Cora’s Window Seat

Cora looked out her apartment window again, watching the street below her as she had done every afternoon for the last year. She thought of the last time her husband, Henry, had been with her, as they sat in the window seat holding mugs of steaming coffee looking across the streets through the frozen window panes. He would tell her stories from his childhood and she would sit there listening, curled in her shawl, taking in every word. He was a good storyteller and she loved to listen, hoping one day to write about his life and maybe share his stories with others. Now, since he’d enlisted almost a year ago after the news of the Attack on Pearl Harbor, her only form of communication with him was their letters, and those were few and far between. Her last letter from Henry had been shorter than most, rarely mentioning comrades or battles, but it was full of love for her and had left her wanting to hear more. 

She removed the shoebox of his letters from the corner of the window seat and reread the last one dated three weeks ago, December 2, 1942. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, she thought as she looked around her lightly furnished apartment, displaying few signs of the holiday season. Her silent thoughts were interrupted by the squall of Mrs. Rennie’s orange tabby down the hall and wondered what the cat could’ve been up to. The interruption was short lived as the sounds of the cat echoed softer and softer and then to nothing at all and she finally redirected her attention back to her reading. Finishing the letter, she placed it back in the box and sat it once again in its corner, eyeing briefly the blue star service banner in the opposite end of the window. Cora’s eyes caught movement in the street and for a tiny second an excitement flitted through her until she realized it was not the mailman as she’d hoped. He was usually here by this time but something must’ve slowed him. 

She continued watching the streets below, warm beneath her shawl even though the frosty prints on the glass against her skin threatened to chill her. It was too cold to wait in the hall downstairs, winter in the old flat was hard enough but the flat’s stove kept her warmer than she would’ve been in the empty hall below. She would wait here and watch for the mailman then run downstairs to the apartment’s mailing hold and ask if there was a letter for her. Each day she ran to meet him. Each day she longed to hear from Henry. As she considered what tales of the war he would write her next, she watched the passerby’s on the street, hoping at any moment to see the mailman’s familiar uniform. She noticed several passersby’s and began to imagine what each person was doing, where they were going, what their flats looked like….Cora was so lost in thought that she never even noticed the slender Army uniform emerging from a black sedan across the street and walking towards the entrance of the apartment building. A moment later, there was a knock on her door, bringing her out of her daydreaming. She groaned in annoyance, hating the thought of leaving her watchful perch even for a moment. However, when the knocking continued she raised herself and crossed the creaky floor to the apartment door. She opened it to see a polite-looking, middle-aged officer with hat in hand and deep-set, sad eyes that were looking back at her. “Mrs. Henry Ward?” the strange voice asked. Cora gasped as her world spiraled around her with the realization of why he was there. “Yes.” she barely formed the answer before tears choked at her throat. There was no need for his explanation, she knew what had happened. 

The next morning a gold star service banner replaced the once bright blue one in her window.