Until She Comes Home (26 page)

J
ames tried a few times to teach Grace. When they were first married, she practiced in the parking lot at St. Alban’s on a Saturday afternoon. He had placed her hands on the steering wheel and kept one of his own on it to guide her. “Like this,” he had said. The car sprung forward when Grace jammed her foot into the gas pedal. And when she pressed too hard on the brake, James fell, both hands reaching for the dash. He laughed, pulled Grace to him, and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Eyes forward and straight ahead.”

Father never taught Grace to drive because he died before she was old enough to learn. Several summers passed before she and Mother boarded the
Ste. Claire
again. Mother taught herself to drive during those years after Father died and took a job as a receptionist for Ford. In the summer of 1946, she pulled on a linen jacket and her best Sunday hat and said it was time to get on with it.

Grace had no urge to run ahead of the crowd that year and felt no tingle when her feet hit the wooden gangplank. She was one of the ladies now, tall as any other. Her waist was narrow, her neck slender, her frame strong and straight. As it had been every other year, she heard him before she saw him. The musicians paused and there was that burst of laughter. When the music began again, he spun past, another girl whose hair color Grace doesn’t remember in his arms. He had thinned out during his years away. Many of the men had that look, as if they had been forced to go without. He had noticed her and smiled. He remembers this smile but says it wasn’t the first. He says the first was when Grace was a child. That’s romance talking, not reason.

First she lowers the gearshift into reverse. Then she taps on the gas. The car lunges backward. Again, another tap. It rolls and jumps past the sidewalk and bounces off the edge of the curb. In the middle of the street, Grace pulls the gearshift down, and with her eyes forward and straight ahead, she rolls the steering wheel, one hand over the other like she has seen James do so many times.

The one won’t move out of the way. Grace knows this. Because she didn’t tell the police. Because he knows her as he does. Because he took Elizabeth and now the twins. Because she wouldn’t let Orin fire. Because he feels he belongs, the one won’t move. The others will, and they do. As Grace starts down Alder Avenue, stomping on the gas so the car gains speed, the other two scatter. One of them is probably the kinder man with the tired eyes. One dives to the left, one to the right, where Mr. Symanski stands. Only one stays his course, not moving from the middle of the road. He’s daring her, wanting to make a fool of her, wanting to prove she can’t change what has happened and that some part of him will always live inside her. She jams her toe to the floorboard. Had James been in the seat next to her, he would have braced himself. There is a loud thump. The silhouette flies up and away. It’s gone.

The car is still now. Inside, the air is warm and thin as if she has used it all up and there is nothing left. The only voices are muted but slowly they become louder. There is yelling, screaming. She lies across the seat, one hand on her baby, waiting. She closes her eyes.

•   •   •

One of the officers stares down on Julia, his shoulders square, his black shoes planted wide. Another stands behind her, a hand on her chair as if afraid she might try to run from the house. He has written down the name Maryanne in his small notebook. A third stands in the front room, occasionally speaking into a radio that crackles and hums. Grace must have closed the door as she left, because a burst of air blows through the house and out the kitchen window when someone opens it again. Small feet run across the linoleum entry into the kitchen. Julia lifts her head. The twins rush in, bringing with them the smell of outside—sweat-stained shirts, dirt under their nails, unwashed hair. They run to Julia, throwing their slender arms around her neck, smothering her with their warm bodies.

“Aunt Julia.”

She can’t tell which one is which because they’ve buried their faces in her hair. She wraps an arm around each. Bill stands behind them. He wears a white shirt buttoned at the collar and cuffs. He waits there, making sure they are well and then turns to leave.

“What did you do?” Julia says, the girls’ slender bodies pressed to her cheeks, one on either side.

An officer holds out a hand, signaling Julia should stay in her seat and Bill should not move.

“What did you do to them?” she says again.

The two girls back away from Julia. “He found us, Aunt Julia. Don’t be angry.”

“Your mother’s place,” Bill says, and then he faces the officer, talking to him and not Julia. “Few miles north on Woodward and east a couple blocks.”

“You’re lying,” Julia says, standing though the officer behind grabs her shoulder.

“No, Aunt Julia.”

One of the girls hangs from Julia’s wrist, but Julia yanks it away and the twin stumbles.

“It’s him,” Julia says, pushing back from the table and standing. Her chair topples. “Tell them, Bill. Tell them you killed Maryanne.”

“Mrs. Herze said we’d never find Patches,” one of the girls says. “She said our cat was dead and that we ruined her flowers. We didn’t. We didn’t ruin those flowers. We went to find Patches. We went to Grandma’s to put out our flyers. Mr. Herze made them. Every one exactly the same. But we didn’t know which street to take. We couldn’t find her house.”

“Tell me, Bill,” Julia shouts.

Hair hangs in the girls’ faces in stringy clumps because they never took that bath. One is crying. It must be Arie. The other has red cheeks and her fists are clenched. Izzy.

“Stop it, Aunt Julia.” It’s Izzy. Arie is crying too hard to speak. “Uncle Bill found us. He was there at Grandma’s. He knew he’d find us there.”

There are more officers in the kitchen now. Too many. It smells like vinegar and the black leather shoes they wear. The stiff soles click across the floor, probably will leave black scars. And those blue uniforms. They are too heavy in this heat. The officers sweat in them and their sour odors fill the house.

“I was glad,” Bill says.

He lifts his eyes to Julia.

“God help me, Julia, but that morning, when you found Maryanne. For an instant, I was relieved.”

Julia falls back into her chair.

“It exhausted me. All those nights. All that crying.” Bill turns from Julia to the officer at his right. Talking one man to another, he says, “I couldn’t stop myself, couldn’t stop feeling that way. God, for an instant, I was relieved.” He coughs into a closed fist. His voice breaks. “What man feels that? What father? What kind of a father feels such a thing?”

The curly-haired officer stands at Bill’s side. Outside, the shouts for Izzy and Arie have stopped. No more footsteps on the front porch. Upstairs, a door shuts and water begins to run. The twins are gone.

“I didn’t hurt her, Julia,” Bill says. “But I think it’s worse, what I did. What I felt, the relief, I think it’s worse.”

The officer with the brown hair pulls on his hat, tucks his pad of paper under one arm, and walks from the kitchen. Bill stands alone, his arms hanging heavy at his sides. His hair is matted and his neck is speckled with red spots where he’s scratched at bug bites.

“How did you know to find them there?” Julia asks, staring at the small chip in her red tabletop.

“Didn’t know for sure. Figured it was that damn cat of theirs.”

“I felt it too, Bill.”

“No, you didn’t. That’s a lie. Don’t you tell me that lie.”

Julia shakes her head. “I did. It was as if I hadn’t exhaled since she was born, and then I did. It was that quick. Every day, I think about the things I didn’t know, about the things I could have done to help her.”

He is crying now. Softly, like sometimes a man does. His eyes red and wet, his face streaked with the sheen.

“I’m no kind of father.”

“You’re as good a father as I was a mother.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is, Bill. We’re peas in a pod. No different.”

“I can’t do it again.”

Julia stands on her toes and wraps her arms around his neck. The night air is tinted with smoke. Fireworks or perhaps somewhere a neighbor is burning yard waste. The shirt Bill wears must be his brother’s. The soft cotton smells of a day drying on the clothesline. Outside, a crash rings out. There are shouts again and running feet. There is a loud pop, as if a car has backfired, and the police run from the house. Izzy and Arie appear at the bottom of the stairs, or maybe they’ve been there all along. And then Arie says, which is surprising because Julia would have thought Izzy would be the one to say it, “Sounded like a gunshot.”

A Few Days After

O
n hands and knees, Julia dips her sponge in a bucket of warm, soapy water and squeezes with both hands until it runs dry. She crawls a few feet, presses the clean sponge to the baseboard, and begins again. Leaning on her left hand, she scrubs with her right until her shoulder burns. She straightens, dips the sponge in the water again, which is quickly becoming cold, squeezes and wrings it, and rests it on the side of the bucket.

The baseboards haven’t been cleaned in three years. The oak wood shines, almost looks yellow where she has scrubbed away the haze of dust and dirt. She pulls off her rubber gloves, turning each inside out as she tosses them to the floor. The crib is the only thing left in the room, and Grace is the only person who might have use of it. Many of the ladies have given Grace things over the past several months—clothes, quilts, diapers—but Julia never offered. Even though the crib was used only a short time, what mother would want to lay her child in such a bed—one where another baby died? Or would the kiss be the thing that stopped Grace from accepting the crib? That’s what Julia thought during the three days Grace was in the hospital. But then she was released, still pregnant with a healthy baby, and came to see Julia.

There was silence when Grace entered Julia’s house. They stood together in the foyer, where Julia had said she kissed Grace’s husband.

“I’ve come to apologize,” Grace had said.

“You should sit,” Julia said. “Put your feet up.”

Grace shook her head. “I’ve worried about the girls all summer, you know.”

“Yes,” Julia said. “But you have nothing to apologize for, Grace. Nothing. I’m the one who should be apologizing. What I said about James, about the kiss, it was a lie. Such a terrible lie.”

And then Grace told Julia. She told Julia about three men—two of them faceless and one whose face and hands and smell Grace knows better than her own. One man who Grace knows so well he must live inside her even now. Julia looked at Grace’s stomach and nearly tripped as she stumbled away. Grace shook her head. No, the baby belongs to James. The men came only a few weeks ago, the night Elizabeth’s shoe was found. And as soon as Grace said it, Julia knew they were the ones.

“Elizabeth,” Julia whispered.

It was true, after all. Elizabeth didn’t wander off down Willingham to the river and find trouble far from home. Those men took her from Alder Avenue, from right outside her own house. They spared Grace, but they killed Elizabeth.

“No,” Grace said.

But Grace only said that because it was Julia’s fault Elizabeth was there for those men, Julia’s fault Elizabeth was such easy prey, Julia’s fault they could take Elizabeth from her own front yard.

“I know what you’re thinking, Julia. But I promise you, it wasn’t your doing.”

Again, Julia offered Grace a seat. Grace shook her head, walked toward the door, and placed one hand on the knob.

“The one who is dead,” she said, “the one I hit, I knew it was him. I wasn’t hoping to find the twins when I got in that car.” Her voice broke. She swallowed and continued. “I thought the girls were already gone. I thought it for certain. It wasn’t an accident. I wanted that man dead. I thought he’d killed Elizabeth and taken the twins. I was wrong. So now I have to say I killed him because of what he did to me.” She paused and looked at Julia for the first time since she began talking. “What he did to me, is that reason enough?”

Upstairs, the girls were quiet. They were in their room, or maybe listening at the landing.

“James?” Julia said.

Grace shook her head, knowing what Julia meant to ask. She meant to ask if Grace would ever tell James about the men.

“He’d never forgive himself,” Grace said. “Mother thought he wouldn’t want me after it happened, but she was wrong. It’s the guilt that would destroy him. I think he knows that too. Deep down, I think he knows that too. I can’t do it to him, to us.”

When Grace said it was time to get home, Julia asked her to wait a moment and rummaged through the coat closet’s top shelf until she found the belt the twins had stolen. She couldn’t repair the hole Arie dug in the thin leather, but returning it was the right thing to do.

“Could you give this back to Mr. Symanski?” Julia had said. “The girls, they stole it. Tried to tell me it was yours, that it was trash from your garage. I can’t imagine what they were thinking.” She ran a finger across the small buckle that sparkled where Arie had scrubbed it clean. “I remember Elizabeth wearing it. One of her favorites. Do you remember?” She stretched out her arm, handed the belt to Grace. “I know I’m a coward for it, but I can’t bring myself to face him.”

Grace stood at the front door, one hand resting on the silver doorknob. “I suspect they did find it in my garage,” she said, shaking her head and pushing away the belt. “You let them keep it. And talk to Arie, would you? Tell her I’m going to be all right.” She pulled open the door and paused on the porch as if enjoying the feel of the sun on her face. “Promise you’ll believe me. Promise because you are my dearest friend and I wouldn’t lie to you. What happened to Elizabeth . . . it wasn’t your fault.”

Regardless of whether Grace will want the crib or not, Julia can’t take it apart without Bill’s help. She was able to lug the small dresser downstairs by packing up all the tiny clothes, removing the drawers, and carting them down, one by one. She’ll ask Bill what he thinks when he comes in from outside. He’s been out back for forty-five minutes, struggling to tighten rusted screws and bolts so Julia’s clothesline won’t droop. But she doesn’t really need to ask. She knows Bill will say to save Grace the heartache and give the crib to the church. Give it to them and don’t tell them to whom it once belonged.

“What are you doing, Aunt Julia?”

Huddled together in the nursery doorway, the girls lean into the room but don’t cross over the threshold. Both have wet hair. They took their baths without being asked, a sign they are trying to make up for running off.

“You’ll both need a trim soon,” Julia says, pushing off the floor. “A nice haircut before school starts.”

“Where did everything go?” Izzy’s voice bounces off the walls, almost echoes in the nearly empty room.

The girls must have peeked into the nursery at some point over the last three years. What child wouldn’t? A mysterious door that is always closed. Of course they peeked. Julia motions with her head for the girls to come inside.

Izzy is the first to move because she isn’t afraid. She is never afraid. She marches across the small room, opens and closes the closet door, and then walks over to the window, where she waves at Arie to join her. The air is light and crisp this morning. Izzy draws a deep breath in through her nose. Across the street, the windows in Warren Herze’s house are dark, the driveway empty. He’ll likely move soon and eventually he’ll remarry. He could never stay in that house. He could never walk into that garage again.

“I owe you two an apology,” Julia says, and motions for Arie to join her inside the room. “I should have known you were gone. I left you both alone, and I’m sorry as I can be.”

“We thought you’d come the first night,” Arie says as she walks up next to Julia and leans into her until their bodies touch. Arie is warm and smells of soap and shampoo. She stares at the crib sitting alone in the corner of the room. “When it got dark,” she says, “we thought you’d miss us and that you’d come looking. We walked all night.”

“Will we lose privileges?” Izzy asks, resting her head against Julia’s arm. Her damp hair leaves a wet stain on Julia’s sleeve.

“You two should stay,” Julia says. “Stay here with Uncle Bill and me. Not live at Grandma’s anymore. Go to school here and live here. Izzy, this could be your room to have all to yourself.”

“What about that?” Izzy says, pointing at the crib.

“We’ll give it to someone with a baby,” Julia says. “Would you girls like to stay? To have your own rooms? Here with Uncle Bill and me. We’d like it very much if you’d stay.”

“Can we paint the room blue?” Izzy asks.

“Yes,” Julia says. “Blue would be a fine choice.”

•   •   •

It’s a perfect day for rolling dough, cooler, drier. This may have been Grace’s problem all along. But the heat hadn’t caused trouble for the women of Willingham. Their pierogi had turned out perfectly and are tucked safely in Grace’s freezer. If she had gone back to Nowack’s Bakery, if she would ever go back, the women would make more, but there won’t be a bake sale this year. Without Malina, there may never be another. Grace pushes her wooden pin over the smooth dough, her large belly only allowing her to reach halfway across the table. She straightens, stretches, and the baby rolls, settling on a more comfortable position.

When the water boils, Grace drops in her first pierogi. She stands back, but not so far that she can’t see inside the pot. White foam trims the small crescent-shaped dumpling, but the seal holds. No leaks, no swollen, waterlogged center. Soon, it floats, bouncing along the rolling boil. Grace sets her timer for two minutes. When it dings, she reaches in with a wire ladle, scoops up the noodle, and taps it out on a sheet of waxed paper. After she fishes two perfect pierogi from the pot, she adds them three at a time, gently stirring so they don’t stick. Soon enough, two dozen are done. When they are cool to the touch, she lays them in even rows in a casserole dish, each layer separated by a sheet of waxed paper, and covers the entire dish with aluminum foil. At the back door, she pulls on her gloves and hat, grabs the casserole dish and a paper bag full of Elizabeth’s clothes, and walks from the house.

Grace doesn’t go to Willingham anymore. She and James will move soon, and she’ll have to find a new place to do her shopping. By the time they settle in their new house, she’ll be a mother. She may not want to shop every day anymore. She might go only once or twice a week. Julia sometimes calls to see if Grace needs anything from the deli or the bakery. She always says no, thank you, but stop in for coffee when you get home. Julia and Bill won’t move now, but maybe someday.

The door to Mr. Symanski’s house opens.

“I am knowing that smell,” he says.

“They won’t be as good as Ewa’s.”

“Yes,” he says, taking the brown bag from Grace. “I am thinking they will be very close.”

Grace pauses inside the house, adjusts to the emptiness, and then follows Mr. Symanski into the kitchen. She sets the casserole dish on the stove and removes her gloves and hat. Mr. Symanski reaches into the brown paper bag he set on the counter and slowly, by its lavender sleeve, pulls out the dress lying on top. To afford Mr. Symanski his privacy, Grace turns toward the sink.

“I thought you’d want to keep some of her things,” she says.

She can’t bring herself to look, but probably Mr. Symanski is touching the dress’s tiny white buttons the women reattached.

“It was always being her favorite,” he says.

Grace pushes off the counter and turns. “She was wearing it the last time I saw her, Charles.”

He sits at the kitchen table, letting the dress lie across his lap. His silver hair has gotten too long and it brushes against his white-collared shirt. Ewa would have never let it grow so long.

“I am not being able to sleep with her things in the house,” Mr. Symanski says. “That is why I am giving them away. The police, they scolded me for doing it, but I am not being able to sleep.”

“Yes,” Grace says.

“It was being afternoon, you know. The river, it’s one of the only places I am remembering anymore. So many years working down there. I am thinking the river would take her away and it would be seeming as if it never happened. Such a big river. Wouldn’t you be thinking the same?”

Grace pulls out a chair and sits opposite Mr. Symanski.

“Charles?”

“It is being a horrible thing to be the last one,” he says. “You are knowing this, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I am not wanting Elizabeth to be last. Not wanting her to be alone. They are saying she would never be so long with us. I am trying to outlive her, but it is too difficult. What would have become of her if she is being the last one left? I am just too tired to carry the thought.”

Grace reaches across the table, but Mr. Symanski doesn’t take her hands.

“I am thinking someone would hear the noise.” His eyes drift off to the right as if he can see Warren Herze’s house, but he can’t. “The shot. No one heard. No one came. I am not wanting her to die in her favorite dress,” he says. “So many people looking for my Elizabeth. That was being most painful. I am knowing maybe I was wrong. Maybe she wouldn’t have been alone. And then I am wanting her back so badly I am hoping the men will find her. I am believing they might and that she will be coming home. I am sitting with all of you ladies, hoping they are finding her.”

Grace stands, walks around the kitchen table, and sits in the chair nearest Mr. Symanski.

“I am not wanting her to be the last one left,” he says. “But I am thinking I was wrong. This is being why the river didn’t take her away.”

Grace stays with Mr. Symanski until she knows James will be home soon. She won’t leave him to wonder where she is. He worries so much after all that has happened. He worries these bad things will seep into his own home and taint what is good. He worries like Grace used to.

“You’ll be telling who you must,” Mr. Symanski says at the front door. “I am not caring for myself. You are knowing this, yes?” He blinks slowly. “If you cannot be telling them while I am alive, tell them when I’m gone. It will be soon. Every day, I am feeling closer to my Ewa, and Elizabeth, too. They are being together. No one is being alone but me.”

Grace pulls Mr. Symanski’s hands together, lifts them to her lips, and then lowers them to her stomach. He smiles at the kicks and rolls he feels there. A few cars drive past. There are three For Sale signs in the neighborhood now. A fourth sign will soon go up at Orin Schofield’s house. He’ll move south to live with his daughter and her family. Others in the neighborhood, those without the money to move, will stay and do what they can to keep a nice yard and well-tended house.

No one talks to one another like they once did. People say two of the Negro families have moved away, but Grace never saw them come or go. She never saw them living alongside her. Green glass still litters the back alley some mornings. Though James fusses at her, Grace continues to clean it up. Some of the other neighbors leave it, only kicking aside the larger pieces and shards that might flatten a tire.