Until She Comes Home

CHAPTER TWO

Julia Wagner sits at the back of the room. Somehow, this is always where she finds herself. It could be because her wiry red hair is impossible to tame. No matter how much she teases, pins, or sprays, she can never fashion the sculpted styles the other ladies wear. Her best hope is to corral it into a ponytail, as she has done for today’s luncheon. Perhaps she curses too much. On diet day, she definitely smokes too much. Or it could be because she is rounder than the other ladies. Her clothes have a way of fitting too tightly in all the wrong places. Or all the right places, according to her husband. Good Kentucky stock, her mother always says, often when reattaching one of Julia’s buttons. But the truth is, none of these force her to the rear of the room. She finds her way there because things like this-the monthly gathering of the Ladies of the St. Alban’s Charitable Ventures Committee-are altogether more tolerable if she keeps her distance.

And if Julia is generally at the back of the room, Malina Herze is generally-or more accurately, always-at the front. This is where she stands today. As chair of the committee’s annual bake sale and clothing drive, Malina should be handing out sign-up sheets and issuing instructions as to how, when, and where to deliver donations for the thrift store. Instead, she is doling out stern warnings to the dozen ladies scattered about the living room of their hostess, Grace Richardson. Grace is Julia’s best friend, only true friend really. This is another reason Julia sits at the back of the room. She is the friend who will stir the beans while Grace attends to her guests or answer the door should a latecomer arrive. But soon after Malina informed everyone that the woman found near the factory was most definitely dead, Grace excused herself to the kitchen, where she’ll stir her own beans, answer her own door, and won’t be in need of Julia’s help.

Snubbing out her second cigarette, Julia tugs at the blouse that dips a bit low for a luncheon and exhales a louder-than-intended sigh. A few of the ladies frown at her. They want to hear what Malina has to say. Her husband is in charge down at the factory and so she knows more than most. The woman was found yesterday morning in the alley that borders the factory and is within casting distance of the shops on Willingham Avenue. She was most definitely colored and most definitely deceased. Someone bashed her in the side of the head, so it wasn’t an accident. No chance of that.

Over and over, Malina issues these warnings, and as ten minutes stretch into thirty and she has nothing new to tell, the ladies tire of her. They begin to whisper to one another, some sharing stories of what their husbands have told them, others fretting over why their husbands have told them nothing. They stand to talk across one another and switch seats to hear something new, and as they move and shift and sit and stand, they stir up perspiration and the room grows hotter and the scent of their perfume and hairspray and body lotion and styling gel grows stronger and stronger. Sucking a lungful of smoke from her cigarette, Julia considers excusing herself to see to the twins. Every summer, her nieces visit for two weeks, and they arrived a few days ago. They’re home alone, poor things. They’re probably desperate for a bite of lunch. That would be a plausible excuse.

Even given the unseemly circumstances surrounding today’s meeting, Julia is more comfortable at Grace’s house than she ever is at her own. Whenever the two get together for coffee, it’s almost always at Grace’s house. When they play cards, it’s at Grace’s kitchen table. When their husbands watch a game, it’s in Grace’s living room. When they barbecue steaks, it’s in Grace’s backyard. The two houses stand on the same side of Alder Avenue and are separated by two blocks. From the outside, one house is the exact replica of the other, but inside, they have their distinctions. Grace has a tiled kitchen; Julia, linoleum. Grace’s walls are freshly painted. Julia’s are not. The linens are ironed at Grace’s house. They are wrinkled at Julia’s. Grace is pregnant. Julia is not.

The sound of breaking glass is the thing that finally silences the room and gives Julia her excuse. It also sets Betty Lawson’s baby to crying. She has been out in the kitchen, where it was supposed to be quiet so she could sleep undisturbed.

“Let me,” Julia says, leaping from her seat. She drops her half-smoked cigarette in the remains of her iced tea and raises a hand so Betty Lawson will keep her seat on the sofa. “I’ll see to her.”

A few of the ladies tilt their heads and press a hand over their hearts as if to say how sweet. A few others raise their brows as if to warn Betty against trusting Julia with her baby. Crying or not, this little one, the first born on Alder in three years, is a reminder to Julia and every other lady that Julia no longer has a child of her own.

In the kitchen, the baby is still crying, and on the floor near the sink lies a broken jar, partially held together by its paper label. White globs of mayonnaise are splattered across the tile and the bottom of the refrigerator.

“Soapy hands,” Grace says, rocking the carriage to calm the baby inside.

For the occasion of hosting today’s luncheon, Grace has swept her blond hair into a French roll. She wears an apron stained with barbecue sauce, and a few loose hairs dangle about her face, and yet she is the elegant one. Julia, who labored all morning on her hair and twice ironed the blouse she bought at Hudson’s for just this event, is the rumpled one.

“Do you mind?” Grace nods off toward the back door. “It’ll be Elizabeth.”

Julia sidesteps the broken jar, picking up the larger pieces along the way and dropping them in the trash can under the sink. It’s not the sound of a crying baby that draws up the memories of Julia’s own little one. It’s the smell. Julia bought the same lotion for Maryanne. Back then, Mr. Olsen kept it on the second aisle of his drugstore, top shelf, pink bottle. Probably still does. Sliding between the refrigerator and Grace’s dinette, Julia hears it-a quiet tapping.

Elizabeth Symanski stands on the other side of the screened door. Every day, she comes to Grace’s house for lunch, and as is Elizabeth’s normal posture, her head sags, her shoulders are stooped, and her arms dangle at her sides. Her long blond hair, dull and frayed on the ends, makes her look much older than her twenty-one or so years. As Elizabeth walks into the kitchen, the hem of her lavender dress brushes against Julia’s shins. Elizabeth normally wears yellow on Fridays. The colors help her remember the days. Red for Mondays. Blue for Tuesdays. White for Wednesdays. Before Elizabeth’s mother passed away, a year ago this spring, she dressed Elizabeth every morning. In her final days, Ewa Symanski’s bony fingers struggled to thread the buttons and knot the bows, and she worried aloud who would tend to her daughter when she was gone. Now Mr. Symanski must struggle with the same. Even though Elizabeth is old enough to be called a young woman, twenty-one or twenty-two, she is unable to dress herself.

Because she is wearing one of her finer dresses, Elizabeth also wears her black shoes, her Sunday best, and as she walks heel-toe, heel-toe, they click across the tile floor. Click, click, click, until she reaches the dinette, where she sits. By the time Elizabeth has settled into her seat, the baby has stopped crying. Normally Julia might remind Elizabeth to keep her voice down so as to not wake the baby again, but there’s no reason to hush Elizabeth. She rarely speaks, and when she does, she asks after her mother, Ewa. Mr. Symanski always says to humor Elizabeth, because what’s the harm? Tell her Ewa will be along shortly and that Elizabeth should mind herself until then.

Backing away from the quiet carriage, Grace slips around the table and reaches for the telephone. Letting the receiver hang over her shoulder, she dials with one hand and, with the other, fingers the loose threads left by a button missing from the back of Elizabeth’s dress. By tomorrow, Grace will have picked up the dress from Mr. Symanski and reattached a new button. She waits for the phone to ring once, her usual signal to Mr. Symanski that Elizabeth has arrived safely, and then hangs up and flops into a chair at the kitchen table.

“Did you know half the members wouldn’t come here today?” Grace waves a hand around her kitchen. “All this food will go to waste. They didn’t want to park their cars on this street, that’s what they said. As if it’s not safe here anymore.”

Though no one actually thinks the prostitutes have made their way to Alder Avenue, other coloreds have. Three families have moved into the Filmore Apartments on the west end of Alder, and isn’t that proof enough trouble can’t be far behind? Just last night, the paper was filled with news of another plant closing. This is what should worry the ladies. So many factories already stand empty-rotting shells surrounded by boarded-up restaurants and taverns. The green glow, so much like a fog, that once clung to the city’s rooftops has begun to lift. Murray, Packard, Studebaker. All of them closed. This is what should worry the ladies.

“Never mind them,” Julia says, wiping up the last of the mayonnaise spill. “So you and James will have leftovers for the next six weeks.”

“Have you read today’s paper?” Grace asks.

Turning her back on the baby carriage, Julia steps up to the stove and inhales the steam rising from the baked beans. The brown sugar and catsup that bubbles up does little to mask the smell of the pink lotion.

“No, and I don’t intend to,” she says, dragging a finger through the simmering beans and sticking it in her mouth. “Needs more brown sugar.”

Even over the stove, the sweet smell of a new baby fills the kitchen. It’s the white powder, too. Julia was always careful not to use too much on Maryanne.

“But aren’t you curious? Don’t you wonder who might be involved?” Grace flicks her eyes in the direction of the living room as if one of the ladies’ husbands is the possible offender.

“No, I don’t. I don’t have the slightest damned interest, and neither should you. It’s all but blown over already. Bill says the police are gone. Hardly even bothered with any questions. Brown sugar?”

Grace points to an overhead cupboard. “What more did Malina tell everyone?” Grace says, touching Elizabeth’s fingertips so she’ll stop tapping her foot. Though Elizabeth never has much to say, she has a habit of tapping her right foot. In her nicer shoes, it makes a clicking sound that might disturb the baby.

“She’s doing nothing but frightening everybody, getting them all worked up. She keeps asking if anyone knows what the dead woman looked like. Was she portly? Was she slender? Why would she ask such a thing? I swear that woman couldn’t find her behind with a compass and a candle. Did you know she’s thinking of having a bomb shelter dug in their backyard?”

Grace slips a rubber band off what must be today’s newspaper and spreads it across the table. “There has to be something in the news, don’t you think? It’s been two days. Who was she? Where did she come from? Don’t you wonder?”

“James will tell you what you need to know,” Julia says, drawing a spoon through the beans in a lazy figure eight. “You shouldn’t worry about it.”

“But he tells me nothing.”

“Only because he adores you.”

“Bill adores you,” Grace says, turning to the next page, “and he’s told you every horrid detail.”

“No husband adores his wife like your husband adores you.”

It’s the smooth blond hair and clear skin that plague Grace. She’s slender, when not pregnant, but not skinny. Her ankles are delicate, her neckline sharp, and her blue eyes startle people when they first look into them. Angelic, that’s the word to describe Grace, and no husband wants to pollute his angelic wife with news about a dead prostitute.

“Besides,” Julia says, tapping another quarter cup of brown sugar into the beans, “you know I’ll tell you everything I hear.”

“But I shouldn’t have to get the news from you. I worry there might be another reason James isn’t telling me things. Last night, I came right out and asked him about it.”

“Asked him what?”

“If he had ever seen them.”

“And?”

“He said he never has.”

“There you go. Nothing to worry about.”

“Do I dare believe him? Malina says those women stand topless. How could he not look?”

Julia pulls the paper away from Grace, folds it over, and jams it into the trash. “So what if they look? It’s what men do. Be thankful James doesn’t want to burden you with it.”

In the front room, the voices have grown louder. One of the ladies speculates on what the weapon might have been. A bat, perhaps, or a crowbar. Aren’t people always using crowbars for such things?

“Malina told me the shops on Willingham will close on paydays now,” Grace says, fishing the newspaper out of the trash and returning to the table. “Did she tell you the same?”

“Along with all her other gibberish, yes,” Julia says, shaking her head when she catches herself staring at the carriage.

Grace irons out the wrinkles Julia caused when she shoved the paper into the garbage. Again, she pats Elizabeth’s hand, a reminder to still her feet. “Do you mind?” she says. “Would you see Elizabeth home? I’d rather she not hear all the talk going on in there, and I really should see to the rest of lunch.”

“You don’t want help setting the table? Wrapping up all these leftovers?”

“You should get home to the girls,” Grace says, and turns to the next page. “They’ll be getting hungry.”

Grace, like Julia, will know this baby is the first on the street since Maryanne, and she’s giving Julia an excuse to escape, at least for today. In the early weeks after Maryanne died, Grace was the only one brave enough and stubborn enough to walk into Julia’s home. She came every day, even when Julia slammed doors and screamed at her to leave well enough alone. Grace kept the blood flowing, kept the house from collapsing. Even more than Julia’s own husband, Grace saved her.

“You’ll ring Mr. Symanski again?” Julia says, holding the door open for Elizabeth and wondering if it will always be like this. Will Grace forever try to intercept the memories of Julia’s daughter, and how successful can she be once her own baby is born? “You’ll let him know Elizabeth is on her way?”

Grace taps the tip of her thumb to her tongue, flips to the next page in the newspaper, and nods. “There has to be something in here, don’t you think?”

And then Julia realizes. Grace is happily married. Her husband does adore her. She has no worries about James. She doesn’t wonder who that woman was or who killed her or whose husband might be the guilty party. Those discussions were for Julia’s benefit, a means to distract her from the baby in the corner, and they almost worked.

Outside the house, Julia and Elizabeth walk together to the end of Grace’s driveway and from there, Julia watches Elizabeth make her way home. North of Alder, a round of fireworks explodes. For the past week, the air has been laced with the smell of them-sulfur, maybe charcoal. They’re another reminder, other than this heat, that July is fast approaching. The ladies’ voices and the sounds of silverware clattering against Grace’s best wedding china drift out of the living room’s open windows. Betty Lawson’s baby is crying again. A block and a half away, Elizabeth has neared her house. Reaching out with one hand, she trails her fingers along the top rail of the iron fence that hems in her front yard. She’s been taught hers is the house with the iron fence. When Elizabeth stops at her gate, Julia turns toward home.

CHAPTER THREE

Most of the ladies shop on Willingham Avenue every day. They stop first at Mr. Ambrozy’s deli. Their freezers frost over and ruin his hand-stuffed kielbasa, so they prefer to buy it fresh, daily. Things never keep as well at home, never taste as fresh as they do straight from Mr. Ambrozy. Every weekday morning, the ladies board the south-bound bus. They come with recipe cards tucked inside their handbags, some of them liking to share, others not. Strolling through Mr. Ambrozy’s aisles, they carry shopping baskets and pick through his sweet and mild sauerkraut and hand-stuffed sausages-among the best in all of Detroit. But they don’t come to Willingham Avenue only for the deli. At his shop on the corner of Woodward and Willingham, Mr. Wilson irons the sharpest pleats and stitches an invisible hem like none other. On the opposite side of Willingham, beyond the drugstore and a vacant fenced-in lot, Nowack’s Bakery sells the freshest bread and pierogi fine enough for the ladies to say they rolled and boiled it themselves. It’s a secret the ladies say is best kept quiet.

At the kitchen table, her feet propped on the chair opposite her, one ankle crossed over the other and relieved for some peace after a long afternoon with the ladies, Grace studies Mother’s pierogi recipe and feels quite certain she has forgotten or possibly misplaced something. Before her passing, Ewa Symanski always made the pierogi for the bake sale. St. Alban’s has a good many widowers, and some would wait all year for Ewa’s pierogi because they no longer had wives of their own to roll and boil the pierogi. In the wake of Ewa’s death, Grace will take over and finally have a specialty like all the other ladies. First thing Monday morning, to avoid the sugar-cookie fiasco of last year, she’ll visit Mrs. Nowack at the bakery for some advice. No one makes better pierogi than Mrs. Nowack.

“You shouldn’t trouble yourself, Mother,” Grace says, running her fingers over the crisp card that Mother wrote out when she arrived shortly after the last lady left. Mother sighed to have to write it down yet again. “I’m sure you’ll want to get home soon.”

On the floor near Grace’s feet, Mother, on hands and knees, is scrubbing the tile. Her apron slips off one slender shoulder and her thinning silver hair glitters in the late afternoon sun. “You keep a clean house and tend to your husband,” Mother says, “or some other woman will.”

It must be all the talk about the prostitutes and the dead woman that has Grace feeling out of sorts. Mother heard it too, though from where Grace isn’t sure, but when she arrived to help tidy up after the luncheon, Mother knew.

Outside the kitchen window, the back alley is quiet. From a few doors down comes the whirl of a reel mower, the hiss of someone hosing off his driveway, a neighbor’s clothesline creaking as the lady of the house takes in her sheets and towels. The children in the neighborhood are teenagers or altogether grown and off on their own, so there are no sounds of laughing or running, no children leaping the hedges between houses or throwing rocks in the alley. The late-afternoon air has finally cooled and a breeze blows through the kitchen, in through the open window, out through the screen in the back door. The sweet smell of fireworks blows through every so often. The sharp, cool air should make Grace feel better, and yet something in the house isn’t quite right. She tries not to watch the clock. No need to worry about James today. It’s not payday.

At the sound of tires rolling over loose gravel, Grace checks the clock over the stove-5:30. The car slows as it nears the garage in back of the house. The engine idles and goes silent. James, home from work. Right on time. Always right on time. Again, Grace promises herself to stop watching the clock. James has given her no cause to worry, and she doesn’t, not really. A car door opens and closes, but there is no sign of James at the back stairs. Grace glances down at Mother, who raises a brow as if James has gotten himself into no good in the distance between the garage and the house. James has given Mother no cause to worry either, other than his being a man. When the back door finally swings open, James steps inside, drawing in a gust of the cool air that, for a moment, makes Grace set aside her worries over something forgotten.

With his eyes only on Grace, James crosses the kitchen in three long strides. The smell of grease and oil, the smell of a day at the factory, fills the small room and masks the rich scent of fried onions and the tuna casserole baking in the oven. Taking no notice of the wet floor or Mother, who is still crouched near the sink, James stretches one arm out to the side, his hand cupped as if holding something, and wraps the other around Grace. He pulls her close and kisses the top of her head. His empty hand slides over her shoulder, down her arm, and rests on the baby.

During the day, the oil and steam of the factory dampen James’s clothes and body, and dust sticks to the thick, black hair on his arms, making his skin like gritty sandpaper. He will sometimes apologize for being so rough and coarse, and Grace will touch the hair on his chest or run a hand over his wrist and up his forearm so he’ll know she likes the feel of him. He’s the man she always hoped for, broad enough to fill a doorway, tall enough to look down on most around him, bristly enough that her skin, by contrast, will always feel smooth and young to him. What surprises her still is that he’s also a playful man. He’ll tease her over a ruined roast, chase her with the hose when she is trying to pull weeds from her flowerbeds, or press an ear to her growing stomach as if he can hear the baby inside. Touching the shadow on his lower jaw that has grown since morning, she kisses the rough cheek and frowns at his cupped hand. Shards of green glass sparkle in his palm. He jostles them as if they were a pair of dice.

Two blocks down, where Julia lives in the same style three-bedroom, two-story redbrick house with a porch off the front door and a detached garage out back, she finds broken glass in the alley almost every day. Usually green, sometimes brown. She says that over the past few months the glass has become as regular as leaves in autumn. It’s a sign of their changing neighborhood, one no one talks about. Grace nods in Mother’s direction so James won’t say anything he’d rather not. He greets Mother, drops the glass in the trash basket, letting the shards tumble from his hand one by one, and excuses himself to bathe before supper.

After a quiet meal, Mother gathers her purse and gloves. She’d just as soon not be caught in this neighborhood after dark, she says, and while James sees Mother to her car, Grace runs water to wash the dishes. Something begins to tug at her again. It might be the thought of those women on Willingham, but they are still a bus ride away, a safe distance from Grace’s life here on Alder. Or perhaps it’s the green glass. She has always assumed it was left there by the colored men who cut through the alley on their way to Woodward Avenue. She hears them during the day when James is at work and late at night when he is asleep and she is awake, nursing an aching back. The men always pass at the same time. They have a schedule. It must be the buses that drive their routine.

“You’ve missed a spot,” Grace says, nudging James who has returned to help her with the dishes. Soapy water drips from her rubber gloves.

“It’s time I do some checking, Gracie,” James says, setting the dish aside.

“Checking?”

“Not waiting until things get even worse. Time I get someone in here to tell me what this house is worth.”

“It’s just a few bottles,” Grace says. “A little broken glass.” But she knows it isn’t.

“I’ll find someone who can sell this place for us,” James says. “Someone who can get us a fair price.”

“But what about our friends? I’d hate to leave Julia. And Mother is so close.”

“Should be able to find something farther north with the money we make.” James wraps his arms around Grace’s round belly. His fingers are warm through her thin cotton blouse. “High time we face facts. Things are starting to add up in a way I don’t care for. No good to be the last ones standing.”

Wearing a pair of her nicer heels, Grace is the perfect height to rest against the broadest part of James. His white undershirt is soft against her cheek and smells lightly of bleach. She wants to ask if he, like the ladies who wouldn’t come to her luncheon, is worried the dead woman on Willingham means something to them. “I have brownies,” Grace says instead, because she’s not sure she wants to hear his answer. “Feel like dessert?”

James rolls his rough cheek against the soft spot at the base of her neck. She leans into him and lays her head aside so he can more easily kiss her there.

“And ice cream,” she says, closing her eyes and inhaling the spicy cologne he slapped on after he washed up. “I’ll bet I have some in the freezer.”

And then that nagging feeling, that certainty she had forgotten something or misplaced something, rises up. She drops her chin to her chest and shakes her head.

“Oh, James. Today is Elizabeth’s birthday. She wore the lavender dress. Not the yellow. Because it’s her birthday. The ice cream, I bought it for her. How could I forget?”

While Grace plates a dozen leftover brownies and grabs a gallon of ice cream from the freezer, James pulls the car into the driveway. It’s a short enough walk, but by the time they come home, it’ll be dark, so James insists on the car.

When Mr. Symanski answers the door, his silver hair, usually smoothed straight back, hangs across his wrinkled brow. His white-collared shirt is untucked, his tie has pulled loose at the knot, and his pants are rumpled at the knees. He has shrunk in the year since Ewa died, the kind of withering that happens when a man loses his wife.

“I’m sorry to disturb you so late,” Grace says. “But I realized, after all the ladies left…”

She leans around Mr. Symanski so she can see into the living room, where Elizabeth usually sits in the evenings. She likes the brown wingback that used to be her mother’s. Ewa called it her fireside chair. It stands empty.

“I realized that today is Elizabeth’s birthday,” Grace says.

Mr. Symanski looks first at James and then at Grace. “I was sleeping.” He tugs on the pants hanging loosely at his waist. “I think I was sleeping.”

Like Grace did, Mr. Symanski leans to get a better look, as if Elizabeth is standing behind James.

“She is being with you?” Mr. Symanski says.

James steps forward. “Charles, it’s James and Grace. Are you all right?”

“Elizabeth, she is with you, yes?”

“No,” Grace says. “No, she isn’t. She came home. Hours ago. She left me hours ago. We came to wish her happy birthday.”

Mr. Symanski looks into the house to where Elizabeth would usually sit, her head lowered, not noticing someone at the door. The living room is dark. One of Ewa’s crocheted blankets lies across the sofa where Mr. Symanski was probably napping. No smell of anything baking in the oven. No radio. No voices.

“Elizabeth is being with you?”

James begins the search in the backyard. He starts in the garage, where it stays cool even on the hottest days, and checks behind the weeping forsythia that grows along the back porch. And while James searches outside, Grace helps Mr. Symanski to a seat in the kitchen and then hurries through the house, both hands supporting her heavy stomach. She opens every door, leans into each stale room, calls out Elizabeth’s name. She checks every closet, waves away the smell of mothballs that reminds her of Ewa. In the bedrooms, she checks under the beds, brushing aside the cobwebs that cling to her forehead and coughing at the dust kicked up when she throws back the patchwork quilts and lifts the lace bed skirts. She calls the neighbors, one on each side. They call more neighbors, and they, still more. The husbands set aside their newspapers and shut down their televisions. Ladies leave the dishes not yet washed and the laundry not yet folded. From upstairs, from down the hall, from in the cellar, Grace calls out for Mr. Symanski to stay put. Don’t worry. You know how she sometimes wanders. We’ll find her. We’ll find her in no time.

In the Symanskis’ front yard, James gathers the neighbors, and on the back of an envelope, he sketches Alder Avenue and Marietta one block to the south and Tuttle one block to the north. He draws six boxes, dividing up the area, assigns one man to each and tells them, “Get together as much help as you can. She’s small, you know. Check every porch, every garage. Behind bushes. Inside cars. She might be scared. Might want to hide.”

The men separate themselves into groups and some run north, while others run south. One group lingers and Orin Schofield gathers them across the street from the Filmore Apartments. Orin lives two houses down from Grace and James on the opposite side of the alley. He lost his wife three years ago. Grace takes him a roast with carrots and new potatoes the first and third Sunday of every month, always the same thing because it’s one of the few dishes she can count on to turn out well for her, and while she cleans his kitchen, he talks about moving south to live with his daughter.

“I’d bet good money someone in there can tell you the girl’s whereabouts,” Orin shouts, pointing toward the Filmore. The top of his balding head is red though the sun has fallen low in the sky. If she could, Grace would tell him to take himself inside and sit in front of the fan. Your heart, she would tell him. The strain is no good for your heart. Continuing to shout, Orin shuffles up and down the sidewalk, dragging his tan suede shoes. Blue trousers pool at his ankles. As he walks, he leans on a three-foot-long scrap of wood as if it were a cane. James helped Orin replace the joists on his back porch last summer. The wood must be a leftover. Lifting the wood and stabbing it toward the apartments, Orin shouts again, “Good money says that’s the place to look.”

The men point to each side of the simple two-story brick apartment building, seemingly most worried about the shrubs and overgrown grass that run along the west side. Around back, they’ll find a thick stand of poplars hugging a narrow stream that runs east to west. The sun has set but the sky still glows with the last of its light. They’ll want to get a good look before darkness settles in. For the past year, these neighbors have been talking, some louder than others. More than being afraid of the coloreds living in the apartments, they are afraid of one buying and moving into a house, because that would be a lasting change and their lives would never be good again, never be the same. They have to stick together. If one falls, they all fall. That’s what the loudest neighbors say. Pointing this way and that, the men, a half dozen at least, split into two groups and flank the apartment building, disappearing around back for a time, reappearing in front.

“What’d you find?” Orin shouts, waving one fist in the air.

The men hold up their hands. Nothing. Most of the apartment windows are dark. The doors remain closed. No one from the Filmore comes out.

“You’ve got to go on in there.” It’s Orin again. “Nothing’s going to stop you.”

And then the police arrive, two black-and-white cars, two officers in each. They tell the men to stay clear of the Filmore.

“No one is allowed in there,” an officer says.

Leaving the group of six to linger on the curb, Orin Schofield still shouting and wielding his plank of wood, James escorts the officers into Mr. Symanski’s house. They sit around the kitchen table, and it takes him and Grace some time to explain about Elizabeth.

“No, she’s not a child,” Grace says. “A woman. Twenty-one years old. No, twenty-two today. But she’s like a child. She’s lost all the same. I saw her last. She left my house. Walked home. It’s such a short trip. That’s the last I know.”

The police insist Mr. Symanski stay at the house and not join the other men. James agrees.

“She’ll need a friendly face when we bring her home,” James says.

“Yes,” Grace says, resting a hand on Mr. Symanski’s shoulder. “James will see to it. He’ll see Elizabeth home.”

But really James must worry about Mr. Symanski’s heart. He won’t let Grace join the search either.

“See to him,” James says, nodding at Mr. Symanski. “Put on some coffee. Answer the phone. And keep yourself in the house.”

So while James goes outside to show the officers his map, Grace hunts for the coffee. She dumps the old grounds in a can she finds under the sink, rinses and fills the pot, brews a fresh batch. In the refrigerator, she finds a loaf of bread, cheese, and the sliced roast beef she delivered this past Wednesday. Like Orin Schofield, Mr. Symanski always gets the same dish. Spreading extra butter on the sandwich, she cuts it in half and slides it toward him.

“How long since you last ate?” she asks.

Mr. Symanski looks at the small white refrigerator as if it might give him the answer. “I am not knowing,” he says, then picks up one half of the sandwich but doesn’t take a bite.

Not worried that coffee will keep Mr. Symanski awake tonight, Grace pours him a cup. No one will sleep until Elizabeth is home. She adds cream and two sugars because that’s the way James takes it, and presses one of Mr. Symanski’s hands between both of hers. Perhaps Mr. Symanski would prefer bourbon, but James said coffee.

“Please,” she says. “You really should eat.”

As more people arrive to help in the search, Grace points them toward the police cars parked outside the house. One officer stands there, talking into a small radio. Grace calls after each neighbor, reminding him to check behind the bushes and in every garage because that’s what James said to do, and she jots down the name of every person who joins the search.

The neighbors continue to look well past dark. They carry flashlights and kerosene lanterns. Children from nearby streets swat at mosquitoes, and the ladies run home to flip on porch lights and kitchen lights, everything to light up the street for Elizabeth. Teenagers shuffle up and down Alder, the bright orange tips of their cigarettes glowing in the dark. In the kitchen, Grace scrubs the counter with baking soda while Mr. Symanski and two officers talk across the table. One officer has dark hair that curls on the ends, one strand cupping the top of his left ear. His name is Officer Warinski. The other officer, whose name is Thompson, has straight brown hair that was probably once blond, and he slouches as if he has always been the tallest. Both wear heavy, dark shoes that will leave scuff marks.

The curly-haired officer, Officer Warinski, points at Grace and then at the table. After Grace has taken a seat, the officer asks if Elizabeth would have had a plan and if anything is missing from the house that the girl might have sold for money. Hunched over the table, propped up by his elbows, his face resting in his hands, Mr. Symanski shakes his head.

“Elizabeth doesn’t know how to use money,” Grace says. “She doesn’t know what it is.”

Together, the officers, Grace, and Mr. Symanski walk to Elizabeth’s room. Again, the curly-haired Warinski does the talking. He asks if anything is missing. Officer Thompson holds a yellow pencil and a small pad of lined paper. Officer Warinski wonders aloud if Elizabeth had been planning a trip and asks Grace and Mr. Symanski for the names and telephone numbers of Elizabeth’s friends.

“She hasn’t any,” Grace says. “Only me. Me and a few of the other neighbor ladies. She’s like a child, frail, not well. You must understand that.”

Back in the kitchen, the taller officer bobs his head in the direction of the coffeepot, signaling he would like a cup. Both officers and Mr. Symanski return to their seats at the table. Officer Warinski brushes aside the curl that again grabs on to the top of his ear. He stretches his hands into the air, cups his head, and tilts his chair, balancing on the two hind legs. His skin is smooth like a boy’s.

“One more time,” he says to Grace. “You last saw her when?”

Placing an empty cup in front of each officer and pouring until both are full, Grace glances at Mr. Symanski. He stares down into his own empty cup, his hands wrapped around it as if warming himself. Grace pushes the sugar bowl and creamer across the table toward the officers.

“She comes every day for lunch,” Grace says. “Like always, she came. It gives Mr. Symanski time to catch up on chores or to nap. I rang him when she arrived and later sent her away because of all the talk.”

“The talk?”

“Talk of the woman found dead on Willingham Avenue. Most of our husbands, they work down there. Elizabeth left me at about one thirty. I rang Mr. Symanski again. One ring on the telephone to let him know she was on her way.”

Across the table, Mr. Symanski’s silver hair has fallen across his forehead and into his eyes.

“But I got busy,” Grace says. “I think he never rang back. I’m supposed to listen for him to ring back so I know she made it home.”

The curly-haired Warinski asks twice about the telephone rings that Grace and Mr. Symanski exchange. Grace explains that in the year since Ewa died, Grace and Mr. Symanski have taken to trading rings to signal Elizabeth’s safe arrival. She wanders too far sometimes, twice walking past Grace’s house, going as far as Woodward before she was spotted. The officer squints at Grace. He doesn’t understand.

“Elizabeth wanders. Those rings, it’s how we know she’s safe. We ring when she leaves or when she arrives. The other rings back to signal she made it safe and sound.”

“And did you ring Mrs. Richardson?” the officer asks Mr. Symanski. Before Mr. Symanski can answer, the officer says to Grace, “Did he ring to signal that the girl was on her way for lunch? Did he ring that she made it home? Did he ever ring?”

Grace shakes her head. She’s certain she phoned Mr. Symanski after Julia and Elizabeth left the house. She must be certain. She let it ring once just as she always does, but did he ring her back? Did he ever ring her at all? Did he know Elizabeth had come? Did he know she left his house?

“I don’t know,” Grace finally says, rubbing one palm to the bridge of her nose. “I don’t remember. But I rang when she arrived and when she left. I know I did. I’m certain of it.”

The taller officer slouches even when seated. He reaches across the table and taps his pencil in front of Mr. Symanski. “Sir?”

“I can’t remember things,” Mr. Symanski says. “It is being so shameful I can’t remember. I was sleeping. Sometimes I am sleeping too long.”

“So,” Officer Warinski says. He leans forward, the chair’s front legs hitting the linoleum with a thud. “Elizabeth made her own way home when she left your house?”

Grace starts to say yes but stops. She mirrors the officer’s movement, slides forward on her chair and presses her hands flat on the tabletop.

“No,” she says. “No, she didn’t. I asked Julia Wagner to see Elizabeth home. She didn’t stay for lunch. The twins, Julia’s nieces, are here. She had to get home to them. Julia saw Elizabeth last.”

Officer Thompson stands and says he will go speak to Mrs. Wagner. Grace is relieved, happy that this thing she has remembered will amount to something good. Julia will be able to tell them what happened. She’ll be able to help.

When the officers have left the house, Grace helps Mr. Symanski into the living room. He sits in Ewa’s chair. Grace sits on the tweed sofa, where she is close enough to reach out and pat his knee.

“Today is being Elizabeth’s birthday, you know,” Mr. Symanski says.

Grace nods to make him think she remembered even though she hadn’t. She hadn’t remembered because she’d been thinking about pierogi and those women on Willingham and how best to distract Julia from memories of her daughter. The lavender dress should have reminded Grace sooner. Mr. Symanski sinks into the chair that is too large for him and rests his cheek on one of the cushions as if it were Ewa’s shoulder.

“I’m sure she’ll be home soon,” Grace says, placing a hand on Mr. Symanski’s knee. It’s like a small wooden knob under her fingers. “You know James. He’ll take care of this.”

James always knows what to do, how to fix things, how to make things right. When the car sputters, he knows which tool to use and what needs to be tightened or replaced. When the water heater stops warming, he tinkers until it works. When the television shows only static, he knows just how to turn the antennae. When, after five years, Grace still wasn’t pregnant, he insisted no wife of his would have such worries. He scolded her when she cried over it, promised to stay no matter how many years passed, and eventually he put an end to that problem too and gave Grace a baby.

“He’ll have Elizabeth home in no time,” Grace says. “I have brownies for her. And I know how she loves the ice cream. She’ll be home before you know it.”

Mr. Symanski takes a sip from his coffee. “I’m feeling she won’t,” he says, staring at a blank wall. “I’m feeling very badly she won’t ever come home.”

CHAPTER FOUR

It’s well past bedtime for Izzy and Arie, short for Isabelle and Arabelle, when they tiptoe down Aunt Julia’s stairs. Both of them wear nightgowns yellowed at the seams where Grandma used too much bleach. They stare straight ahead as they pass through the entry so they won’t be tempted to glance at the telephone. Mrs. Witherspoon, Grandma’s neighbor, promised to call if their cat turned up. Patches is her name. She ran away from Grandma’s house two weeks ago. Grandma said it’s what cats do when the weather turns warm and not to worry. Now that Elizabeth Symanski is missing, the girls shouldn’t be concerning themselves with a cat, but they didn’t know Elizabeth all that well, and they’d had Patches for almost a year. One thing’s for sure, though. Staring at a phone won’t make it ring. Once in the living room, where Aunt Julia says they can all wait together until Elizabeth comes home, the girls sit. Their bare calves hang over the side of the loveseat, and their feet dangle, nearly touching the floor, but not quite. Next year, they’ll reach.

Every summer since before they can remember, the girls have looked forward to visiting Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill. Back home, where the twins live the rest of the year with Grandma, they are almost never allowed out of the yard, especially when the weather warms up. It’s the polio, Grandma always says. No sense tempting fate. Now, here they are, cooped up just like at Grandma’s. Every other summer, Friday night at Aunt Julia’s meant an evening at Sanders. That’s the real reason the girls packed their store-bought dresses. They would sit, the girls, Uncle Bill, and Aunt Julia, at the Sanders counter, and as Uncle Bill ordered from the man wearing an apron and small white hat, Aunt Julia would scold the girls for twirling on the round stools. Then they’d all eat hot-fudge sundaes from fluted glass dishes.

Outside Aunt Julia’s front window, streams of yellow thrown from flashlights drift back and forth across the lawn. Dry grass crackles under heavy boots, and as broad-shouldered shadows glide past the windows, voices call out to Elizabeth. Mostly men’s voices, deep and scratchy. Some are close, next door or down the street. Others are muffled, as if coming from a block or two away. The quieter voices are harder to listen to. They mean the men have traveled farther and farther away, thinking Elizabeth has done the same. The quieter voices come from someplace dark, where all the porch lights aren’t shining and the front doors don’t stand wide open. The quieter voices mean maybe Elizabeth won’t be found as quickly as Aunt Julia thought. The twins, and Aunt Julia, too, are waiting for silence, because silence will mean the men, whether near or far, have stopped shouting and Elizabeth has been found. Silence will be a good thing.

“What will Elizabeth do?” Izzy says, turning her back on the telephone so she won’t be tempted to think about Patches or warm, bittersweet chocolate. Her stomach clenches and reminds her they skipped supper. Another great thing about Aunt Julia’s house is the food. She cooks as well as Grandma, maybe better, and never insists on clean plates and always makes enough for seconds. Food isn’t such a chore at Aunt Julia’s house. “When it’s time for bed,” Izzy says, “what will she do?”

Izzy’s damp red hair hangs in strands over her shoulders, the ends frayed where she didn’t bother to comb through them after her bath. Grandma is always shouting-Izzy, get busy. Izzy, get busy brushing your hair. Izzy, get busy making your bed. Izzy, get busy. Arie’s hair is nearly dry because she is better about scrubbing it with a towel. No one ever shouts at Arie to get busy.

“What do you mean, sugar?” Aunt Julia says.

“What will Elizabeth do without a bed to sleep in?” Arie says before Izzy can answer for herself.

Izzy stares hard at Arie and shakes her head. Grandma doesn’t like it when they do things like finish each other’s sentences and thoughts. She says it feels like something the good Lord didn’t intend. Scooting to the edge of the sofa so she doesn’t have to look Izzy in the eye, Arie begins rubbing the ends of her fingers, one after the other, no doubt wishing she held Grandma’s rosary in her hands so she could rub its smooth, ivory-colored beads instead of her own fingertips. But the rosary is upstairs, hanging from Arie’s headboard, where she has kept it since they arrived.

“I believe Elizabeth will sleep in her own bed tonight,” Aunt Julia says. She stands, tugging at her slim skirt where it buckles on her hips, and walks over to the front door. “I was with her just this afternoon at Mrs. Richardson’s. She’ll be happy as can be to see you two.” Pushing open the screen door, Aunt Julia leans out and looks up and down the street. “I bet she’d be pleased to help you find that cat of yours. Just as soon as she’s home, we’ll all go together. We’ll take out the sedan, drive over to Grandma’s, and have a look around.”

Outside, a few doors slam shut and, soon after, engines fire up, rumble, and fade as the cars roll down the street. The bushes along the west side of the house rustle. The men are kicking them or swatting at them with yardsticks. They must think Elizabeth is hiding there. Aunt Julia rubs her thin reddish eyebrows, inhales a deep breath, spins around on one heel, and returns to her seat at the larger sofa. Deep voices continue to call out to Elizabeth. “Come on home,” they shout. “Supper’s on the table.” Following Aunt Julia’s example, the girls rest their hands in their laps, cross their ankles, and sit with a straight back.

As the twins stare out the front window, Aunt Julia trying to smile each time they glance her way, they realize the neighborhood is quiet. The voices have stopped calling. The girls close their eyes and each takes a breath, together at the same time because that’s how it works between them. They don’t want to hear another man shout out that supper is waiting or that Papa is home and misses his Elizabeth. After a few more moments of silence, the twins open their eyes, look at each other and then at Aunt Julia. Arie squirms to the edge of the loveseat, stands, and leaps into the center of the room. She claps her hands together and draws them to her chest. Aunt Julia smiles, shows her teeth. She hears the silence too. All three turn when a heavy foot hits the front porch. Aunt Julia jumps from the sofa.

Uncle Bill’s head is the first thing to poke through the open screen door. He’s wearing his black Tigers cap, the same one he pulls on every night as soon as he gets home from work. His hair is almost as dark as that hat. He crosses into the house, his black steel-toed work boots clumping on the wooden floor, and as he passes Arie, still standing in the center of the room, he scoops her up with one arm, cradles her to his side, and together they drop down on the large sofa opposite Izzy. Aunt Julia closes her eyes and exhales a long breath. Taking steps that make no noise at all, she follows Uncle Bill and sits next to him. Uncle Bill wraps his other arm around Aunt Julia, settling back into the sofa’s deep, square cushions, dragging her with him. She laughs and slaps at his chest, but not slaps that would hurt. Then she leans into him, lets her head rest on his shoulder, and seems to forget for a moment that the twins are in the room.

“I’m so relieved,” Aunt Julia says, sinking into Uncle Bill’s side.

Grandma says the girls are the spitting image of their mother, but Izzy and Arie don’t know their mother. Grandma says take a gander at your aunt Julia. That’s close enough. Izzy resists a peek at her own flat chest. There is no chance Aunt Julia ever looked like Izzy and Arie and no chance Izzy and Arie will ever grow to look like Aunt Julia.

Stretching an arm around Uncle Bill’s waist, Aunt Julia hooks a finger through one of his belt loops. “Where was she?”

Uncle Bill kisses the top of Arie’s head and winks at Izzy across the room. It’s not too late, yet. Maybe there will still be time for a drive downtown and chocolate sundaes. When Uncle Bill doesn’t answer, Aunt Julia unhooks her finger, slides to the edge of the sofa, and shifts in her seat so she can face him square-on.

“You found her, didn’t you?” Aunt Julia’s voice becomes thick and slow. Her Southern roots have a way of breaking ground whenever she gets especially worked up. “That’s why you’re home, right? You found Elizabeth.”

Arie pokes Uncle Bill and points at the cap he still wears even though he’s inside. Uncle Bill gives her the same wink he gave Izzy and snaps the bill of his cap between two fingers. It flips off his head, spins end over end, and lands in his lap.

“Not yet,” he says, pinching the tip of Arie’s chin.

“What do you mean, not yet?” Aunt Julia stands and stares down on Uncle Bill. “It’s pitch-black out there. She has to be home.”

Uncle Bill pats the cushion next to him, and when Aunt Julia sits again, he pats her knee. “We’ve stirred up a hornets’ nest, girls,” he says, rubbing his rough face against Arie’s cheek. He’s done that to Izzy before so she knows why Arie tucks her chin and giggles. Izzy touches a hand to her own cheek because she can almost feel it too. “You’re going to have to stay close to home for a while.”

“Grandma says hornets will leave us well enough alone if we leave them well enough alone,” Izzy says.

“Not that kind of hornets, kiddo.”

“What is it, Bill?” Aunt Julia says.

“A lot of angry words being tossed around down at the Filmore. Best the girls stay close to home until Elizabeth is found.”

The Filmore Apartments are the reason Grandma almost didn’t let Izzy and Arie come to Aunt Julia’s this year. Coloreds live there, and Grandma said it’s only a matter of time now. If people are throwing around angry words, that must mean they think the coloreds have been stirring up trouble and maybe they stirred up trouble for Elizabeth. Maybe she didn’t wander off like Aunt Julia thinks she did.

“What about our cat?” Izzy says. The words pop out before she can stop them. It’s easier to think about a lost cat than a lost person. “If we can’t leave the house, we can’t very well find her. Isn’t that right? You’re saying we can’t look for Patches.”

“It’ll only be for a short time,” Uncle Bill says. “You can put out food on the back porch. Milk, maybe. Cats like milk. Try to tempt her home.”

Izzy stands and takes a few steps toward Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill. “Couple days won’t hurt, I guess,” she says, but before she can finish, Uncle Bill wraps one long arm around her waist and scoops her up too.

“But no leaving the house without Aunt Julia’s permission,” he says, rubbing his day-old beard against Izzy’s cheek like he did Arie’s. “Understood?”

Like Arie, Izzy tucks her chin and laughs.

Together, the twins say, “Understood.”

“So you’ll go back now?” Aunt Julia says. “You’ll go and help the others.” She stands again and smooths her skirt. Every part of Aunt Julia is plentiful and round. She is forever reattaching buttons and stitching up stressed seams. “You should get going. The girls and I will be fine.”

Uncle Bill squeezes the twins close and talks over Izzy’s head. “There’s one more thing, Julia. It’s the police. There’s a fellow outside, an officer. He’d like to talk to you.”

“To me?”

Uncle Bill nods. “I’ll come with you. You girls are fine here for a few minutes, aren’t you?”

“No,” Aunt Julia says. She waves a hand at the three of them and smiles but doesn’t show her teeth this time. “I’m happy to talk with him. You all stay put.”

The man standing on Julia’s front porch wears a blue hat, a dark shirt, and a tie. A police officer’s uniform. He removes his hat, squints into the overhead light. “Ma’am.”

“I have children in here,” Julia says, meaning she doesn’t want the girls to hear what this man might say.

The officer backs away, a signal for Julia to join him. Once they have moved off the porch, the officer’s eyes drop to Julia’s chest and loiter. She pulls closed the lightweight cardigan she slipped on at sunset, crosses her arms, and scratches at a small grease stain on her sleeve.

Outside the house, the shadows that had floated past the living-room windows have transformed into real people stooping to search under parked cars, wading through bushes that grow between houses, crawling under porches. A few flashlights settle on Julia before sweeping on past. The shouts have started up again and the air no longer smells of sweet sulfur. Everyone has put away the fireworks for the night.

“There’s news?” Julia asks, wrapping her arms more tightly around her waist.

The officer introduces himself. Officer Thompson. Julia wants to run a finger up his back like she does to the girls when they forget their manners and slouch. The officer has been at the Symanski house. He asks if Julia knows the Symanski girl and she says of course. They are waiting, she and the twins, for news Elizabeth is safe. The girls are too young to be out and are afraid to be left alone, so they are waiting at home, together.

“And you saw her today?” Officer Thompson asks. His light brown hair is matted to his forehead where his hat rested. “You saw…” He flips through a small pad of paper. “Elizabeth Symanski?”

“Earlier in the day,” Julia says. “Around lunchtime. Much before any of this.”

“And what can you tell me of that meeting?”

The officer stares down at his pad and only looks up when Julia is too long in answering. “You recall having seen her?”

“You make it sound so formal. I walked her home, is all. It was one thirty or so. Lunchtime at Grace Richardson’s house. Much before any of this.”

“You saw her to her door?”

Julia squints into a set of headlights rolling past. “I suppose I should say I watched her walk home.”

“You watched?” the officer asks. “And what is it you saw?”

“From the sidewalk, I watched her. She reached her gate, the iron gate outside her house. And then her door. I saw her make her way inside.”

The officer motions for Julia to follow him. She glances back at her house before joining the officer at the end of the driveway. Once there, he places both hands on Julia’s shoulders and turns her to face the west end of the street. Then he moves behind her, leans forward until his chest bumps against the back of her head, stretches out his right arm and points down Alder Avenue.

“Like this?” he asks. “From the end of a drive like this you watched Elizabeth make her way home?”

“Yes,” she says, inching away from the officer. “But I stood on Grace’s driveway. Much closer to the Symanskis’.”

“Eight houses,” Officer Thompson says. When Julia tries to twist away, he grips her by both shoulders again and forces her to continue to look toward the Symanskis’ house. “I counted eight houses between the Richardsons’ and the Symanskis’.”

With one extended finger, the officer counts out eight houses. His arm brushes against the side of Julia’s head. She takes one step away, but the officer draws her back with a hand to her shoulder. Again, he points.

“I wonder,” he says, “are you quite certain you saw her enter the house? From a distance such as this, even in good light? Is that possible, do you think?”

“The iron gate,” Julia says. “She ran her fingers along the iron gate. I saw that. She reached her gate.”

And now Julia knows. She was the last to see Elizabeth Symanski.

“Elizabeth’s been gone all day?” Julia says. “All this time? Has no one else seen her?”

“You’re quite sure she opened the gate?” the officer says, not answering Julia’s questions.

“It was a difficult day,” Julia says.

“She pushed it open?” the officer asks again, now standing at Julia’s side. “You’re quite certain? Walked through it and then up her sidewalk?”

“There was news,” Julia says, silently counting out eight houses. In the light of day, she’d have seen much better. “The ladies were all talking. And the twins. They’ve only recently arrived. I had much to think about. She’s done this before, you know. Elizabeth has strayed before. Surely someone else saw her after I did. One of the other ladies. One of the neighbors. She’s wandered off. That’s all.”

She can’t tell this man that instead of concerning herself with Elizabeth’s well-being, Julia had been worried about the dead woman on Willingham and the prostitutes who come to the factory over the lunch hour. She can’t tell him that Bill has been a good husband for the last two years and still she worries like all the ladies worry. She can’t explain to him how Betty Lawson’s baby cried and forced Julia from Grace’s house. How those cries made Julia ache and want to double over from the pain of it but instead she dipped a finger in the baked beans and called for more brown sugar. She can’t tell him that three years ago her own baby died and her husband won’t father another, that he won’t even touch her, not in that way. The officer wouldn’t understand that Julia had to leave Grace Richardson’s house before lunch was served because the fear of never having another baby had suffocated her and now she is so very sorry she didn’t watch Elizabeth closely enough. Avoiding the officer’s eyes, Julia says none of these things.

“I saw her,” she says. “Elizabeth was home. I’m sure she was home. Surely someone else has seen her. Surely I wasn’t the last.”

Malina steps away from the window when Julia and a police officer walk down Julia’s driveway toward the street. She leans against the wall, where no one will be able to see her, and continues flipping through the newspaper. Twice she’s read through it and has yet to find anything about the dead woman on Willingham. If only a reporter would have commented on the woman’s stature. Was she slender and petite or on the stout, portly side? This is all Malina needs to know.

If it weren’t for all the people shouting out to Elizabeth Symanski, Malina might open a window or two to cool down the house. While her skirt’s wide, six-yard sweep is perfectly suited to emphasize her narrow waist, it’s a curse in the heat. It’s only her imagination that those voices are getting closer. The men aren’t circling her house, closing in because they suddenly realize Mr. Herze is not among them. If anyone asks why Malina’s driveway is once again empty at long past suppertime, she’ll tell them Mr. Herze is busy dealing with that nastiness down on Willingham. Someone must coordinate with the police and see to it the matter of that dead woman is solved. This is what she’ll tell them, but only if someone asks.

“Good evening.”

Malina closes the newspaper, crumples it as she draws it to her chest, and swings around. Mr. Herze stands in the doorway, his briefcase in one hand, his hat in the other.

“You’ve startled me,” Malina says. She folds the newspaper in thirds. “I didn’t expect you home so early. I rather thought the police would be keeping you busy.”

Under the soft glow thrown by the porch light, the fringe of white hair around Mr. Herze’s head glistens with perspiration. This unusual heat, even when it breaks in the evenings, is difficult for him to manage. He glances at the newspaper Malina still holds in one hand and then at Malina.

“It’s yesterday’s,” she says. “Today’s is there.” She points at the entryway table. “Right there, waiting for you.” Malina won’t search today’s paper for news of the dead woman until Mr. Herze has gone to bed, or better yet, not until he has left for work tomorrow.

“You must be famished,” Malina says. “The table is set. I’ll have supper on in no time.”

“What’s going on out there?” Mr. Herze says, kissing the cheek Malina offers him and then leaning through the open door.

Across the street, the officer and Julia still stand at the end of her driveway. Malina lures Mr. Herze into the house with a nod of her head and closes the door. He pulls a kerchief from his front pocket, pats his upper lip and forehead, and glances about the house as if wondering why it’s so hot. His white shirt has wilted since this morning, and it clings to his soft middle.

“It’s nothing,” Malina says. “A lot of fuss over nothing.”

This is how it should always be-Malina waiting at the dining-room table, supper in the oven, the ice bucket full. She should never find herself rushing through the back door, stuffing one of her nicer dresses in the closet, ruining a perfectly good pair of utility nylons because she couldn’t take the time to slip them off with care, and crawling into bed without removing her makeup or pinning the hair at her temples. After leaving Willingham Avenue, her hammer abandoned in the alley, this is what she had done. As it turned out, she needn’t have been in such a hurry. Mr. Herze followed a full thirty minutes later. The hair at the nape of his neck had been slightly damp and he smelled of fresh soap. His shirt, however, smelled of the girl. No matter that he always washed up afterward, only Malina could rid those shirts of the stench. This evening, he appears dry throughout and smells only of cigarettes smoked in a closed office, warmed-over coffee, and the faded remnants of cologne sprayed on first thing this morning. No trace of his girl.

“What do you mean, nothing?” Mr. Herze says. “Why are there people running about with flashlights? And why are there police on the street?”

Malina sets Mr. Herze’s briefcase in the front closet and hangs his hat on the hook inside the closet door.

“I imagine it has to do with Elizabeth Symanski,” Malina says.

“What of her?”

Malina smooths Mr. Herze’s thinning hair, rests one cheek on his shirt, the limp cotton moist against her skin, and inhales through her nose. Still no evidence of the girl.

“Elizabeth?” Mr. Herze says again, nudging Malina to continue. “What’s become of the girl?”

“Apparently, she’s wandered off,” Malina says, pulling away. Tomorrow, she’ll fish this shirt from the hamper and smell it again.

“And they are searching for her?” Mr. Herze says, crossing in front of Malina to look out the dining-room window. “Have there been many men searching?”

“Yes, I suppose there have been.”

Without another word, Mr. Herze lumbers up the stairs, taking them two at a time. A few minutes later, he returns, wearing brown trousers and the white undershirt he normally wears when fussing about in his garage. His chest pumps and his face glistens.

“Have you taken to driving at night again?” Mr. Herze’s face, except for the sheen on top of his head, disappears in the dark entry. His white shirt glows.

Malina inhales, holds the air in her chest, and slowly, so Mr. Herze will not see it or feel it or hear it, she exhales. “Certainly not. Why on earth would I do such a thing?”

Mr. Herze trails his fingers over Malina’s wrist, past her elbow, and wraps them around her upper arm. He knows she doesn’t care for sleeveless blouses, doesn’t like for others to see the loose skin that hangs there, and so this particular area will never show. His fingers dig into the slender bone.

“It’s difficult for you still to see after dusk?”

Malina smiles, controls each breath so it flows smoothly. “The reflections are intolerable.”

Still holding Malina by her arm, her fingertips tingling from lack of blood, Mr. Herze opens the door. He stands in the threshold, not quite inside, not quite out.

“So, you’re home then? Every night?” he asks, and slides his hand up to Malina’s shoulder, where he burrows his thumb under her delicate collarbone.

The proper name is the clavicle. She knows because Mr. Herze once broke one of hers. He presses his face close and studies her eyes. He’s inspecting her for signs she’s taken one of her pills. She stares back, doesn’t let her eyes stray, holds her lids wide while reminding herself to blink so he’ll know she hasn’t. Dr. Cannon says if she does her counting and gets plenty of fresh air, she’ll have no need of them.

“You’re certain you’ve not taken to driving after dark?”

Malina drifts closer to Mr. Herze so anyone passing will think she is nuzzling her husband.

“Why would you ask such a silly thing? I have so much to do with my evenings. I can’t remember the last time I started an engine after sunset.”

And before she can stop herself, Malina has lied to her husband.