names yet again, it's the Nightingale Cafe now, but the baker is the same. I wish you were here to share dessert with. I can't finish mine. I'll take it home for Billy.
I hope you're well, my dear. I know better than to ask if you're coming home soon - I suppose you only just got there, so far as the soldiers are concerned! Some of them have been serving such a long slog there. When you come home, you'll be tanned brown as bread, after all that desert. I hope you won't have to stay till summer, but we all must persevere and do our bit. You'll forgive me if I ask you yet again to take care. I know you will, but I can't help but worry. Back here we hear nothing but stirring news of victory. It's cheering, but I know the Ishvalans must be trying hard to change that.
At least you're safe in the medical tents. I never know what to say to poor Maria, who married an infantryman, or Mr. and Mrs. Brampton, who have two sons and a daughter all on the front lines. You are safe, aren't you?
Here I am fretting and my lunch hour's half gone. Have some more cheerful news. Billy's doing well in school. You remember how he hated his arithmatic teacher in the fall? Well, he's come around. I'm not certain what changed, other than the cake he brought to class before winter break, because Billy grumbles about homework as much as ever. But he says that Mr. Yakov is 'all right after all.' Mysterious creature!
I'm a cruel mother, of course, because I won't let him climb the linden tree no matter how hard he pleads. I think I may have to hire Jules Orzin to cut it down. I'm sorry to lose the shade out front, but the poor thing is half-rotten, and I'm afraid it'll come down on our heads one day. Maybe I'll plant some flowers in its place. Billy will hate the trade, but I won't spend so much time wondering if he'll break his neck one day. And flowers would be nice.
Mother is being insufferable. She doesn't see why you can't make it home for Unity Day, no matter how many times I remind her that Dad got such useful leave because he had a desk job in Central. A comptroller's office is a bit different from Ishval! We shall have a lovely celebration without you, Mother or not, but it would be lovelier if you were here. You'd grumble all the way through it. I don't think you've ever known how to enjoy a holiday, my darling. I'll send you a box of Betty's cookies, if the army will let me. Let me know if I shouldn't, because otherwise you're getting a double load. Share them with your friends, and the patients who are up to it! It'll make up for some of the time you've spent shouting at them. I know you have.
More tomorrow.
All my love,
Your Amanda
12 February, 1908
Dear Betty,
Hello from Central! I'm holed up in a cafe for lunch, diverting myself from the rainstorm outside by writing to you. I'm already damp from walking here, of course, but never mind. I categorically refuse to stay in the office for lunch, someone always comes in with just a two-minute job they want to cajole you into, and before you know it half your break's gone, either with doing the favor or with arguing about it. So I come here for coffee and a bun instead. Thank goodness that coffee and tea stay cheap no matter what disruptions happen to the train lines - I don't know what I'd do without my lunchtime coffee!
How are things? Are you getting drenched like we are? The radio suggests yes, but they mostly just talk about the weather in Central, with occasional mentions of anywhere else. Central weather is the main concern of Central folk, but I still wish it would tell me about Ruttin Hills too. You'll have to be my bulletin instead. Though obviously I only want to know about the weather because I want to know about you! Do you have any crops in the ground yet? Any newborn goats? I'll tell Billy, though you must be ready for a lot of second-hand pestering. I doubt you have anything so extravagant as a photograph, but if you do have any photographs of baby animals to send you'll make his week. Perhaps next time we visit, I'll take some to frame for a birthday present.
I'm rambling. Work this morning was very long - three orders were delayed and another two got wrong, and everyone panicking and wanting it fixed right away, and I have to be polite to everyone because polite and organized is what the firm pays me to be, when really I just want to snap at them all. Sometimes I picture Leonard ranting at everybody I'd love to shout at - I can do my own shouting, though not if I want to keep this job, but he does such an excellent rant. Some of these idiots would make him turn purple.
I do miss Leonard. But that's the price of the home front, isn't it? I didn't think I was marrying a soldier, but I encouraged him to sign up for that civilian staff job, and we knew the price of it was that he might have to practice in a combat zone if needed. Still, I'm selfish, and I hope he comes home soon.
We're getting by pretty well, anyway, though Leonard's absence is hard on Billy too. You never think about how much work your husband does until he's gone. Oh, Leonard was never much for housecleaning (you'd think a doctor would be tidier!) but he played with Billy, he took him to movies and parks, he made coffee in the mornings and brought home groceries and ironed my clothes along with his own. And he was someone to talk to. I have to do everything now, and do it with a smile, because poor Billy misses his dad. Twelve is old enough to understand why Leonard is away, but it's still hard on him. I must be cheerful for him, even if I'm feeling at my wits' end.
How did Mom do it? I know I was a terrible pill after Dad died, and I know it was horrible for her, but she always coped. I've asked her, and she just says things like, "Oh, well, you do it because you have to do it," and that's true but it doesn't make anything easier. I'm still rushabout Mandy deep down, I guess, no matter how much I pretend to be a patient adult. I want a magic spell to solve all my problems. Or at least to end the war in Ishval and bring me my husband back.
Maybe the State Alchemists will be enough of a magic spell. The newsreels certainly think so. I hope they are!
Well, my lunch break's nearly over, and then it's back to work and off to make dinner and do laundry and cudgel Billy back to his homework as many times as necessary and all the rest of it. My love to Michael and Callie!
Love,
Mandy
21 May, 1908
Leonard my dear,
Summer has come to Central! I wish you could share it with us. You could take Billy to the park to play ball, and grumble about the heat while I exult in it. Spring was lovely, when it wasn't raining, but it was raining all the time. Though I suppose you'd like that too, as a change from the desert. Personally I hated it. Especially slogging to work, and then trying to look put-together and proper when my stockings were squelching in my shoes. I've never wanted to be a military lady, but I do sometimes envy them their boots.
Billy is overcome with joy that school is out for the summer. I wish I could be, but work doesn't stop just because school does, and everything would be very tight - but here I am complaining. I don't mean to. I'm lucky, and I know it, Billy's such a good boy and we have kind neighbors. Billy spends hours playing with Andrew, or at the library reading (just like his father!), or at his grandmother's.
I've gotten the promise of a week off work in June. If you were here, where would we go? Tell me what you think! Maybe next year we can all go wherever it is together. Off to Lake Bartlett again? Or maybe down to Tiacampa? Or even Creta! I've never been out of Amestris, and it's supposed to be safe to cross the border nowadays, so long as you travel on to one of the cities and not the border where some people are still mad about '76. Nellie at work still gushes about her honeymoon three years ago. But then she speaks Cretan. Do you have to speak Cretan to travel there? Perhaps we'd better not, if so. Billy's grades in Cretan are abysmal, it's still his one really bad subject, and I never studied it at all.
Without you, we're just going down to my sister's farm in Ruttin Hills. Betty and Michael have promised Billy that twelve years old is finally big enough to care for the goats all alone, and he's over the moon about it. (I haven't told him that seven or eight years old is plenty for the country children, but they see goats more often than once or twice a year. Remember how he used to beg to keep one in the back yard?) So when you get letters from Ruttin Hills instead of Central for a week, that will be why.
It was good to hear from you, even though your letters are short. I don't want details of your work, especially since I know you can't give them anyway. Just let me know you're still alive and well! I know you're doing good work. All the soldiers must be glad you're there. Do you see any of the State Alchemists the newspapers are so proud of? You must! But I suppose you can't answer that. Well, I've decided you know one or two and they appreciate all the hard work you do. You'll have to tell me how I'm right or wrong once you come home. I'd make up all kinds of wild stories if I thought your urge to correct them would possibly get you home faster! But it's no fun making you froth and sputter about facts if I'm not there to watch. Tell me what you can, in place of what you can't.
All my love,
Amanda
8 July, 1908
Dearest Leonard,
I haven't heard from you in weeks. Please write when you can. I try not to worry but it's hard not to when all I hear is silence. The Brampton's oldest son Heinrich was killed in action, the telegram came round and you could hear the whole neighborhood hush as the lieutenants walked down the street with the little bundle everybody knows means a flag and medal. Even a few lines about nothing would ease my mind. Please do write.
All my love,
Your Amanda
4 November, 1908
Dear Betty,
Thank you for the lovely presents for Billy! He's writing you his own thank-you note as well, but I'm thanking you again for us both. Watching his face light up was just as much of a present for me as the sweater and pictures and radio set were for him. (The cookies, of course, were a present to us both right from the start, and I hope you didn't think otherwise.) He went tearing off right away to set up the radio, and I didn't hear anything for an hour, he was so intent on all the little wires and whatsits. And then some godawful static, but he soon sorted the stations out. He has a radio station set up in his room now, with the photograph of the goats propped up above it. I anticipate having to chase him outside to play even on sunny days for a while. Thank you, my dear. And thank Callie for picking out the picture frame! She has excellent taste, especially for a four-year-old. (Just tell her she has excellent taste. As I remember, Billy at that age was extremely intent on being a big boy, and I suspect girls are the same.)
I'm in such a good mood today. And I know exactly why - half of it's Billy, he's so happy about his presents and his party that went so well (and the amount of ice cream I let him eat), and the other half's the news. Strange, to be so joyful at that of all things! Usually I find it so grinding. But all the papers are saying that the Ishvalan resistance is nearly stamped out, and the fighting should be finished any week now. Everything changes when you care so much about the soldiers coming home!
Leonard never says much in his letters - they're glorified postcards, really, half the paper blank. And even with that the censors sometimes black out bits. But I can tell he hates it. I don't know if it's specific, or if it's just that it's a war zone. You know Leonard, he has no tolerance for stupidity, and he thinks people hurting each other on purpose is about as stupid as it gets, especially since anything that makes a doctor's job harder is automatically stupid for him and that's exactly what soldiers are paid to do. So he'd hate it no matter what. And I'm not naïve, I know perfectly well that battlefields are full of horrible things.
I hope he can put it all behind him quickly. I don't really want to know what it's like, but I'll let him rant to his grouchy heart's content if it'll help him feel better. It will be so good to have him around the house again! I'm counting my chickens before they hatch, maybe, but I can't help it. I'm hopeful.
And soon, holidays! I'm already making plans for my holiday bonus. Two sets of plans: one if Leonard's still away, and one if he's home. Either way, some of it goes to new shoes for Billy. He's starting to grow like a weed. I dread his teenage years! Why couldn't he be short and stumpy like me?
I'll write again soon. With good news, I hope!
Love,
Mandy
18 December, 1908
Dearest Leonard,
Victory! The papers are all shouting it everywhere you look, and even the music programs on the radio. I'm so glad. You'll be coming home soon! Tell me when, as soon as you know. Billy asks every day. I'm can't wait to see you!
I've just spent at least a minute staring at the paper trying to think of something else to say, but all I can think about is how happy I am. It's been so lonely without you. I'm so glad you'll be coming home, it must be any day now, and then you can go back to working in the hospital here and coming home every day. You must be looking forward to settling back down to normal, even more than I am. Let me know as soon as you hear word!
Love and excitement,
Amanda
9 March, 1909
Dear Betty,
Oh Bets, I don't know what to do.
I don't know what happened in Ishval. I can't imagine - oh, I can a little, and that's the worst of it, Leonard never talks a word about it ordinarily but sometimes when he's drunk or asleep he says things, and it's awful. I used to think he was grieving for friends, or upset by the blood, he's never been a soldier sort no matter who pays his wage, which I've always loved about him, but I think they made him do awful things. Or maybe watch awful things, and he feels responsible anyway. I don't know, I can't tell and I certainly can't ask him. I've tried, and he just shuts down. Goes up to the attic and slams the door, or takes a walk and I don't see him for hours. But something's eating him up inside, and I think it must be guilt. He talks about quitting, and in the same breath he says they own him forever. You remember how he used to put in a few hours down at the Children's Hospital, after Billy was born? He said back then it was good to remember that not everybody was an idiot like soldiers, but he'd say sappier things sometimes, and I know he loved it because it gave him hope to help the kids. I suggested he try that again, just a few hours sometimes, and I really thought for a moment he was going to hit me. He didn't, don't worry, he didn't, I really still think he would never, but for a moment I did. My Leonard.
I always thought we could get through anything. He was so kind, we made each other laugh, and we're both so stubborn - that has to be good, doesn't it? It means we won't give up on anything, we won't give up on each other.
Oh Betty, I think he's given up on himself.
Does that mean I should believe twice as hard for both of us? I'm trying to, I really am trying. Or does that mean nothing I can do will do a bit of good?
He's always grumbled, I used to point out things for him to rant and complain about, and it was a funny sort of entertainment for both of us, but now it's different. He's so angry. He's angry all the time. It scares me sometimes. He yells at me, he yells at Billy, he yells at the damn furniture, Betty, and then he's so sorry later, he apologizes over and over and he cries and my heart just breaks for him. I've told him a dozen times that I forgive him, we forgive him, just let me help somehow, but I'm getting angry too. How can he put Billy through this? The poor kid idolized his father, he always has, but he's like a ghost around the house now. He spends more time at his pal Andrew's than he does here, and I can't blame him. I hate to bring him home from there, no matter how much I'm imposing on his parents. I could hit Leonard myself for what he's doing to us. I think he'd hit himself in an instant if it would do any good, that's my only consolation, but it'd hardly help. And he drinks too, like Uncle Ned used to - he never used to, just for fun when we had a night out on the town, but now he's a surly drunken lump in his chair half the nights, no good to anyone and certainly not to Billy or me. I sleep in the guest bedroom now anyway, because he has the most awful nightmares. I hate leaving him to suffer like that, but if I try to wake him up - well, it's worse, that's all. So I sleep in another room. But then I lie awake for hours wondering at every creak of the house if he's having a nightmare, if I ought to go down the hall and knock on the door, if even that's too close and too much. He feels terrible about it, he tells me all about how he's failing as a father and a husband, I guess so I'll know he doesn't blame me for frustration or think he thinks this is all right, but it's not as if telling me his faults fixes anything. I hide the bottles and it guilts him into being better for a day or two but then it's the same thing, and at least when he's in a drunken stupor he sleeps soundly, he says. But I've seen him twitch and moan in his armchair too, with whiskey on his breath so strong I sometimes think he's spilled it all over himself, and I hurry Billy upstairs because I couldn't bear it if he woke his dad up and it went bad. I don't know what I would do then. I really don't, I can't think about it or I start to shake.
And then sometimes he's lovely and it's just like old times. He really is. But then it goes away again.
Betty, what do I do? What do I do for Billy?
Can I send Billy to you for the start of summer break? Perhaps a week or two in June, whenever you're willing to have him. He's old enough to ride the train, and he'd love to visit his auntie and uncle. Maybe it will help if we have the house to ourselves for a bit. Maybe I'll even take Leonard on a little vacation, just down to Dannis City or something. Maybe that will help.
I don't even know if I can send this letter. It's a mess. I'm a mess. I'm sorry if you never see this.
No, I'm sending it. I can't talk to anyone else around here. I have to look good for the neighbors, I couldn't bear to fall apart in front of them and see them every day afterward, judging me. Judging us both. If anyone told me Leonard was weak, or told me I was a bad wife, I'd hate them forever. I couldn't stop myself. I'm spending too much energy And you know I can't possibly tell Mom. She'd bustle about and try to help and take charge of everything and tell me what to do. I hit the roof just thinking about it.
I'm sending this now before I lose my nerve. Betty please, if you have any ideas you're sure will help, for the love of God share them with your little sister. And please say you'll take Billy.
Love,
Mandy
15 March, 1909
Dear Betty,
I'm sorry for the last letter. I was all in a tizzy. It was a bad day for all of us.
Here, let me talk of cheerful things. The flowers are in full bloom, after weeks of rain, and it finally looks like spring. When I walked to the bus stop this morning, I got apple blossoms stuck to my shoes. I couldn't bear to scrub them off until I got all the way to work. Damp little bits of beauty! The fence around our yard is full of daffodils, except where the Bramptons' dog Trouble got in one day and dug up some of the bulbs. But there are plenty, and Trouble is a sweetheart (even if she's very well named), so she's welcome to a few.
Billy won first prize in his school's spelling bee. I was shocked, he's had such a hard time focusing on his homework lately, so I was doubly proud. It roused his competitive instinct, I think. He told me very proudly that he'd beaten Otto, a nemesis of his, and I probably should have said something about teamwork and tolerance but I didn't even bother. What a terrible example I am! But you know, sister dear, what hypocrisy it would have been if I had.
We all went out to ice cream. Even Leonard! It was just like old times. He still startled at loud noises, and he got very quiet after the next table over got a birthday cake full of candles - I think it must have been all the shrieking, those children had very healthy lungs, and I felt sorry for their parents who looked as if they had a happy kind of headache - but it was the best evening I've had in ages. Billy was so proud. He tried to bargain for the biggest sundae that Sillari's makes, but a triple cone was the most we would let him have. He got chocolate all over his shirt. But I managed to drop vanilla on my skirt, so we were a pair! Thankfully it was a cream skirt. And Leonard laughed, and ruffled Billy's hair and called him a smart kid and bought him extra sprinkles without Billy even asking for that part. He held hands with me all the way there, too, and Leonard was never much for public affection like that even when we were dating. It was sweet of him, he was sweet all evening, in his Leonardish way.
Thank you for saying you'll take Billy. I've already told him, and he perked up more than he had in days. (This was before the spelling bee. Two gifts to him in a week!) It's a great load off my mind. I do think we're on the uphill slope now. It was just a hard winter.
Tomorrow Leonard has a long shift, and Billy and I are off to have dinner with Mother. Wish me strength!
Much love,
Mandy
12 April, 1909
Dear Betty,
In answer to your last letter - I don't know. I just don't know.
It's an awful thought. I can barely put it into words. Leaving him? Just the thought makes me feel like a terrible wife. We swore for better or for worse, didn't we? What kind of flighty monster would it make me to give up after just a bit of worse, and leave Leonard in this state alone?
And yet there's Billy. That's what I keep coming back to. I could cope for myself, I truly could, because I know Leonard's hurting more from this than I've ever been. I can sleep in the guest bedroom, I could cajole him along for however long it takes until things get better, and I know they will sooner or later. They must. He's still the sweet man I married deep down. I don't know what they did to him in Ishval, but I hate whoever did it. I look at him hunched in his chair, looking ten years older than when he left last year, and it makes me want to hurt someone. I want to yell at God to bring me my husband back. But I could cope, I could. I signed up for marriage, with everything it takes.
But Billy's only thirteen. He doesn't deserve this. When Leonard was away he missed him but he could understand, but now Leonard's home and he's an angry awful stranger. I can see the confusion on Billy's face. Once he asked me if he'd done something wrong, and oh, Betty, it was like a knife in me. Now I can't stop wondering if he's still thinking that. I tell him we must be patient, I give him all the love and comfort I can, but I'm run ragged. He deserves two parents. Right now he's barely got half of one, Leonard's a ghost and I'm trying to fit forty hours into each day.
But how would leaving help that? He'd see his mother give up on his father. And it wouldn't bring him his dad back. I remember when Dad died, how it felt like the whole world was askew, I spent months furious at everything and wanting to burst into tears at the slightest thing. It took me years to get over it. And I was two years older than Billy is. That was a heart attack, that's nobody's fault and nobody can stop it, but this would be my choice. What if he hated me for it? I could bear Leonard's hatred, but I couldn't bear Billy's. If he hated me for this after I did it to help him, it would break my heart into a thousand pieces.
And my job doesn't pay all that well. Where would I live, with Mom? Can you imagine?
Maybe we'll work it out. It hasn't been long at all since he got back, I must remember. Just a couple of months. Maybe I'll look back on this and laugh, like the old story says, at how it seemed so awful now. And Ishval is still terribly fresh for Leonard. Maybe I just need to give him a little more time.
All my letters are about my own troubles these days. What a bore you must think me. Write back and give me news of the farm - I told Billy I was writing to you (Leonard's out somewhere), and he asked about the goats. "Ask Aunt Betty about Blackie," he says. And so I ask!
Love,
Mandy
24 May, 1909
Dear Betty,
You'll notice I'm writing from Mom's house now. Please send any future letters here.
You were right after all. I thought I could stick it out, I did, but I can't I didn't the last straw came this week. Such a stupid little thing. I came home from work to find Billy's mid-term report card all Cs and Ds - and he's always gotten high scores in everything but Reading and Cretan, even when Leonard was gone - and a worried letter from his teacher. I tried to talk to Leonard about it but he was a lump in his chair until he growled "Let the boy be! I don't know what you want me to do if he's decided to be lazy for a change, dammit" and stalked upstairs, and I just burst into tears in the middle of the living room. I can't face months more of this. Billy can't face months more.
I feel like I'm deserting him.
I am deserting him. That's exactly what I did. He just took it in silence, he helped me pack and everything, but all the time he looked like I'd punched him. I expected him to yell. I was ready to yell back. Instead the only thing he said was that maybe it was for the best, and he sounded like-- I don't even know how to describe it. How will he manage alone? What will the neighbors think, what if he does something rash to himself? What if I've done something unforgivable? Betty, tell me if you think I did the right thing? I can't bear to hear it from Mom, I asked her to please not tell me what she thinks about Leonard or my choice, please just support me. Even when she agrees with me she gets so irritating it always makes me want to do the opposite to spite her. (I hope Billy doesn't inherit that!) But I trust you to tell me what you think.
I asked my boss about working full-time, and she'll see what she can do. I don't want to count on Leonard's salary now, even if he'll probably still send at least part of it to me. He said he'd send money. And I'll take it, Billy's his son and he's outgrowing clothes every week and drinking a bottle of milk a day, I don't know how we'd manage on just my salary alone if I had to pay rent. But it feels mercenary to count on it coming. I made my choice and I left.
Billy's been quiet. I try to jolly him into things and he just shrugs. He's barely talking to me or anyone. But then he wasn't at home before this, either. Oh God, Betty, I hope I made the right choice.
I'm sorry, Bets, this letter's a mess. But I have to go help Mom with dinner, so I won't rewrite it into something tidier. I'll send you a better one tomorrow. Tell me everything's well with you, tell me all about Michael and Callie and the animals and everything. I could use some good news.
Love,
Mandy
Title: On The Home Front
Recipient: perlaret
Rating: PG-13 (for themes of PTSD, a marriage disintegrating, and minor allusion to violence)
Characters/Pairings: Mrs Knox, Dr. Knox
Summary: It's not easy to be the one picking up the pieces. And sometimes, hard decisions have to be made.
Notes: I had tons of fun with this! Admittedly, in a slightly masochistic way. Thanks for the prompt, and I hope it suits!
2 February, 1908
Dearest Leonard,
I write to you from the little cafe by the corner park where we'd always get lunch when we were dating. You remember that? They've changed names yet again, it's the Nightingale Cafe now, but the baker is the same. I wish you were here to share dessert with. I can't finish mine. I'll take it home for Billy.
I hope you're well, my dear. I know better than to ask if you're coming home soon - I suppose you only just got there, so far as the soldiers are concerned! Some of them have been serving such a long slog there. When you come home, you'll be tanned brown as bread, after all that desert. I hope you won't have to stay till summer, but we all must persevere and do our bit. You'll forgive me if I ask you yet again to take care. I know you will, but I can't help but worry. Back here we hear nothing but stirring news of victory. It's cheering, but I know the Ishvalans must be trying hard to change that.
At least you're safe in the medical tents. I never know what to say to poor Maria, who married an infantryman, or Mr. and Mrs. Brampton, who have two sons and a daughter all on the front lines. You are safe, aren't you?
Here I am fretting and my lunch hour's half gone. Have some more cheerful news. Billy's doing well in school. You remember how he hated his arithmatic teacher in the fall? Well, he's come around. I'm not certain what changed, other than the cake he brought to class before winter break, because Billy grumbles about homework as much as ever. But he says that Mr. Yakov is 'all right after all.' Mysterious creature!
I'm a cruel mother, of course, because I won't let him climb the linden tree no matter how hard he pleads. I think I may have to hire Jules Orzin to cut it down. I'm sorry to lose the shade out front, but the poor thing is half-rotten, and I'm afraid it'll come down on our heads one day. Maybe I'll plant some flowers in its place. Billy will hate the trade, but I won't spend so much time wondering if he'll break his neck one day. And flowers would be nice.
Mother is being insufferable. She doesn't see why you can't make it home for Unity Day, no matter how many times I remind her that Dad got such useful leave because he had a desk job in Central. A comptroller's office is a bit different from Ishval! We shall have a lovely celebration without you, Mother or not, but it would be lovelier if you were here. You'd grumble all the way through it. I don't think you've ever known how to enjoy a holiday, my darling. I'll send you a box of Betty's cookies, if the army will let me. Let me know if I shouldn't, because otherwise you're getting a double load. Share them with your friends, and the patients who are up to it! It'll make up for some of the time you've spent shouting at them. I know you have.
More tomorrow.
All my love,
Your Amanda
12 February, 1908
Dear Betty,
Hello from Central! I'm holed up in a cafe for lunch, diverting myself from the rainstorm outside by writing to you. I'm already damp from walking here, of course, but never mind. I categorically refuse to stay in the office for lunch, someone always comes in with just a two-minute job they want to cajole you into, and before you know it half your break's gone, either with doing the favor or with arguing about it. So I come here for coffee and a bun instead. Thank goodness that coffee and tea stay cheap no matter what disruptions happen to the train lines - I don't know what I'd do without my lunchtime coffee!
How are things? Are you getting drenched like we are? The radio suggests yes, but they mostly just talk about the weather in Central, with occasional mentions of anywhere else. Central weather is the main concern of Central folk, but I still wish it would tell me about Ruttin Hills too. You'll have to be my bulletin instead. Though obviously I only want to know about the weather because I want to know about you! Do you have any crops in the ground yet? Any newborn goats? I'll tell Billy, though you must be ready for a lot of second-hand pestering. I doubt you have anything so extravagant as a photograph, but if you do have any photographs of baby animals to send you'll make his week. Perhaps next time we visit, I'll take some to frame for a birthday present.
I'm rambling. Work this morning was very long - three orders were delayed and another two got wrong, and everyone panicking and wanting it fixed right away, and I have to be polite to everyone because polite and organized is what the firm pays me to be, when really I just want to snap at them all. Sometimes I picture Leonard ranting at everybody I'd love to shout at - I can do my own shouting, though not if I want to keep this job, but he does such an excellent rant. Some of these idiots would make him turn purple.
I do miss Leonard. But that's the price of the home front, isn't it? I didn't think I was marrying a soldier, but I encouraged him to sign up for that civilian staff job, and we knew the price of it was that he might have to practice in a combat zone if needed. Still, I'm selfish, and I hope he comes home soon.
We're getting by pretty well, anyway, though Leonard's absence is hard on Billy too. You never think about how much work your husband does until he's gone. Oh, Leonard was never much for housecleaning (you'd think a doctor would be tidier!) but he played with Billy, he took him to movies and parks, he made coffee in the mornings and brought home groceries and ironed my clothes along with his own. And he was someone to talk to. I have to do everything now, and do it with a smile, because poor Billy misses his dad. Twelve is old enough to understand why Leonard is away, but it's still hard on him. I must be cheerful for him, even if I'm feeling at my wits' end.
How did Mom do it? I know I was a terrible pill after Dad died, and I know it was horrible for her, but she always coped. I've asked her, and she just says things like, "Oh, well, you do it because you have to do it," and that's true but it doesn't make anything easier. I'm still rushabout Mandy deep down, I guess, no matter how much I pretend to be a patient adult. I want a magic spell to solve all my problems. Or at least to end the war in Ishval and bring me my husband back.
Maybe the State Alchemists will be enough of a magic spell. The newsreels certainly think so. I hope they are!
Well, my lunch break's nearly over, and then it's back to work and off to make dinner and do laundry and cudgel Billy back to his homework as many times as necessary and all the rest of it. My love to Michael and Callie!
Love,
Mandy
21 May, 1908
Leonard my dear,
Summer has come to Central! I wish you could share it with us. You could take Billy to the park to play ball, and grumble about the heat while I exult in it. Spring was lovely, when it wasn't raining, but it was raining all the time. Though I suppose you'd like that too, as a change from the desert. Personally I hated it. Especially slogging to work, and then trying to look put-together and proper when my stockings were squelching in my shoes. I've never wanted to be a military lady, but I do sometimes envy them their boots.
Billy is overcome with joy that school is out for the summer. I wish I could be, but work doesn't stop just because school does, and everything would be very tight - but here I am complaining. I don't mean to. I'm lucky, and I know it, Billy's such a good boy and we have kind neighbors. Billy spends hours playing with Andrew, or at the library reading (just like his father!), or at his grandmother's.
I've gotten the promise of a week off work in June. If you were here, where would we go? Tell me what you think! Maybe next year we can all go wherever it is together. Off to Lake Bartlett again? Or maybe down to Tiacampa? Or even Creta! I've never been out of Amestris, and it's supposed to be safe to cross the border nowadays, so long as you travel on to one of the cities and not the border where some people are still mad about '76. Nellie at work still gushes about her honeymoon three years ago. But then she speaks Cretan. Do you have to speak Cretan to travel there? Perhaps we'd better not, if so. Billy's grades in Cretan are abysmal, it's still his one really bad subject, and I never studied it at all.
Without you, we're just going down to my sister's farm in Ruttin Hills. Betty and Michael have promised Billy that twelve years old is finally big enough to care for the goats all alone, and he's over the moon about it. (I haven't told him that seven or eight years old is plenty for the country children, but they see goats more often than once or twice a year. Remember how he used to beg to keep one in the back yard?) So when you get letters from Ruttin Hills instead of Central for a week, that will be why.
It was good to hear from you, even though your letters are short. I don't want details of your work, especially since I know you can't give them anyway. Just let me know you're still alive and well! I know you're doing good work. All the soldiers must be glad you're there. Do you see any of the State Alchemists the newspapers are so proud of? You must! But I suppose you can't answer that. Well, I've decided you know one or two and they appreciate all the hard work you do. You'll have to tell me how I'm right or wrong once you come home. I'd make up all kinds of wild stories if I thought your urge to correct them would possibly get you home faster! But it's no fun making you froth and sputter about facts if I'm not there to watch. Tell me what you can, in place of what you can't.
All my love,
Amanda
8 July, 1908
Dearest Leonard,
I haven't heard from you in weeks. Please write when you can. I try not to worry but it's hard not to when all I hear is silence. The Brampton's oldest son Heinrich was killed in action, the telegram came round and you could hear the whole neighborhood hush as the lieutenants walked down the street with the little bundle everybody knows means a flag and medal. Even a few lines about nothing would ease my mind. Please do write.
All my love,
Your Amanda
4 November, 1908
Dear Betty,
Thank you for the lovely presents for Billy! He's writing you his own thank-you note as well, but I'm thanking you again for us both. Watching his face light up was just as much of a present for me as the sweater and pictures and radio set were for him. (The cookies, of course, were a present to us both right from the start, and I hope you didn't think otherwise.) He went tearing off right away to set up the radio, and I didn't hear anything for an hour, he was so intent on all the little wires and whatsits. And then some godawful static, but he soon sorted the stations out. He has a radio station set up in his room now, with the photograph of the goats propped up above it. I anticipate having to chase him outside to play even on sunny days for a while. Thank you, my dear. And thank Callie for picking out the picture frame! She has excellent taste, especially for a four-year-old. (Just tell her she has excellent taste. As I remember, Billy at that age was extremely intent on being a big boy, and I suspect girls are the same.)
I'm in such a good mood today. And I know exactly why - half of it's Billy, he's so happy about his presents and his party that went so well (and the amount of ice cream I let him eat), and the other half's the news. Strange, to be so joyful at that of all things! Usually I find it so grinding. But all the papers are saying that the Ishvalan resistance is nearly stamped out, and the fighting should be finished any week now. Everything changes when you care so much about the soldiers coming home!
Leonard never says much in his letters - they're glorified postcards, really, half the paper blank. And even with that the censors sometimes black out bits. But I can tell he hates it. I don't know if it's specific, or if it's just that it's a war zone. You know Leonard, he has no tolerance for stupidity, and he thinks people hurting each other on purpose is about as stupid as it gets, especially since anything that makes a doctor's job harder is automatically stupid for him and that's exactly what soldiers are paid to do. So he'd hate it no matter what. And I'm not naïve, I know perfectly well that battlefields are full of horrible things.
I hope he can put it all behind him quickly. I don't really want to know what it's like, but I'll let him rant to his grouchy heart's content if it'll help him feel better. It will be so good to have him around the house again! I'm counting my chickens before they hatch, maybe, but I can't help it. I'm hopeful.
And soon, holidays! I'm already making plans for my holiday bonus. Two sets of plans: one if Leonard's still away, and one if he's home. Either way, some of it goes to new shoes for Billy. He's starting to grow like a weed. I dread his teenage years! Why couldn't he be short and stumpy like me?
I'll write again soon. With good news, I hope!
Love,
Mandy
18 December, 1908
Dearest Leonard,
Victory! The papers are all shouting it everywhere you look, and even the music programs on the radio. I'm so glad. You'll be coming home soon! Tell me when, as soon as you know. Billy asks every day. I'm can't wait to see you!
I've just spent at least a minute staring at the paper trying to think of something else to say, but all I can think about is how happy I am. It's been so lonely without you. I'm so glad you'll be coming home, it must be any day now, and then you can go back to working in the hospital here and coming home every day. You must be looking forward to settling back down to normal, even more than I am. Let me know as soon as you hear word!
Love and excitement,
Amanda
9 March, 1909
Dear Betty,
Oh Bets, I don't know what to do.
I don't know what happened in Ishval. I can't imagine - oh, I can a little, and that's the worst of it, Leonard never talks a word about it ordinarily but sometimes when he's drunk or asleep he says things, and it's awful. I used to think he was grieving for friends, or upset by the blood, he's never been a soldier sort no matter who pays his wage, which I've always loved about him, but I think they made him do awful things. Or maybe watch awful things, and he feels responsible anyway. I don't know, I can't tell and I certainly can't ask him. I've tried, and he just shuts down. Goes up to the attic and slams the door, or takes a walk and I don't see him for hours. But something's eating him up inside, and I think it must be guilt. He talks about quitting, and in the same breath he says they own him forever. You remember how he used to put in a few hours down at the Children's Hospital, after Billy was born? He said back then it was good to remember that not everybody was an idiot like soldiers, but he'd say sappier things sometimes, and I know he loved it because it gave him hope to help the kids. I suggested he try that again, just a few hours sometimes, and I really thought for a moment he was going to hit me. He didn't, don't worry, he didn't, I really still think he would never, but for a moment I did. My Leonard.
I always thought we could get through anything. He was so kind, we made each other laugh, and we're both so stubborn - that has to be good, doesn't it? It means we won't give up on anything, we won't give up on each other.
Oh Betty, I think he's given up on himself.
Does that mean I should believe twice as hard for both of us? I'm trying to, I really am trying. Or does that mean nothing I can do will do a bit of good?
He's always grumbled, I used to point out things for him to rant and complain about, and it was a funny sort of entertainment for both of us, but now it's different. He's so angry. He's angry all the time. It scares me sometimes. He yells at me, he yells at Billy, he yells at the damn furniture, Betty, and then he's so sorry later, he apologizes over and over and he cries and my heart just breaks for him. I've told him a dozen times that I forgive him, we forgive him, just let me help somehow, but I'm getting angry too. How can he put Billy through this? The poor kid idolized his father, he always has, but he's like a ghost around the house now. He spends more time at his pal Andrew's than he does here, and I can't blame him. I hate to bring him home from there, no matter how much I'm imposing on his parents. I could hit Leonard myself for what he's doing to us. I think he'd hit himself in an instant if it would do any good, that's my only consolation, but it'd hardly help. And he drinks too, like Uncle Ned used to - he never used to, just for fun when we had a night out on the town, but now he's a surly drunken lump in his chair half the nights, no good to anyone and certainly not to Billy or me. I sleep in the guest bedroom now anyway, because he has the most awful nightmares. I hate leaving him to suffer like that, but if I try to wake him up - well, it's worse, that's all. So I sleep in another room. But then I lie awake for hours wondering at every creak of the house if he's having a nightmare, if I ought to go down the hall and knock on the door, if even that's too close and too much. He feels terrible about it, he tells me all about how he's failing as a father and a husband, I guess so I'll know he doesn't blame me for frustration or think he thinks this is all right, but it's not as if telling me his faults fixes anything. I hide the bottles and it guilts him into being better for a day or two but then it's the same thing, and at least when he's in a drunken stupor he sleeps soundly, he says. But I've seen him twitch and moan in his armchair too, with whiskey on his breath so strong I sometimes think he's spilled it all over himself, and I hurry Billy upstairs because I couldn't bear it if he woke his dad up and it went bad. I don't know what I would do then. I really don't, I can't think about it or I start to shake.
And then sometimes he's lovely and it's just like old times. He really is. But then it goes away again.
Betty, what do I do? What do I do for Billy?
Can I send Billy to you for the start of summer break? Perhaps a week or two in June, whenever you're willing to have him. He's old enough to ride the train, and he'd love to visit his auntie and uncle. Maybe it will help if we have the house to ourselves for a bit. Maybe I'll even take Leonard on a little vacation, just down to Dannis City or something. Maybe that will help.
I don't even know if I can send this letter. It's a mess. I'm a mess. I'm sorry if you never see this.
No, I'm sending it. I can't talk to anyone else around here. I have to look good for the neighbors, I couldn't bear to fall apart in front of them and see them every day afterward, judging me. Judging us both. If anyone told me Leonard was weak, or told me I was a bad wife, I'd hate them forever. I couldn't stop myself. I'm spending too much energy And you know I can't possibly tell Mom. She'd bustle about and try to help and take charge of everything and tell me what to do. I hit the roof just thinking about it.
I'm sending this now before I lose my nerve. Betty please, if you have any ideas you're sure will help, for the love of God share them with your little sister. And please say you'll take Billy.
Love,
Mandy
15 March, 1909
Dear Betty,
I'm sorry for the last letter. I was all in a tizzy. It was a bad day for all of us.
Here, let me talk of cheerful things. The flowers are in full bloom, after weeks of rain, and it finally looks like spring. When I walked to the bus stop this morning, I got apple blossoms stuck to my shoes. I couldn't bear to scrub them off until I got all the way to work. Damp little bits of beauty! The fence around our yard is full of daffodils, except where the Bramptons' dog Trouble got in one day and dug up some of the bulbs. But there are plenty, and Trouble is a sweetheart (even if she's very well named), so she's welcome to a few.
Billy won first prize in his school's spelling bee. I was shocked, he's had such a hard time focusing on his homework lately, so I was doubly proud. It roused his competitive instinct, I think. He told me very proudly that he'd beaten Otto, a nemesis of his, and I probably should have said something about teamwork and tolerance but I didn't even bother. What a terrible example I am! But you know, sister dear, what hypocrisy it would have been if I had.
We all went out to ice cream. Even Leonard! It was just like old times. He still startled at loud noises, and he got very quiet after the next table over got a birthday cake full of candles - I think it must have been all the shrieking, those children had very healthy lungs, and I felt sorry for their parents who looked as if they had a happy kind of headache - but it was the best evening I've had in ages. Billy was so proud. He tried to bargain for the biggest sundae that Sillari's makes, but a triple cone was the most we would let him have. He got chocolate all over his shirt. But I managed to drop vanilla on my skirt, so we were a pair! Thankfully it was a cream skirt. And Leonard laughed, and ruffled Billy's hair and called him a smart kid and bought him extra sprinkles without Billy even asking for that part. He held hands with me all the way there, too, and Leonard was never much for public affection like that even when we were dating. It was sweet of him, he was sweet all evening, in his Leonardish way.
Thank you for saying you'll take Billy. I've already told him, and he perked up more than he had in days. (This was before the spelling bee. Two gifts to him in a week!) It's a great load off my mind. I do think we're on the uphill slope now. It was just a hard winter.
Tomorrow Leonard has a long shift, and Billy and I are off to have dinner with Mother. Wish me strength!
Much love,
Mandy
12 April, 1909
Dear Betty,
In answer to your last letter - I don't know. I just don't know.
It's an awful thought. I can barely put it into words. Leaving him? Just the thought makes me feel like a terrible wife. We swore for better or for worse, didn't we? What kind of flighty monster would it make me to give up after just a bit of worse, and leave Leonard in this state alone?
And yet there's Billy. That's what I keep coming back to. I could cope for myself, I truly could, because I know Leonard's hurting more from this than I've ever been. I can sleep in the guest bedroom, I could cajole him along for however long it takes until things get better, and I know they will sooner or later. They must. He's still the sweet man I married deep down. I don't know what they did to him in Ishval, but I hate whoever did it. I look at him hunched in his chair, looking ten years older than when he left last year, and it makes me want to hurt someone. I want to yell at God to bring me my husband back. But I could cope, I could. I signed up for marriage, with everything it takes.
But Billy's only thirteen. He doesn't deserve this. When Leonard was away he missed him but he could understand, but now Leonard's home and he's an angry awful stranger. I can see the confusion on Billy's face. Once he asked me if he'd done something wrong, and oh, Betty, it was like a knife in me. Now I can't stop wondering if he's still thinking that. I tell him we must be patient, I give him all the love and comfort I can, but I'm run ragged. He deserves two parents. Right now he's barely got half of one, Leonard's a ghost and I'm trying to fit forty hours into each day.
But how would leaving help that? He'd see his mother give up on his father. And it wouldn't bring him his dad back. I remember when Dad died, how it felt like the whole world was askew, I spent months furious at everything and wanting to burst into tears at the slightest thing. It took me years to get over it. And I was two years older than Billy is. That was a heart attack, that's nobody's fault and nobody can stop it, but this would be my choice. What if he hated me for it? I could bear Leonard's hatred, but I couldn't bear Billy's. If he hated me for this after I did it to help him, it would break my heart into a thousand pieces.
And my job doesn't pay all that well. Where would I live, with Mom? Can you imagine?
Maybe we'll work it out. It hasn't been long at all since he got back, I must remember. Just a couple of months. Maybe I'll look back on this and laugh, like the old story says, at how it seemed so awful now. And Ishval is still terribly fresh for Leonard. Maybe I just need to give him a little more time.
All my letters are about my own troubles these days. What a bore you must think me. Write back and give me news of the farm - I told Billy I was writing to you (Leonard's out somewhere), and he asked about the goats. "Ask Aunt Betty about Blackie," he says. And so I ask!
Love,
Mandy
24 May, 1909
Dear Betty,
You'll notice I'm writing from Mom's house now. Please send any future letters here.
You were right after all. I thought I could stick it out, I did, but I can't I didn't the last straw came this week. Such a stupid little thing. I came home from work to find Billy's mid-term report card all Cs and Ds - and he's always gotten high scores in everything but Reading and Cretan, even when Leonard was gone - and a worried letter from his teacher. I tried to talk to Leonard about it but he was a lump in his chair until he growled "Let the boy be! I don't know what you want me to do if he's decided to be lazy for a change, dammit" and stalked upstairs, and I just burst into tears in the middle of the living room. I can't face months more of this. Billy can't face months more.
I feel like I'm deserting him.
I am deserting him. That's exactly what I did. He just took it in silence, he helped me pack and everything, but all the time he looked like I'd punched him. I expected him to yell. I was ready to yell back. Instead the only thing he said was that maybe it was for the best, and he sounded like-- I don't even know how to describe it. How will he manage alone? What will the neighbors think, what if he does something rash to himself? What if I've done something unforgivable? Betty, tell me if you think I did the right thing? I can't bear to hear it from Mom, I asked her to please not tell me what she thinks about Leonard or my choice, please just support me. Even when she agrees with me she gets so irritating it always makes me want to do the opposite to spite her. (I hope Billy doesn't inherit that!) But I trust you to tell me what you think.
I asked my boss about working full-time, and she'll see what she can do. I don't want to count on Leonard's salary now, even if he'll probably still send at least part of it to me. He said he'd send money. And I'll take it, Billy's his son and he's outgrowing clothes every week and drinking a bottle of milk a day, I don't know how we'd manage on just my salary alone if I had to pay rent. But it feels mercenary to count on it coming. I made my choice and I left.
Billy's been quiet. I try to jolly him into things and he just shrugs. He's barely talking to me or anyone. But then he wasn't at home before this, either. Oh God, Betty, I hope I made the right choice.
I'm sorry, Bets, this letter's a mess. But I have to go help Mom with dinner, so I won't rewrite it into something tidier. I'll send you a better one tomorrow. Tell me everything's well with you, tell me all about Michael and Callie and the animals and everything. I could use some good news.
Love,
Mandy