1918
Rosie puts her cold hands on my warm belly at night. She says I warm her up. She says it’s like I’m her furnace. She stares at my belly. She wonders what it looks like on the other side. She holds her hands there until I tell her to stop.
Mazie’s Diary, November 7, 1918
They announced the end of the war today and the whole city cheered at once. I’ve never seen anything like it. I probably won’t again in my lifetime. The end of the war! We shut down the Venice. No one was bothering with the pictures today. I roamed the streets with Jeanie and Ethan. One parade bled into another. People kissing and hugging on the corners. Bottles of booze in the air. Children with lollies in one hand and balloons in the other. I couldn’t stop laughing for nothing, none of us could. It was one kind of relief at last. Do you see this, I whispered to myself, but I knew I was talking to my belly.
By the time we made it home though, the radio was saying it was a fake armistice. We had a party for nothing.
Mazie’s Diary, November 11, 1918
Today the war was really over. The papers said so. No more war. I can’t believe the whole city celebrated again, but they did. Any excuse. We laughed all day, but then tonight we cried. Too exhausted to be anything but grateful.
I never believed these words could come out of my mouth, but I’m ready for the party to be over.
Benjamin Hazzard, Jr.
I suppose I had this idea that I might try to seduce her, or toy with her. In my devastation from his death she seemed to be at fault for something. I was nineteen years old—that’s a good age to blame the wrong people for your problems.
I wanted to see her face. That I know. I had seen some of the others. A few women from the club, these boozy, bored wives, and there had also been this young widow down the block who was constantly breaking things in her house that only my father could fix, of course. And I am nearly certain he slept with my seventh-grade math teacher, although I’ll never be able to confirm it.
But she seemed mythic to me. The woman from New York. The famous Mazie Phillips. She’d been in the papers. He’d met all manner of politicians and war heroes, and he was an important part of the Republican Party in Connecticut. But Mazie was a real celebrity to him, and she had known him in his prime, during that war, the one he had actually fought in as opposed to watching Stateside. Everything after that war bored him, I suspect. Or maybe he really loved her. He could have loved her. I’ll never know that either.
I’ll tell you, I plumb my feelings regularly, but I can’t seem to define this moment precisely, though I can see it in my mind, everything about it. I had a bottle of whiskey at my side in the car, and the more I drank the less upset I became. My sadness began to solidify into an angry darkness. I arrived at the theater at midday. There she was in her ticket booth. I stood in line and waited my turn. She waited for me to say something and I had prepared nothing. The whole car ride there I’d just been having a conversation with my father in my head instead.
Then she said, “Step aside if you’re not buying a ticket, kid.” I was a kid then. I was nineteen years old. I said, “Are you Mazie Phillips?” She said, “Yeah, who’s asking?” I said, “I’m the son of Benjamin Hazzard.” She didn’t say anything, but she lit a cigarette. And then all I could do is blurt out that my father was dead. And then I remember this vision so specifically I can squint my eyes right now and see it: This quiver started in her hand, the one that was holding the cigarette, and the cigarette began to shake, and then this quiver sort of rolled through her body if that makes sense, all the way up to her face, and then she began to cry.
Mazie’s Diary, December 1, 1918
The baby died. Rosie keeps throwing her arms around me like that will change what happened. Like her arms can bring it back.
She says I should say
Rosie puts her cold hands on my warm belly at night. She says I warm her up. She says it’s like I’m her furnace. She stares at my belly. She wonders what it looks like on the other side. She holds her hands there until I tell her to stop.
Mazie’s Diary, November 7, 1918
They announced the end of the war today and the whole city cheered at once. I’ve never seen anything like it. I probably won’t again in my lifetime. The end of the war! We shut down the Venice. No one was bothering with the pictures today. I roamed the streets with Jeanie and Ethan. One parade bled into another. People kissing and hugging on the corners. Bottles of booze in the air. Children with lollies in one hand and balloons in the other. I couldn’t stop laughing for nothing, none of us could. It was one kind of relief at last. Do you see this, I whispered to myself, but I knew I was talking to my belly.
By the time we made it home though, the radio was saying it was a fake armistice. We had a party for nothing.
Mazie’s Diary, November 11, 1918
Today the war was really over. The papers said so. No more war. I can’t believe the whole city celebrated again, but they did. Any excuse. We laughed all day, but then tonight we cried. Too exhausted to be anything but grateful.
I never believed these words could come out of my mouth, but I’m ready for the party to be over.
Benjamin Hazzard, Jr.
I suppose I had this idea that I might try to seduce her, or toy with her. In my devastation from his death she seemed to be at fault for something. I was nineteen years old—that’s a good age to blame the wrong people for your problems.
I wanted to see her face. That I know. I had seen some of the others. A few women from the club, these boozy, bored wives, and there had also been this young widow down the block who was constantly breaking things in her house that only my father could fix, of course. And I am nearly certain he slept with my seventh-grade math teacher, although I’ll never be able to confirm it.
But she seemed mythic to me. The woman from New York. The famous Mazie Phillips. She’d been in the papers. He’d met all manner of politicians and war heroes, and he was an important part of the Republican Party in Connecticut. But Mazie was a real celebrity to him, and she had known him in his prime, during that war, the one he had actually fought in as opposed to watching Stateside. Everything after that war bored him, I suspect. Or maybe he really loved her. He could have loved her. I’ll never know that either.
I’ll tell you, I plumb my feelings regularly, but I can’t seem to define this moment precisely, though I can see it in my mind, everything about it. I had a bottle of whiskey at my side in the car, and the more I drank the less upset I became. My sadness began to solidify into an angry darkness. I arrived at the theater at midday. There she was in her ticket booth. I stood in line and waited my turn. She waited for me to say something and I had prepared nothing. The whole car ride there I’d just been having a conversation with my father in my head instead.
Then she said, “Step aside if you’re not buying a ticket, kid.” I was a kid then. I was nineteen years old. I said, “Are you Mazie Phillips?” She said, “Yeah, who’s asking?” I said, “I’m the son of Benjamin Hazzard.” She didn’t say anything, but she lit a cigarette. And then all I could do is blurt out that my father was dead. And then I remember this vision so specifically I can squint my eyes right now and see it: This quiver started in her hand, the one that was holding the cigarette, and the cigarette began to shake, and then this quiver sort of rolled through her body if that makes sense, all the way up to her face, and then she began to cry.
Mazie’s Diary, December 1, 1918
The baby died. Rosie keeps throwing her arms around me like that will change what happened. Like her arms can bring it back.
She says I should say
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