A Woman's Place (39 page)

CHAPTER 35

* Helen *

Helen was scanning the deck of the ship, helping in the search for Thelma’s tools, when she suddenly heard a scream. She looked up, then watched in horror as the ladder Ginny was climbing tilted sideways and crashed to the ground. Ginny landed like a rag doll on the unforgiving cement floor. The ladder landed on top of her.

“God, no!” Helen breathed. “Ginny!” For a split second, Helen relived the terrible moment years ago when her brother Henry toppled from the railing to land in a heap on the gazebo floor. The same helpless horror rocked through her.

She clambered down from the deck, her movements clumsy with fear, and raced over to where Ginny lay motionless. Helen shoved away the ladder and knelt at her side.

“Ginny! Ginny, wake up! Please, Ginny. Please be okay …” She lifted Ginny’s limp hand and felt a pulse, but Ginny didn’t open her eyes.

“Don’t move her,” Jean said. “Somebody call an ambulance!”

Helen was dimly aware of other people gathering around them. She heard Thelma praying, “Oh, Lord, please help her. Please let her be okay. Please, Lord!”

Helen continued to plead frantically. “Wake up, Ginny. Please wake up.” This couldn’t be happening. In the past few days, Helen had thought so often of how her brother Henry had died as she’d grieved for Jean and her brother. And now she had witnessed yet another fall—with Ginny.

“Everyone stand back,” Earl Seaborn shouted. He crouched beside Helen. “What happened? Did you see what happened?”

“Sh-she took a terrible fall … off this ladder. I saw her hit the ground.”

“What was she doing on a ladder in the first place?”

“I … I don’t know… .” Helen looked up and saw Thelma’s tool belt dangling from the light. The hatred behind the deed shocked her into silence. She could only point to it. Thelma looked up, as well.

“My tools! She was getting my tools! Oh, Lord … Oh, Lord!”

Earl pivoted around to examine the ladder, still lying on the floor nearby. “These rungs feel greasy. Could this be deliberate?”

“Oh, Lord,” Thelma moaned. “That fall was meant for me!”

Helen could barely breathe. Her pounding heart felt as heavy as a boulder, weighing her down. She remembered feeling the same way after her brother Henry had fallen, wishing she could stop time and roll it backwards and do everything differently the second time.

“Oh, Lord, please help her,” Thelma continued to pray. Helen remembered how Jimmy had done the same thing, kneeling on the gazebo floor beside Henry, begging God to spare him.

“Don’t touch anything,” Earl said. “I’m calling the police. This was premeditated. They’re not getting away with this.”

“Tell … tell the police I’ll offer a reward … f-for information,” Helen stammered. “Somebody knows who did this.”

Helen and Thelma each held one of Ginny’s lifeless hands as they waited endlessly for the ambulance. Any minute now Ginny would open her eyes and smile her timid smile and apologize for causing so much trouble. She would be fine, and tomorrow morning she would come to work with a new word that she’d found in the dictionary to describe what a clumsy nuisance she was. But Ginny lay on the ground, not moving, and Helen was terrified. Her brother Henry had never regained consciousness.

At last she heard sirens. She released Ginny’s hand and stood aside, watching as they loaded her carefully onto a stretcher and carried her away. Then Helen noticed Jean, huddled on the floor, her face white with shock. She had barely uttered a word throughout the ordeal.

“Someone had better take Jean home,” she whispered to Earl. “She’s in no condition to deal with this. I would drive her, but I don’t have my car.”

“I’ll ask Mr. Wire to drive her,” Earl said. He stood and gently helped Jean to her feet.

“Has anyone called Ginny’s husband?” Helen asked.

“I’ll do that, too,” Earl said. “Thelma, you need to wait right here so we can talk to the police.” She nodded wordlessly.

“I think I should go meet Ginny’s husband at the hospital,” Helen said. “He knows me from school. I’ll explain to him what happened.” Earl agreed, and Helen fetched her purse and lunchbox from the locker room, glad to flee this terrible place.

By the time Helen arrived home and changed out of her work clothes, she had stopped trembling enough to drive her car to the hospital. She begged every emergency-room nurse and orderly she could find for information.

“Mrs. Mitchell is still unresponsive,” they finally told her. “She’ll need X-rays.”

“It isn’t a good sign that she’s been unconscious for so long, is it?”

“You’ll have to speak with the doctor about that. Now please take a seat in the waiting room.” Helen wished she could pray.

When Harold Mitchell ran through the hospital doors a half hour later, Helen barely recognized him. The cool, efficient engineer who had toured the shipyard with the army officials and had asked levelheaded questions during his son’s parent—teacher meetings had vanished. In his place was a devastated man who looked as though he had lost himself. The same fearful, distracted panic that Helen had seen in Ginny’s eyes when she’d lost her boys, now filled his.

“Where is she? What happened?”

Helen told him.

“Oh, God, oh, God, not Ginny. Who would do such a thing? She’s such a gentle soul … I didn’t want her to work there, I told her it was dangerous. I … I don’t know what to do!”

Helen could see that Harold Mitchell was too upset to think coherently. “Let’s tell the doctors that you’re here and ask for a report,” she said.

“But how will we live without Ginny? Our boys …”

“I just remembered! Your boys will be arriving home from school soon. Would you like me to go to your house and stay with them until you’ve spoken with the doctors?” He nodded mutely. She gripped his arm for a moment and said, “Let me know when you hear something.”

Helen drove across town and parked her car in front of Ginny’s house, then sat in it, unmoving. She knew, suddenly, that Meinhard Kesler was right. She did believe in God because right now she was furious with Him. For the first time since the attack on Pearl Harbor, Helen prayed. But her silent, angry words were neither submissive nor beseeching.

God, don’t you dare take Ginny! It’s bad enough that you let Jean’s brother get killed, but don’t you dare take away this family’s wife and mother! She’s my friend, God, and you can’t have her!

When she saw Allan and Herbert ambling up the street from school with the Parker boy from next door, she reined in her anger and drew a deep breath. What on earth would she say to them? They saw her climbing out of her car as they approached.

“Hello, Allan … Herbert.”

“Hi,” Allan said softly. He looked frightened, as if he was about to get into trouble the way he had the last time Helen had shown up at their house. “If you need to see my mom, she’s not home from work yet.”

Helen felt tears filling her eyes. Rage helped her hold them at bay. “Actually, I’m here to see both of you,” she said, swallowing. “Your mother will be a little late today, so I offered to come over and make sure you’re okay … until … until she …” Helen recalled Ginny’s motionless body and chalky face. She couldn’t finish.

“Where is she?” Allan asked.

“She’s in the hospital. Sh-she had an accident at work. Your father is there with her, and I told him that I would come here and stay with you until he comes home.”

“Is Mommy okay?”

“The doctors were still examining her when I left. Your father will know more when he gets home.”

Herbie began to cry. “I want Mommy!”

Comforting him didn’t come naturally to Helen, but she knew that Herbie needed it. Ginny was always so affectionate with her boys. Helen reached out, stiffly at first, and put her arm around him.

“It’s going to be okay, Herbie…. Maybe we should have a snack while we’re waiting. Are there any cookies in the house?”

“Mommy made some last night.”

“Good. Let’s go inside and see if we can find some milk to go with them.”

Ginny’s oaf of a dog bounded to the door to greet them, leaping all over Helen and trying to lick her face. The boys had chores to do, making sure the dog had water and a chance to run outside in the yard, and soon the distraction of a normal routine seemed to calm everyone. Somehow Helen found a way to keep the boys talking as they ate their snack. She was helping them with their homework afterward when someone knocked on the back door. She opened it to find Thelma and her grandmother Minnie on the doorstep with their arms full of groceries.

“We come to help out,” Minnie said. “And we plan on staying here to do all the cooking and cleaning and whatever else needs to be done to help this family for as long as they need us.”

“Miss Ginny helped me,” Thelma said. “She took this fall for me. Least I can do is show her how thankful I am.” The women took over the kitchen and had Ginny’s ironing all done and dinner prepared when Harold Mitchell arrived home from the hospital.

“There’s been no change,” he said numbly. “I thought I’d better come home and talk to the boys.” Helen saw tears in his eyes. She watched from the doorway as he took his sons into the living room, then crouched down and gathered them close, an arm around each one. “Your mother is hurt and we have to be very brave,” Harold said.

Helen couldn’t bear to watch any longer. She excused herself, knowing that the family was in Minnie’s capable hands. As she started the car engine, Helen remembered one more friend who should be told about Ginny. She drove across town to Rosa’s house with the bad news.

“Helen! Hey, what brings you here?” Rosa had come to the door in a housedress and apron, the baby balanced on one hip. She looked as exotically beautiful as ever. “How’s Jean doing? I heard she was taking the news about her twin brother real hard.” In all of the turmoil, Helen had nearly forgotten the first disaster.

“Yes. Jean is understandably upset. May I come in?”

“Sure. What’s going on?” Helen made Rosa sit down, then perched on the sofa beside her.

“I’m afraid there has been another tragedy. I wanted to tell you in person, not over the phone. Ginny fell at work today and hit her head. They took her to the hospital by ambulance.”

“Oh no!”

“It happened right after lunch, and she’s still unconscious. I went to her home to look after her boys until Mr. Mitchell came back from the hospital. He said there has been no change. Ginny’s still in a coma.”

Rosa’s wide, dark eyes glistened with tears. “How’d she fall?”

“That … that’s the worst part, I’m afraid. It wasn’t an accident. Someone deliberately greased the ladder. They hung Thelma’s tools from a light fixture, and Ginny was climbing up to retrieve them for her.”

“They did it on purpose?” Rosa stared as if unable to comprehend it. “I need to see Ginny,” she finally said. “Are you going back to the hospital? I want to come with you.” Rosa scrambled to her feet.

“What about the baby? I don’t think they’ll allow him—”

“Mrs. Voorhees will watch him. I just fed him, so he’ll be okay for a few hours. Let me get my purse from my bedroom.”

As Helen waited in the living room, she heard Rosa give the baby to her mother-in-law in the kitchen. Mrs. Voorhees began singing to him in Dutch and he cooed happily in reply. The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” Helen called. She opened the front door to face two men in U.S. Navy uniforms. The older man wore a chaplain’s insignia on his lapel. Helen took one look at their grave faces and shouted, “
NO!
Don’t you dare tell me that something’s happened to Dirk Voorhees!”

“Are you his mother?”

Oh, God, what are you doing?
Helen groaned inwardly.
Please, don’t do this to Rosa…. Please …
Her knees felt so weak she was afraid she would fall over. The chaplain gripped her arm.

“May we come in, Mrs. Voorhees?”

“I’m … I’m not Mrs. Voorhees. I … I’ll get her.” Helen reached the kitchen just as Rosa emerged from the bedroom with her purse.

“Who was at the door?” Mrs. Voorhees asked. Helen didn’t reply. She couldn’t stop her tears. Rosa gripped her shoulders.

“Helen? Helen, what’s wrong?” Helen pulled Rosa into her arms and hugged her fiercely. “Did something happen to Ginny?” Rosa whispered.

“You … you both need to go into the living room,” she finally managed to say. The women paled when they walked into the room and saw the men in uniform. Rosa lifted her trembling hands to her mouth, unable to speak. Helen took the baby from Tena’s arms, afraid she would drop him.

“Are you here … Is this about our Dirk?” his mother asked.

“Mrs. Voorhees, I’m very sorry to tell you that your son Dirk is missing in action.”

“So he isn’t dead?” Rosa breathed. The two men exchanged glances.

“We don’t know for certain. I suppose there’s always a chance that he may have survived and has been taken prisoner by the Japanese. They don’t always turn over the names of their prisoners to the Red Cross. But we don’t want to give you false hope. There has been fierce fighting in the region and heavy enemy bombardment.”

“The moment we know something one way or the other, we’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, it’s probably best to assume—”

“He’s okay,” Rosa said quietly. “I know he’s okay. He promised.”

Helen heard the back door open and close in the rear of the house, and a moment later Wolter Voorhees walked in from the kitchen in his plumber’s overalls.

“I saw cars out front. Who is—?” He looked from one somber face to another. “Is it my son? Has something happened to my son?”

“I’m afraid he’s missing in action,” the chaplain said.

“He isn’t dead!” Rosa insisted. “He’s just missing. He’s going to be okay, I know he is.” She and Tena clung to each other.

The baby squirmed in Helen’s arms, trying to escape. She shifted him around to get a better grip, and when she looked at Wolter Voorhees again she saw tears coursing down his face. First Harold Mitchell had wept, now Dirk’s father. Helen’s own father had never shed a single tear in front of her, even after the deaths of his children. Mr. Voorhees swiped at his tears, as if impatient with them.