6/17/39
Darling:
If you hadn’t called last night, I should have been frantic. I didn’t know from your last letter whether you were getting tired of me or just what. So I purposely tried to be impersonal in my answer. I didn’t realize until I re-read it just how horrible it was.
Darling, we’re past one of the hardest milestones in our married life. I call it that for we have been married in my mind for many years, although the physical side has been delayed. As you could tell by my answer to your first request for dates, I was insanely jealous. You were probably struck about the same way when I wrote that I had had a couple. We were both most foolish. Since talking to you last night, I am happier than I have been in years, for I know that you can have a good time and yet stay on the right side of the fence. And please believe me, Darling, I shall do likewise. I’d murder the man who touches you, but I’ll thank the ones who can show you the right kind of good time. For the first time, I really feel that even if we do have to wait, we will make the grade in the right way. Please forgive me for scaring you, but believe me when I say that I should have taken drastic measures had it looked like I might lose you. You’re mine, and I’m very much yours, and nothing in the world can change that.
I haven’t gotten Nena’s letter yet. I have suspected something screwy for some time, from Mother’s letters, and from the fact that Chuck hasn’t written. After thinking it over through the night, I am convinced that it simply mustn’t go through. First, it would put Chuck in a bad position in school. Nena left me with the idea that she wouldn’t go ahead until he had finished two years of high school. Secondly, how can the folks afford the apartment and Chuck with NO help? Nena and Johny must not live at 323, for it would put mother in horrible shape.*
I can tell from Mother’s letters that she is very frightened about something, apparently this. I am writing Daddy—at his office—for his side of the story, financially and otherwise. Mother has not written this week, no doubt waiting to see what I will say to Nena’s letter which I have not received. IMPORTANT, call the family and say that I “haven’t had a letter in two weeks from anyone, and am beginning to wonder what’s wrong.” Nena will take the hint and write again. The letter is apparently lost in the mail.
Darling, I’ll keep trying to swing things for us if it takes me the rest of my life. I am yours and always shall be.
Your adoring, devoted husband, Cy
P.S. Temperature is over 90, humidity about the same, and although sitting here in nothing with a nice breeze blowing, I am sweating. Brought a season’s ticket to the pool yesterday, and am going to spend the week-end there, starting right now.
*I think this refers to Nena and John’s plans to get married and live separately from her parents, but to have Chuck continue to live with his grandparents.