Until She Comes Home (17 page)

“I damn sure had my fill,” she hears when she reaches the landing and can no longer see Bill.

The night Maryanne died was the only night of her short life she didn’t cry.

Day 6

I
zzy squints into the morning sunlight that bounces off the bathroom mirror and after counting out one hundred strokes of her hair, she sets aside the brush. Her cheeks and chin are red from her having scrubbed her face with a soapy washcloth, and her hair falls smoothly over her shoulders. Next she brushes her teeth, tucks in the white cotton blouse that had the least wrinkles when she pulled it from her drawer, and slips on a blue headband to keep the hair out of her face. No wonder Arie spends so much time in the bathroom every morning.

From out in the hallway, Arie bangs on the door for the third time because if Izzy doesn’t hurry up, Arie won’t be ready to leave for the church on time. Aunt Julia insisted both girls take a bath even though they took one last night because they spent all morning scraping paint off Uncle Bill’s garage. After Izzy complained at the breakfast table that the television was nothing but gray fuzz and the house was hot and they knew every single record by heart and why couldn’t someone take them to Jefferson Beach, Aunt Julia had handed Arie a three-inch putty knife and Izzy a wire brush and said if they were so bored, she would be happy to give them something to fill their time. Taking one last glimpse in the mirror, Izzy throws open the bathroom door, lowers her head, and rushes down the hall before Arie has a chance to notice Izzy has made herself up to look just like her twin sister.

Downstairs in the entryway, the front door stands open. A car trunk slams and Aunt Julia marches up the sidewalk and onto the porch. Though Izzy knows it isn’t possible, Aunt Julia’s chest looks bigger today than it was yesterday. Every day, Aunt Julia’s curves appear to grow, making Izzy certain hers never will. Ducking her chin to her chest, Izzy digs at the linoleum floor with the tip of one toe because that’s what Arie would do if she got caught staring at the gap in Aunt Julia’s blouse.

“Would you tell Izzy to get a move on?” Aunt Julia says, walking through the door and toward the kitchen, a sweet, perfumed smell following her inside. “We’re going to be late if that child doesn’t get going.”

Izzy continues to stare at the floor and tries not to smile. “Aunt Julia,” she says, pitching her voice the slightest bit higher so she’ll sound like Arie. “Could Izzy and I stay home today?”

Aunt Julia stops and crosses her arms over her chest. She thinks Izzy is Arie because Izzy has brushed her hair with one hundred strokes, scrubbed her face until it burned, and wears a tucked-in blouse that isn’t wrinkled.

“I promise to make Izzy behave,” Izzy says. “But I’d rather not go to the church. It scares me to be there.”

“What do you mean?” Aunt Julia runs a hand over Izzy’s glossy hair, thinking it’s Arie’s glossy hair.

“It makes me think about Elizabeth all the time,” Izzy says, “and that scares me.”

“I don’t know,” Aunt Julia says, looking overhead to where Arie is in the bathroom, brushing her hair and scrubbing her face. “It’s not that I worry so much about you, but Izzy isn’t one to mind me these days.”

“I’ll make her listen,” Izzy says. “I promise I won’t let Izzy out of my sight.”

Once Aunt Julia’s red taillights have disappeared around the corner at Alder and Woodward and while the water still runs in the upstairs bathroom, Izzy yanks at her crisp white cotton blouse so it hangs loose at her waist, pulls off her headband, and runs out the back door, across the yard, and into the alley. She would have brought Arie, but she is all of a sudden afraid of the alley and wouldn’t have approved anyway. Izzy runs until she reaches the Turners’ house, and once there, she squats behind the overgrown bushes Mr. Turner never trims. From this end of the block, Izzy can see the top floor of Aunt Julia’s house. She squints and maybe sees Arie standing in their bedroom window. Just in case, she gives Arie a big wave so she’ll know everything is all right. Then Izzy drops back behind the bush and watches for approaching cars.

After waiting for a good long time and hearing and seeing nothing, Izzy peeks out from behind the bush. Across the intersection, just outside Mr. Symanski’s house, a group of three men huddles around a clipboard. Two of the men carry walking sticks, the third holds the clipboard. After talking for a few minutes, the three men walk toward the Filmore and disappear around back, where they must be heading down into the poplar trees. They’ll poke at the shrubs and mushy piles of leaves back there in hopes one of them will finally poke Elizabeth. When Izzy is sure the men are gone, she jumps up from behind Mr. Turner’s shaggy bushes, gives one last wave in case Arie can see her, and runs toward Beersdorf’s Grocery.

•   •   •

A small bell overhead rings when Grace pushes open the bakery door. As it was yesterday, the air inside the small shop is thick and warm. The glass cabinets and the wire shelves are still empty. It’s payday on Willingham Avenue, usually the busiest day of the week, but today, all the other shops have closed. Soft voices drift out of the back room. That’s Cassia’s voice, the young mother with the black carriage, light and sweet, calling for more flour. And Sylvie, the largest of the women Grace met yesterday, telling Cassia no more, you’ll ruin the dough. Setting her handbag on Mrs. Nowack’s counter, Grace pulls off her gloves one finger at a time.

Outside the shop, two police cars drive by, stop at the intersection of Willingham and Chamberlin, and turn left. They are probably headed to the river, where they’ll search for Elizabeth. Grace draws in a deep breath. It’s easier to breathe here on Willingham. Everything is easier here on Willingham. The baby doesn’t ride quite as low and heavy and the ache in her tailbone is gone. This is what a good night’s sleep does for a person. This is what Orin Schofield, sitting watch in the alley, a rifle resting in his lap, has done for Grace.

“You are coming just in time,” Mrs. Nowack says, walking from behind the black curtain. Her gray skirt brushes the floor and her small black loafers peek out from under the hem of her skirt. Her spongy, wide feet spill over the tops of her shoes. From under the counter, she pulls four large silver trays. “Hurry before they are rolling out the dough. We have many hands today and will be finishing in no time. You are wanting to learn, yes?”

Behind Mrs. Nowack, near the register, the baby carriage Grace saw the day before is pushed against the wall. It’s covered with the same tattered yellow quilt.

“They’ll keep nicely in the freezer?” Grace whispers as if there were a baby sleeping in the carriage. “The bake sale has been postponed, you know.” She turns at the sound of another engine idling outside the shop. Somewhere nearby, a car carrier rolls toward the docks, its heavy load shaking the floor beneath Grace’s feet. Soon enough, the carrier, or one much like it, will return north, empty of its load. Its loose chains and weathered straps will rattle as it passes through the streets.

“They will be keeping in the freezer as long as you need,” Mrs. Nowack says, also looking out the store’s front window.

That’s Julia’s car sitting at the stop sign, and that’s Julia sitting behind the wheel, unmistakable with her tangle of red hair. She stares straight ahead at the warehouse, looking almost as if she’s lost.

On her way to catch the afternoon bus to Willingham, Grace had stopped at Julia’s for coffee and a visit. Already Grace was feeling guilty for avoiding Julia. Grace had ignored a ringing phone that she knew was Julia and had hidden from a few knocks on her back door. A short visit would set things right.

Even from the front porch, Grace could smell the sweetness of ripened bananas—Julia’s homemade banana bread.

“I’m making pierogi today,” Grace had said, taking a seat at Julia’s kitchen table and stirring a sugar cube into her coffee. “Mrs. Nowack is going to help me.”

Standing at her stove, Julia poured a cup of milk into a small saucepan, then added a half stick of butter and a packed cup of brown sugar. Once her butter melted, she would add powdered sugar, beat it until it was smooth, and lastly drizzle the icing over her banana bread. Only glancing at Grace, Julia turned up the heat on her burner and beat the mixture with a wire whisk. Her lids drooped and her eyes were red as if she’d been crying, not recently, but during the night, perhaps all night. And her red hair, though never quite restrained, hung over her shoulders in loose, matted strands. It was the same look Julia had had in the weeks and months after Maryanne died.

“And how does that figure with James? I’m sure he can’t be happy about it, intent as he is on keeping you in that house.”

The sounds of metal scraping against wood floated into the kitchen through an open window. In the backyard, the twins were scraping loose paint off the garage. When the sounds fell silent for more than a moment, Julia leaned toward the open window and shouted, “There’s still meat on that bone.”

“I’m not telling him, and neither are you,” Grace said, sipping her coffee and shaking off Julia’s offer of a cigarette.

Before putting the milk back in the refrigerator, Julia poured herself a glass and offered one to Grace. It was Wednesday—diet day for Julia. Monday, Wednesday, Friday . . . one spoonful of the Swedish Milk Diet whisked into a glass of milk four times a day.

“Maybe you should eat something of a bit more substance,” Grace said.

Over the stove, a small timer pinged. Julia drank the milk, shook her head at the gritty texture she often complained about, and pulled two loaves of banana bread from the oven. She shook the oven mitts from her hands, arched her back, and cocked one hip to the side. “Girl’s got to keep her figure.” She bounced that hip and tried to laugh as she shook her large chest in Grace’s direction. Normally, Grace would blush and swat a hand at Julia, maybe tell her to put those things away, but today, before Grace could do either, Julia dropped her hip back where it belonged and let her shoulders sag.

“Where have you been, Grace?” Julia said, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. “You haven’t been on the bus. I’ve called, stopped at the house.”

“I haven’t been well, I guess.” It’s true enough. “Is everything all right? Did something happen?” Grace began to stand so she could reach out and touch Julia’s arm, but Julia pulled away.

“It’s nothing,” Julia said, and busied herself rinsing out the dirty dishes.

“You should stay home today,” Grace said. “Take a break from going to the church. Spend some time with the girls.”

Julia waved away Grace’s suggestion and pushed aside the ruffled café curtains to watch the twins through the window. The sound of metal chipping away at loose paint still echoed through the backyard. “I wonder,” she had said, “if things will ever be good again.”

Holding four large silver trays, Mrs. Nowack shoulders her way through the black curtain separating the back of the bakery from the front, and holds it open for Grace.

“You’re sure it’s no bother?” Grace says.

Out on the street, Julia’s car finally rolls through the intersection, turns right, and disappears. Grace should have stayed with Julia, should have asked again what was really troubling her. But there was a bus to catch and Grace was eager to leave Alder and all the things that reminded her of how much was lost. The thing that troubled Julia was most likely the thing that troubled everyone on Alder Avenue. Six days and Elizabeth is still missing. Julia will be fighting her imagination, trying to escape the visions of Elizabeth alone, frightened, or dying or dead. Grace fights the same visions, but they don’t spring from her imagination. They spring from the memory of the night those men, that man, came for her.

“You are seeing I have no customers,” Mrs. Nowack says. “Come, we are having plenty of time for pierogi.”

“Do we leave the baby here?” Grace asks. “Unattended?”

Mrs. Nowack lets the curtain fall closed and sets the trays on the counter. Through the round glasses perched on the end of her nose, she squints at Grace. “You know there is being no baby, yes?”

Grace nods. “Was there ever?”

“You are seeing only a mother who wishes her baby had lived. One child giving birth to another. Too much sadness I am thinking, and this is what happens.”

Grace slides her feet across the gritty tile, slowly so she makes no noise, and at the carriage, she pinches a corner of the quilt and pulls. The quilt falls away from the empty bassinet. She wonders, if the women knew what happened to her, would they coo to her and touch her softly on the shoulders and back as they had done for Cassia.

“It is being like Elizabeth, yes?” Mrs. Nowack says. “Who knows what all this sadness will be doing to us.”

Grace shakes out the quilt and drapes it over the carriage.

“Coming,” Mrs. Nowack says, picking up her trays. “We are having much work. Busy is good. Busy is very good.”

Outside on Willingham, two more police cars drive past. This time, their lights flash, their sirens whine. They don’t stop at the intersection like the other two police cars but drive straight through the stop sign and head toward the river.

Letting the black curtain fall closed, Mrs. Nowack sets her trays back on the counter and walks across the black-and-white tile to the front window. Yet another police car drives past.

“Or perhaps today is not being the day for our work.” She shakes her head and makes a clicking sound with her tongue. “I am afraid we are having bad news. It is being best you go home.”

•   •   •

Julia should have said no to Arie and insisted she and Izzy come with her to the church. If she weren’t thinking only of herself, she would have, but as Arie stood before Julia with her freshly scrubbed face and neatly combed hair, begging for a chance to stay home, Julia thought it might be easier if she left the house by herself. She could have never explained to the girls why she wanted to drive by the factory on the way to the church or what she was hoping to find there.

All of Willingham Avenue’s shops are closed today, their windows dark, except for the bakery. Julia stares straight ahead at the factory’s parking lot. It’s only half full of cars, all of them owned by men Julia doesn’t know. They’ll be cars that belong to men who never met Elizabeth, men who live east of Woodward or north of Eight Mile. They’ll be cars that belong to men who work two shifts to make up for men who search. Where Willingham dead-ends into Chamberlin, Julia rests her foot on the brake and lets the car idle. No women stand in the warehouse next to the factory. The ladies said the women come on payday, tempt the men, put themselves on display in the windows. But the warehouse door is boarded up and every window is empty and black. The glass is broken out of a few and plywood has been nailed at all angles to keep out the trespassers.