Page 7 of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

Lockheed gets every available aircraft flying. Fighters and bombers come west to protect the coast from potential kamikaze attacks. Others patrol inland. There are blackouts.

In the spring, the blow comes.

“You’ll have to go back to the orphanage,” explains Grace, over a cigarette and a glass of warm gin. Her husband is being transferred for work. “Doc can’t turn down a new job across the country. There’s nothing I can do.” She grinds her cigarette into the ashtray.

“But you promised … You p-p-promised.” Norma Jeane’s cheeks are burning red. She cries silent tears over the injustice of it all.

What has she ever done to deserve any of this? She’s been a good girl. She babysat all those foster kids. She only ran away from the orphanage once, but barely got as far as the end of the drive before realizing she had nowhere to go and turning back.

When Mr. Kinnell, the lodger at her mother’s house in Hollywood, locked her in his bedroom, she kicked and screamed and whacked him. But when her mother explained that they couldn’t afford the house without him, Norma Jeane stopped making a fuss. Mr. Murray Kinnell. She would never forget his name.

And now here she is being returned to the orphanage, like an unwanted present that’s shop-soiled.

She rocks back and forth in her chair and starts to sing under her breath. She wraps her arms tightly around herself, digging her fingertips into her upper arms until it hurts.

“Jesus loves me, this I know. Jesus loves me, this I know.”

She closes her eyes. She rocks some more.

“Stop it,” snaps Grace. “Stop it right there! I have an idea.”

The idea is this: Norma Jeane will marry Jim Dougherty. Grace has arranged it all.

“He’s said yes,” she tells her ward, who doesn’t have much choice in the matter. “We have to wait until you’re sixteen, but that’s in a couple months. You’ll have to drop out of school, obviously. But who needs that now?”

Grace doesn’t wait for an answer. “Anything but the orphanage, right?”

“Anything but the orphanage,” agrees Norma Jeane.

Norma Jeane is standing at the top of a spiral staircase in a long-sleeved dress handmade by Aunt Ana. The white embroidered lace gown is topped with a sheer veil.

Eighteen days ago, Norma Jeane celebrated her birthday. Today, June 19, 1942, is her wedding day.

By the fireplace stands the sharp-featured minister in an even sharper suit. But next to him, grinning with delight, is Jim Dougherty. He is sure and solid and reliable.

Everyone looks up at the bridge at the top of the stairs. Norma Jeane smiles through the sickly sweet scent wafting from her bouquet of white lilies.

There is no music. Just a nod from the pinched-faced preacher.

And one long, deep breath.

There is no backing out now.