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Authors: Luke Dittrich
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he’d often make long-distance house calls, like when he was once flown on a bomber to the arctic airbase in Goose Bay, Labrador, to treat a head injury in the middle of winter. In 1943, the army ordered him to report to the opposite coast, in Walla Walla. There he spent his days treating the battered soldiers coming home from the South Pacific. He was good at his work, and his work energized and elevated him. The self-doubt of his college years had evaporated, replaced by a new self-confidence and a wry, upbeat outlook on life. That year, when Yale solicited all members of the class of 1928 to submit a one-sentence summation of their guiding philosophies, my grandfather wrote the following: “We are simply a fancy edition of the little flowers and fishes and should not get as wrought up as Hitler has about it all.”
Meanwhile, my grandmother managed. As her husband found his passion and ascended professionally, she tried to adjust to the demands of raising her family three thousand miles from home. They had three kids, each two years apart. By 1944 the oldest, Barrett, was eight, and the youngest, Peter, was four. My mother, Lisa, was in the middle, six years old. My grandfather ran his operating rooms and my grandmother ran the household, attending to the day-in, day-out practicalities: school, meals, cleaning. She managed, but with each kid it got a little harder, and the past year had been the hardest. My grandfather had left for Walla Walla two months before she had, leaving her to handle most of the work of moving. She and the children ended up driving across the country in a Lincoln Continental convertible. Then she settled into her new life, in this new place, raising my mother and my uncles pretty much on her own as before, although now she was doing it without her support system, her family and friends. In the past several months, her weight had dropped from 108 pounds to 89. She’d always been thin, but it had gone beyond that.
And now there were people in the cellar. Or, she realized, there
had
been people in the cellar. They had migrated upstairs, and suddenly she could hear them behind one of the closed doors. She recognized the voices. They belonged to some of the only people she’d made friends with here. People who lived in the neighborhood, not far away. What were they doing there? She listened to the voices, tried to make out what they were saying. She caught only vague snatches, but it was enough to convince her that something terrible was looming. Some sort of plot against her and her husband. Her friends, the ones who snuck into her house, were whispering. She didn’t dare open the door. The night passed slowly.
When she awoke the next morning, she wondered whether any of it had been real. Had she been dreaming? There hadn’t really been people in the house, had there? At six A.M. , before the children were awake, she slipped outside and rode her bicycle a few blocks to the house of the whispering friends. She rang the doorbell and waited for them to answer, to make sure they were there and not hiding somewhere in her own home. When they answered she hurriedly said she had to go, couldn’t stay, and then she got back on the bicycle and rode back to start preparing breakfast. It was Saturday, and the children didn’t have school, so she needed to tend to them.
As the morning unfolded, she called her husband three times. Each time she was told that he was busy performing an operation and couldn’t call back till later, but something inside of her told her that this was a lie. They were lying to her. Her husband was not in surgery. Her husband was in jail. He had been court-martialed. They had him.
She did not know what to do, but she knew she had to do something. She tried to keep busy. She went upstairs, she went downstairs. She watched her children play. She noticed her youngest, four-year-old Peter, was not playing. He was not playing, and he was looking at her. He was looking at her and
Meanwhile, my grandmother managed. As her husband found his passion and ascended professionally, she tried to adjust to the demands of raising her family three thousand miles from home. They had three kids, each two years apart. By 1944 the oldest, Barrett, was eight, and the youngest, Peter, was four. My mother, Lisa, was in the middle, six years old. My grandfather ran his operating rooms and my grandmother ran the household, attending to the day-in, day-out practicalities: school, meals, cleaning. She managed, but with each kid it got a little harder, and the past year had been the hardest. My grandfather had left for Walla Walla two months before she had, leaving her to handle most of the work of moving. She and the children ended up driving across the country in a Lincoln Continental convertible. Then she settled into her new life, in this new place, raising my mother and my uncles pretty much on her own as before, although now she was doing it without her support system, her family and friends. In the past several months, her weight had dropped from 108 pounds to 89. She’d always been thin, but it had gone beyond that.
And now there were people in the cellar. Or, she realized, there
had
been people in the cellar. They had migrated upstairs, and suddenly she could hear them behind one of the closed doors. She recognized the voices. They belonged to some of the only people she’d made friends with here. People who lived in the neighborhood, not far away. What were they doing there? She listened to the voices, tried to make out what they were saying. She caught only vague snatches, but it was enough to convince her that something terrible was looming. Some sort of plot against her and her husband. Her friends, the ones who snuck into her house, were whispering. She didn’t dare open the door. The night passed slowly.
When she awoke the next morning, she wondered whether any of it had been real. Had she been dreaming? There hadn’t really been people in the house, had there? At six A.M. , before the children were awake, she slipped outside and rode her bicycle a few blocks to the house of the whispering friends. She rang the doorbell and waited for them to answer, to make sure they were there and not hiding somewhere in her own home. When they answered she hurriedly said she had to go, couldn’t stay, and then she got back on the bicycle and rode back to start preparing breakfast. It was Saturday, and the children didn’t have school, so she needed to tend to them.
As the morning unfolded, she called her husband three times. Each time she was told that he was busy performing an operation and couldn’t call back till later, but something inside of her told her that this was a lie. They were lying to her. Her husband was not in surgery. Her husband was in jail. He had been court-martialed. They had him.
She did not know what to do, but she knew she had to do something. She tried to keep busy. She went upstairs, she went downstairs. She watched her children play. She noticed her youngest, four-year-old Peter, was not playing. He was not playing, and he was looking at her. He was looking at her and
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