Until She Comes Home (10 page)

Day 4

I
t’s Monday morning and traffic is light along Woodward. It’s as if everyone in the city has spent these past few days searching for Elizabeth and is exhausted by it. Pressing one hand against the seat back in front of her as the bus pulls away and letting the other rest on the swell in her stomach, Grace hopes none of the ladies will notice she has forgotten her white gloves. She must have overlooked them on her bedroom dresser or possibly on the table near the back door.

Before leaving to catch the bus this morning, Grace had touched Mother on the sleeve and said, “I think I should tell.”

Setting aside the broom she had been pushing across the kitchen floor, Mother covered Grace’s hand with one of her own. “It’s Monday,” she said. “Go to Willingham. Fill your cupboards. They’ll be needing more food down at that church.”

“It might help the police.” Grace lingered in the doorway. “What if those men, that man, did the same to Elizabeth? What if he does it again? James’s only concern will be for me. For the baby.”

“Heaven help that child if those men got her,” Mother said, holding open the door so Grace could pass. “But your telling won’t change that.” Then she smoothed Grace’s blond hair, a reminder to keep her makeup fresh and her hair carefully combed, pinned, and sprayed. A pretty face will keep peace in the house.

“Don’t think more of your husband than you should,” Mother had said. “Don’t make that mistake.”

Continuing down Woodward, the bus gathers speed and the morning air, just beginning to warm, rushes through the open windows. Reaching up with one bare hand, Grace holds her pillbox hat in place. The other ladies don’t bother with hats anymore. They don’t care to ruin their new, higher hairstyles, but today Grace wears her gray pillbox with the velvet trim she normally wears only on Sundays. It covers the small gash on the back of her head she worries might be seen. She shifts her weight from one hip to the other to avoid the cross-breeze. Not meaning to, she lets out a soft groan. Mother said Grace’s tailbone is only bruised and she shouldn’t carry on about it.

“Grace,” Malina Herze says, leaning across the aisle. “Are you okay, dear?” Malina cups the tight curl on the end of her dark bob.

Grace drops her bare hand to her lap. “I’m fine. It’s just this heat.”

Reaching out with her own white-gloved hand, Malina squeezes Grace’s wrist. Grace flinches but doesn’t pull away. Her wrists and arms are sore, still ache where one of them pinned her to the ground.

“Don’t be fooled by the bake sale’s new date, dear,” Malina says. One of her carefully tweezed eyebrows, the right one, lifts, her forehead crinkling when she notices Grace’s exposed hands. “You heard, didn’t you? It’s postponed only a few weeks. You know, of course, pierogi freeze quite nicely. No need to wait until the last minute.”

While Saturday brought news of the white sneaker found along the river, Sunday passed with no news at all. And today, Monday, the search will continue even though the men should be returning to work. Others at the factory will work evening shifts and over the next weekend if they have to, over as many weekends as it takes, so the men from Alder and its neighboring streets can continue to look for Elizabeth. These workers have pledged their overtime to the families of those who search.

Monday also brought news that the bake sale has been officially postponed and that Malina Herze has taken up the job of organizing the ladies. Just as she had a schedule and a list for the bake sale, she now has a schedule and a list for the search. This morning, Malina gave the wives of Alder Avenue the morning off to tend to their families and run their errands. From this day on, they’ll work in four-hour shifts, preparing food, cleaning up after the men, brewing fresh coffee. They must hope and pray every day brings news of Elizabeth’s safe homecoming, but must also brace themselves for a new kind of life, one that may include never knowing what became of the girl and a search that may never end.

Just past the thrift store, the bus stops, its door opens, and Julia appears. She must have had Bill drop her at the store this morning. Usually, she and Grace do their volunteering together. Many times over the years, they’ve sorted donations at the small shop under Malina’s watchful eye. Grace would scold Julia when she pulled the blouses inside out before slipping them on a hanger. Julia would hang them up anyway and when Malina asked why they were laughing, Grace would say it was nothing, just a silly joke she had told. Once Malina busied herself with another load of clothes, Grace would turn the next blouse inside out, slip it on a hanger, and give Julia a wink.

Knowing Julia will sit next to her, Grace slides toward the window to make room and rests her face against the glass. A sharp pain shoots through her cheek and up into her eye. She straightens in her seat and pulls a compact from her purse to check her lipstick. Across the aisle, two of the ladies smile at her with tilted heads. Grace, with her bulging stomach, is a reminder to them, to everyone who sees her, that life will go on. No matter how terrible the news of Elizabeth might be, those ladies see Grace and think she is sweet and beautiful and that she’ll give birth to a child who is the same.

“Didn’t expect to see you today,” Grace says when Julia drops onto the seat next to her.

Julia doesn’t answer and instead points toward the street. Two men walk out of the hardware store next to the thrift shop. One of the two carries a clipboard. He scribbles as they walk to the next store. Once there, he yanks on the door’s handle and both disappear inside. They are men looking for Elizabeth. The busload of ladies has paused to allow the men to pass.

There is talk this morning of the women on Willingham. No one has thought much about that dead woman in the days since Elizabeth disappeared. There’s been no news of the woman, no arrest. Now that they’re traveling back to Willingham, thoughts of her work their way back to the surface. The ladies are worried, too, though no one wants to say it aloud, that maybe the dead woman sheds some light on what became of Elizabeth. All around Grace, the ladies have been talking about the police they’ll most likely see on Willingham. It’s possible there is no more work to be done in the alley where that woman was killed, but they’ll definitely be searching the river because today is day four, the day the men say Elizabeth’s body would surely float to the surface if she had drowned.

“Bill dropped me on his way to the church,” Julia says once the bus has pulled away from the curb. “I’ve had the girls cleaning out closets. Gives them something to do while I’m gone.” Then she whispers, “Too many bags to tote on the bus. It’ll drive Malina wild to find out I dropped them off at the store myself.”

Grace lets out a short laugh but tries not to smile. Every smile causes the small cut to split again. Julia is the only one of the ladies Grace laughs with. The others make her altogether too aware of the length of her skirt, the curls in her hair, or the shade of lipstick she has chosen. She worries her choices are all wrong and that the ladies will later whisper about her. Julia is the friend who would tell Grace if a lipstick shade was unbecoming, but only so she could snag the tube for her own use.

“Did you hear?” Julia says, leaning in to whisper. This is how it starts. She’ll say something funny, something irresistible, even today, even knowing Elizabeth is still gone. Julia wants things to be normal again too. “About Malina’s flowers?”

Grace shakes her head.

“Someone urinated on them. Walked right down the middle of the street and there in front of God and Alder Avenue, urinated on them. More than once, it would appear.”

“That is not true.”

“Told me herself. She’s started spraying them at all hours. Poor things are already waterlogged. They’ll be wilting before you know it. Probably won’t last the month.” Julia tells the rest from behind the cover of one hand. “She actually thought the twins had done it. Cornered me at the church and accused them. So, of course, I asked her to explain the logistics of that. She agreed it would be rather difficult. And rather conspicuous.”

“Julia, stop,” Grace says, trying not to smile so her lip won’t swell up on her. “It’s not right to carry on like this.”

On past bus rides, Grace and Julia would sometimes laugh until Grace’s cheeks and stomach ached. And when, later in the day, Grace would return to an empty house, she could never recall what had made her laugh, but the memory of it always made her smile. Later still in the day, Grace would call. What are you fixing for supper, one would ask the other. Coffee? I’ll be right down. Usually Julia came to Grace’s house. And then after supper, one last call asking how that beefsteak turned out or what’s the best way to tackle a grease stain, to which Julia would reply . . . don’t throw out the shirt, throw out the husband. And again, they would laugh.

Julia gives Grace one last nudge. “But it feels good, doesn’t it, to laugh?”

The bus continues toward Willingham Avenue. The morning air, light and almost crisp, blows through the open windows. Outside the bus, cars drive past, most of them with their windows rolled down. The ladies in those cars hold the steering wheel at ten and two and wear sheer scarves—yellow, pink, or white—folded in half, draped over their hair and tied under their chins. At the stoplights, the men rest an elbow on the doorframe and hang their lit cigarettes out the window. As the bus nears downtown, the cars stack up deeper at each stoplight and the buildings rise higher on both sides of Woodward, narrowing the street. The smell of river water pushes aside the smell of freshly clipped grass and concrete just hosed down. At the intersection of Woodward and Willingham, the bus slows. The air settles.

“Come with me to the cleaners?” Julia says, standing once the bus has stopped.

Grace shakes her head and slides back down onto the seat. “I’m not feeling well. I have enough in my freezer to get by. I think I’ll take the bus back home.”

Julia stretches over the seat to lay a hand on Grace’s forehead. “James mentioned you’d been feeling poorly. No fever.” She straightens. “Get some rest. I’ll call later, stop by before I go to the church.”

Julia slips into the aisle behind Malina Herze and plugs her nose as if smelling the urine from Malina’s flowerbeds. Again Grace resists the urge to smile. She lifts a hand to wave good-bye but quickly lowers it so no one will notice she forgot her gloves. Even before the bus has pulled away toward its last stop, where it will turn around to drive back up Woodward, Grace knows she’ll not come on the morning bus again. She can’t see the others because she is so changed. The other ladies are changed too, but not in a lasting way. Already they are easing back to a normal life, a life that won’t include Elizabeth Symanski. But Grace won’t ease back, and eventually they’ll notice. Eventually, they’ll want to know why.

Julia will be the first, maybe the only one, to raise questions with Grace. The others will be too polite, just as they’re too polite to mention an unfortunate lipstick color. They’ll assume it’s a private matter, perhaps a problem in Grace’s marriage or bad news regarding the baby, and they’ll be caring but distant because they won’t want Grace’s troubles to rub off on them. Julia, however, won’t concern herself with privacy or contagious problems. She’ll ask questions, many questions. She’ll be bold and persistent. She’ll come to Grace’s house, sweep the floors, wring the laundry, cook the meals. She’ll want to do the things Grace did for Julia when her daughter died. She’ll want to nurse Grace until she is well again. Julia will be a constant reminder that Grace’s life will never again be as it once was.

“Is there an afternoon bus to Willingham?” Grace calls up to the driver after the door has closed.

The bus pops and hisses and continues down Woodward.

Speaking to Grace through the rearview mirror, the driver says, “Twelve fifteen at Alder. That your street?”

“Thank you,” she says. “That’ll be fine.”

•   •   •

Aunt Julia won’t be home for hours. She’s off shopping with the other ladies, and that will keep her away all morning. Still, Izzy and Arie twice look up and down the street because it wouldn’t do for one of Aunt Julia’s friends to catch them outside. From somewhere north of Alder Avenue, a round of firecrackers explodes, one shooting off right on top of another. Grandma says they start earlier and earlier every year, and isn’t that a shame. Those firecrackers are like a starting pistol, and clutching a cold, wet bottle against her stomach, Izzy gives a wave and she and Arie take off running through the side yard that cuts between the Turners’ and Brandenbergs’ houses. The girls hit the alley and their feet slip in the dry dirt and kick up clouds of dust. They keep running even though their throats are dry and they need to spit and their legs are tired from going all the way to Beersdorf’s Grocery and back.

Izzy would have thought Arie would run all the way to Aunt Julia’s because she’s scared of the alley now, but something makes her shorten her stride, slow, and eventually stop. Straight ahead, a few yards past Mrs. Richardson’s garage, Mr. Schofield’s rusted old chair and sawed-off piece of wood sit in the middle of the alley. No sign of rusted old Mr. Schofield.

The girls had been halfway to Beersdorf’s Grocery before Arie realized where they were going. Izzy told her no one was twisting her arm and she could go on back home if she wanted. She knew Arie wasn’t brave enough for that, so they walked the rest of the way to Beersdorf’s, one block west and three blocks south, all the while watching for men who might be searching for Elizabeth. Every time they saw a car coming, they ducked behind a clump of bushes or the trunk of an elm. “Why bother walking all the way to Beersdorf’s when we don’t have any money?” Arie had said when they were halfway there. But money wasn’t the thing that kept Arie from wanting to go to Beersdorf’s.

Besides being afraid of the back alley, which seemed to make Arie afraid of everything, she didn’t want to go to Beersdorf’s because Aunt Julia didn’t shop there anymore. Arie figured there must be a good reason. Grandma always says there’s no moss growing under Aunt Julia and she wouldn’t do something, or not do something, without a good reason. Not too long ago, Aunt Julia did shop at Beersdorf’s and only took the bus to Willingham once or twice a week. Beersdorf’s couldn’t have turned into a bad place in such a short time. That’s what Izzy thought. Arie thought it didn’t take long at all for things to turn bad. Just look at a banana.