All for a Sister (37 page)

CLOSE-UP:
A framed cross-stitch:
“The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.” Psalm 16:6.

INTERIOR—DANA’S ROOM:
The narrow bed is covered by a square-stitched quilt, and the shelf above it holds a neat collection of books. There is a small writing desk with a glass jar holding a smattering of wildflowers. There are no bars on the window, and a lazy breeze fills the curtains with fluid motion. Three identical blue dresses hang on a hook next to a washstand. Here we see Dana, coiling her hair into a neat bun. She studies herself in the mirror, leaning closer to run a finger across what might be the first of a very fine line at the corner of her eye. She sighs.

TITLE CARD:
The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever. ~~ Thomas Carlyle

INTERIOR:
She steps back for a final, discerning look, turning this way and that, smoothing her dress, and only when satisfied, puts a clean, starched apron over it and crosses to her door. An ordinary door, no bars, no locks. She swings it wide open.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN.

INTERIOR:
A spacious farm kitchen. Cookie, with a kerchief tied around her head, takes a tray of biscuits out of the oven and points to a crate of eggs. After a cheerful “Good morning,” Dana takes to the eggs, cracking one after another into a large mixing bowl. Cookie is singing, and after a bit, Dana joins her.

TITLE CARD:
“I looked over Jordan and what did I see, coming for to carry me home? A band of angels coming after me, coming for to carry me home.”

CLOSE-UP:
Dana, her face resplendent with joy, singing the last line of the spiritual.

INTERIOR:
The women take platters and bowls of food from the kitchen and into a dining room with two long tables. No fewer than twenty men are seated on the benches, all dressed in striped prison garb. One by one the men are served, appearing grateful each time a plate is filled.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN.

CLOSE-UP:
An impressive pile of soiled dishes—plates and coffee cups and saucers, mixing bowls and pans, all stacked up beside a kitchen sink. Zoom out to see Dana and Cookie looking good-naturedly resigned at the task before them. Cookie picks up a plate and plunges it into soapy water, once again singing.

1925

“WHAT’U THINKIN’ TODAY?
You gon’ stay?”

Cookie had asked the same question nearly every day since she and Dana came to the Bridewell Honor Farm. And every day, Dana gave the question some mock consideration.

“Depends. What’s for supper tonight?”

“Gon’ have to stick around and see.”

“Well, then, I guess one more day won’t kill me.”

Truthfully, being at the honor farm didn’t feel much like being in prison at all. There were no bars on the doors or windows, no
chains, and most important, no sense of uselessness stretching throughout the day. One single, armed guard presided over the facility during the day and at night, while the inmates, exhausted from a day’s labor, slept in the second-floor dormitory.

When Warden Brewster offered her the opportunity to come live and work here three years ago, she’d agreed out of fear.

“I’m afraid you are becoming something of a liability here,” he’d said. “We’re overcrowded as it is with legitimate prisoners. There’s no room for voluntary inmates.”

“What would I do?” They were walking the grounds of the courtyard, conversing almost as colleagues.

“I might be able to find you a situation. You’d be given two dollars upon your release.”

“Oh, my,” she said, feigning overwhelming gratitude. Theirs had become somewhat of an easy friendship, though she calculated that he could easily be her father. Both of them knew exactly why she stayed. She had nowhere to go. Nobody to go to. Nothing to call her own outside of the meager possessions housed within her four walls.

He’d hinted on several occasions that there might be someone, somewhere, interested in helping her revive her life, but she’d refused to listen. After all, at one point, somebody had conspired to steal it away from her. What reason had she to trust?

These days, at the farm, she lived with an almost-continuous sense of contentment. She’d known Cookie for twenty years, the only constant in her life, and now they passed their days in a perpetual cycle of preparing, cooking, serving, and cleaning, with the only difference between the two being that Cookie got half of Saturdays and all of Sundays off.

So, too, did the men, and on Sunday mornings, itinerant
preachers or students from the nearby Moody Bible Institute would come and preach a sermon.

Sometimes, one of the prisoners would try to flirt with her, asking for extra gravy with a wink or, even bolder, with a touch to her hand or just below her apron strings. This, however, was enough of a conduct violation to get the man in trouble with the farm’s superintendent and sent back to the overcrowded jail. For her part, Dana did nothing to encourage any such behavior, and having spent one-third of her life alone with her mother, half of it locked up with children and women, and now so many years in this capacity, she knew less about men than any other woman her age could claim. In fact, her mother was just this age the last time Dana saw her.

With the last dish dried and stacked, she added another ladle of water to the beans simmering on their way to becoming the noon meal. A large can of stewed tomatoes sat on the top shelf, and she took this, too, dumping them into a bowl and crushing them with a potato masher before adding them to the pot. A palmful of salt, a pinch of pepper—just as Cookie had taught her—and her afternoon was free. On Saturdays, what they had for lunch, they had for supper, except with supper they got pie. And though Dana wasn’t at liberty to leave the grounds with Cookie on Saturdays, she was allowed to roam at will if there weren’t any chores pressing for her attention. More often than not, she found something to do.

Such was the case this day, as a mess of snap peas had to be cleaned and snipped to accompany the fried chicken already cooked and waiting in the icebox for Sunday’s dinner. Lured by the cool sunshine of the spring day, Dana decided to take her task to the side porch of the farmhouse, entertaining herself with the occasional glance over to the game of horseshoes in the distance.

After a time, she heard the rumble of an automobile. Nothing uncommon, as all manner of prison officials and suppliers came on a daily basis. But this wasn’t a farm truck. It was something interesting enough to interrupt the horseshoe game and even provoke a few good-natured catcalls and whistles from the men, all of which were immediately silenced by the stern voice of the guard on duty.

Curious, Dana took the bowl of peas into the kitchen and, wiping her hands on her apron, made her way into the farmhouse’s front parlor. She took a damp rag with her, planning to wipe down the windows as a ruse to peek through and see what had caused such a commotion.

Looking through the already-clean glass, Dana surmised that there were two entities that could have provoked such a reaction from the men. First, the car—long and sleek with mirrorlike chrome and paint the color of sweet cream. Second, the man—practically a human reconstruction of the car. He wore a pale suit, pink tie, and straw boater, which he removed as he entered into conversation with Mr. Lyons. When he did, Dana gasped, despite herself. She’d never seen any man quite so beautiful; with his black hair slicked to perfection and a warm olive tone to his smooth-shaven face, he looked like someone who should be in a movie. Not that she’d ever seen one. Still, she could tell he was something special, and as if to reinforce his superiority, at that moment the sun glinted off the ring he wore on his pinkie finger, casting him momentarily in a glowing halo of light.

So fascinated was she, it took far too long for her to realize that the men—the stranger and Mr. Lyons—were actually heading toward the front door, and she hadn’t quite escaped by the time they walked inside.

“Ah, Miss Lundgren, there you are.” Mr. Lyons always spoke with a kindly air.

She turned and said, “Yes, sir?” trying not to look at the stranger.

“I believe this man has some news you will find to be very interesting indeed.” He invited the man to sit down, then asked Dana to do the same.

She hesitated. The parlor wasn’t formal or fancy by any standards, but it was understood to be used only by the Lyons family and their occasional guests. Not the inmates. She looked to him for clarification, and he offered a warm smile.

“Go ahead, dear. I think you’ll find it to be perfectly appropriate.” And with that, he left.

“Please,” the stranger said, gesturing to the end of the well-worn sofa.

Still nervous, she complied, and he sat in the chair opposite. He balanced his hat on his knee, then reached into the breast pocket of his suit and produced a thin cigarette case and a silver lighter. She watched the ritual with fascination, every move precise, and imagined it must be something he did a hundred times a day.

“Miss Dana Lundgren?” he said through the first cloud of smoke. “As in, once upon a time there was a girl named Dana?”

“I suppose so. Yes.”

He looked at her with a critical eye. “Go figure. You don’t look like what I thought. I was expectin’ a kid.”

“I haven’t been a ‘kid’ for a long, long time, Mr. . . .”

“Lundi. Roland Lundi, and I am here on behalf of one Christopher Parker, Esquire, and the DuFrane family estate.”

She turned cold. Ice-cold—like morning wash water in winter—and immediately heard nothing else. The next thing she knew, his ring was winking near her face as he snapped his fingers.

“Are ya with me, kid?”

“I’m sorry.” She felt her words climbing to the top of her throat, past years of forgotten hope. “What did you say?”

“I’m here representing the DuFrane estate, on behalf of Christopher Parker, and I’m here to tell you that you have been granted official release. With your consent, I’ve been charged to take you home.”

“Home?”

He took a drag of his cigarette. “I should clarify. To the DuFrane home, in Los Angeles, California, where you have been named coheir to the estate of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur DuFrane.” He reached into the pocket opposite his cigarettes and produced a folded paper, which he delivered to her shaking hand. “That is an unconditional pardon and release, signed by a judge and the current warden at the Chicago Correctional Facility, with the stipulation that you will not seek legal recourse for your time spent in their care.” He spoke as if reciting a long-practiced speech, but then added a zipping motion across his lips. “No questions asked.”

“When?”

“I have two tickets for the nine o’clock train on Monday. But if you want out of here sooner, I have two rooms reserved at the Palmer House. Separate floors, don’t worry. You won’t be the first scared little lamb I’ve escorted through the big, bad city.”

She barely understood. Not only did he speak at a rate faster than she’d ever heard, but his very words seemed foreign. Maybe not the words so much, but the
ideas
. A nine o’clock. A Palmer House. A lamb.

“D-do I have to?”

Mr. Lundi sat back and stared at her, brow furrowed, through a pillar of smoke. “Do you
have
to?”

“I have responsibilities here. And a home, I guess. And Cookie asked me this morning if I was going to leave and I said no.”

He looked even more confused, and not at all entertained.

“I mean,” she continued, “if I’m free to leave, then I must be free to stay, too. Right?”

He took a final, long drag of his cigarette and crushed it out in the ashtray on the low table beside the chair. “That is some fine logic, but you understand, you have quite an inheritance waiting for you.”

“How can that be?”

He held up his hands in surrender to the question. “Just part of the funny way the world works, I guess. Somebody trying to set something right, you know? Make up for a wrong.”

“I never asked anybody to make up anything to me.”

“And think how disappointing life would be if we only got what we asked for. Sometimes God likes to send along a little something you never knew existed.”

Now it was her turn to be surprised. He looked anything but religious, and his mention of God sparked a new fury. “You don’t think I prayed for freedom? You don’t think I woke up every day wishing there was some way I could explain, that someone would listen and let me go?”

Mr. Lundi tossed his hat on the table, sat back, and crossed his ankle over his knee. “Where, exactly, would you have gone?”

“Home.” No reason for him to know it didn’t exist. “And since you know so much, do you know—can you tell me what happened to my mother? I’ve never heard a word since . . . ever.”

“Sorry, kid.” He looked to be so, genuinely. “I can’t help you there, and I wish I could, honest.”

“Then you see? I’m no better off out there than I am here. I’m alone.”

“You’re not alone.”

Something he’d said at the beginning of their conversation came back to her. “You said coheir. I remember the DuFranes had a son.”

“Nope, not him. Died in the war. They have a daughter.”

“Oh.”

“And she’s ready to share her home with you, because it’s yours, too.”

“In California.”

“In California. It’s where reinvention begins, kid. It’s where you go to make yourself a new life.”

“I don’t need a new life. I just want the one that was taken away from me.”

“Sorry, sister. I can’t do anything about that. No matter what you do, you can’t get those years back. Nobody can.”

“And the rest of the family? Mr. DuFrane? And Mrs.?”

“All gone, sweetheart. God rest their souls. You’re safe.”