by Sarah Jio
He nestled his head against my chest. “Mama sing a song?”
I nodded, smoothing his blond hair against his forehead, marveling at how much he looked like his father. If only Charles were here. I quickly dismissed the thought, the fantasy, and began to sing. “Hushaby, don’t you cry, go to sleep, little Daniel. When you wake, you shall take, all the pretty little horses.” The words passed my lips and soothed us both.
I sang four verses, just enough for Daniel’s eyelids to get heavy, before I carried him to his bed, nestling him under the quilt once again.
His face clouded with worry when he eyed my black dress and white pinafore. “Don’t go, Mama.”
I cupped his chin. “It will only be for a little while, my darling,” I said, kissing each of his cheeks, soft and cool on my lips.
Daniel buried his face in his bear, rubbing his nose against its button nose the way he’d done since infancy. “I don’t want to.” He paused, his three-year-old mind trying hard to summon the right words. “I scared when you go.”
“I know, my love,” I said, fighting the tears that threatened. “But I have to go. Because I love you. You’ll understand that someday.”
“Mama,” Daniel continued, looking to the window, where, behind the glass, the wind gathered strength. “Eva says ghosts come out at night.”
My eyes widened. Caroline’s daughter possessed an imagination that belied her three-and-a-half years. “What is Eva telling you now, dear?”
Daniel paused, as though contemplating whether to answer. “Well,” he said cautiously, “when we’re playing, sometimes people look at us. Are they ghosts?”
“Who, dear?”
“The lady.”
I knelt down to level my eyes with his. “What lady, Daniel?”
He scrunched his nose. “At the park. I don’t like her hat, Mama. It has feathers. Did she hurt a bird? I like birds.”
“No, love,” I said, vowing to speak to Caroline about Eva’s stories. I suspected they were the root of Daniel’s nightmares of late.
“Daniel, what did Mama tell you about talking to strangers?”
“But I didn’t talk to her,” he said, wide-eyed.
I smoothed his hair. “Good boy.”
He nodded, nestling his head in his pillow with a sigh. I tucked his bear into the crook of his arm. “See, you’re not alone,” I said, unable to stop my voice from cracking. I hoped he didn’t notice. “Max is here with you.”
He pressed the bear to his face again. “Max,” he said, smiling.
“Good night, love,” I said, turning to the door.
“G’night, Mama.”
I closed the door quietly, and then heard a muffled “Wait!”
“Yes, love?” I said, poking my head through the doorway.
“Kiss Max?” he said.
I walked back to the bed and knelt down as Daniel pressed the bear against my lips. “I love you, Max,” I whispered as I walked back to the door. “And I love you, Daniel. More than you’ll ever know.”
I tiptoed downstairs, put another log in the fireplace, said a silent prayer, and walked out the front door, locking it behind me. It was only one shift. I’d be home before sunup. I turned back to the door, then shook my head, reassuring myself. It was the only way. He’d be safe. Safe and sound.
Chapter 2
CLAIRE ALDRIDGE
Seattle, May 2, present day
My eyes shot open and I pressed my hand against my belly. There, that tugging pain in my abdomen again. What had Dr. Jensen called it? Yes, a phantom pain—something about my body’s memory of the trauma. Phantom or not, I lay there feeling the familiar, lonely ache that had greeted me each morning for the past year. I paused to acknowledge the memory, wondering, the way I did every day when the alarm clock sounded, how I could bring myself to get up, to get dressed—to act like a normal human being, when I only wanted to curl up into a ball and take Tylenol PM to obliterate all feeling.
I rubbed my eyes and squinted at the clock: 5:14 a.m. I lay still and listened as the wind unleashed its rage against the exterior of our fourteenth-floor apartment. I shivered and pulled the duvet up around my neck. Even Siberian down couldn’t cut the chill. Why is it so cold? Ethan must have turned down the thermostat—again.
“Ethan?” I whispered, reaching my arm out to his side of the king-size bed, but the sheets were cold and stiff. He’d gone to work early, again.
I stood up and retrieved my robe from the upholstered blue-and-white-striped chair next to the bed. The phone rang persistently, and I made my way out to the living room. The apartment’s wraparound windows provided views of Seattle’s Pike Place Market below, and of Elliott Bay, with its steady stream of incoming and outgoing ferries. The day we toured the apartment, four years ago, I’d told Ethan it felt like we were floating in the air. “Your castle in the sky,” he had said three weeks later, handing me a shiny silver key.
But it wasn’t the familiar view that captivated me that morning. In fact, there was no view. It was all…white. I rubbed my eyes to get a closer look at the scene outside the double-paned glass. Snow. And not just a few flurries—a genuine blizzard. I looked at the calendar on the wall near my desk, shaking my head in confusion. A snowstorm on May 2? Unbelievable.
“Hello,” I muttered into the phone, finally silencing its ring.
“Claire!”
“Frank.” My boss at the newspaper, yes, but at this early hour, my greeting lacked polite professionalism.
“Are you looking out your window?” A dedicated editor, Frank was often at his desk before sunrise, while I usually stumbled into the office around nine. And that was on a good day. The features department didn’t foster the same sense of urgency that the news desk did, and yet Frank behaved as if profiles of local gardeners and reviews of children’s theater productions were pressing, vital matters. His staff, including me, could hardly object. Frank’s wife had died three years ago, and ever since, he’d thrown himself into his work with such intensity, I sometimes suspected that he slept in his office.
“You mean the snow, right?”
“Yes, the snow! Can you believe this?”
“I know,” I said, examining the balcony, where the wrought-iron table and chairs were dusted in white. “I guess the forecasters missed this one.”
“They sure did,” Frank said. I could hear him thumbing through papers on his desk. “Here it is—the forecast, as printed in today’s paper: ‘Cloudy, high of fifty-nine, chance of light rain.’”
I shook my head. “How can this even happen? It’s almost summer—at least, last I checked it was.”
“I’m not a meteorologist, but I know it’s rare. We’ve got to cover it.” Frank’s voice had all the hallmarks of an editor hot on the trail of a story.
I yawned. “Don’t you think it’s more of news’s beat? Wait, unless you want me to do a piece on the city’s snowmen.”
“No, no,” Frank continued. “It’s a much bigger story. Claire, I’ve been going through old files, and you’ll never believe what I found.”
“Frank,” I said, fumbling with the thermostat. I turned it up to seventy-five. Ethan hated wasting energy. “It’s not even six a.m. How long have you been in the office?”
He ignored my question. “This isn’t the first time Seattle’s seen a storm like this.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right, it snowed in January, didn’t it?”
“Claire,” he continued, “no, listen. A late-season snowstorm hit on this very same date in 1933.” I heard more paper shuffling. “The timing is uncanny. Some eighty years ago, an identical storm—a massive blizzard—completely shut down the city.”
“It’s interesting,” I said, feeling the urge to make a cup of hot cocoa and head back to bed. “But I still don’t understand why this is a feature story. Shouldn’t Debbie in news be covering this? Remember, she covered last year’s freak tornado in South Seattle?”
“Because it’s bigger than that,” he said. “Think about it. Tw
o snowstorms, sharing one calendar date, separated by nearly a century? If you don’t call that feature-worthy, I don’t know what is, Claire.”
I could detect the boss tone creeping into his voice, so I relented. “Word count and deadline?”
“You’re right about news,” he said. “They’ll tackle today and tomorrow, but I’d like a bigger piece, an exposé of the storm then and now. We’ll devote the entire section to it. I can give you six thousand words, and I’d like it by Friday.”
“Friday?” I protested.
“You won’t have to look hard for sources,” he continued. “I’m sure there’s a trove of material in the archives. Your angle can be: ‘The storm’s great return.’”
I smirked. “You make it sound like it’s a living thing.”
“Who knows?” Frank said. “Maybe it’s a prompt to look back in time. To see what we missed….” His voice trailed off.
“Frank,” I said, sighing, “your sentimentality about weather is adorable, but don’t get too excited. I’m still wondering how I’m going to write six thousand words on snowmen.”
“Blackberry winter,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry?”
“The storm,” he continued. “It’s called a blackberry winter. It’s what meteorologists call a late-season cold snap. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“I guess,” I said, flipping the wall switch to the gas fireplace. Frank’s weather lesson had me craving a slice of warm blackberry pie. “If nothing else, we’ll have a great headline.”
“And hopefully a great story, too,” he said. “See you in the office.”
“Frank, wait—have you seen Ethan this morning?” My husband, the paper’s managing editor, beat me to work most days, but he had been starting his mornings progressively earlier.
“Not yet,” he said. “It’s just me here, and a few folks in news. Why?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said, trying to hide the emotion I felt. “I was just worried about him getting in all right, with the snow and all.”
“Well, you be careful out there,” he said. “Fifth Avenue is an ice skating rink.”
I hung up the phone and looked down to the street below, squinting to make out two figures, a father and his young child, engaged in a snowball fight.
I pressed my nose against the window, feeling the cold glass against my skin. I smiled, taking in the scene before my breath fogged up the pane. A blackberry winter.
Chapter 3
VERA
“You’re late,” Estella said, eyeing me from behind her gray steel desk when I walked into the maids’ quarters at the Olympic. A single lightbulb dangled from a wire in the dimly lit basement room. She nodded toward a mound of freshly laundered white linens in urgent need of folding.
“I know,” I said apologetically. “I’m so sorry. The streetcar was late, and just before I left I had a confrontation with my—”
“I’m not interested in your excuses!” she barked. “The fifth-floor suites need cleaning, and quick. We have a group checking in tonight. Dignitaries. The work must be done fast and with attention to detail. And watch your corners on the beds. Yesterday they were sloppy, and I had to send Wilma in to remake them all.” She sighed and returned to the paperwork in front of her.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said, stowing my purse in a cabinet and tightening my apron before heading to the service elevator. “I’ll do better.”
“And Vera,” Estella said, “you didn’t bring the boy again, did you?” She craned her neck as if she expected to find him hiding under my skirt.
“No, ma’am,” I muttered, suddenly wondering if I’d left a water glass out for Daniel. Did I? Will he be thirsty? I repressed the thought as Estella’s eyes bore into me.
“Good,” she said. “Because if you mistake Seattle’s finest hotel for a nursery school again, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to give your job to any number of women who would love to have it. You ought to be grateful to be gainfully employed when so many people aren’t.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I am very grateful. It won’t happen again.”
“Very well,” she said, gesturing toward a silver tray that held two enormous slices of chocolate cake and a champagne bottle. If only Daniel could have a slice of chocolate cake. I made a mental note to scrape together tip money to make him one. Every child deserved a taste of cake, even poor children. “Take that up to room 503,” she said. “Manuel’s out on another delivery. It’s for an important guest, so look smart about it, won’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, wheeling the cart out the door.
As the service elevator pushed upward, I studied the cake—dark chocolate, with fudge wedged between each layer—and the bottle of French bubbly, its label printed with exotic words I did not understand. I felt a pang of hunger, but willed myself to look away from the cake. With any luck, I’d come across a bit of cheese or a dinner roll in one of the rooms I cleaned that night. Last week I found a steak sandwich. It had been nibbled at the edge, but I didn’t mind, having not eaten at all that day.
I steadied the cart when the elevator came to an abrupt stop, wincing as the champagne flutes clinked together, narrowly avoiding toppling to the ground. What would Estella say if I broke them? I pushed the car out into the hallway, nodding at a fashionable couple walking by. They ignored me. Where are they going? To the theater? The opera? It was easy to get lost in fanciful dreams working at a hotel, and to pass the time, I permitted myself to think about what it might be like to lie in a bed of freshly pressed linens and fluffed pillows. While dusting the golden trim, I’d peek into closets and admire the couture clothing hanging within, the jewels spread across dresser tops, the perfume bottles that cost as much as six months’ rent. I once dabbed a little on my wrist, breathing in the exotic floral scent of wealth and luxury, until I thought of Estella, then quickly scrubbed with soap and water.
As I made my way through each suite, I’d dream up stories about the lives of the guests, always wondering what it would be like for me, for Daniel, if our circumstances were different.
I stopped at room 503 and knocked. Music played inside. Jazz, maybe. “Just a minute,” a female voice called out, followed by the sound of giggling.
Moments later the door opened and a beautiful woman appeared, about my age. Her breasts brimmed over the edge of a pale pink lace nightgown cinched tightly around her waist. Her short hair, dyed to a striking yellow blond, curled slightly at the ends, just like in the advertisements. When she looked down at the cart, I could see the dark of her natural color peeking through the roots. “Oh, goody,” she squealed, running her index finger along the edge of the cake and then licking it, ignoring my presence entirely. “Lon,” she cooed into the room, “you devil, you. You know champagne and chocolate is my weakness.”
I followed her inside. The air smelled of musky cologne, and my cheeks burned red when I noticed a half-clothed man lying in the bed. With the coverlet draped at his waist, he looked like a king propped up against a bevy of pillows. “Just set it over here by me, doll,” he said kindly, looking straight into my eyes. I turned away, embarrassed at the sight of his bare chest, tan and dewy, like he’d just exerted himself.
“Oh,” he said, grinning, beckoning me to hold eye contact with him. “Don’t be shy, sweetheart. Are you new here?”
“No, sir,” I said. “I mean, well, yes, sir. Just six months.”
The woman looked very annoyed by our exchange. “Lonnie,” she whined, “let me feed you some cake.”
“In a minute, Susie,” he said without taking his eyes off me. “I’m Lon Edwards. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you.” He extended his hand. The woman brooded.
I took it awkwardly, unsure of what to say, so I squeaked, “I’m Vera. Vera Ray.”
“Pleased to meet you, dear,” he said, tucking a crisp one-dollar bill into my apron pocket.
I stood back and curtsied. “Thank you, sir, er, Lon; I mean, Mr. Edwards.”
&nb
sp; “I hope to see you again,” he said, grinning, before turning his gaze back to Susie, who appeared starved for his attention—and the chocolate cake.
“Yes, sir,” I stammered. “Thank you, sir. Good night.”
As the door clicked closed behind me, I exhaled, just as I saw Gwen waiting for me in the hallway. Short, plump, with an unfortunate scar on her left cheek, she rarely frowned or complained, which is why I had taken to her immediately.
“Estella sent me up to help you with this floor,” she chirped. “Big group coming in. We have to work fast.” She grinned. “I see you’ve met Lon.”
I shrugged, patting my pocket. “He tips well.”
Gwen grinned. “He also has a thing for maids.”
“Gwen!” I puffed. “You’re not saying that I would—”
“No, no,” she said, poking my side playfully with the edge of her feather duster. “It’s just that the woman with him now—Susie—she used to work in housekeeping, before you started.”
“You mean, she was…?”
Gwen nodded. “Just like us. And now he keeps her in his suite, all fancy and made up, at his beck and call.”
My cheeks flushed at the thought. “How perfectly terrible.”
Gwen shrugged. “Susie doesn’t seem to think so. He gives her a hundred dollars a week, and access to his car and driver. Sure beats scrubbing the floors.”
“A hundred dollars a week?”
Gwen looked wistful. “A fortune.”
“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath and then exhaling away the thought. “I’d never put myself up for sale like that.”
Gwen shrugged. “Never say never,” she said as we keyed into the first of the eleven rooms that needed cleaning. “These are frightening times. So many people are hard on their luck. My eldest sister lives in Kansas. Her husband is out of work, and they have eight children. Eight mouths to feed. Imagine what she’d do to feed her family. I’m just grateful I only have my own piehole to look after.”