Between Before and After

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  At the end of the second week, when the measles rash was completely gone, May asked to meet with both of them in the morning room.

  “Elaine, I’m surprised you never said a word to me. I shouldn’t have heard about your father’s passing from Father Kearny.”

  Elaine looked down at her own reflection in the polished table. “We managed.”

  “Managing is not enough. You’re both still children. You need a stable place to live, and now that Stephen’s well, you both need to be in school.”

  Was she was hinting it was time for them to go? “I’ll make sure he goes to school.”

  “That’s too much for you to bear alone.”

  Would she send them to the Orphan Asylum?

  “Please,” Elaine whispered.

  “My father would like you both to stay on with us.”

  Stay here, close to Howie? The fairy tale was coming true.

  “Mr. Gossley and I agree that this may be the best thing, staying here until you are old enough to be on your own.”

  An uncertain smile nudged its way across Elaine’s face. She glanced out of the corner of her eyes at her brother. He’d stopped swinging his legs. A grin lit his face.

  “Can we, Lainey?”

  But a sliver of uncertainty worked its way into her thoughts. Did she really want someone else telling her what to do? She bit a fingernail. The sliver dug in deeper. What if they forgot their own parents?

  “Elaine, you would still be employed after school, and I’m sure Stephen could help with the yard work. I wouldn’t want you to think you were merely charity cases.”

  So, that’s how it was to be. Elaine looked up. They’d live with the Gossleys, but still be employees of a sort. She wouldn’t have to become someone else’s daughter.

  “Thank you. We won’t be any trouble at all.”

  “I consider myself a good judge of character. We’ll enjoy having you here. This week would be a good time for both of you to return to school.”

  “This week?” It had been too long. How would she ever fit in?

  “The sooner the better. You don’t want to get any farther behind than you already are.” May lifted the small gold watch that hung around her neck and checked the time. “I’ve asked Mrs. Theilen to see about getting you some new things to wear. I plan to register you this afternoon.”

  Just as she feared, Elaine didn’t fit in at school. Ahead in reading, behind in math and science, she couldn’t talk fashion and didn’t know the popular movie stars like Lillian Gish. Her goal became to slip through the days unnoticed.

  May tried on and discarded projects like hats. How soon would the Gossleys tire of them? Some days Howie played the role of big brother, asking her about her day at school or teasing her about her new clothes. Other days, his stares made her think of the picnic kiss, something she now worked at forgetting. He was class president, a competent if lazy student, and one of the most popular boys on his campus. There were days when Elaine only caught glimpses of his back retreating down the drive.

  It was easier for Stephen. No doubts about their new living arrangements appeared to trouble him. He continued altar boy classes, although the Gossleys themselves rarely attended church, and when they did it was the Episcopal one. The only difficulty Stephen encountered was having his own room.

  For the first weeks after most of the house had gone to bed, he crept into Elaine’s room and curled on the foot of her bed. He was so quiet that she rarely knew he was there until she woke in the morning. Then they ate hurried breakfast and together walked the few short blocks to school.

  After school, Elaine read to Mr. Seward or helped Kay in the kitchen. Her evenings were spent in schoolwork, trying to catch up with the others in her grade. The weekends were the most difficult time of all. Howie was rarely at home, and Elaine, with more free time than ever before, found herself reflecting.

  She missed her mother more than ever. Elaine listened to the girls in her class talk about weekend shopping trips to Manhattan. She watched the way they walked with their mothers, leaning in close to share a confidence, the way their mothers smoothed a stray hair or straightened a bow. And she longed for that careless intimacy.

  CHRISTMAS, 1919

  On Steuben Street, Christmas meant a special dinner and a single gift. At the Gossleys’, Christmas was complicated. May took decorating seriously. She attacked the holiday with the same single-minded force she turned toward poverty or illiteracy. They strung garlands, ordered Christmas cards, and hosted charity teas.

  A week before Christmas, Mr. Gossley staggered home under the weight of a ten-foot Christmas tree. Howie and his father spent an evening clipping candleholders to the stately limbs while Mrs. Theilen, with a bucket of water at her side, fretted about setting the house on fire. It felt disloyal to be enjoying such a splendid Christmas. Caught between two worlds, her lost family and this house full of cheerful strangers, Elaine longed for old times with Mom and Pop on Steuben Street. Not even Howie could make her laugh.

  The only place Elaine felt at ease was in the routine of reading to Mr. Seward. As the steel worker strike flowed into its twelfth week, Mr. Seward raged that Bolsheviks engineered it to undermine the economy. Every time Elaine read the headlines, he’d grow red in the face.

  “The only one with enough gumption to do anything about these confounded aliens invading our country is Mr. Hoover. He should be president instead of Wilson.”

  Elaine smiled, happy to lose herself in his rants.

  SPRING, 1920

  By March, Elaine was ahead of most students in her grade. She’d made a friend, Sarah Mueller, and joined a choral singing group. She bobbed her hair with May’s full approval, and Mr. Seward never quite forgave her. Life on Steuben Street was fading.

  Stephen’s latest passion was baseball. He followed every game the Dodgers played, idolizing each and every player. But his favorite was an outfielder named Zack Wheat, who the fans called Buck. On May 4, the Dodgers beat the Braves at Ebbets Field in front of a sellout crowd, and Howie, with two friends from school, was there to see it. For days after Stephen followed Howie around begging for another play by play. That May, it had became legal to hold baseball games on a Sunday, which Howie declared was better than church any day.

  Even when he had to miss some of the live radio broadcasts, Stephen was at church. And Elaine attended faithfully to watch him assist Father Kearny as an altar boy. She wondered if God knew that she attended Mass more for Stephen’s sake than for the sake of her own soul, and if he did, did he mind? Each altar boy was required to memorize the words in Latin, and so Elaine and Stephen spent long evenings at the kitchen table while Stephen stumbled over the Latin words Suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus tuis . . . Every week she worried he’d forget the words.

  When she asked Stephen if he was nervous trying to remember everything, he looked at her strangely. “If I make a mistake, God won’t get mad at me, Lainey.”

  Obviously, Stephen understood all the church business better than she ever would.

  Chapter Forty

  AGAINST THE WIND

  SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA—AUGUST 1955

  Molly

  Fear shot through me like an electric shock. “Angus, what do you think you’re doing? Get down here right now!” But the wind swallowed my words as soon as they left my lips. I ran through the fence gate that opened onto the empty land behind our house. The barn was several yards off.

  Sometimes, as smart as he is, my brother had no common sense. I could see rope hanging from a roof rafter. They must have used that rope to lift the enormous wings. The two boys teetered on the ridgeline; I planted myself right in their line of vision and cupped my hands around my mouth. “Down! Now! Before you kill yourself!”

  I could see them conferring. I wanted to run back to the house to get Uncle Stephen, but if I left, Angus might jump. I had to hold my ground. When the wind shifted direction, I heard Robert’s voice as clearly as if he was standing next to me.

>   “I’ll do it. Let me try the wings!”

  I shook my head no, but the conversation didn’t involve me.

  “I’m going to prove it to you!” he shouted at me. “God wants me alive.” He reached out and tugged at one wing.

  For another long minute, the two boys argued while I screamed at them to come down. And then screamed for Uncle Stephen, for the faithful, for God to do something. By that point Angus was shrugging off the wings. The wind caught them like a giant sail. He slipped sideways and grabbed the roof ridge with one hand. I ran toward the house. The back door was locked. I pounded with both fists. Kicked the door and screamed.

  When I looked to the barn, Robert had turned his back toward my brother and spread his arms. Angus had now righted himself on the roof and fought against the wind to strap them on. They stretched at least six feet from each shoulder, and a wooden bar went straight across Robert’s chest. He leaned forward.

  What had I done?

  The roof of the barn was higher than the second story on a house. The faithful, the man in the blue car, and anyone else out in the noonday sun must have seen them too. I screamed. My feet rooted to the spot with fear.

  A glint of sun winked off Robert’s white hair. He spread his arms wide. A shadow rushed past me from behind, as Robert, face still titled toward the light, leapt from the roof of the barn.

  APRIL 1920

  ELAINE

  “Mind if I come in?” Howard leaned against the doorjamb of Elaine’s room.

  At the sound of his voice, Elaine looked up from her book and self-consciously tugged the covers higher. How long had he been standing there?

  “Of course not, come in.”

  “Good. Saw your light was still on.” He sat on the side of her bed and kicked off his shoes. “It looks like everyone else has gone to bed. Is it that late?”

  “Almost midnight. I was reading.” She looked pointedly at her book, but pulled her feet up so there’d be more room.

  “I went into town this afternoon to see the Woolworth Building. It’s the tallest building in the world—seven hundred ninety-two feet. Amazing.”

  Elaine laid her book across her knees. “I wish I could see it.”

  “I’ll take you there one day. It was designed by Cass Gilbert. I’m going to design buildings like that someday.”

  The small circle of light etched Howie’s face with shadows. Even in the dimness, Elaine knew his eyes were glowing; she could hear it in his voice.

  “Of course you are—the finest buildings in the world.”

  He laughed. “I wish everyone believed in me like you do.”

  “How do you know I don’t take pity on all boys with big dreams?”

  “Oh, I’m a boy now? That’s not what Sally thinks.”

  “That’s because she doesn’t know you as well as I do.”

  “Nobody knows me as well as you do.” Howie rested one arm on her tented knees. “One day I’m going to design skyscrapers for a living in Manhattan, and then I’m going to study in Europe. Want to come with me?”

  For a breathless second, she let herself imagine his request was real.

  Howie leaned across her knees and ran his fingers through her bob. The book slid into the covers. “This suits you, you know. I bet you’re the prettiest girl at your school.”

  Elaine closed her eyes. She liked the play of his fingers in her hair, brushing against her neck. She inhaled the scent of cigarettes, aftershave, something warm and musky.

  “How many boys are after you? Besides me, that is?”

  Elaine lowered her knees. His eyes sought out hers.

  “Come here.” Howie pulled her toward him until his eyelashes brushed her cheeks and ran his finger over the outline of her mouth. She tasted salt on his lips, felt his breath on her cheek. His lips parted with a low groan.

  The second kiss was like she imagined it would be.

  On the surface, their relationship didn’t change. But Howie became a frequent late-night visitor. He painted a future she learned by heart, describing buildings in such detail that Elaine felt as if she walked inside them.

  “I bet you didn’t know that the first steel frame building was the Wainwright in St. Louis.”

  “Not until you told me.”

  He lifted her chin, balancing it in the palm of his hand, and looked directly into her eyes. “It takes steel to make a really tall building. I’m going to design one taller than the Woolworth, just see if I don’t. I’ll get a job working for McKim, Mead, and White or Carrère and Hastings until I start my own firm.” Then he frowned and cocked his head to one side. “Why do I always want to kiss you?”

  “Because I’m irresistible?” Elaine rubbed her hand against the stubble of his cheek while she imagined what it would be like to be an architect’s wife in a fancy dress at the dedication of a building.

  No matter what happened in the world of school, Howie’s heart belonged to her. When he asked her about her plans for the future, she had little to say. Her future was bound to his, and his was bound to her. She didn’t need to imagine anything else.

  Chapter Forty-One

  GRADUATION

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK—JUNE TO AUGUST 1920

  ELAINE

  Howie was accepted at Cornell, the college of his father and grandfather, and was expected to pledge to a fraternity. While Mr. Gossley took to reminiscing over meals about parties on the hill, even though Howie wouldn’t be leaving until mid-August, May fussed over the appropriate clothes for a college man. Because the college allowed both women and blacks, she was pleased with Howard’s choice.

  Elaine listened as if they were describing a foreign land. No one she knew went to college. And Cornell was in Ithaca, miles from Brooklyn.

  The high school graduation ceremony took place on a Saturday in early June. May said it was for families only and that Elaine and Stephen shouldn’t expect them back for dinner. Howie left the house wearing a new black suit with spats and a white rosebud in his lapel. The Gossleys and Mr. Seward returned hours later without him.

  Elaine lay awake expecting that he would stop in her room as he often did, tell her about the ceremony, describe the parties afterward. The handkerchiefs she’d embroidered with his name were wrapped in fine tissue and ready next to her pillow. At two, she heard footsteps in the hall. They never paused outside her door. She lay on her back staring at the ceiling, counting the fine cracks in the plaster, while her hand, as if it had a life of its own, searched the blanket and closed around the tissue-wrapped present. She balled it in her fist, and without sitting up tossed it under the bed. It was natural to want to celebrate with his friends. He was doing what anyone would do. But college became her enemy. It was a rival, a siren, seducing him away from her. Long after Howie resumed his nighttime confidences, the handkerchiefs collected dust in the empty space beneath the bed.

  “I’m going to try out for field hockey. Dad played all four years.”

  “Will you still remember me when you’re away at school?” The word college still stuck in her throat.

  “Of course I will. Didn’t I say that nobody knows me better than you?”

  Elaine pressed close to his side, resting her chin on his shoulder. “When will you come home?”

  “Only on holidays, I expect. Ithaca’s halfway across the state, and I won’t have a car the first year.”

  The car argument was still a point of contention. Mr. Seward insisted that the train was all that was necessary for a freshman, adding that a car might be considered for his second year depending on his performance. Howie countered that everyone he knew was taking a car for the freshman year.

  “If that’s the case, it should be easy for you to get rides home.” Mr. Seward was immovable.

  “Perhaps after the first semester—” May suggested.

  “May, since the car will be purchased with my money, I will be the one to make that call.” And Mr. Seward closed his eyes to signal the end of the conversation.

  Now Elaine t
ried to memorize Howie’s face in the light from the streetlamp—the red birthmark mapping his cheek, the upward tilt of his mouth even when he wasn’t smiling, the way his hair curled over the tops of his ears. Life at the Gossleys’ would go on, but with all of the color and energy gone. Just as her life had always gone on.

  “Maybe I could visit you sometime.” Elaine sought his eyes, but they were hidden in the shadows. Could he hear the thin wire of hope that vibrated in her question?

  “Maybe. I think they have a family day in the fall.”

  Howie was receding right in front of her. It was possible, she had learned, for someone to be there and gone at the same time. Or there and already leaving. Despair crested like waves. She turned her face toward the window.

  “What’s so interesting out there?” Howie peered over her shoulder.

  Elaine’s shoulders began to shake.

  “Are you crying?”

  Elaine couldn’t speak. Instead, she buried her head on his shoulder. Her sobs were loud and guttural. She cried for all the leavings in her life, but for herself most of all.

  Howie stroked her hair. “It’s only July; I’m not leaving until August.” Lifting her face with one hand, Howie brushed his thumb across her cheek. Elaine dug her fingers into his shoulders, clinging to him with the strength of the drowning.

  “Stop.” He brushed her eyes with his lips. “You’re too pretty to cry so much.”

  She shook her head. The wall, the one she’d so carefully constructed after Pop’s death, was shattering.

  Howie’s next words were a soothing mumble against the hollow of her throat. Trembling, Elaine locked her hands behind his neck and pulled him down.

  In October 1920, exactly forty-two days after Howie left—fifteen days before her sixteenth birthday—Elaine accepted she might be pregnant. If accepting meant giving a name to the fear that almost swallowed her whole. She had suspected something was wrong by the end of September, since she hadn’t bled that month or the last. It had been easy to believe she was ill. The sight of certain foods made her stomach turn and smells were even worse. She’d picked her birthday at the end of October as a deadline. By then her body should have righted itself. But her birthday came and went. The only change was that her breasts ached. There was no denying what was happening inside her now. There was no one to talk with, and nothing else she could think about. Most important of all, Stephen mustn’t find out.