Every Time We Say Goodbye (11 page)

“But I can’t spend money in the cafeteria,” Grace said.

“You have to spend money to make money,” Theresa said. “A couple of cups of that coffee might turn your stomach, but it won’t break the bank. And you need to let Lucy do something about your hair.”

“My hair?” Grace reached for the back of her neck, where her hair was tied in a clump with a shoelace. She hadn’t had it cut since she’d left home, and it was too thick and wiry to be loose. “What does my hair have to do with laundry?”

“The less you look like my crazy Aunt Betty, the more people will want to trust you with their things,” Theresa said.

So Lucy cut bangs into Grace’s hair and curled the ends under, and Grace went to the cafeteria, and Theresa waved her over and introduced her to Myrna and Kathleen. “Grace is a whiz
with laundry,” she told them. “She does ours. She charges, of course, but I can’t tell you all how much more time I have now.”

Myrna said, “My mother does mine for free,” but Kathleen said, “How are you with mysterious stains, Grace?” Kathleen had bought a new skirt, she explained, in the most beautiful cream-coloured Irish linen, and when she got it home, she found a brown stain right at the hemline. She took it right back to the shop, but the saleswoman refused to give her a refund. “She said she couldn’t take back soiled merchandise. I said, ‘No, you only sell it.’ It’s a beautiful skirt, but I can’t wear it.” She lowered her voice. “It looks like blood.”

Grace said, “I don’t know. That—”

“—won’t be a problem,” Theresa finished for her.

It was a narrow, rusty brown stain right at the bottom of the skirt. Grace tried a mixture of things: salt, cold water, warm water, laundry soap, hand soap, vinegar. She dabbed and wiped and squirted. Theresa yawned. “I’m going to bed, Grace. You’ll just have to say you don’t do mystery stains.” Grace sat at the wooden table in Ruth Ellis’s basement. Her fingers ached from the scrubbing and her feet were cold. This afternoon, when Kathleen had given her the skirt, she’d been elated. News would spread, customers would come, and soon she would be able to go home and get Danny. Now a stain on a skirt was ending her new life before it even began.

The furnace rumbled off, and in the stillness, Grace could hear the wind outside and the drip of the faucet and an insect chewing on something in a corner. She sat very still and what came over her was not the bliss but something akin to it. It was the bliss with eyes. She pushed back her chair and ran up the stairs.

In the morning, Theresa grabbed the skirt from the kitchen table. “Grace, I don’t believe it. You got it out?” She inspected the cloth. “Amazing! It’s completely gone. What did you use on it?”

Grace smiled. “Scissors.”

Theresa’s mouth dropped open. “You didn’t.”

Grace held up a thin strip of cream cloth. Theresa grabbed the skirt again and studied the hem. “Nice stitching. But what if she notices that it’s shorter?”

“She only tried it on once in the store,” Grace said.

Kathleen looked up from the skirt. “Beautiful,” she said. She held it against her waist and swished it around her knees. “Just beautiful.”

Grace collected the clothes on Tuesday and Friday in the courtyard. She worked briskly, thoroughly, braiding one task neatly into the next, just like Vera. In the evening, she sorted the clothes. While some soaked in whitener or hot water, she examined the others for holes and tears. She washed them at night, laying them over the backs of chairs and a clothesline strung between poles in the basement. In the morning, if the sky was clear, she put them out on the line. At lunch, she borrowed Theresa’s bicycle and raced home to bring them in. In the evening, she ironed and folded. It was Lucy’s idea to make everything into little packets. “And you need to wrap them in something to return them. Tissue paper,” Lucy said.

“It costs,” Grace said.

“But the girls will love it. You’ll be returning all their old, worn-out things wrapped in nice paper, like brand new.”

Grace bought the tissue paper and began finding little things to tuck inside: a crisp red leaf, a sprig of monkshood. In the
winter, she could use a sprig of pine. In the spring, she would use wildflowers. She would have Danny by then, and he could help her pick them. On impulse, she bought some red satin ribbon to put around the packets of laundry, and after that, there was a lineup in the courtyard on Fridays.

E
verything happened in February. Grace was collecting laundry from the cereal factory, the bank and Clockworks, and because she wasn’t paying for her room at Ruth Ellis’s, only board, she had to ask Ruth for a second envelope. When she asked for a third, Ruth made her go to the bank. Now she had a savings account and a wagon she pulled to collect. It was all done discreetly, at lunch and after work. Everyone had her own pillowcase with her initials or name written in ink (mostly) or embroidered (a few at the bank). She still used tissue paper when she returned the clothes, but the pillowcases kept things separate and didn’t look unsightly in the wagon. She did more than wash and iron and fix loose buttons: she let out waistbands and sewed linings into skirts and replaced velvet trim with lace. “Give it to Grace to freshen up,” Kathleen told Myrna, who had nothing new to wear to the White Pines dance, and Grace took Myrna’s pale green dress home and recut the collar. Then she added a
flounce with dark green satin that Marta at the bank had asked her to remove from a skirt. “Can you freshen this, Grace?” the women began to ask, and if nothing came to Grace when she sat at her work table in the basement, she would look through Lucy’s movie magazines or Ruth’s photo albums for ideas.

Theresa came home in tears because Mike Vanderburgh said he couldn’t see her anymore and they had to pretend nothing had happened, or ever would. “As if we have to pretend that part,” Theresa told Grace. He claimed his wife was suspicious, but he refused to provide details. Theresa said he was just trying to get rid of her. She couldn’t stand to see him every day. She was going to go over to the motor factory and ask for a job. The next day, Mr. Vanderburgh fired her for coming in late, but she had only come in to get her things. She was due to start at the motor factory that afternoon.

Ruth Ellis told Grace about a place for rent. A coach house, it was called, with two small bedrooms, a decent kitchen, a sitting room and a bathroom, in the backyard of a house belonging to Mrs. Waverly, a widow whose son had just moved to Detroit. Mrs. Waverly’s eyesight was going, and if Grace would be willing to go in once or twice a day and make sure the bed had clean linens and the dishes were washed, Mrs. Waverly would let her have the coach house for a very reasonable rent. There was no washing machine, but Ruth could help her with that. She had been meaning to buy a new one anyway, and Grace could have the old one. Grace said, “It’s happening so fast,” but Ruth said that Grace had brought her plan to fruition and it was time to start thinking about going to get her son.

“I still don’t have anyone to look after him,” Grace said.

“I think you should leave your job at Clockworks,” Ruth said. “Do the laundry business full-time.”

“I wouldn’t make enough,” Grace said.

“You’ll make the same as if you stayed at the factory and had to pay someone to look after Danny.”

“But what if people start doing their own laundry?”

“Then you’ll have to figure out what else you can offer them.”

Grace said, “I don’t like this plan.”

“Well, come and see the coach house first,” Ruth said.

The walls were grimy, but Ruth said Grace could paint them. Watery light came in through the front windows. Two large oak trees stood between the coach house and the main house, bare now but “they’ll create a nice screen in the summer,” Ruth said. They went in to meet Mrs. Waverly, who was the oldest person Grace had ever seen. Beneath a waxy layer of age, though, her blue eyes were bright, and she gripped Grace’s hand firmly. “I won’t be any trouble,” Grace said, and Mrs. Waverly said, “Nor will I.” Grace liked the coach house, but Theresa loved it. “I’ll move in with you, Grace,” Theresa said. “That way, your rent will be even lower. I mean, if that’s fine with you.” She stopped and looked stricken. “And you, Ruth.”

Ruth gave her a long look. “You think you can take up again with your Mr. V and I won’t know because you’re over here,” she said.

“I will never take up with him again,” Theresa declared.

“That’s what you said last time,” Ruth said.

“He didn’t
fire
me last time.”

Grace had planned to go back to Sault Ste. Marie in the spring, but Theresa and Ruth both said she should do it now. “You can borrow my car,” Ruth said, but she wouldn’t come with them. “Please come. She’ll listen to you,” Grace said.

“I’m not the one she has to hear.”

Grace and Theresa left before dawn on Saturday morning and drove north, passing through the same frozen forests and fields Grace remembered from a year ago, only this time she didn’t feel
dead. She felt sick. When they got to Sault Ste. Marie at dusk, it began to snow, and Grace told Theresa to stop the car so she could throw up. They sat at the end of the road until Grace’s stomach settled. Theresa squeezed her arm. “It’s going to be fine, Gracie. You’re just going home to get your baby.”

The house was exactly the same: the leafless apple trees, the wooden trellis in front of the house, bare now, the rose bushes covered snugly in burlap. Warm yellow light filled all the downstairs windows. Grace was out of the car before Theresa had turned it off. Her legs had a mind of their own, propelling her to the back door so quickly she could hardly keep up with them. She knocked and then knocked again. Vera opened the door. She was holding Danny on her hip.

“Danny,” Grace whispered, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Grace!” Vera said. “What on earth?”

Behind her, Theresa said, “Evening, Mrs. Turner. I’m Theresa. A friend of Grace’s.”

“Is everything all right? Are you sick? Did something happen at the factory?”

Grace could not take her eyes off Danny. He was gnawing on a wooden block. His blond curls had darkened, and he was longer and bigger. He had changed, but not so that she wouldn’t recognize him. He had only become more himself, more Danny. He was not a baby anymore; he was a
boy
.

“Everything’s fine, isn’t it, Grace?” Theresa nudged her from behind.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m fine. We came … we came …” She looked at Theresa for help.

“For a visit,” Theresa said.

Vera took them into the living room. “Make yourselves comfortable,” she said, “while I make you tea. Heavens, Grace, you should have let us know.” She was still carrying Danny.

“Danny,” Grace said. He looked at her and smiled shyly. “Danny. What do you have there?”

“This,” he said and held out the block.

“I’ll be right back,” Vera said, and she carried Danny out.

But Danny came back on his own. “This,” he said to Grace, and she took the block from him. “This?”

“This.”

“Frank went over to the Cherniak place,” Vera called from the kitchen. “They’re selling it, you know. John just went back overseas. Frank went to look at their gardening things.”

Grace slid off the chair onto the floor beside Danny. She picked up another block from the table. “This?” she said, holding it out, and he took it from her.

“Put this and this,” he said, and showed her. She did what he said, and he nodded in approval. He scampered over to a wooden toy box in the corner and opened the lid. Grace followed him. Inside were more blocks, and the little brown puppy in the shoe. “Oh, you still have it!” Grace pulled out the toy. Danny took it out of her hands. “This,” he said, showing her how to move the shoe until the dog popped out.

Grace looked up at Theresa, who smiled. “Clever,” she said. “Like his mom.”

Vera appeared in the doorway with a tray. “Danny, come over here so I can give them their tea. Grace, don’t sit on the floor like that. You’ll get a draught.” Vera’s face was flushed, and she kept pushing a strand of honey-coloured hair off her forehead.

“Can I trouble you for some sugar?” Theresa asked, and Vera said, “Oh! Of course! I’ll be right back.”

“Danny,” Grace whispered. “Do you know who I am?” He squatted beside her and picked up another block. She wanted to kiss his chubby little hands, but she didn’t want to scare him. “Do you remember me, Danny?”

Vera was back. “Now, Grace, don’t be upsetting him. He’s not good with strangers. Here’s the sugar.”

Theresa said, “She’s not a stranger,” and took the bowl from Vera.

“Well, you two enjoy your tea. I’ve got to feed Danny and then Frank should be back and we can all have a nice talk.”

She scooped Danny up and hurried out of the room.

All of Grace’s resolve drained out of her. She was not Grace who had her own place, Grace who had a job and her own business, Grace who had friends, Grace who lived in Peterborough and had saved her money to bring her son to live with her. She was Grace No One, Grace Nothing, Grace with Her Head in the Clouds.

“She won’t give him to me,” she whispered.

“You didn’t come to ask her,” Theresa said.

Grace shook her head rapidly. Theresa didn’t know Vera. She didn’t know what they were up against.

“Grace. Look at me.” Theresa’s face looked unbreakable, like a stone carving on Ruth Ellis’s bookshelf. “He’s your child.”

Vera came back. “I was thinking you might like to walk over to the Cherniak place and fetch your brother, Grace.”

From the kitchen, Danny called out, “Mommy?”

“Just a minute, Danny,” Vera called back.

Grace stood abruptly. “I’ve come to take Danny back with me. I’ve got a place of my own and I have a business. I’ve saved enough money and I can look after him now.”

Vera’s eyes went round. Grace could see the panic in them.

“I—I’m very glad you could look after him while I got set up,” Grace said. “You were a big help to me.”

Vera’s face turned pale and then very quickly red. “Your tea is getting cold.” She left the room.

Grace took in a long breath. Theresa put an arm around her shoulders. “That was great, Gracie. Here, sit down for a minute.”