While He Was Away (20 page)

We just stood there.

There’s one little girl with big dark eyes and a red dress. I’ve heard she’s ten, but she looks about six. I haven’t been able to make her smile yet. I keep trying. If I had a little sister, she’d probably look a lot like this girl—at least, what I can see of her through the bandages.

Ravi said you guys talk too. It was good to hear from him. Kind of surprising. Leave it to Mom.

Ravi didn’t say what you talk about, though.

What do you talk about?

I mean, he’s there. I’m here.

What do you talk about?

Gotta sign off. I’ll write again, soon as I can.

Love,

David

For the second time in one day, I write David back immediately. I ask him to tell me more about what he’s doing, more about where he is. What is the food like? Has he seen any good TV? Do they show movies at base? Does he take pictures? If he does, could he send me a picture of himself with the little girl in the red dress?

I tell David I’m okay. Work is better. I tell him I think I’m about to meet my grandmother, and I’ll tell him all about it once I have. I miss you, I tell him. I tell him that Ravi showed me the cutest pictures.
You’ll be receiving them in the mail soon
, I write.
That’s what we talk about, Ravi and me. We talk about you. Oh, and the girl I work with, Caitlin, she took a picture of me tonight down at the viaduct. I’ll get it to you as soon as she gets it to me.

I tell him I love him. I press
Send
.

Linda comes home then. I go to her, chat her up. Then very casually I ask where Tom lives. Linda tells me. She knows the exact street and address. She knows the few blocks between our house and his. She knows nothing else.

Linda thinks it’s nice that I’m interested in knowing more about Tom. “He’s an
old
friend,” she reminds me. “And he was in Vietnam, you know. He had a terrible time there, I think. Isaac has told me things I didn’t even know.” She gives a funny, little sigh. “Isaac and Tom talk,” she says.

That night I dream of a little girl in a red dress and a young woman in a blue dress and me in the green sundress that David loves. We are all balancing on train tracks, trying to walk without falling.

Next morning I’m up earlier than I’ve been all summer. I take a quick shower and slip into the green sundress of my dreams. I scarf a bagel. I leave a note for Linda, who’s still sleeping:
Went
out. Pick me up for work? I’ll be ready. I promise.
By nine I’m walking the few blocks to Tom’s.

Tom lives on a dead-end street in a little yellow brick ranch. I start up the weed-ridden driveway and then panic, turn around, and scuttle back to the sidewalk.

I pace up and down Tom’s street. Five times I walk it.

I’m working up the nerve to start up Tom’s driveway again when Tom’s front door opens.

A frail figure steps out—not much more than a shadow in the shadows.

The figure crosses the porch and comes into the sunlight, shading her eyes with a thin hand. She’s wearing a white dress.

The clockwork lady.

I walk up the driveway toward her. I see more clearly her heart-shaped face.

Justine?

I must have said the word aloud, because she nods.

“I knew you’d come.” Her voice is thin and reedy.

“How?” I say. “How could you possibly know?”

She doubles over then. Drops right down on the top porch step.

I run to her. To my relief, she is sitting up by the time I reach her side. She is resting her forehead on her knees. I kneel beside her. I haven’t been around old people much. I don’t know what to do now. I ask her, foolishly, if she’s all right.

“I couldn’t come to you.” Justine says as if this is the answer I’m looking for. “I could only pass by. Linda.”

“I’m Penna,” I say. “I’m Linda’s daughter, your granddaughter.”

Justine shakes her head. “I know that. I
know
that. Penelope, isn’t it? I love your name.”

I reach out my hand to her. She’s shaking. Her skin looks clammy. My hand wavers by her bony, bowed shoulder. I’m afraid of her, I realize. How can I be afraid of a little old lady?

I remember.

She
practically
ruined
me.

It’s like Linda is hovering again, repeating the words, restraining my hand.

I should be able to touch Justine. I should be able to touch anyone who’s this sad, no matter their past.

Instead the words burst from me—my voice as harsh as Linda’s when she speaks of Justine. “Why couldn’t you come? Tell me. All these years, why couldn’t you come?”

I remember her photograph on my shelf. She is so changed now, a lifetime older. This Justine’s dark eyes have faded to a murkier golden brown. Her skin is a maze of wrinkles. Her lips are thinner. In her sadness, she is disintegrating before my eyes. She crumples like Linda does when Linda is upset. Only worse.

“Easy.” Tom’s deep voice descends from above. “Easy now.”

He’s hulking over us, bearishly big. His broad face is softer than I’ve ever seen it. He narrows his eyes, swiftly evaluates Justine, then bends low and swoops her up. Her thin, bare legs swing beneath the fluttering hem of her dress. Her sandaled feet dangle. She rests her head on his shoulder.

“It’s all right. It’ll be all right,” Tom says. The tattooed eagles ripple on his sinewy arms, though Justine weighs next to nothing, I can tell, from the way Tom spins around and heads back into the house.

I leap to my feet. “Wait.”

Tom casts a furious look back at me. This wasn’t what he wanted, me barging in like this.

“Come on, then.” He kicks the door open with one foot. “If you’re going to play nice.”

•••

Tom lays Justine on the couch in his front room. The couch is big and red. Justine, so pale in her white dress, looks ghostly lying there. Her closed eyelids are nearly as thin as tracing paper. Her fine, white hair spreads like a cloud across the couch cushion.

Tom looks from her to me. He jerks his head to one side. “Water.”

I run in the direction of his gesture to the tiny kitchen. I turn on the tap and fill a plastic cup, then hurry back.

Justine is sitting up now, pushing Tom’s protective arms away. She looks at me and manages the shadow of a smile. “Not dead yet,” she says. She holds out a shaky hand and takes the cup from me. She spills a little, drinks a little, and rests the cup daintily on her knees.

Tom forces a smile. “You might as well be at a tea party.”

“I was raised right.” Justine lifts her chin at this attempt at humor. “I am
all
right
, Tom, just as you said I’d be.” Justine looks at me. “Are you all right?”

My throat tightens with emotion. My arms wrap tightly around my ribs.

I’ve been searching for you
, I want to say. And, suddenly,
I’m furious at you
.

“I’m all right,” I say.

Tom stands. “Call if you need me,” he tells Justine. He doesn’t look at me. He goes to the kitchen. He bangs around some pots and pans, just to remind us he’s there. Then there’s the sound of running water and sloshing in the sink.

Justine shakes her head. “Doing dishes is a comfort to him. But you must know that from work.”

I don’t want to talk about Tom.

“Ever since his war, he’s liked things tidy.” Justine raises her plastic cup to the room, and I see how sparely furnished and neatly kept it is. “He can’t cook for his life, though. At least I can still sometimes help out with that.” She closes her eyes wearily. “Though yesterday I couldn’t think of the word for soup, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember how to work a can opener. It’s like there’s a click in my brain and such things are blocked out or blacked out. Something.”

“Why couldn’t you come?” The words explode again from me.

With a resolute breath, Justine opens her eyes. She bends and sets her plastic cup on the floor, then slowly sits up again. Everything she does is done cautiously, like she might break if she’s not careful.

“Please,” she says. “A moment.”

I drop down on a hardback chair and give Justine her moment. She smooths the skirt of her dress, accordion-pleats the fabric, then smooths the fabric flat again.

“I tried,” she finally says. “For years and years, I tried. But he didn’t want me here. He said he would make it worse for everyone if I came.”

“He who?”

“Your granddad. Ernest. Truth be told, he wasn’t the only one who stopped me from coming. Someone drinks like that, eventually you can’t let them stop you. But your mother—once she got to be a certain age, she didn’t want anything to do with me either.”

What can I say to this? I know it’s true.

Justine covers her eyes with her hand. “He was sick. She was hurt. Years had passed. Still, there’s no real excuse for my actions, I know. I should have tried harder.” She lowers her hand. Tears stand in her eyes. “I was afraid.”

I hear footsteps from behind me, and now Tom stands over Justine again, watching her carefully. Justine swipes the tears from her eyes and waves him away. He glowers but goes.

“Penelope.” Justine stands then. Carefully, slowly, she walks over to me. Her hand settles lightly on my shoulder. “Forgive me. Please.”

•••

Justine and I sit together on the red couch, and she tells me what happened. She was sick at heart and in her head, she says. She made a new life in the place where she was briefly the happiest.

“Yellow Rock,” I say.

When Justine draws back in surprise, I tell her about her photograph and Owen’s letter too.

“I had to hide things like that from Ernest.” She shakes her head wonderingly. “I’d hide them in the strangest places, places he’d never think to go. I guess I forgot about the photo and the letter.”

“I’ll give them back to you.”

“They’re yours now.” She sounds relieved at this. “I’d like to see them, that’s all.”

“Sure.” I tell Justine how I found her then. I tell her I saw the newspaper article and the painting she made. I tell her I like to draw and paint too. I’ll show her my drawings and paintings someday, if she wants. There’s a viaduct I want to show her—

I think of Ravi banking up the mural wall, and Caitlin and Jules running beside me, laughing there, and then I think of David and me, painting each other big and blue, and I can’t say anymore.

“I want to see everything,” Justine says. “I want to live my life now, the way I wasn’t able to then.”

I put my hand on her arm. “How did you finally decide to come back?”

Justine pats my hand. Her fingers are startlingly cold. “Tom found me years ago. When Ernest died and left everything to Linda and you, Tom let me know. A few months ago I sold my little place in Yellow Rock to a friend. I moved here. Hoping.”

Hearing his name, Tom descends again. He tells Justine that she’s getting tired. He tells me I’d better get ready for work. I glance at my watch. He’s right. Tom holds out a hand and hoists me up. He walks me to the door.

I hesitate there. I look back at Justine, who, leaning deep into the red couch cushions, looks nearly lost again.

“It’s one thing with me,” I say. “It’ll be another thing with Linda.”

“At least I’ll have tried,” Justine says.

“But how—?” I can’t even finish the question.

Justine glances at Tom. “Could we come to the house? I’d like to see it again on the inside.” She smiles at me now. “It’s my old house, you know, from my first marriage. Ernest moved in when he married me.”

I nod. “I’ve been wondering if you slept in my bedroom or Linda’s,” I say, realizing that, yes, I want to know that. Like Justine, I want to see and know everything I can.

Justine’s smiles, and in her smile I see her eighteen-year-old self—the girl before so much sadness and so many mistakes. I see me.

“Why don’t you all come to Red Earth some time?” This idea hits me out of the blue, and my words tumble over each other. “Linda will be more likely to behave there. I mean, she
is
the manager.”

Tom shrugs. “It’s possible.”

“Sometime soon,” Justine agrees. “From Yellow Rock to Red Earth. How do you like that?”

Tom follows me out of the house. We stand on his driveway, eyeing each other.

“I know you think I should have waited,” I say. “But what if I waited one day too long?”

Tom nods. “And there’s something else.” His voice is rough with emotion.