Willie Keith's mother

Willie Keith's mother meets her son at the Navy’s gates as the USS Caine is decommissioned, hoping to welcome him back into her home while fearing that any attempt to direct his life will drive him away. In their journey from the dock toward New York, she and Willie begin to repair a relationship shaped by her protectiveness, his earlier concealment of May Wynn, and the unmistakable changes wrought by his years in the Navy.

Homecoming and a Changed Son

Willie Keith's mother has been driving to Bayonne, New Jersey, every day since the USS Caine arrived. On the day of its decommissioning, she waits at the gate in a new tan Cadillac, ready to take Willie home. The pickup follows the formal end of his naval service: he has handed over the ship’s keys and records, signed the last logs, and walked down its abandoned gangplank. For her, bringing him home seems natural and inevitable. For Willie, the return is more complicated. He thinks, “She drove me to the Navy’s gates,” and then, “Now she’s driving me back home. The little boy is through with the sailor game.” Her welcome therefore carries a double meaning: she is receiving her son, but he experiences the ride as a possible return to the dependent childhood he has outgrown.

His mother does not challenge that feeling. She opens with a sympathetic remark about how sad it must be to leave the old ship. Willie answers, “Happiest moment of my life,” echoing words De Vriess had spoken two years earlier. The reply is not an invitation to reminisce; he slumps beside her, and they drive in silence for almost an hour. The contrast between her effort to make a gentle beginning and his glum withdrawal establishes how little either knows, at first, about what the other is feeling.

Fear of Pressuring Willie

The silence about May Wynn is not evidence that Willie’s mother assumes she has prevailed. Willie has been unable to locate May, has repeatedly called Marty Rubin’s office without reaching the agent, and is irritated that his mother has not brought the subject up. He reads her silence as confidence that she has won their earlier struggle. The narration clarifies the opposite: she is avoiding May because she is afraid of what the subject might provoke.

That fear is bound up with her perception of Willie’s transformation. Since her visit in February, he has seemed to age; the change shows in his eyes, gestures, bearing, and voice. She remembers the ruddy, careless boy of three years earlier, but now sees a gray-toned, nondescript adult. Her wish is to have him live with her again in the big, empty house, where she hopes he might thaw and become more himself. At the same time, she is afraid to say anything that might prompt him to declare his independence. Her desire for closeness thus produces restraint: she wants him near, but worries that asking directly will make him leave emotionally even if he comes home physically.

May and the Conversation in the Car

Crossing the Triborough Bridge, Willie breaks the silence by asking whether his mother has heard from May. She answers that she has not. He then tells her that he wrote to May in June asking her to marry him, and that May never answered. The disclosure makes plain that his search is not a passing curiosity. When he asks whether his mother will be upset if he marries May, he states that, if May will have him, his decision is definite.

His mother looks at him and recognizes that he has grown up. She tells him that if he is still seeking May, May must have qualities she has never had a chance to observe, and says that she hopes May does not hate her. Her answer is a relinquishing of authority, but also an admission of vulnerability: she does not want the choice of a wife to become the price of losing her son. She says she would not want to be shut out of his life and adds that she is “rather short on sons.” Willie kisses her cheek. Her agitation at the gesture—he has not kissed her since returning—shows how much the small sign of affection matters to her. Willie explains that he has been in a fog and hopes he may feel normal again when he finds May.

Acknowledgment and Reconciliation

Rather than treating May as a rival, Willie Keith's mother asks Willie to bring her home so that she can get to know her. She also raises a painful question about her own earlier conduct: whether Willie was fair to her, and whether he hid May away as though she were a cheap liaison. She says she judged May by the value Willie himself had assigned to her. Her words challenge his conduct without simply blaming him; they identify how his secrecy helped shape her view of May.

Willie recognizes the criticism as fair, though only partly true because he believes his mother’s possessiveness had a force of its own. He is relieved by what seems to him her surrender and promises to bring May home when he finds her. The exchange does not erase their disagreements, and May remains absent, but it changes the terms of their conversation: Willie states his intention openly, while his mother makes room for a relationship she has not yet had the chance to know. Once he has brought their bags in from the car, he calls Rubin’s office again, and this time the agent answers.