8:15 AM, the perfect day
He was coming home. Finally, finally, Jo was coming home. Kate took the curlers out of her hair and watched the soft brown ringlets fall around her face. She brushed rouge on her cheeks and felt the silky shimmer of her nightgown be exchanged for starched and ironed cotton. She would put on her best dress, her dancing dress, tonight. For now, though, she contented herself with a white pressed shirt and the deep inky purple of a loose, flowing skirt.
She wanted to be beautiful for him. She wanted him to know how much she missed their elegant evenings at the town hall, dancing the night away in pastel summer colors.
Kate had sold those pale pinks and buttercup yellows over a year ago. She was going to wear orange tonight, the orange of pumpkins and bravery. Then he would see she was bold in the waiting, strong in the watching, and completely ready for him. She wasn’t the same woman as last May. The pink flowers that used to crowd her heart were as dead as the field that surrounded her home this November.
And yet Jo was coming home now. Coming home for her.
12:38 PM, the perfect day
Kate began pinning up her hair in the kind of updo that had been fashionable a year and a half ago, the same one that she’d worn when Jo boarded the train in the middle of a field of pink and yellow flowers. She slipped off her stiff teacher blouse and long skirt, shivering in her slip in the unheated November room. Her newest dancing dress, bought only last week with pennies she’d managed to scrounge up, was pulled into place.
She’d taken a half day at work today. The children understood. Their last teacher, Mrs. Neilson, had moved closer to her parents a few months ago because her husband would never be coming home. These students’ own fathers, brothers, and uncles would either be entering town on the same train in the next few weeks or never again.
“Mrs. Elm?” a soft voice called from the front door, accompanied by a shy knock. Kate made her way to the foyer and opened her front door.
“Lilah,” Kate said. The five year old girl beamed up at her schoolteacher, a bundle of autumn crocuses in her hands. “Why, thank you.”
“They’re for Mr. Elm.”
“How kind,” Kate murmured, looking down to hide her dewy eyes. “I’ll ask him to visit the school, so all of you children can see him once he’s home.”
“He’s coming on the big train?”
“Yes, dear. This evening at five.”
Lilah smiled and dashed off through the grey November grasses. Kate closed the door and put the flowers in a vase on the entryway counter. Lilah’s little kindness would be the first thing Jo saw when he entered the house that almost didn’t feel like his anymore. Gone were the old newspapers and half-drunk mugs of coffee, instead replaced with fretfully embroidered handkerchiefs and doilies. She’d only embroidered and worried last winter, waiting for a letter or telegram from Europe.
Kate began to sweep up fallen petals and the little trails of dirt that the cold November wind swept in. She wanted the house to be spotless for Jo. Just thinking of Jo made her want to sing one of the tunes they used to dance all night to. She let herself hum in the empty house, safe in knowing it wouldn’t be empty past five o’clock tonight.
The hem of her dress brushed against the broom as she danced in her stockings across cleanly swept hardwood floors.
3:25 PM, the perfect day
The house was spotless, the hair pinned perfectly in place, the flowers arranged neatly, and Kate stood at the door with her key in her hand. She scanned the living room and kitchen, proud of her hard work that afternoon to make the house appear a dream, or at least as much of a dream as the grey November day would allow. Warm bread sat, covered by a towel, on the just-cleaned counter. She pulled a grey overcoat over her dancing dress and tied a yellow scarf around her neck. Before she left, she ducked her head back in the entryway to stare at her face in the warped mirror.
She dashed a smear of red lipstick across her lips and felt her chin rise involuntarily at the bold look it gave her. Jo must love the woman he saw, red lipstick and orange dancing dress and all. She was different than his springtime Kate, but she loved him with a newfound bravery. Surely he would see that. Surely he would see at a glance that she still cared.
She shut the door softly, as if trying not to disturb the dull grey memories of a year without Jo. Unlike her husband, who had been fighting in trenches for all of 1918, Kate had experienced no real hardship but missing the man she married. The children she taught were sweet, and the house Jo left her with was warm in the winter. But everything, even the spring, was terribly, horribly grey when Jo was fighting at the front.
She turned her coat up against the wind, and began to walk. She would go on foot to the station, and take a carriage home with Jo. They would be the envy of the town with nothing but a fifty cent ride, a dress next to a uniform, and love.
4:58 PM, the perfect day
“It’s coming! It’s coming!”
Women squeezed each others’ hands in silent support as the white cloud of smoke drifted over the horizon and children scampered away from the platform.
Kate slid off her overcoat, unwound her scarf, and tossed them on a nearby wooden bench. She hoped her lipstick was still bright. The bright orange of her newest dancing dress stood out among the town ladies’ brown, black, and white frocks. The train ground to a stop, and two low whistles resounded through the air.
The doors slid open, and Kate held her breath.