Between Before and After

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  “I’m home today because my father is not feeling well. You may still read to him, but I want the reading to be kept short. Then I will have some work for you to do, folding pamphlets.” She paused, cup to her lips. “My father is very fond of you. We all are, and I think that at some point very soon we should discuss your future. You’re obviously very bright. We should have a little heart-to-heart.”

  Elaine flushed and looked down as May brushed a stray hair from Elaine’s face.

  “Now go see if you can cheer up my father. Nobody else seems capable of it.”

  They cared about her. No one held the car incident against her even though it was still fresh in her mind. May wanted to talk about her future. Elaine had no idea what that might be, but maybe St. Joseph’s College wasn’t completely a dream.

  When she opened the door to the morning room, it made the familiar shush across the deep carpet.

  “Don’t expect me to wait all day for you, young lady.” Mr. Seward’s voice was sharper than usual and punctuated with a raspy cough.

  Elaine smiled. “Sorry I’m late. I had to bring my little brother Stephen with me today.”

  “Where is he? I don’t hear anyone else.”

  “Mrs. Gossley sent him to the kitchen, sir. For breakfast.”

  “Just what we need, another mouth to feed. Do you all think I’m made of money?”

  “No, sir. I can get him if you like. He probably hasn’t eaten much yet.” That was most likely a lie. He was always hungry.

  “What’s done is done. I’m waiting for my papers.”

  Elaine began to read. Mr. Seward’s head dropped to his chest and then jerked upright like a marionette every few pages. Reading was easy now and it left one part of her mind free to wonder about Howie Gossley.

  She didn’t hear the door open or Stephen steal in on quiet feet to stand by her side, but Mr. Seward did.

  “Well, where are your manners? Aren’t you going to introduce us?” He was fully awake now, leaning forward in his chair. His milky eyes fastened on them as if he could see.

  Elaine saw Stephen’s face grow white. She gave him a little shove in the direction of Mr. Seward. “Mr. Seward, may I present my brother, Stephen.” She mimicked the way May introduced guests and hoped that it was right.

  Mr. Seward stretched out one freckled hand and placed it on Stephen’s head. “How old are you?”

  “Nine.” Stephen’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “Speak up. Why aren’t you in school?”

  Elaine clenched her hands.

  “I didn’t feel well. I wanted to come with Lainey.” This time his voice was louder.

  “You sound well enough now.” Mr. Seward coughed a wet, fleshy cough and then felt for a glass on the table. He brought it up to his mouth and spat. “What can you do?”

  Stephen was quiet for a minute. “I can play the penny whistle. I can read, though not as well as Lainey, but I can draw better than she does.”

  Mr. Seward’s hoot of laughter made Elaine jump.

  “There’s honesty for you. More than I get from most people. Well, Stephen, I can’t see your drawings, but I expect to hear the penny whistle next time you come. Now I have something that I think might interest you both, writer and artist. Bring me that book on the end of the table.”

  Elaine looked across to the far end of the table, where a slim blue book lay.

  “Well, bring it to me!”

  Gold lettering embossed the spine: Hansel and Gretel. She knew that story. But what was Mr. Seward doing with a book of fairy tales?

  She set the book in his outstretched hands. He ran his knobbed fingers over the cover. “In nineteen thirteen, before I lost my eyesight all together, I came across a book full of the most wondrous illustrations I’d ever seen. The artist is a fellow named Arthur Rackham. He’s won a few awards.”

  Here he paused, coughed, and spit into the glass again. Elaine tried not to look at the thick foam of spittle running down its side.

  “I’d heard that he had a new work come out—this Hansel and Gretel. It’s a great disappointment to me that I can’t see it with my own eyes, but an artist of his caliber needs to be supported.” He paused a long time.

  Stephen’s breath was hot on her neck as he peered over her shoulder.

  “Go ahead, open it up.”

  Stephen released a great sigh behind her. The illustrations sucked her into the page. It was like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole. In the drawing, two children—brother and sister—looked up into the face of an old woman with an enormous nose. Her eyes glittered. Elaine could feel the woman’s dangerous smile in her ribcage. The old lady leaned on a stick, on the steps of a house surrounded by a forest. The trees had faces.

  “You know the story, of course?”

  “We know it! Our mother used to tell us fairy tales.” Stephen traced the picture. “That’s the witch.”

  Elaine grabbed his hand to make sure his fingers were clean.

  “I thought you might it enjoy it, Elaine.”

  “I love it. Thank you for showing it to me.” She turned to the next page.

  “Showing it you! I’m giving it to you!”

  She tried to speak, cleared her throat and tried again. She had no books. Stephen had his few school texts on loan. “For me? It’s too beautiful.”

  Stephen kicked her shin.

  “I want to support this fellow, and no one in my house would care a thing about it. It should be valuable one day. See that you take care of it.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was someone else’s voice. It was the voice of a girl who owned a book, a beautiful book full of magic. Someday she would own hundreds of books like this. She hugged it to herself. “We’ll take good care of it, sir.”

  “I expect it. Son, make yourself unobtrusive while your sister finishes reading me the papers.”

  Stephen opened the book and sat crossed-legged on the rug in a puddle of sunlight. Elaine read about the rise in living wages.

  Within thirty minutes, both Mr. Seward and Stephen were fast asleep. Elaine looked at her little brother, one hand rested across the open book. His bony wrists protruded like pale, peeled sticks from his cuffs. His face was thin and pale too, but so like her mother’s. How long had it been since she had really looked at Stephen? There was a difference between looking and seeing, she thought. She hadn’t really seen him these last months, being so busy with work and worrying about Pop. Stephen wouldn’t be little much longer. No wonder he was always hungry. Gently, she eased the book from under his hand. He sighed and shifted in his sleep. For the next hour, Elaine was lost in the pages.

  When the clock chimed noon, Elaine looked up. She heard a familiar whistle in the hallway, heard the kitchen door slam, and then nothing more. She waited for the door to open. It didn’t. May didn’t arrive to invite them to lunch. Her stomach rumbled. Finally, the morning room door pushed inward. Elaine smoothed her hair.

  “I thought you and your brother might want to have lunch with me in the kitchen today. Howie’s been home and gone. I wouldn’t mind the company.” May had changed from her dressing gown to a gray silk dress that whispered like wind in grass when she walked.

  The fluttering in Elaine’s stomach stilled. A heavy weight dropped in to take its place.

  May glowed with good will. “Every September, we celebrate my father’s birthday with a picnic. I’m not sure why he likes picnics so much, but he does. In my mind, summer’s the time for picnics, but he won’t hear of anything else.” May paused. “I was hoping you and your brother might be able to join us. I know it would please my father immensely. And now wake up your brother. I’d like to talk to both of you about school.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  HOPE

  SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA—JULY 1955

  Molly

  With a sharp yelp, Mom had jerked the picture of the girl in leg braces off the front porch and marched it into the house. Then, without speaking, she’d blown the candles out and
dropped them one by one into the trash. “Who’d put that picture there?” Angus had asked. “Should you do that?” I’d worried at her. “Maybe God wouldn’t like you throwing those candles out.” She’d sent us both to our rooms.

  It was growing dark when Uncle Stephen came striding up the path. He’d been with the investigators so long, I’d about given up on seeing him today. I met Uncle Stephen at the door with Mom and Angus right behind.

  “What happened with the investigators?” Mom blocked the entrance.

  He pushed past her without speaking.

  “How soon will this be over?” Her questions fell like blows.

  Uncle Stephen held up his hand to ward them off. “I’d appreciate a drink and a bite to eat.”

  We followed him into the kitchen and sat around the table. Mom soon clattered a plate of Chef Boyardee in front of each of us.

  “This was our welcome.” Mom pulled the photo out of the kitchen drawer. The glass was cracked.

  “And some candles,” Angus added.

  Uncle Stephen picked up the small frame in one hand and held the photo close to his face, then set it back on the table. After a long pull from a bottle of beer and a mouthful of spaghetti, he said, “More expectation than welcome. If I hadn’t moved in with you, you’d be spared this.”

  “How did they know you’re here?” I asked.

  “I must have been followed—me or the investigators. I don’t know.”

  I looked at him sprawled in our vinyl chair, his long crane body, protruding ears, bruised eyes, and red hair fading to gray. There couldn’t be anybody who looked less like a miracle worker than my uncle Stephen.

  “The doctors agreed—Robert’s completely healed. Bishop Gurly was there along with the investigators. That poor kid—what they put him through! It’s been called an ‘instantaneous and complete cure.’” Uncle Stephen held up his hands and looked at them. Then he let them fall to the table, long fingers splayed. “Cause and effect.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Seems to me that’s what a miracle’s all about, effects we can’t predict.”

  Angus picked at the last worms of spaghetti on his plate. Mom poured herself a beer, and I thought I noticed her hand shake. “Mrs. Bolger said something about it when we went to the Thrifty today.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said, ‘I hear your brother’s a miracle worker.’”

  “Unfortunately, Lainey, I think things will only get worse. Mr. Crater’s been telling people even though the bishop asked him not to. I can’t blame him. It’s hard to hold good news in, and I can’t imagine better news than having your kid saved.”

  The last bits of color drained from her face. “What happens next?”

  “If it was as it should be, nothing. We’d all go back to our normal lives and Robert would go on with life.”

  “Did you suggest to them that it might be a coincidence?”

  Uncle Stephen sighed. “Maybe miracles happen more often than we think. Perhaps we aren’t looking in the right places.”

  “You don’t really believe you worked a miracle, do you?” Her voice skittered up an octave. “I thought you had doubts too.”

  Angus sucked in the last long strand of spaghetti, letting it slide from his chin up over his lips and into his mouth, like we were never allowed to do at the table. My heart raced a little faster.

  “I have no idea. Whatever happened, I had very little to do with it, Lainey. But denying something happened? Well, that wouldn’t be honest.”

  Uncle Stephen set up for another night on our couch. He said he didn’t want to hear another word about miracles. As a result, we watched some boring nature show about bats that Angus wanted to see until my eyes were gritty. But even when I could no longer hold them open, I couldn’t sleep. The last I looked at the clock, it said three a.m. So it was no surprise to me it was almost nine when I woke up. The surprise came when I walked into the living room still rubbing away the sleep.

  The curtains were drawn and the room was dark. Mom and Uncle Stephen talked in whispers. Angus was still in the spaceship pajamas he favored.

  “There are people in the yard, Molly. Lots of people.”

  “What do you mean?” I slipped behind the drapes at the picture window. An audience hovered on our patchy lawn, all eyes expectantly pointed on our front door. Most were people I had never seen before, but a few I recognized—men, women, and kids. Cars choked the street. A pyramid of candles burned in the bright summer sunlight. And there were flowers: single long-stemmed roses, grocery store bouquets of frothy pink blooms wrapped in paper, hot reds and oranges all lining our walkway.

  “Get away from the window.” Mom dragged me back. “I called the police. Those people have been here since the sun was up.” She turned on Uncle Stephen. “You’ve got to tell them there’s been a mistake. We can’t live like this.”

  “They just want some hope.”

  “Hope is made, not given.” Mom’s voice was dangerous, and she looked right at Angus and me as she spoke to make sure we understood her position.

  “Are you going to do more miracles?” Angus looked hopeful.

  “Not that I’m planning,” Uncle Stephen said. “Look, Molly and Angus, there are some people out there who have heard about this boy being healed. They probably think I can do this for them too. They don’t understand it has nothing to do with me. But I want you to know that. Whatever God is up to is his business.”

  “Maybe you should talk to them,” Angus said.

  “Angus!” Mom shot him one of those looks.

  And for once I was grateful. This wasn’t the kind of celebrity I ever aspired to. This was a spectacle that would completely destroy any pretense of normality in my life. It would mark me as freakish, and once marked, it was all anyone would see when they looked at me.

  Uncle Stephen took Angus seriously. “Maybe I should.”

  And he opened the front door.

  “Get back here!” Mom rushed to the door.

  Too late.

  I hid behind the partially open door, watching my uncle and wishing for the first time I could disown him.

  He raised a hand. The crowd cheered. Then everyone fell silent except for a baby who continued to wail.

  “All you good people have come here because God did something miraculous. That’s right, he did. I didn’t. I have no more idea what God is up than you do, but I do know this. God has a habit of interfering in the world for his own purposes. It has nothing to do with me, and as far I know nothing like this will ever happen to me again.” Here he paused. I held my breath and blinked back tears. I thought I recognized Jesse’s face in the middle of the crowd.

  “If nothing else, God has reminded us he’s still working. I know I tend to forget that sometimes.”

  The crowd murmured in response. Then a woman with a black lace veil on her head crept forward on her knees. She grabbed Uncle Stephen’s pants leg. He looked down at her as she uttered one word. “Please.”

  The word was like a collective sigh. It swelled with hope. It floated like dandelion down on the morning air.

  “I don’t have any special power.” He sounded embarrassed. His face was red, but he helped her to her feet. “You should pray to God.”

  I didn’t think that was what the lady wanted to hear.

  “You pray for me.”

  My hands went cold with sweat. He put his hand on the lady’s head, and I could almost feel her tremble.

  Two things happened at once before he spoke: a police car screamed in from one direction and a TV crew drove in from another. So the whole thing—Uncle Stephen on the porch with his hand on the woman’s head, the crowd, the few policemen breaking everything up—was filmed for the news. Mom slammed the door shut before Uncle Stephen came back inside, and made us go to our rooms to get dressed.

  The phone rang while I was pulling my clothes on. Mom appeared in my doorway. “It’s your dad. He wants to talk to you. I want you
and your brother in the house today. It’s a volatile situation out there.”

  I hurried into the kitchen. We talked every Saturday, but this was a Friday. Mom hovered right behind me.

  Dad’s voice was sharp with concern. “Molly, are you and Angus okay?”

  “We’re fine, but there are people all over the yard, and we might be on the news.”

  “I heard your Uncle Stephen has been acting crazy.”

  “He’s doing miracles.”

  “Exactly what I mean.”

  There was a short pause, and then, “I have to be out of town with work for a few days. But I want you to promise that you’ll call me if things get out of hand. I’ll find a way to come get you.”

  I wanted to say that things had been out of hand for a while, but he kept talking.

  “Promise me.”

  “Okay. Dad, are you coming back soon?”

  He sighed. “It’s complicated, Molly. But I mean what I say about getting you and Angus. Now let me talk to your mother.”

  I handed the phone to Mom and went to the window.

  The police were leading people off our front lawn. At the edge of the crowd, I saw Ari. I wanted to catch her attention, to tell her that Uncle Stephen hadn’t meant this all to happen. Right behind her was the blue car with the man Angus called Arthur leaning out the window.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  VULNERABLE

  SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA—JULY 1955

  Molly

  When I came back into the living room fully dressed, my hair gathered into a bushy ponytail, Mom was wearing that look that said this is grown-up business and don’t you dare interrupt. I thought this might be a good time to practice those observation skills Uncle Stephen told me all writers need. I sat down by the coffee table and opened my journal. No one paid any attention.

  The first thing I made note of was that Uncle Stephen looked pale, his skin almost transparent under his eyes, and a vein throbbed through the thinning hair at his temple. He was pacing back and forth; every now and then he’d grab his earlobe and give it a tug, then his hand would fall limply to his side.