Sweet Expectations (21 page)

“I'm not paying her a fortune.”

“She's a hard worker.” She released a shuddering sigh. “It's hard raising them alone. I can't give them what they deserve. This job means a lot to her.”

Emotion tightened my throat. “I'm looking forward to it.”

“If there is ever a problem, you can call me.” She rushed to say, “But they are good kids and there won't be a problem.”

“I'd love you to come by so I can meet you, Irene.”

“I'll be by soon. Lots of crazy hours at the hospital, and I've got to take the work when they offer it. But I'll be by soon. Thank you again.”

“Sure.” We exchanged a few more pleasantries and I rang off. Would I end up like Irene, the single mom working long, crazed hours and grateful for a stranger's help?

Jean Paul announced the move was done and I was grateful to push Irene out of my thoughts. I doled out cash payments to the movers along with batches of cookies Rachel had baked in her apartment last night for Simon's party and bottles of wine, and said good-bye to all of them before one.

Rachel, Margaret, and I stared at the newly configured kitchen.

Rachel scrunched her face. “I'm not sure if I like it.”

Laughter bubbled in me. “Really? Well, then let's put it all back.”

Margaret rolled her eyes. “Sarcasm does not become pregnant women, Daisy.”

Rachel shook her head as she moved to a stainless steel table and trailed her finger along its smooth surface. “It's not like I don't think it won't work. It's, well, I don't
know
this kitchen.”

“You've used every piece of equipment in the joint, Rachel,” Margaret said.

“Yeah but not in this configuration. What if the flow is off?”

“We'll find a way to love the flow.” I pictured the strained red faces of the movers. “Because this ain't changing.”

Rachel opened the oven and peered inside as if making sure all the pieces and parts were intact. “I'll make it work.”

“Great.”

My cell phone buzzed and I glanced at the number. “Speak of the devil. It's the delivery guy with the new freezer.” I picked up and instructed the guy to come through the front door. “Won't be long before we are up and running.”

Rachel grinned. “Thank God, not baking has been like going through detox. I'm surprised I don't have the shakes.”

Laughing, Margaret shook her head. “Really, Rachel, you need to get laid.”

Rachel's eyes widened as a ruby blush rose up her cheeks. Talk of sex always sent Rachel skittering but instead of retreating she nodded. “Send up a message to those pagan gods you talk about so much and tell them Rachel could use a little love.”

I laughed. “Rachel, you naughty girl.”

She shook her head. Her cheeks remained red as cherries. “It's been over a year and a half.” She glanced at my stomach. “You two have at least gotten some love in the last year.”

The new freezer arrived an hour later and slid right into the place Jean Paul had created. It was massive, and I caught Rachel opening and closing it several times as she marveled at the empty white interior.

My office was officially gone, the kitchen had been moved, and the wine cellar was at least partly in place. Now, just a couple of days of finishing work and we'd be back in business.

Rachel had to clean her kitchen. The doors had to be rehung. The wine cellar needed a clean and final reorganization and then there was the minor detail of baking enough goods to fill the front case. Any one of those items could have filled a couple of days each, and we had seven to tackle all of them along with refilling our inventory.

“Rachel, your sex life is going to have to wait,” I said.

She laughed as she shook her head. “It's been on hold for eighteen months so a few more days won't make a difference.”

Margaret shook her head. “Eighteen months. No sex. Damn.”

Rachel nodded. “It has had its challenges.”

Sex with Roger had been very uneventful. The last time I'd had great sex had been with Gordon. Up until my stomach had started acting up recently, I'd been dreaming about more sex with Gordon. I missed how good he could make me feel.

Margaret rested her hands on her hips. “The definition of hell is no sex and working in the bakery.”

I shrugged. “I could certainly do with more sex, but as far as the bakery is concerned, the place is growing on me.”

“It's official,” Rachel said. “I have heard it all.”

Chapter Seventeen

Saturday, 1:00
P.M.

6 days, 12 hours until grand reopening

Income Lost: $3,700

I
was working in the kitchen, cleaning equipment with Rachel, when the overnight packet of papers arrived. I signed for the thick envelope made out to me. The sender was a Billy J. Hoyt from Fresno, California. His handwriting in blue ballpoint pen was precise and indented as if the man put weight behind each letter.

“Margaret!”

“What?” she shouted from the basement.

I hefted the envelope, and judging by the weight it was a heavy stack of papers. “Know a Mr. Hoyt?”

Next came the thumping of her feet up the basement stairs. “Is that from Billy?”

I held out the package to her. “That would be correct. He one of your pals?”

“He's the one we wrote to about the dog tags.”

“But you e-mailed him last night.”

“He must have really hustled the request through. He's got so many connections.” She took the package from me and ripped open the back flap. “Billy is retired army. He spends his golden years locating information on the men and women who served. It's amazing what he can find.”

I glanced over her shoulder as she scanned a typed note from Billy. The concise letter detailed what he'd found and ended with a
don't worry about the cost
,
tell Maggie hi
and
I'll keep digging.
Again the signature was bold, clear, and direct. I pictured a man with a gray high-and-tight haircut, white collared shirt, and khakis.

“So, Maggie, does Billy have a crush on you?”

She waggled her eyebrows. “I think he does. If I were thirty years older, I'd definitely date him. He is such a sweetie. He served three tours in Vietnam and has more medals than I can count. A real stud in my book.”

I laughed. “Margaret.”

“What? I can admire his service.” She shuffled through the papers and the first sheet was a military form looking as if it had been copied from microfilm. “At the top of the form it read,
AUTOPSY REPORT
. It's for Walter Jacob.”

That was the name on the dog tags. I braced. “How did he die?”

Margaret's frown deepened as she read the form. “He was hit by artillery fire. His legs were blown off in the initial explosion. He also lost a hand and sustained head trauma.”

Blowing breath from my lungs, I shoved the image out of my mind and prayed Jenna never received such details. “What's the other paper?” As she shuffled I saw the heading at the top of the next form. It read,
BURIAL INFORMATION
.

The clear, simple words came with a one-two punch sobering all my humor. Margaret read, her gaze as sharp and serious as when she catalogued artifacts. “The form is also for a Walter F. Jacob. He was a sergeant in the Marines. Date of Birth: 12 June 1920. Date of Death: 15 July 1944.”

“He lived to be twenty-four. So young.”

A silence settled around us and the weight bore heavy on me. I pressed my hand to my belly, not able to wonder what it would be like to lose a child over twenty.

“It says, ‘The remains of USMC Walter Jacob were first buried on the Island of Saipan, Plot T, Grave 1040.'”

“Saipan?”

“The invasion of the island was called the D-day of the Pacific. Very strategic bloody battle that lasted several weeks. We won but the price was very high.”

“So is Walter still on Saipan?” So far from home.

Margaret flipped through more papers, her frown deepening. “There is a Joey Ludenburg listed as next of kin and . . .” She paused for effect. “There is a letter here to Mrs. Jenna Davis Jacob, Union Street, Alexandria, Virginia.”

Our Jenna. “What does it say?”

She tossed me a look as if to say
slow
. She read:

As requested, the United States Marine Corps is forwarding to you the following personal property, belonging to Sergeant Walter F. Jacob Jr.

1 carton and contents

1 Bureau check for $89.12—enclosed

1 medal (by registered mail)

When delivery has been made, I shall appreciate your acknowledging receipt by signing one copy of this letter in the spaces provided below, and returning it to this Bureau. For your convenience, there is enclosed an addressed envelope which needs no postage.

I regret the circumstances prompting this letter, and I extend my deepest sympathies on the loss of your husband.

The form letter had all the pertinent information, and had been typed correctly, but it was the misalignment of the last word,
husband,
robbing all the heartfelt emotion from the letter. Walter Jacob had become a number. As had Jenna. Inserting
husband
had been simply another detail to be handled by a clerk in a nameless office.

Sadness burrowed deep. “The letter sounds so cold and uncaring.”

“But think of how many thousands of remains that office handled, Daisy. So many men died, and keeping track of their remains, their belongings, and their loved ones was no easy task.”

“The effects were sent to Jenna Jacob but according to the article in the paper her last name was Davis.” I glanced at the dates and did a quick calculation. “He died about five months before the baby was born and this letter would have been received about a week before she gave birth.”

“Maybe he listed her as his wife. Maybe he knew about the baby and had every intention of coming back and marrying her.”

“It does say here that his body was interred in the Alexandria Cemetery, Plot A222.”

That was the first bit of good news. “Really? So we could go see it?”

“Sure.”

I glanced at unfinished work at the bakery yet to be done and didn't feel like I could leave.

“An hour won't make a huge difference,” Margaret said, reading my expression. “This will always be here.”

“You're right.”

The heat of midafternoon had passed and the air had cooled to a nice temperature. I wanted to get out of the bakery and breathe a little fresh air and walk on the cemetery's green grass.

We left Rachel scrubbing and grumbling about bad
flow
and how every pot and pan was in the wrong place. When she said, “Not to worry. I'll figure it out,” we knew she was headed to martyr-ville, and it probably was best we did leave.

The walk to the cemetery was a little over a mile but given I'd been on my feet all day it made sense to drive. It was after six when we arrived and most of the offices had cleared out for the day, so we could find street parking. The grassy lands of the Alexandria Cemetery rolled like a park shading the granite and limestone grave markers.

“How do we begin to search?” I said. “There must be thousands of markers.”

Margaret and I went to the main office, arriving shortly before closing. The woman looked up at me, clearly annoyed by my late arrival.

She had dark hair tied back in a bun and wore wire-rimmed glasses. She wore a white shirt and a United States flag pin on her lapel. “Can I help you?”

Margaret sauntered up as if she were expecting to be recognized. “My sister and I are looking for a grave.”

She glanced at the clock. “A grave.”

“That's right. Walter F. Jacob Jr. He was interred here in 1945. The plot is listed as A222.”

Some of the strain vanished from her face. It appeared Margaret had asked an easy question. She pulled out a map and spread it out on her desk. “This is where we are and this is the section where you need to search. I don't know the exact location on the map but this will put you in the neighborhood.”

“Thanks.”

It took us a half hour to find the stone located at the base of a small rolling hill. The thin granite marker tilted thirty degrees to the left. The deeply etched letters read
WALTER F. JACOB JR. US MARINES, JUNE 12, 1920–JULY 15, 1944.

I knelt by the marker and carefully traced the letters of his name with my fingertips. “Twenty-four years old. So young.”

I touched the granite, wondering if this was the
him
I was supposed to find.
Find him.
Jenna, am I on the right track?
I waited a beat, hoping for an answer, but not a whisper or even a feeling.

“Hey, look,” Margaret said.

I rose and looked at the marker. It read,
JENNA DAVIS JACOB, JUNE 3, 1926–DECEMBER 31, 1944
. She'd been eighteen years old. They'd died within months of each other.

“They were babies,” Margaret said.

“Is there another marker around here? According to the paper she was survived by an infant son, but it also said he was ailing.”

Margaret and I spent the next minutes moving around the spot, looking for a child that might have died close to his birth.

But we didn't find a marker. “If he died he wasn't buried here.”

“So where is he?”

Find him.

“I don't know.”

* * *

Rachel offered the next link in the growing chain to find
him
. She suggested we talk to Sara. At ninety-five she was one of the oldest customers of the bakery. She'd come once a week for the last seventy years, but had broken her hip two years ago and now lived in a nursing home. Rachel didn't know if she'd remember Jenna, but suggested if anyone did it would be her. Armed with maple cookies, which Rachel had made, I drove to the nursing home located ten miles away in Arlington.

It took a U-turn and two missed tries before I spotted the low-lying building off Glebe Road. Shady Acres Retirement home was nondescript, outfitted with tinted windows that didn't open, an entrance covered with a wide awning, and scattered flower planters next to benches.

Inside, the place looked clean and well run but the antiseptic smell turned my still-delicate stomach. I found reception and introduced myself. After showing an ID and explaining whom I was here to see, the receptionist directed me to a visitor's lounge.

The tiled floor sparkled with polish, and on the walls hung pictures of what appeared to be smiling older residents. In the corner stood a card table with cards and poker chips still scattered on it as if the players would soon return. A large flat screen televised the news.

I studied the pictures on the wall and did my best to look relaxed. However, the more I stood there the sillier my quest seemed. I was going to ask Sara Morgan if she remembered a woman who worked a bakery counter in 1943 and 1944. What were the chances?

Finally, an older woman, leaning heavily on a cane, came to sit in the room. Judging by her appearance, I guessed her age to be mid to late seventies.

Squinting, the older woman openly assessed me. “Who are you here for? Getting a little late for visitors.”

“I'm here for Sara,” I said.

The woman's gaze brightened as if all conversation was welcome. “Sara doesn't get many visitors.”

“Really?”

“It's hard to hold on to family when you've reached your nineties. I think her last son passed last year. Heart attack.”

“I'm sorry.”

“He was sixty-nine.” She smiled. “My name is Edith. Sara and I are friends.”

“Oh.” I shifted in my seat, knowing I had a narrow window of opportunity before I had to return to the shop and finish the day's work. The kids would be arriving on Monday and we were going to begin our first day of employee training.

“So are you Sara's family?”

I tapped my index finger on the white USB box. “No. She's been a customer of our bakery for a long time. I wanted to drop off cookies.” And pump her for information about the 1940s.

“That's so sweet. What did you bring her?”

“Cookies. Maple. My dad tells me that's her favorite.”

“I love sugar cookies.”

Glancing at the Union Street Bakery box, I hesitated before asking, “Would you like a cookie?”

She beamed. “I'd love one.”

I broke the seal on the box and held it out to her.

“These are lovely. When I was expecting I craved sugar all the time.” She smiled at me as she nibbled the edge of her cookie. “When is your baby due?”

I stared at the bump. “December.”

“A Christmas baby. I was a Christmas baby. My only word of advice is not to wrap the baby's birthday presents in Christmas paper. I hated that.”

“I'll try to remember.”

“And don't take the birthday picture around the tree. The mingling of dates leaves a kid feeling cheated.”

“Got it.” Great, I'd not only made a kid by mistake but I was further traumatizing it with a Christmas birthday clearly loaded with disappointments. “I will remember.”

Before Edith could comment more on my baby's birthday, Sara arrived in a wheelchair. Though Sara slumped over in her chair, her eyes were clear and bright. “Those Union Street Bakery cookies?”

“Yes, ma'am.” I lifted the lid and held it close to her as she peered inside like a child. Dad had always said that cookies were magical. Always made people happy.