Jubilee's Journey (The Wyattsville Series) (14 page)

Olivia clicked off the television and turned to Clara with a worried expression. “There was no mention of a girl.”

“What were you expecting?”

“I’m not exactly certain,” Olivia replied. “I thought maybe they’d give the name of the man they caught or say if there was a missing girl. Wouldn’t you think a policeman or somebody would have noticed a kid all by herself? Did you see the crowd?”

“Well, of course, I did,” Clara answered. “I was sitting right here.”

“No, I mean did you really
see
the crowd? Ethan Allen was smack in the middle of it.”

“I didn’t see Ethan. I did see someone who could’ve been Seth Porter, but Seth usually wears a baseball cap and this man didn’t have—”

“It was Seth. Ethan saw him there.”

“I don’t understand what they’ve got to do with—”

“It’s not them. I’m worried about the girl,” Olivia said. “Ethan Allen told me she was there, but I didn’t see her in any of the pictures.”

“So?”

“We-ell,” Olivia stretched the word out, making it seem a dalliance. “The girl Ethan Allen brought home told him she was there waiting for her brother. When Ethan asked where the brother was, the girl pointed to Klaussner’s!”

Clara’s sleepy eyes opened so wide you could see the white all around. “No!”

“Yes.” She went on to relate all that Ethan Allen had told her. But before she got to the part about the mysterious Aunt Anita, a sleepy-faced Jubilee appeared in the doorway.

The little girl rubbed her eyes and asked, “Did Paul come back?”

“Not yet, Jubilee, but Ethan Allen is going to stop by the store this afternoon and check to see if he’s there.”

“Oh.” The little girl looked down at her feet with a visible sadness. It was a sadness Olivia knew only too well: the sadness of being alone in the world.

“Don’t worry,” Olivia said. “Maybe the store was extra busy and needed Paul to work for a longer time.” Her words were not what she would have considered a lie. They were simply a measure of comfort for a frightened child. But when she looked up Clara’s jaw was hanging open, and she wore a look of disbelief. 

“Olivia Doyle! You know—”

“My goodness,” Olivia interrupted, “look at the time! Ethan Allen has got to get up and start getting ready for school.”

“But,” Clara stammered, “you told me—”

“Clara, you’d best be getting along now.” Olivia nudged her friend toward the door, cutting off the opportunity for more conversation and things that were better off unsaid. “I’ll give you a buzz after Ethan leaves for school.” Without a moment’s delay, she hustled the bewildered Clara out the door.

“Don’t you think—” Clara started to say, but by then the door was closed.

For the next hour, Olivia tried to make everything appear as normal as possible. Although she had more than a dozen questions about the truth of the robbery, she brushed them aside and tried to focus on the business of the day. On Saturday mornings Ethan Allen was up at the crack of dawn and on his way to the playground before the clock struck eight. School-day mornings were a different story. Ethan had been awake for more than a half-hour, but he was still in his pajamas. Olivia poked her head into his room.

“Get dressed,” she told him for the third time. “You’ll be late again if you don’t get a move on.”

“I got plenty of time,” he answered and continued wrestling with Dog.

Olivia thumped her hands on her hips and glared across the room. “Five minutes,” she said. “Breakfast will be ready in five minutes, and you’d better be sitting at the table.”

“Okay.” Ethan Allen reached for the socks on the floor.

“Those are yesterday’s,” Olivia said. “Get a clean pair.” She turned and headed back to the kitchen. The daily routine of getting Ethan off to school was so hectic that she’d momentarily forgotten about their visitor. Maybe not forgotten, but simply set aside thoughts of the homeless girl, the missing brother and the mysterious aunt. When she passed through the living room she was pushed back into the reality of those things by the sight of Jubilee huddled in the corner of the sofa with her thumb stuck in her mouth.

Olivia stopped and watched the girl for a moment. Curled into a ball as she was, Jubilee had the look of a throw pillow—smaller maybe, but equally zipped up. The two children were so different, and yet in some ways they were alike. Olivia thought back on how Ethan Allen had slammed into her life with an anger that stuck out like the quills of a porcupine. He’d clattered through the apartment, banging into things, filling the emptiness of her days with ball bouncing and boisterousness. Ethan Allen was a boy with a huge chip on his shoulder and the sorrow of life written across his face. Jubilee was a blank chalkboard. 

“Jubilee, dear,” Olivia said, “I’m getting ready to make breakfast. Is there something particular you’d like to have?” It had taken almost a year to get Ethan settled into eating things like cereal and eggs, so she was hoping the girl wouldn’t say potato chips.

She didn’t. In fact, she didn’t say anything, just shrugged her shoulders without ever removing her thumb from her mouth.

“Isn’t there some special breakfast you’d enjoy?” Olivia urged. “Cereal maybe? Or waffles with maple syrup?”

There was an almost imperceptible shake of Jubilee’s head.

“Bacon? French toast?”

This time there was not even a head shake.

Olivia tried another approach. “At home what do you have for breakfast?”

Jubilee pulled her thumb from her mouth and said, “Biscuits and gravy.”

“Oh, dear,” Olivia said. “I’m afraid that’s the one thing I don’t have.” She took Jubilee by the hand and tugged her into the kitchen. “Let’s see if we don’t have something almost as good.”

Promising that pancakes were every bit as good as biscuits and gravy, Olivia began mixing the batter. She wished the girl would talk, even if it was to argue or complain as Ethan had, but instead Jubilee sat there without saying a word. When an uncomfortable silence began to settle into the room, Olivia padded it with the sound of her own words. She began by describing the step-by-step process of pancake making, then moved on to the fact that it promised to be another cloudy day as opposed to the sunshine she’d been wishing for. For almost ten minutes she rattled on about anything and everything except what was at the forefront of her mind: the child’s missing brother. After she’d set three plates of pancakes on the table, she called Ethan.

“Hurry up,” she said, “or you’ll be late for school.”

Jubilee’s eyes brightened. “We’re going to school?”

Olivia turned and smiled. “Ethan has to go to school today, but you can stay here with me.”

“I don’t want to stay here. I want to go to school with Ethan.”

Before Olivia could answer Ethan Allen slid into his seat and said, “You can’t. My school’s just for big kids.”

“I go to school with Paul, and he’s big.”

Ethan shoved a chunk of pancake into his mouth and didn’t answer.

Although Olivia tried to avoid thinking about Paul, he had come to breakfast. He was in the room, a ghost, as real as a person waiting to be served up an order of pancakes. The missing brother was as Charlie had been in the early months, not here and not quite gone. How strange it seemed that a woman with so many years of living behind her and a child with a like number of years in front of her should experience the same empty-hearted longing.

“Well, Jubilee,” she said, “I have a lot of baking to do today, and I was hoping you’d be able to help me. You do like to bake cookies, don’t you?”

Jubilee gave a half-hearted shrug. “I never made cookies.”

“Well, wouldn’t you like to learn?”

Before Jubilee could answer Ethan volunteered to stay home and help. 

“Absolutely not,” Olivia replied. “You’re going to school.”

“Grandma, I gotta tell you, making me go to school ain’t such a good idea.”

“Isn’t such a good idea,” Olivia corrected. “And why isn’t it?”

“We got a history test today, and I studied but I ain’t nowhere near ready. Gimme a few more days and—”

“You’re going to school.” The finality of Olivia’s words ended the discussion. Fifteen minutes later Ethan Allen begrudgingly picked up his books and headed for the door.

Jubilee followed him through the living room and stopped when he opened the door. “Bye, Ethan” she said sadly.

“Bye,” he answered, then was gone.

Once Olivia was alone with the child, the uncomfortable silence was back. Olivia pulled the flour and sugar from the cabinet.

“Cooking and baking always helps me to feel better when I’m worried about something,” she told Jubilee. “I bet it will help you too.”

There was no answer.

Olivia continued on. Just as she’d given the step-by-step of pancake making, she now went into cookie baking. Once she’d mixed in the melted butter and eggs, she fluffed a covering of flour on the counter and plopped the ball of dough in the middle. She pulled a rolling pin from the drawer, and for the first time since Ethan left the girl spoke.

“I can do that,” she said and reached for the rolling pin.

Olivia smiled. “I thought you said you never made cookies.”