Until She Comes Home

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The next morning, Grace stays home, keeping herself busy in the kitchen as the other ladies travel to Willingham to do their shopping. While the quiet of an empty house gives her too much time to think, it’s easier to tolerate than the fear of boarding the morning bus and sitting next to one of the ladies, most likely Julia. As she scrubs her sink and cleans out her nearly empty refrigerator, Grace listens for the twins. The other children in the neighborhood are too old to run through the back alley or play in the front yards. They are teenagers with cars and jobs, too old to be shooed off the street by the likes of Grace. When ten o’clock draws near, she hears the squeal of a rusted chair being unfolded in the alley, but no sign of the girls. Perhaps the threat of Orin Schofield scared them inside, or perhaps it’s the heavy drizzle after so many dry, hot days that has kept them behind closed doors. By the time Grace combs out her hair, dresses for the day, and boards the midday bus bound for Willingham, Julia will have finished her shopping and returned home. It’s the best Grace can do to keep the girls safe.

No ladies rode the bus at the later hour, and on Willingham, none scurry from store to store. They will be at the church, where they’ll stay all afternoon and evening, ignoring the shifts Malina assigned. And so Willingham Avenue is quiet except for the sounds of the factory-the pounding and drumming as the men stamp out the parts, metal on metal, and sharp edges being rounded off and made smooth. The gray sky hangs low, and rain drips off Grace’s pillbox hat and down her cheeks and nose.

“You are being soaked to the bone,” Mrs. Nowack says when Grace walks through the bakery’s door. As she normally does, Mrs. Nowack wears a full gray skirt that skims the floor and a bib apron tied around her thick waist. She squints at Grace through small, round glasses and frowns, which causes her wrinkled cheeks to plump up and her thin lips to draw in on themselves. “Come, child, get out of that weather.”

Inside the small shop, the air is gritty. It’s flour, and sugar, too, that cloud the air. While Mrs. Nowack calls out for someone to bring a dry towel, Grace removes the pins that secure her hat and adjusts the hair on the crown of her head so she’s sure that spot won’t show. From behind a black curtain that separates the back room from the front of the shop, a young colored woman appears, a white towel hung from one arm. She wears slim red pants that nip in at her ankles and a white sleeveless blouse with a slender lapel. Her dark hair is round and thick, too wide for her narrow face. The girl gives Mrs. Nowack the towel and glances in Grace’s direction before slipping behind the curtain.

“You are coming late today, yes?” After handing Grace the towel, Mrs. Nowack removes her glasses, rubs the lenses with an apron corner, and puts them on again. She dips her head and studies Grace over the tops of the lenses. “What is it I can be getting for you?”

“I’d like to make pierogi,” Grace says, patting her face and neck with the soft towel. No matter how upset James might be with her for leaving the house, Mother always says idle hands are troubled hands. “For the bake sale. I’m preparing them this year and have never had much luck on my own. I was hoping you might teach me.”

Mrs. Nowack slips behind her counter, her gray skirt swinging from side to side and making her appear to float. “You are seeing I have little else to do, yes?” She lays both hands on top of the glass shelves that run the length of the store. “The others, they are not shopping here anymore. This is what they are telling me.”

Tattered signs, some written in English, others in Polish, hang from shelves that are empty except for a few trays of braided bread. The wide loaves, knotted and golden brown, glisten where they were brushed with egg whites. While James has told Grace little of the search for Elizabeth and nothing of the dead woman from the alley, he was willing to share the ladies’ plan to boycott Mrs. Nowack.

“I’m sorry,” Grace says. “I only heard. I wasn’t here that day.”

Mrs. Nowack waves away the unpleasantness with one plump hand. “Come,” she says, holding open the black curtain that leads to the back of the shop. “You are having lunch with us and then we will be making pierogi.”

This is where Mrs. Nowack does her baking. Her double-stacked oven shines and the burners on the stovetop have been freshly lined with aluminum foil. Large bags of flour sit on the bottom rung of the wooden shelves pushed along the far wall, and on the higher rungs, square jars of spices sit side by side, their black-and-white labels perfectly aligned. Near the back door, silver pots and pans have been stacked and left to dry on the counter. Grace follows Mrs. Nowack through the small room, out the back door, and onto a narrow concrete patio. The rain has stopped, and for now the air is cool and light, though probably not for long.

“You can be sitting here,” Mrs. Nowack says, nudging Grace toward a wooden picnic table. “Go ahead. There is being plenty of room. I will be having lunch out soon.”

While Mrs. Nowack returns to the bakery to fetch lunch, Grace stands in the center of the concrete patio, wraps her arms around her chest so that they rest on her large stomach, and stares straight ahead. Three colored women already sit at the picnic table. One of them sits backward on a damp bench, her legs extended, one ankle crossed over the other. A strong brow shades her wide-set eyes and balances her square jaw. Long, thin braids hang over her shoulders and down her back. A small colored bead is threaded on the end of each, so that when she moves they must knock against one another and sound much like a wind chime. A second woman sits on the bench opposite the first, her legs tucked under the table in a more proper fashion. Plump brown rolls pop out of the deep, rounded neckline of her red blouse. Whereas the face of the first woman is defined by sharp angles, the second woman has round cheeks and a small dimple in the center of her chin. The last woman at the table is standing, one foot propped up on the bench. She is the one who brought Grace a dry towel. Her face is shaped like a perfect heart-large brown eyes, prominent cheekbones, and a tapered chin. Mrs. Nowack had called her Cassia. She is slender like a girl, but she’s not a girl. A black baby carriage, covered with a yellow quilt, stands next to her.

Steady thumping echoes up and down Alder Avenue, disrupting the typically quiet lunch hour. With the break in the rain, someone has decided to pound her rugs. Malina wraps both hands around the water spigot’s red handle, gives two turns, and grabs the end of the hose. Cold water spills from the brass coupling and splashes on her nylons. Tiny droplets dribble down her legs and into her shoes. Now, she’ll have to change her clothes before going to the church. Had they gotten a better dose of rain, she’d have skipped the watering, but it was scarcely enough to discolor her concrete walk. She drags the hose to the front yard and folds one thumb over the coupling so the water squirts in a narrow fan, soaking her snapdragons. Three of the towering plants, all of them pink, have been crushed as if by a large boot or perhaps two pairs of small white sneakers.

Near the street, the thumping is louder. It’s Betty Lawson. Standing on her porch, she swings a broom as if it were a baseball bat and pounds the dust from her rugs. Across Alder Avenue, those twins stand outside Julia’s house, both of them twirling ridiculous hoops around their waists. One of the twins is quite good at it, her hips moving smoothly, the large hoop swinging freely around her waist. The other moves with jerky motions and her hoop sags, dropping first to her knees and then to her feet. Tossing aside the hose, Malina shouts out that the twins should get themselves back inside and keep their grubby feet away from her flowers. After all that nonsense with Orin Schofield, they should know better. Then she stomps her soggy white shoes and hurries toward Betty’s house.

“Hello, Betty,” Malina shouts. “Did you see the twins? What will these kids think of next?”

Betty leans on her corn-bristled broom, one hand on her hip, her elbow cocked out to the side. She has yet to comb out her pin curls from her dull brown hair and is still dressed in a lavender duster. Three small rugs, all of them multicolored and braided, hang over the porch’s railing. Without answering Malina’s greeting, Betty lifts the broom by its wooden handle and slaps it against the rug hanging closest to Malina. A cloud of dust flies into the air.

“I’ll be leaving for the church shortly,” Malina says. “Can I run any errands for you? Maybe you need something for the little one.”

“What is it that you want, Malina?” Betty says.

“Very well,” Malina says, backing down the sidewalk in case Betty should take another swipe at the rugs. A few doors down, the twins still twirl their hoops. Every so often, one of them falls and rattles on the concrete. When next she gets a good look at those twins, she’ll check the bottom of their white sneakers for pink stains. “It’s your husband.”

“Yes.”

“I’d rather prefer he not drag me into his troubles.”

“And I’d rather prefer my husband not go to jail.” Betty lifts her broom overhead and smacks the next rug.

“Don’t be silly,” Malina says. “No one is going to jail. I’d simply prefer he not insist he saw me driving about after dark.”

Betty walks to the edge of her porch so her feet hang over the first stair. “Do you have any idea the trouble you have caused? Do you have any idea what people are saying?”

“I hardly think I’m to blame for your husband’s troubles.”

“Why won’t you tell the truth? You saw Jerry that night, standing right here. You saw him, even waved at him.”

“I can’t say something that isn’t true. It’s really quite important Jerry make clear to Mr. Herze that he was mistaken. You’re both mistaken. It’s quite important Jerry tell Mr. Herze I was not the one he saw on the street.”

Betty hugs the broom handle to her chest and angles her head off to one side. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?” she says, dropping the bristled end of the broom to the first stair and in one motion sweeping it clean. “You’re afraid of your own husband.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Malina says. “I’ve every reason to ask that Jerry stop spreading lies about me.”

“Go home, Malina,” Betty says, dropping her broom to the next stair.

Malina backs farther down the sidewalk. The clouds have thinned and in some spots, given way to clear sky. The sun breaks through and warms her face and arms. The bright light does her no justice. Her skin has thinned in recent years. It used to sparkle like the skin on those two girls. Almond-colored freckles sparkle on the girls’ smooth skin and their blue eyes shine. Malina has always wished for blue eyes. Hers are a rather ordinary brown. In her younger days, people often complimented her perfect skin. Like silk, they would sometimes say, or satin. Which is more lovely? She was careless in those early days. She knows better now. It was a silly lie. After so many years, she knows better. At the sound of a car engine, Malina whirls around, but it’s not Mr. Herze. Two houses down, those twins still twirl their hoops. One of them counts out loud and doesn’t stop until the hoop falls to her feet. When Malina turns back, Betty Lawson is leaning on the broom and slowly shaking her head.

“My husband might have a weak character,” Betty says, “but he’s never given me cause to fear him. Other people saw my Jerry that night, and they’ve been good enough to tell the truth. I guess it’s only right I warn you. The police said you lacked credibility. That’s what they said of your account. That means they know you were lying. That means your Warren knows too.”

“You just going to stand there?” the Negro woman with the rounded red neckline says to Grace. The others call her Sylvie. She has wide shoulders, almost like a man’s, and if she were to stand she’d be a full head taller than Grace. “Come. Sit.”

Clutching her handbag to her side, Grace tiptoes through the thin layer of mud left by the rain and slides onto the end of the nearest bench. She places her bag in her lap and crosses her hands on the tabletop, which is rough where long slivers of it have torn or rotted away. Sitting opposite Grace, the woman who wears the plunging red blouse picks at the soft wood and flicks bits of it onto the ground.

“Bet that keeps breaking open on you, doesn’t it?” The large woman stops picking at the wood, brushes her hands together, and points at Grace’s lip. The woman has painted tiny white crescents over the root of each fingernail. They glitter like rhinestones on the tips of her dark fingers.

Grace lifts a hand to cover her lip. Studying Grace’s face and pregnant stomach, the woman-Sylvie-leans back when Mrs. Nowack reappears with a plate and sets it in front of her. With her fork, Sylvie pokes at the hollowed-out pepper stuffed with ground beef and stares at Grace while Mrs. Nowack delivers three more plates.

The woman sitting next to Grace finally swings her feet around and tucks her legs under the table. Just as Grace thought they would, the small beads on the ends of the woman’s braids clatter like a chime when she moves. Mrs. Nowack calls her Lucille. She leans forward to get a look at Grace’s split lip but says nothing.

“Your man do it to you?” It’s Cassia, the one who brought Grace the towel. She bends over the carriage, peeks under the thin quilt. “Shhh, shhh, shhh,” she says, looking again at Grace. Thick black lashes frame the girl’s brown eyes.

“We bumped heads,” Grace says. “Mother and I.”

Cassia lowers the corner of the quilt but continues to rest one hand on the carriage’s handle. “I know a lip that’s been split by the back of a hand,” she says.

Lucille leans forward again, squints as if trying to get a better look, and then nods.

“It’s all right,” Sylvie says, laying aside her fork, tilting her face toward the sky, and stretching her broad shoulders. The rolls of her chest rise out of her rounded neckline. “Ain’t nothing we don’t already know about.”

Cassia slides her fingers off the carriage’s handle, reaches across the table and, with one hand, cups Grace’s chin. With the other, she touches the tender spot on Grace’s upper lip.

“Not so bad,” she says.

Trailing two fingers up the side of Grace’s face, Cassia brushes back Grace’s bangs as if inspecting her for hidden cuts and bruises. The tiny hands are like a child’s, frail and delicate, Grace barely able to feel them. Finding nothing, Cassia smooths Grace’s hair into place. Grace leans back until her chin slips from the tender hand.

“Yep,” Cassia says, lowering herself onto the bench. “Not so bad.” After another quick peek under the quilt, she settles into her seat and, with one hand, continues rocking the carriage.

“Why won’t you ladies come to the bakery anymore?” It’s Lucille, the one with the braids. Her eyes are dark brown, almost black.

“Pardon?” Grace glances overhead, thinking if it were to rain, she would have reason to excuse herself.

“You and the other ladies,” Sylvie says, smiling as if to make up for Lucille’s harsh tone. “Mrs. Nowack says you all won’t come anymore and she won’t have so much baking to do.”

“We’re frightened, I suppose,” Grace says.

“Because you all are afraid of being here when they pull that girl out of the river?” Lucille says. As she waits for an answer, she taps her fork on the edge of her plate. The muscles along her jawline pulse as if she’s grinding her teeth. “Will you all come back after they find her?”

“I don’t think I can answer that.”

“Maybe they’re afraid of ending up like Tyla,” Lucille says.

“Hush about that,” Sylvie says, wagging her finger in the same fashion Grace’s own mother did when Grace was a child. “No one said nothing about Tyla.” She nods in Cassia’s direction and presses a finger to her lips. “No one said nothing.”

“Don’t matter why they stopped coming,” Lucille says. “Still a pity for Mrs. Nowack.”

Across the table, Cassia nods along with Lucille and dips her fork into the baked pepper. At first she takes small bites, chewing each a good long time, but she must decide she likes it because she eats faster. Between bites, she grabs hold of the carriage’s handle, gives it a gentle shake, and makes that shhhing noise. The handle is speckled with rust and the black canopy is frayed at its edges. When Cassia seems content the baby is asleep, she settles into her seat, one hand in her lap, the other scooping out the last of the ground beef. Lucille and Sylvie begin to eat as well, and the table falls silent. As they eat, the women look at one another without turning their heads, but instead by flicking their eyes this way and that as if hoping Grace won’t notice. The silence continues to build, interrupted only by quiet chewing and the sound of forks tapping against the glossy, white plates.

“Is she yours?” Grace says to Cassia because she can think of nothing else to say and no other way to break the silence. “What’s her name?”

Cassia drops her fork. It bounces off the side of her plate and tumbles onto the table and then onto the ground. She grabs on to the carriage’s handle and yanks it toward her, the wheels letting off a high-pitched squeal.

“Uh-oh,” Lucille says. “Now you gone and done it.”

“Yeah, she’s my baby,” Cassia says, still rocking, the wheels squealing louder as she pushes and pulls the carriage. “Why? You think she shouldn’t be?”

“No, I thought she was…” Grace glances at Sylvie but doesn’t say her name. Cassia is so young. Her hips are narrow and her waist scarcely tapered, still like a girl’s. Sylvie has curves like a woman who has given birth to a baby. “I guess I only meant…”

“Something wrong with her being mine?” Cassia says. She rocks the carriage back and forth. The metal frame squeaks and whines. The tattered yellow blanket slips from the carriage’s handle and flutters toward the ground. As if the carriage’s handle has suddenly become too hot, Cassia jerks her hand away.

Struggling to stand, her large stomach slowing her, Grace reaches to catch the quilt before it falls. She snags one corner and raises it up so the end doesn’t drag in the mud. She starts to hand it back to Cassia, but she has lowered her head and is staring at the tabletop. The other two women are attending her, talking to her in quiet whispers and touching her lightly on the shoulder and back. Looking around for Mrs. Nowack but not finding her, Grace swings her legs off the end of the bench and stands. She shakes out the quilt like a sheet, snaps it, and lets it flutter down over the carriage, but before it has settled, she jerks it back. The bassinet is empty. It’s tattered and in places the fabric is worn away entirely, exposing the metal frame beneath. She looks from the empty stroller to Cassia to the other women at the table. A hand presses down on her shoulder. It’s Lucille. She yanks the quilt from Grace and forces her back into her seat.

Slipping around the end of the table, Lucille snaps the quilt just as Grace had done, and lets it float down over the carriage. “Well,” she says to Grace once the quilt is in place. “Something wrong with that baby? Something wrong with Cassia being that baby’s mama?”

Sylvie fixes her elbows on the table, but instead of Grace, she looks at the woman with the braids. “Don’t you be getting on this girl like that.”

“I’ll be getting on who I damn well want.” Lucille flips her braids over her shoulders, crosses her arms, and presses her chest up and out as if trying to make herself as large as Sylvie.

Sylvie stands. “Girl didn’t do nothing to you.”

“She asking about Cassia’s baby,” Lucille says, moving behind Grace so Grace can hear her but cannot see her. “That’s something.”

“She sure is my baby,” Cassia says.

“Yes, of course.” Grace clutches her bag to her chest and edges away from the sound of Lucille’s voice. “She’s lovely, I’m sure.”

“See there, Cassia,” Sylvie says, motioning for Lucille to sit. When Lucille doesn’t move, Sylvie jabs her finger at her and then at the bench, again reminding Grace of her own mother, albeit a taller, rounder, broader version. “Your baby girl is lovely. No need to get upset.”

Lucille lowers herself onto the bench, choosing to sit as far away from Grace as possible, and begins to eat. Across the table, Sylvie does the same. Cassia watches the two of them for a few moments and then picks up her fork from the ground and wipes it on her napkin, all the while keeping a firm grip on the carriage’s rusted handle. Sylvie waves her fork at Grace, a signal she should start eating too. Instead, Grace stands, drops her napkin in her plate, and to no one in particular, she says, “Thank you for having me to lunch.”

“You’ll come tomorrow,” Sylvie says. A light drizzle has started up again. The tiny drops sparkle on her dark skin. “Got to stay later if you want to make pierogi. We always roll it out after lunch. ’Course, you know we cook up all that pierogi.” She winks at Grace with her warm brown eyes. “We help you, will you bring those ladies back for Mrs. Nowack? Bring them back so she’ll have customers.”

“I’ll do my best,” Grace says. “I’ll do what I can.”

Sylvie waves her fingers in the air. “You want us teaching you. Not Mrs. Nowack. She got arthritis real bad. You don’t want Mrs. Nowack making your noodles. That’s for damn sure.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Grace only meant to rest her eyes for a few minutes after her trip to the bakery, but she slept several hours because here it is, suppertime. She walks down the stairs toward muted voices coming from the front room. The oven clicks and the soothing smell of one of the chicken casseroles Mother left in the freezer before going home fills the house. James must have come home while Grace slept and popped it in the oven. He would have woken her if there were news. Instead, the doorbell woke her. Friends and neighbors use the side door off the kitchen. They tap lightly on the glass or on the doorframe. The doorbell means company.

Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, Grace leans out to see who has come to visit. A draft blows across the living room and stirs her hair and the hem of her dress. James stands at the front door with his back to her. He leans against the jamb, one foot resting on the opposite ankle. He turns when a floorboard creaks under Grace’s feet.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he says. Only the middle two buttons on his shirt are buttoned and he didn’t bother to comb his hair after having washed it. It curls on the ends when he brushes it with his fingers and not a proper brush. Now that his days are spent searching, he comes home every night to have supper with Grace. He always freshens up, usually after they eat. He slaps cool water on his face, washes his hands and forearms with a good dose of soap-all meant to give him a second wind before rejoining the search.

A man wearing a dark blue shirt stands in the doorway. He tips his hat at her. A second man, dressed in the same blue shirt and wearing the same blue hat, stands next to him.

“Mrs. Richardson?” the first man says.

He’s a police officer, the same one who sat at Mr. Symanski’s kitchen table after Elizabeth first disappeared. He had rubbed his temples that night, not quite certain he understood how a grown woman was really no more than a child. He is the same age as Grace, but even late in the day when he should have a shadow on his lower jaw and chin, his face is smooth. His dark hair flips up in tight curls.

“She can’t tell you any more than I have,” James says. He rubs the bridge of his nose between two fingers.

“Do you mind?” The other officer, taller with light brown hair, leans into the house so he can speak directly to Grace.

“James, you should invite them in,” Grace says, not moving from her spot at the bottom of the stairs.

The men have shifted about in the threshold and have blocked the breeze. The oven still clicks, throwing off heat.

“May we?” the taller officer says to James.

James steps aside, allowing the officers to pass, and waves at Grace to join them. The officers remove their hats and tuck them under an arm.

“I remember you,” Grace says to the officer with the smooth face and dark curls. His hair is dented where he wore his hat. “Please have a seat. May I get you something to drink?”

“No, ma’am,” he says. “I’m Officer Warinski.” He nudges the gentleman standing at his side. “Officer Thompson.”

“Do you have word of Elizabeth?” Grace says.

“They wonder if something has happened here, Grace,” James says, gesturing for her to take a seat.

She sits on the edge of the skirted sofa, gathers her crochet work from the coffee table, and spreads it across her lap. The tweed sofa, even through the fabric of her cotton skirt, is rough against the backs of her legs.

“Wonder if what has happened?”

“We’ve questioned a man,” the taller officer says, “in connection with a crime in the area.”

Grace clears her throat, smiles for the two officers, and scoots back, settling into the cushions. When she started crocheting the baby’s blanket two months ago, she chose a bulky white yarn suitable for a boy or girl. Placing her fingers to the hook’s flat grip, she pokes the head through the bottom loop. As she begins her first stitch, James walks around the back of the sofa and rests his hands on her shoulders. She grabs his fingers and kisses the back of one wrist.

“Is it to do with Elizabeth?” she asks. Yarn over, draw through, yarn over, release.

“This man,” Officer Warinski says, ignoring Grace’s question, “has given us information about a crime at this location.”

The door is closed behind the two men and the breeze is gone. The house is dark because Grace never drew open the drapes. She begins another single crochet. That was her twelfth stitch. She must remember to count. So often she forgets and has to pull out her work and start again.

“A crime?” she says. The tightness begins in her stomach and rises into her throat. Again, “A crime?” She hears her own voice as if it’s someone else’s.

“I told them they were mistaken,” James says, kneading her shoulders with his fingers. “No mischief around here.”

“None,” Grace says, she thinks she says. She loses her stitch. “No mischief around here.”

Both officers stare at her, only at her.

“Could we speak in private, ma’am?” Officer Warinski says.

“Our supper is growing cold.” Grace’s neck is damp under James’s hands. “I haven’t anything to add.”

“Wrong house, I suppose,” James says, and pulls his hands from Grace’s shoulders. “Though I can’t say I’ve heard of any trouble for the neighbors, either.” He walks past the men and opens the door. “Other than the Symanskis.”

He doesn’t tell them about Orin Schofield firing his rifle or the fire in the garbage can or the broken windows more and more neighbors are waking up to. Protecting the street, Grace supposes. Like parents protect a child. Since Elizabeth disappeared, all the neighbors are beginning to do the same. No one wants to admit what is becoming, what has become, of Alder Avenue.

Officer Thompson steps outside. The officer with the curls, Officer Warinski, makes no move to leave and continues to study Grace. He is young, too young really.

“This man, he says a woman was hurt here,” the young officer says. “At this address. Quite badly, we believe.”

Grace lifts her chin. Her face must be red, but she could blame it on the heat. She touches her top lip with the end of her tongue. The sore spot has nearly healed over.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “If someone was hurt, I’m terribly sorry. Please tell her. If you find her. Tell her I’m so very sorry.”

Waiting for the second officer to leave, James holds open the door. Fresh air rushes through the house again, chilling the damp spots James left on Grace’s neck and shoulders.

“If you think of anything,” Officer Warinski says. Again, his eyes are only on Grace. “Any information would be helpful.” He dips his head, watches her. “It might be our only chance.”

“To find Elizabeth?” James says. “Is that what you mean? Did this man take her? Is that what happened?”

“I’m afraid we can’t discuss the particulars,” Officer Thompson says from the front porch.

“Can’t,” James says, “or won’t? This is our neighborhood. We’ve a right to know.”

Officer Thompson shakes his head but offers nothing more. The other officer continues to stare at Grace, waiting and watching for a clue that she has lied to them.

“Mind if we have a look out back?” the curly-haired Warinski says. “Give your garage a once-over.”

James leans against the doorjamb, crosses one foot over the other again. “Don’t see the need,” he says. “It’ll only get the neighbors to talking, and I don’t see the sense in that.”

“Ma’am,” Officer Warinski says. “Do you see the need?”

Grace shakes her head and runs her fingers across the many rows she has crocheted over the last few months. Mother says the stitches are too tight, too simple.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t,” she says. “It would be a waste of your valuable time.”

James dips his head as if he were wearing a hat. “Gentlemen,” he says, signaling the men should leave. “We’ll let you know if we hear anything.”

Officer Warinski crosses in front of James and follows the other officer outside.

“One moment,” Grace says from her seat on the sofa.

The men reappear in the doorway, remove their hats again.

“What is it you would have liked to hear me say?”

“Ma’am?”

“You’ve arrested a man?”

“He’s in our custody,” the taller officer says.

“What can I say to you, here and now, that will keep him from our streets? Tell me about this crime and I’ll say yes. I’ll say it happened. Even though it’ll be a lie, wouldn’t that help you?”

The officer with the dark curls and smooth skin steps forward. “Sir,” he says to James. “Will you leave us?”

“I damn sure will not,” James says, and drops down on one knee in front of Grace. “What are you talking about, Gracie? Did something happen?”

Grace stretches out one hand, touches James’s rough jaw. He only shaves every few days now. All of the men look the same-tired, drawn, their belts cinched a little tighter because even though the ladies feed them every day, they seem to have lost weight. Or maybe it’s the way they carry themselves, walking with short strides and hunched backs as if burdened by a heavy load, that makes them look like less than they were before Elizabeth disappeared.

“No, James. Nothing’s happened. But maybe I could say something that would help these men. Something that would help Elizabeth, help keep our streets safe.”

It’s too late to protect Elizabeth, but Grace can still save the twins or possibly another one of the ladies. She can get that man off of Alder Avenue before he tries again to set things right. If the one they’ve arrested knows what happened to Grace and that it happened here at this address, he must be one of the three. It’s probably the one who slipped out into the alley because he couldn’t bear the sight. He can give the police a name, direct them toward the man who did this terrible thing to her and to Elizabeth. But if there was no crime, the police will have no need of a name.

“Tell me,” Grace says. “I’ll say whatever I must to help Elizabeth.”

“Would you say a woman was attacked in your garage?” Again, it’s the officer with the dark curls. “Would you say three men threw her to the ground, that one of those men violated her while another held her down? Would you say those things?”

James pushes off the ground and lunges at the man. The second officer stops him with a stiff arm to his chest.

“Tell me, Mrs. Richardson,” the curly-haired officer says, ignoring James and keeping his eyes firmly on Grace. He drops his gaze to the small cut on her upper lip and lets his eyes roam over her face as if searching for more scratches and bruises. “Did these things happen? Did they happen to you?”

James stands at a distance, the other officer’s hand pressed to the middle of his chest. All three wait for Grace’s answer. She can feel the small hand of the girl, Cassia was her name, lifting Grace’s face, telling her the cut didn’t look so bad. The girl had seen worse, far worse. Nothing that won’t heal.

“Gracie?”

Grace shakes her head. “Well, of course those things aren’t true,” she says. “At least, not as far as I know. And I think I would know if someone were attacked in my own garage. I simply thought I could help.”

James holds up both hands and backs away from the officers.

“What will happen now?” Grace says. “Because there was no one harmed here, what will happen to the man?”

The curly-haired officer with the smooth skin pulls on his hat, meets Grace’s eyes as if preparing to answer, but turns away instead.

One more time, James makes a sweeping gesture intended to invite the officers to leave. They walk across the porch and down the sidewalk, and when they have neared the driveway, James slams the door.

“Smells like supper’s ready,” he says, walking past Grace toward the kitchen.

The legs of a chair scoot across the tile. Silverware clatters on the laminate tabletop.

“Strange, huh?” he calls back to Grace. His voice is flat when he speaks. He’s angry but won’t want Grace to see it in his face. “Why would some fellow say that about our place? About you?”

Grace walks over to the window and pushes aside the drapes. The officers have reached the end of the driveway. One of them, the curly-haired one, walks around the black-and-white patrol car, and from the driver’s side, he tips his hat at Grace.

“They probably got the wrong address, don’t you think?” she says. The officers’ car rolls away from the front of the house. Across the street, a few neighbors shield their eyes as they watch. “It was silly, what I did. I’m sorry.”

She’s now certain it’s the third man they’ve arrested. All she remembers are his eyes. They were a deep brown and his lids drooped, making him look sorry for what was about to happen. He’s the only one who would tell. Those men, all three of them, probably live at the Filmore. She has seen other colored men passing down the street at the usual times, but she hasn’t seen any one of the three, not since the night they came for her. The man, the one with sorrowful eyes, must have confessed to the police. He must have described Grace, told them the woman was pregnant and had long blond hair and lived at 721 Alder. That’s why the officer with the dark curls and smooth young face had looked at Grace like he knew everything. He knew about the sore spot on the back of her head and why her lip was split. Grace is the only pregnant wife on the block. Maybe the only one on the street. The officers want Grace to tell the truth because Elizabeth can’t. They are thinking it’s a shame when people won’t speak up. They are thinking Grace is their only hope. They are thinking there’s hope to be had.

James’s body is warm when he steps up behind Grace. He wraps his arms around her, and she leans into him.

“Don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you,” he says.

Resting her head on James’s chest, Grace closes her eyes, holds his hands, and wonders if he loves her enough to stay should he find out the truth. Mother thinks not. “Nothing bad will ever happen to us.”

“Promise me,” James says, burying his face in her hair.

“I promise.”

Before climbing into bed, Malina scrubs her face, dabs night cream on the delicate skin beneath her eyes, and tucks her hair into a sleep net. From the drawer in her nightstand, she pulls out her white pills and sets the bottle where Mr. Herze is sure to see it. He knows how heavily Malina sleeps when she’s taken one. Dr. Cannon had said they’d calm her, minimize the stresses of her day. Mr. Herze doesn’t approve of them, never has, and most days she is able to refrain by doing her counting and breathing.

The first weeks after she stopped taking the medication were the most difficult. The pills tugged at her all day from the kitchen cabinet where she normally kept them. Mr. Herze had insisted she stop. He said they made her eyes foggy and her habits lazy. Time and his insistence lessened the pills’ charm. Even as she swallows two of them while waiting for Mr. Herze, she doesn’t swallow them because she craves the relief they will bring to the tense muscle running from her neck to her shoulders or the order they will bring to the worries tumbling around her head. She swallows them because Mr. Herze, as angry as he might be at the sight of that small brown bottle, will know better than to try to wake her.

Even if Betty Lawson was telling the truth and Mr. Herze knows for certain Malina lied to him, he won’t be able to question her about it tonight. He won’t be able to rage about his hatred of Malina’s silly lies, a rage that always leads him to strike her. A rage that has led to blackened eyes, bruised cheeks, sore ribs, and a broken collarbone-or, more precisely, a fractured clavicle. She will sleep soundly and peacefully tonight, and tomorrow or the next day she’ll conjure a story to explain why she lied about driving the night that colored woman was killed. It was a trip to the shut-ins. She’s so sorry she lied. She thought he’d be cross at her for putting herself in danger by driving so late at night. Or she was delivering fresh linens to the church that were needed early the next morning. Or she was afraid Mr. Herze had had car trouble, a flat tire, perhaps. She didn’t see anything that happened on Willingham. She didn’t see anything at all.

Thirty minutes after washing down the pills with a glass of lukewarm water, Malina slides beneath the cool sheets, switches off the lamp at her bedside, and stares at the white sheers fluttering in her window. The light, flimsy fabric dances in the breeze, and as it flutters and flaps, a thin fog settles in behind her eyes. Downstairs, the back door opens and closes. Mr. Herze’s footsteps cross the kitchen. The floorboards in the hallway creak as he passes through to the foyer, and then silence. He is standing at the bottom of the stairs, probably looking up toward the closed bedroom door, probably wondering what he is to do with Malina. One footstep and then a second and then a third as he climbs the stairs.

It’s been another day and night spent searching for Elizabeth. Mr. Herze will be tired and sore. Normally Malina would rub his shoulders and fix him a sandwich. The bedroom door opens and light from the hallway spills into the room and across Malina’s face. Her eyelids are closed. Don’t let them flinch in the light. Those are the sounds of Mr. Herze pulling off his shirt and unbuckling his belt. Water runs in the bathroom sink and flows through the pipes that travel down the walls. He sits on the edge of the mattress, his weight causing Malina to roll from one side to the other because isn’t that what one would do in her sleep? He smells crisp and clean, like Malina’s French-milled soap. She buys the pink bars special-order through the Sears catalog. Her jaw loosens and her shoulders soften as the pills melt and soak in. A few feet away, air rushes in through Mr. Herze’s nose and out through his mouth.

“Malina?”

It’s a deep whisper. Malina can’t stop the shiver that travels up her spine and into her neck. The word seems to echo in the dark room.

“Malina?” Again, no louder.

When Malina wakes in the morning, she hopes he’ll be gone.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It’s long past dark and Grace should be sleeping. Instead, she is listening. The colored men have already come and gone. Every night around ten they pass, although now, because Orin Schofield sits in the back alley, the men walk down the middle of Alder Avenue. She’s glad Orin’s there. She even finds herself hoping, wishing he would find those men out on the street. Something is different since she told the police no woman was attacked in her garage. Saying it never happened is different from not telling. It’s worse. It means those men-that man-can come back.

The year Grace turned eleven, she again stood in line on the Fourth of July to board the Ste. Claire, but rather than entertaining worries over soiled brass railings, she had thought of the boy, young man, with the easy laugh and dark hair. Or she likes to believe she thought of him, that she remembered him from the year before. The ladies’ shoulders were still fortified by pleats and pads, their waists still sculpted, their frames tall and proud. But when the ship’s horn called out, Mother said nothing about it being no time for sorrow.

It was a different girl in James’s arms that year. Grace stood on the edge of the open-air dance floor, holding her hair at the nape of her neck, and she heard him before she saw him. He spun by, holding a dark-haired girl this time, spinning, twirling, faster with each pass. Grace had watched him, imagining how happy the girl in his arms must have been. She must have felt safe in his hands. Mother and Father danced that year too. It was the only year Father took Mother in his arms.

The floor pulsed underfoot as Grace watched the dancers. James says he remembers a little blond girl standing alone, the wind pulling at her hair. He says he spun by and ruffled that head of hair because even then, he knew she was special. Grace doesn’t remember him ever catching her eye or giving her a wink or a nod. But she smiles when he remembers and says she remembers too.

That was the last year Father would board the Ste. Claire. He, like others, like James, went to war in the months that followed. This is why the whole country had been bracing itself. This is why the ladies loosened their hair and wore stout shoulders in their suits. Wives and mothers rode streetcars to Michigan Central, waved good-bye to their husbands and sons as they boarded outbound trains, so many of them never to be seen again. By the next Fourth of July, Grace knew Father would never come home.

Downstairs, James bangs about in the kitchen. He came home an hour ago and will have made coffee and read the newspaper. It’s what he does every night. Grace has told him he’s drinking too much coffee and smoking too many cigarettes. There’s all that food, she says, knowing the ladies are filling the church tables every day and night. Eat. You’re wasting away. He’ll watch a ball game if there’s one showing. More and more of the games are airing on the television. Hardly any reason to go to the ballpark anymore. Grace blinks when the bedroom door opens and light from the hallway brightens the room. She slides into a sitting position, her back resting against the headboard.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” James says, yanking out his shirttail and unbuttoning his shirt.

Grace doesn’t have to ask. She need only inhale as if she’s about to speak.

“Nope, nothing,” James says, and lays a hand on Grace’s stomach. “How’s my little guy tonight?”

“She’s fine,” Grace says. Her smile comes easily and for a moment, things feel as they are meant to.

Pulling his black leather belt from his trousers, James hangs it from a hook on the back of the bedroom door and sits on the edge of the bed. Propping one foot on the opposite knee, he pulls at the laces on his boot.

“Did you have a good evening?” he says, not mentioning the police who visited at suppertime.

“I wish I could do more. It’s so quiet here on the street. Everyone’s helping but me.” Because she’ll go again another day and doesn’t want James to forbid it, she doesn’t tell him about the trip to Willingham or the pierogi or the women.

After taking off his first boot, James removes the second, bends to the closet floor, and hooks both on the shoe rack-right boot on the right side, left boot on the left. When he rises, a white leather shoe dangles from one finger.

“It was yours?” he says. “That shoe in the garage was yours. Here’s the mate.”

Grace doesn’t remember returning the single shoe to the closet. It should have been thrown away with the other clothes. It must have been there, hanging from the shoe rack since the night the man came for her.

“How about that?” Grace says. “I guess it was.” She smiles and shrugs because she is always the one to misplace the keys or her favorite hairbrush or one of Mother’s recipes.

It seems that it happened so long ago, that several weeks and months have passed since the men came. But it’s only days. Grace can count them on one hand. She wakes every morning, thinking so much time has passed. Things she should remember, memories that should be clear and sharp, have faded, even disappeared, as if many months separate then from now. It must feel this way because time is supposed to heal her. That’s what Mother said, so Grace’s mind is speeding it up, tricking her into thinking weeks and months have ticked by. But the slipping away isn’t because of the healing. That moment and those men seem far away, distant, because Grace is so changed. Not in a small way. Not in a passing way that happens over a day or a week. She is entirely changed. She is changed in a way so large it would usually take months and years to emerge. Surely something so huge must show through. Mother said not to tell, but surely James will see it.

The shoe dangles from James’s finger. He rotates it from side to side, inspecting it from all angles. He’s thinking, perhaps wondering about the police who said something terrible happened in the garage, perhaps remembering what the officer with the soft curls said about a woman suffering a horrific attack. Without saying anything else, James lowers himself to one knee and slides the shoe onto the round wire that will hold its shape.

“Shame,” he says. “We’ll buy you a new pair.”

Grace scoots down between the sheets, and James slides in next to her. Tomorrow, she’ll go to Willingham Avenue again. If the women ask, she might tell them what really happened. They would look at her a moment, maybe sigh, and then say it’s not so bad. Seen worse. Resting one hand on James’s chest where she can feel it rise and fall, Grace nestles against him in such a way that her head fits perfectly on his shoulder, and she thinks of Orin Schofield sitting in his chair in the back alley, waiting, maybe even hoping, the colored men pass. Earlier this evening, after Mrs. Williamson would have washed up her supper dishes and Mr. Williamson would have fallen asleep listening to the radio, Mrs. Williamson tied a blue scarf around her thinning hair, walked out her back door, across the alley, up to Orin Schofield’s house, and returned to him his rifle.

The twins have been asleep for a few hours and still Bill isn’t home. Since the search for Elizabeth first began, all of the husbands have been coming home late, but tonight Bill is later than the rest. Well over an hour ago, Julia heard the thud of car doors, footsteps on concrete, front doors slamming and locking as the other husbands came home. Still, no sign of Bill.

A new kind of worry settled over the ladies cooking and serving at the church today. All day they whispered about visions of a colored man wrapping a large hand around Elizabeth’s thin wrist, dragging her into a car, leaving her somewhere to die. With word of the arrest, the ladies could no longer assume, even pretend to assume, Elizabeth wandered away. It wasn’t a tragic accident. Whatever happened to Elizabeth could happen to any one of them.

The dining-room window has been fully dark for at least two hours when a stream of light flashes across the small window in the front door. Julia only guesses at the time. She never checks the clock. Better not to know. Overhead, the girls’ room has been quiet for some time. A car engine rattles in the driveway and falls silent. The light disappears. Keys jingle in the lock. The front door swings open.

During the year following Maryanne’s death, Julia learned to leave supper in the oven while she waited for Bill to come home at night. Those were the months he was drinking and everyone knew it. Too often, his food would grow cold and he wouldn’t bother to eat. She learned it was always best he eat a little something, if only a few bites.

“Sorry,” Bill says, stumbling through the front door.

It’s as if the last two years, the better years, never existed.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Julia pushes back her chair and rushes to catch him before he falls. He throws his arms around her shoulders. She braces herself to carry his weight and pushes against his chest to steady him. It all comes back to her as if no time has passed.

“Come eat,” she says, wrapping an arm around his waist after he has regained his balance. “Supper’s hot. Fresh out of the oven. Made those biscuits you love. Any word of Elizabeth?”

When Julia first met Bill, she was two inches taller than he, but that didn’t last long. Her family had only just moved from Kentucky. She had a slow, thick drawl that she worked to be rid of every day. She knew Bill before his beard came in, when his shoulders were narrow and frail, when acne glowed red on his cheeks and forehead. He was a boy when they fell in love.

“Shouldn’t be staying out so late,” he says, then drops into a seat at the table and picks up the closest glass.

“Let me fill that.” The more water she can get down him, the better. “Is there news? I heard they arrested someone.”

Talking is good. She learned this in the early months after Maryanne died too. The more she talks, the longer he’ll stay awake, the better chance he’ll eat a decent meal.

“Kansas City is too damn far.” Not seeming to hear Julia, Bill sips from the glass and sets it down, sloshing water on the white tablecloth. “Too damn far.”

Julia soaks up the water spot with a linen napkin and holds the glass out to Bill. “Don’t you worry about that. Take another drink.”

“Too damn far,” Bill says, crossing his arms on the table and laying his head on them.

Julia shakes his shoulder so he won’t fall asleep. “Sit tight. I’ll fix you a plate.” She stands to fetch supper from the kitchen. “I boiled fresh corn,” she says. “Your favorite, and the girls and I made a banana pudding.” She stops when Bill says something. Because his face is buried in his arms, she can’t understand him.

“What’s that?” she says.

“Remember how much she cried?”

“Who?”

“The baby. You remember?”

“Colic. The doctor called it colic.”

“Goddamn, she cried. All the damn time.”

“Babies cry.”

Julia stares down on Bill, his head lying on the table so she can see only one side of his face. A dark shadow covers his jaw and upper lip.

It started when Maryanne was two weeks old. At first she cried for only thirty minutes or so after her bottle. Julia would swaddle her and pace the upstairs hallway, gently bouncing her. When that didn’t work, and the crying stretched to more than an hour, she tried removing the blanket and sitting motionless in the rocking chair with Maryanne cradled in her arms. By the time the baby was four weeks old, she cried every night for two hours, a hard cry that made her cough and sometimes choke. “Colic,” the doctor had said. “Burp her good. She’ll outgrow it in a month or so.”

So Julia burped her baby and walked with her, rocked her, sang to her, left her alone in her room, drove with her in the car. By six weeks, Maryanne cried every waking minute, her body growing stiff, like a block of wood or cement, not even living, not like a baby at all. She screamed. Her face glistened and red splotches covered her cheeks and neck. Bill and Julia never slept. Bill’s eyes swelled. His hair grew too long. He lost weight. The joints in Julia’s fingers and arms burned. Pain pounded constantly behind both eyes. Tufts of her hair fell out in the bristles of her brush.

“Why are you saying this?” Julia asks.

Bill doesn’t answer.

She shakes his shoulder. “Tell me.”

“Christ but she cried. Didn’t you get tired of all the crying?”

“Stop saying that.”

“I did,” he mumbles into the crook of his arm. “Got damned tired of it.”

Julia begins to back toward the stairs that will lead her away from Bill. “These are horrible things to say.”

“Had my fill,” Bill says, his head lying on one arm while the other hangs limp at his side. “Damn sure had my fill.”

At the base of the staircase, Julia stops. “Is this why you don’t want another baby?”

No answer. Bill might be asleep. Julia stares at him, thinking she doesn’t know him at all.

“Is that all you remember of her?” she asks again. “The crying?”

He mumbles something.

“You’re never going to want another baby, are you?”

His eyes are open now, but his head hasn’t moved. He stares across the dining room into a blank wall. Julia starts up the stairs, slowly, one at a time.

“Julia.”

She stops.

“I sure am sorry,” he says.

Now she turns, looks down on him slumped over the table.

“Sorry about what? What do you mean by that?”

“Sure am sorry,” he says. “Sure am.”

Clinging to the banister, Julia walks down two stairs. “What did you do, Bill?”

His eyes are closed again. He doesn’t answer.

She walks down two more stairs. “Bill. What is it? Tell me.”

For days, there has been talk of Jerry Lawson’s troubles. Many of the ladies have wondered aloud if Jerry Lawson was fired because he killed that colored woman down on Willingham. Studying her own husband now, Julia wonders if the rumors will next begin to swirl about him.

“What did you do, Bill?”

She waits for an answer. The house is still. The girls are sleeping. The neighbors have settled in for the night. Somewhere nearby, a radio rolls over static and stops on an announcer calling a baseball game. Traffic on Woodward hums even at this late hour. Bill’s breathing becomes rhythmic and shallow. He’s fallen asleep. Julia walks slowly up the stairs.

“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.