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but the imagined whisper of “that’s all she wrote” as he went to
crease the paper caused him to tear it in half, instead.
It wasn’t that he’d met someone else while waiting for
Freddie to come back. It was that he wasn’t sure what he’d do if
Freddie came back as someone else.

•••
The telegram comes on a Saturday. When Ira opens the
door for the Western Union messenger, a full five seconds elapse
where he cannot see anything except the damnable blue of the
uniform, the row of neat buttons down the jacket’s front, the
gold braid around the cuff.
“Sir?” the messenger prompts, holding out small, cream-
colored envelope.
“Yes, thank you,” Ira says automatically, snapping back into
himself like a rubber band and taking the telegram. His head
feels light, as though it’s been filled with helium.
“Have a good day, sir,” says the messenger, giving a quick
salute before hopping back on his bicycle and bobbing down the
street.
Ira stands in the doorway for another moment, telegram
clutched foolishly in his hand, before he realizes that this can’t
be what—because no one official would have known to
contact him if—and Freddie’s mother would have called;
someone would have called, long-distance charges be damned.
Closing the door, Ira sinks into the closest chair and tears
open the envelope.

NSA463 13 COLLECT=CINCINATTI OHIO 15 125 OP

IRA WOOLITER=10 JULY 1943

1849 W PARK ST APT 4=DISCHARGE FROM NEW JERSEY HOME

JULY TWENTIETH DO NOT MEAN CLEVELAND=FRED.

Ira sucks the helium filling his head into his lungs, and he
laughs, high and breathy, until he thinks he might just float away.

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