Dishes and Dreamboats

A Timely Doll Doctor

ANTOINETTE HARTMANN IS MISSING a sock. She looks frantically over the chenille bedspread, and, moving aside her folded pair of brown slacks, finds her daughter's white sock balled up underneath them.

"Mommy, she's broken." Though the words out of Sally's mouth are that of toddler gibberish, Antoinette can make out what she means, especially once she glances up and notices the arm of her daughter's cloth doll hanging on by a few threads.

"Hold tight, Sal," she says as she folds the reunited socks together by the ankles and sweeps the rest of the air-dried clothes into a pile. She tells herself that she'll get to them later; later when Sally is tucked into her bed and Antoinette can fold to the tunes of the Glenn Miller Orchestra on the radio. She used to listen to the news, to the broadcasters who all sounded the same as they talked about places she's never been and the Allies' advancement. On the night they announced Japan's surrender, Antoinette had been attempting to sew up a hole in a puffy sleeve of one of Sally's dresses that ended right above the knee—the woman had nearly stuck the needle through her thumb in the process!

Yet, despite Antoinette's relief at the news delivered a mere few weeks ago, her husband still has not returned home. Talks about him being located also seemed to have stalled, for all Antoinette had was the Western Union's letter dated May 12th, 1942, and typed in simple text:

On behalf of the department of the United States Army, we are pained to report that your husband, Sergeant Victor Hartmann, has been captured by Japanese forces in the Philippines...

For months, Antoinette saw those words—sitting in bed, leaning over Sally's crib, or pouring Mrs. Reune's cup of joe in the mug she likes. To this day, they have yet to leave her mind, even with the distraction of Sally and her wounded doll.

Silencing her thoughts by walking around her bed to meet Sally near the doorway, Antoinette bends down and forces a smile. "Someone looks like they're about to lose an arm."

Sally nods enthusiastically, her short bangs bopping with her. Her observant eyes—her father's—follow Antoinette's movements as she takes the doll from her grasp. Antoinette only inspects the doll for a minute until she hears the Ameche ring, and another as she, in an attempt to move around Sally who has latched onto her leg, knocks her perfume bottle on the end of her dressing table to the ground.

By the time she is able to tighten the bottle's top before any more of the scented water can pool out, the ringing ceases, and her mother-in-law stirs in the next room.

———

"Fix her, Mommy."

Antoinette sends a pained look her daughter's way as they sit on the living room floor. The woman's sewing tin is laid out on the floor before them, and guilt warms Antoinette's insides as she curses at herself for not saving enough greenbacks so she could purchase one of those unbreakable dolls made of composition. Granted, Sally's doll is a gift from her grandmother, who reasons that homemade dolls set an example of resourcefulness, a quality Mrs. Reune claims vital to a woman's duty as a housewife. Nonetheless, Antoinette lacks the patience and the precision required to penetrate the needle through the doll's loose arm; Antoinette, however, does not allow it to be seen by her daughter's peepers or Mrs. Reune's (the latter of whom hasn't left the living room since being woken up from her nap).

"Mommy," Sally reaches out her hand and Antoinette grabs hold of it and gives it a squeeze. "A few more minutes, sweetie."

"But—" the three-year-old starts as the china in one of Mrs. Reune's decorative cabinets suddenly rattles with the sound of knocking at the door.

"We have a guest!" Mrs. Reune calls from a lounge chair. "I hope it isn't Emil. That man is too much of an eager beaver."

Antoinette dares a glance at her mother-in-law, who uses their brief eye contact as an excuse to keep ragging on their neighbor. "If you needed him to put your unmentionables up on the clothes line, I'm sure he'd do it."

Her neck growing crimson, Antoinette bites her tongue at the woman's insult and leaves Sally to toy with her doll as she opens the front door. Antoinette almost wants to close it as soon as she spots Emil Keating's black fedora hat through the glass, for she knows what Mrs. Reune will say.

"There's the schnook!"

Too late is Antoinette, as Mrs. Reune spots Emil from her seat just as he and his young nephew, Neil, step inside. A lighthearted smile grazes the man's lips, and he wiggles his brows at Antoinette before addressing Mrs. Reune.

"Fine evening, isn't it, Mrs. Reune?"

The woman's lip curls as Emil continues: "Your knee still hurtin'? Because I swore I saw you walk some armored heifer and a cup of sugar down to the new neighbors yesterday."

Huffing, Mrs. Reune opts for silence and turns the page of her copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn furiously. As Antoinette stifles a laugh, she lets her eyes wander back to the six foot man across from her. He's already got his peepers on her as he observes her as usual, taking in the bags under her eyes that not even her Max Factor Pan-Cake foundation can hide.

"You look nice," sincerity surrounds his compliment, and the same can be described of his inquiry. "Need help with anything?"

Before she can answer, Neil pulls from his pocket a box of gumdrops and interjects sharply: "Look what Uncle Emil bought me!"

"I got a box for Sally too," Emil says, shaking a box toward Sally, who, losing interest in her doll, gets off the floor and barrels toward Emil with a squeal.

"That was really sweet of you, Emil."

Emil waves his hand as he glances at Sally, whose hands are already tearing into the box of candy, prior to meeting Antoinette's gaze.

Realizing his question is still unanswered, Antoinette allows a silence to pass between them before she points to the broken doll, and Emil walks to it as the Ameche rings again. Excusing herself, she hears Emil tell Sally over her loud chewing: "It's time for the doll doctor to reappear, I see!"

Thankful for the escape, Antoinette makes a beeline for the kitchen, ignoring the expression on Mrs. Reune's face that her son wore whenever he'd see a bad bet made at the casino. Once on the linoleum floor, Antoinette brings the receiver up to her ear, expecting to hear the butcher on the other line tell her the lamb chops are ready. Yet surprise invades Antoinette's mind as a woman's formal voice greets her.

"Is this Mrs. Antoinette Hartmann, Sergeant Victor Hartmann's spouse?"

Tightening her grip on the phone, Antoinette responds with a "yes."

She doesn't remember the rest of the formalities, the basic questions that she could answer in her sleep; instead, it is the point of the conversation that brings her thoughts to a standstill.

"Well Mrs. Hartmann, the United States Army wanted to personally inform you that your husband has been found alive at a POW camp operated by Japan. Sergeant Hartmann has been processed and is on his way home."

Antoinette drops the receiver and watches it land on the table with a clunk.

"Mrs. Hartmann?" The woman's voice murmurs faintly from the speaker, yet Antoinette ignores it as tears stream down her face and a smile adorns her lips.

He's on his way home.

Three years it has taken for Antoinette to hear those words in a place other than her dreams, and she finds herself saying them aloud, over and over again. She even spins in the middle of the room, her hands aching to touch her husband's chest. Eventually bringing her hands up to her heart, Antoinette takes a shaky breath as she hears Sally call from the living room:

"He fixed her, Mommy!"

Her smile has never faltered more quickly.