He layered his fingers over hers, snug to his chest, as if to prevent her from floating away.
“Gene?” she said, leaning closer.
For several seconds he gazed at their hands, then into her eyes. Softly he replied, “We’ll buy it.”
She stared at him, disbelieving. “We’ll buy . . .”
“The house.”
“But–I thought-you haven’t-” She dropped her chin. “You’re not teasing me, are you?”
His lips curved into a smile, and he shook his head.
Vivian covered her mouth to keep a squeal from waking Judith. Like their toddler at supper, giddiness poured through her. She planted kisses on Gene’s cheeks, then lips, and it didn’t take long for those kisses to intensify. When at last she drew her head back, their breaths were equally ragged.
“So, what’s that you were saying?” he asked. “About a new bedroom to fill?”
She gave a shrug. “I thought a sewing room might be nice.”
“Sewing, huh?”
“Or a storage room. You know, for Judith’s old clothes and toys.” She worked to keep a straight face. “Unless you had another suggestion.”
She had barely finished her sentence when he rolled her onto her back. Her giggle became a soft moan from the feel of his mouth-on her neck, her shoulder, her chest-and the pressure of his body covering hers. His kisses then slowed, so sensual they made each of her toes curl. “I’ve got a few ideas,” he whispered, and he slid her nightgown upward.
In a daze from their night together, Vivian waded less than efficiently through the morning routine. She dribbled apple juice on Judith’s dress, added cream to her own coffee-she always drank it black-and fried Gene’s egg to a crisp. Not that he minded much. At the front door, his good-bye kiss made clear he had other things on his mind, like ways to demonstrate more of his ideas.
Returning from the entry, she asked Judith, “Are you ready for some toast, lovey bug?”
“Yep, yep, yep.” In the high chair, the girl had covered her tray with applesauce designs.
Vivian knew she should reprimand her for playing with her food, but Judith’s toothy grin won out. “Whatever am I going to do with you?” Vivian said with a smile. She grabbed a dishrag from the counter and discovered Gene had forgotten his lunch pail.
Apparently Vivian was not the only one distracted.
“I have to go catch Daddy,” she said, snagging the container. “You stay here in your seat.”
“I go too!” Judith stretched her arms and leaned over the chair, willing to dive headfirst. Tenacity was clearly a trait Vivian had handed down.
“Okay, okay. We need to hurry, though.” No time to fetch a sweater. With Judith on her hip, she sped out the door, through the building, and into the sunlight. Gene was already two blocks down. “Gene, wait!” she yelled.
“Gene, wait!”Judith parroted, loud enough to turn him.
Vivian raised the black lunch pail, summoning him back. Against the morning chill she held Judith close as Gene returned. He bypassed the metal pail to tickle Judith’s side. “Who you callin’ Gene, missy?”
Judith gleefully wiggled, making Vivian laugh. “Go on, now, Captain. You don’t want to be late.”
He smiled and kissed them both but stopped short of leaving. “Say, Vivi, why don’t we take a trip? Just the two of us. Get away for a while.”
“Well, I’d love to ... but Judith, she’s so young.”
“Oh, she’d be fine with my sister. They adore each other. Don’t you, Jujube?”
Judith was too busy licking applesauce from her fingers to reply.
Suddenly Vivian recalled last night’s discussion. “So, yesterday we were watching every dime, and now we’re the Rockefellers?”
“I wasn’t thinking of Paris, for Pete’s sakes. Somewhere like . . . Manchester, or Cape Cod. A cozy inn with candlelit dinners, strolls on the beach.”
“In the middle of March,” she said. “A little cold, don’t you think?”
“It’d be plenty warm in our room.”
She pressed down a rising smile. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good. I’ll help pack when I get home,” he said, and with pail in hand he resumed his walk toward the streetcar.
“I didn’t say–,” she started, but finished with a groan. She looked at Judith and laughed to herself. “And here I was thinking you got your stubbornness from me. Good grief. Tell your incorrigible daddy good-bye.”
“Bye-bye, Daddy!” Judith waved her sticky fingers.
He turned to wink and disappeared around the corner.
“All right,” Vivian said, “let’s go finish breakfast.” She adjusted the girl’s weight to prevent her from sliding down, and headed for the apartment. “How about we bake some muffins today? And we could write letters to Grandma and Grandpa. You remember they’re coming to see you in a few weeks.” It could have been Vivian’s imagination, or just hopeful thinking, but the couple actually seemed more compatible than ever.
“I wanna chocolate!”
“Oh, you do, now? That sounded a lot like a royal order. How about we rephrase that into ...”
A man at the end of the block stood beside a parked black Ford, staring in her direction. Something about him withered her words. She used her free hand to shade her eyes from the sun, and her heart stalled mid-beat. The embodiment of her past peered back from the eyes of a suited fellow with a head of blond curls. A face she had once known. Features stored deep in the well of her memory. It was a reflection of the impossible.
“Mommy?” Judith tugged the chest of her apron. But Vivian could not move. Her legs were ancient redwoods rooted to the earth.
A minute passed, maybe an hour, a century. There was no sound, no motion, until the driver stepped out of the car. He tapped a shoulder of the blond man and, after a pause, guided him into the backseat. The door closed and engine revved. And as the car started away, what appeared to be slate-gray eyes gazed out from the rear window.
65
Audra could still see the shocked expression in her mind. The way the girl’s face had hardened when Audra, in a desperate free fall, had denied Isabella affirmation of heaven. More than a month had passed since then, yet the little girl’s reaction neglected to fade from Audra’s memory. In fact, it had gained clarity in the last two days, following Luanne’s confession.
Maybe it was the woman’s talk of “unfinished business” that revived thoughts of Isabella. Maybe the whispers from Audra’s conscience were easier to hear, or harder to silence, when surrounded by the quiet of night.
Either way, she heard them now, sitting on the side of Jack’s bed. Light from the hall slanted a soft beam into the room as she caressed her son’s hair. The air contained a sleepy scent that Audra wished she could bottle.
Jack appeared so serene curled up with his pillow, calm after the fright of his nightmare. His stillness reminded her of a glassy lake at dawn. Its surface offered a different view for each person who stole a peek. She wasn’t necessarily convinced about the link between Jack and Gene, but then, there was no reason she had to agree. As promised, regardless, she would bring her son to visit Luanne before the move to Boston.
Boxes around the bedroom, packed with half of Jack’s belongings, reminded her how soon that would come. Of course they would be back, to visit friends and family. But in a matter of weeks they would call a new place home.
Tomorrow, then. Sunday was as good as any day to reach out to Isabella—if the family would allow it. Audra had no script planned aside from an apology. She imagined Luanne had approached Judith with similar preparation. There were aspects of life, no matter your efforts, that appeared set on a particular course.
That wasn’t to say Audra saw everything as predestined or orchestrated in detail by an almighty power. Upon review of her life, however, neither could she claim that everything happened by chance. That much she knew merely by the sight before her. For as she gazed at Jack’s face while listening to the gen
tle rhythm of his breaths, her love for him went far beyond science. Or logic. Or provable theories in any book.
Overflowing. That’s what Devon had called the type of love he felt the minute Jack was born. It was the feeling of your heart expanding, brimming to such fullness that the seams could split in your chest.
“You were right,” she whispered, savoring the stretch of that emotion now. “Overflowing is exactly the word.” She spoke this into the darkness, and though she might never know for sure, she sensed that somewhere, somehow, Devon heard her and smiled.
A sprinkling fell through the morning, but by noon more than half the sky shone blue. It seemed to be a good omen, as Isabella’s mother had been warm and forgiving on the phone and agreed to let Audra stop by. Such welcoming acceptance made more sense toward the end of the conversation, when the woman mentioned that Tess had long ago explained the gist of Audra’s loss.
At the family’s house, the mother ushered Audra and Jack inside. “Come in, come in,” she said with the gentle lilt of her accent. She wiped her hands on her apron and yelled up the stairs, “Mija, the doctor is here now!”
The pair of matching Shih Tzus pounced around Jack’s feet, little pink tongues hanging out. In the living room, Isabella’s two younger brothers, maybe six and eight years old, were playing a race-car game on the TV. A waft of hot spices traveled from the kitchen.
When Isabella didn’t appear, the mother shook her head. “I’m sorry. She knows you are coming. I will bring her down.”
Under the circumstances, Audra hated the idea of ejecting the girl from her comfort zone. “Would it be better if I went up to see her?”
The woman considered this and smiled. “Jes. I think so. It is the room on the left.” She turned to Jack. “Would you like to play with the boys?”
Jack’s gaze was already locked on the game, which made the activity an easy sell.
“I’ll just be a few minutes, buddy,” Audra said. “Then we’ll grab some lunch.”
“Can we get a treat?” he asked her.
“We’ll see.”
He nodded and followed the mother toward her sons, who were giggling over deliberately crashing their vehicles.
Audra ventured up the carpeted stairs. She stopped at the partially open door, where a handmade poster spelled out Isabella in glitter glue.
“Isabella?” She gave a knock before poking her head inside. “May I come in?”
Propped against her ruffled pillows, the girl sat on her bed with a sketch pad. She shrugged her indifference without looking up from the picture she was drawing.
Audra perched on the side of the mattress and glimpsed the artwork. It featured a young girl, with a black bob like Isabella’s, on the back of a stallion in a green pasture. “Wow, that’s really pretty.”
Isabella didn’t reply, her eyes on the paper.
“Do you like to ride horses?”
The girl shrugged again, pressing harder with her brown colored pencil. “I can’t till I’m twelve. My mom thinks they’re too big.”
“Yeah, I can understand that.” The same thing had concerned Audra when Tess invited Jack to ride her sister-in-law’s thoroughbred.
Audra considered mentioning the animal now, as a means of conversation, but foresaw a dead end. She would get to the point.
“Isabella, I came here today to tell you that, well ... what I said to you about heaven ...”
Annoyance rolled over Isabella’s face. She had no interest in the stock apology that was surely forthcoming, or a feigned reversal in religious stance.
Audra couldn’t blame her.
“The fact is,” Audra finished, “I meant it.”
Isabella snapped her head up, her attention undivided.
“At least, I did at the time. You see, a few years ago, someone I loved very much died, and it made me doubt a lot of things I used to believe in. I was angry and sad that it happened because it didn’t seem fair. But, after a while, I had to look closely at those beliefs again and decide, for me, what had been true all along.”
Isabella lowered her sketch pad while gnawing on her lip. “So ... you really do think there’s a heaven?”
Audra debated on how to respond. If referring to a holy place in the sky with pearly gates and cherubs and angels soaring on feathery wings, she couldn’t in all honesty say yes. On the other hand, she had learned there was more to our world than what any of us could see or fully comprehend.
That’s when it hit her: Maybe heaven was much like a lake at dawn, offering a different view depending on the person. Maybe heaven entailed more than a soul residing in a single place but instead having pieces of yourself spread among the hearts and memories of people you’ve touched.
With this in mind, Audra reexamined her personal beliefs, and indeed she found her answer.
“To be perfectly honest,” she said, looking Isabella in the eye,
“I really do.”
A slow smile spread across the girl’s lips. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Me too.”
As Audra drove away, an internal radiance filled her from recapturing a sense of certainty. This in itself seemed cause for celebration.
On a whim, skipping a sensible lunch, she steered the car into a parking lot and pulled into an empty spot. The neon sign of the donut shop glowed vibrant red in the window.
“Mom?” Jack said from the backseat. “Are we going here?” The suppression of hope rang clear in his voice. She twisted around to face him.
“You and I,” she declared, “are having dessert first.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Jack’s face beamed, though with a touch of disbelief that kept him in his seat.
“The donuts here don’t come to the car, buddy. Better get in there before they run out.”
That was all it took to send Jack clambering out of the vehicle. At the counter inside, they ordered an apple fritter for her, a sprinkled donut for him, and a maple bar to share. To wash it down, they drank from squatty milk bottles, but not before Audra challenged him to a bubble-blowing contest with their straws. When he giggled over his win, Audra could swear she heard an echo of Devon’s laugh, and it only broadened her smile.
Once they finished and were wiping their hands with napkins, Audra thought of Judith and how much, as a young girl, she must have craved knowledge about her parents. Audra decided right then; she would never again rob Jack of that gift.
“Baby, I want you to know,” she said, “if you ever want to ask about your dad, or hear stories about him, or anything like that ... I want you to say so. Okay?”
After a pause, he nodded and his eyes regained the faintest trace of an old, sweet glimmer.
Together they disposed of their garbage and exited through the glass doors. Outside, a couple of kids were fawning over a woman’s Maltese, its hair trimmed in a puppy cut. Audra caught Jack watching with a smile—though how could he not, with a dog so cute it appeared to require batteries?
A canine companion might be good for Jack one day. Not a rush. Just something to consider.
They had just reached the car when Audra heard a buzzing in her purse. She retrieved her phone and recognized the number.
It belonged to Taylor Shuman.
Though with reservations, Audra answered the call.
“Audra, I’m so glad I reached you,” Taylor replied. “I have some news about Jakob Hemel.”
“Actually, Taylor, I’m not sure we need any more information.”
Due to either the cell connection or the woman’s enthusiasm, Taylor continued as if she hadn’t heard. “We did some more searching, me and my friend at the museum. We were trying to figure out why Jakob disappeared. Audra,” she said, “I know what happened to him.”
66
This time around, Vivian didn’t bother with trying to reach Agent Gerard on the telephone. She went straight to Foley Square to confront him face-to-face.
“Ah, this must be your little one,” he said in greeting
after opening his office door. He wore suspenders over his white shirt, his tie loosened and sleeves rolled up. His hair had receded a tad more over the past three years.
This was the first that Vivian had seen him since their meeting on Binnen Bridge, but just like then, she had no interest in pleasantries.
“Judith, honey, go over and sit down for Mommy.”
As Agent Gerard closed the door, the girl bypassed the chair to investigate items on the desk. She knocked a cup of paper clips onto the floor, turning him around.
“Was it him?” Vivian asked.
The agent shifted his attention, perplexed.
“I saw a man this morning. A man who looked like Isaak was outside our apartment.” She clenched her purse handle. “I need you to tell me I’m wrong. That he hasn’t been alive all this time.”
Agent Gerard dropped his shoulders. His skin paled, though surely not to the degree Vivian’s had that morning. He muttered to himself, “Those bastards had no business . . .” He shot a glare toward his door, as if meant to reach agents in another office.
The confirmation weakened Vivian’s knees, but only slightly. She already knew what she had seen. What she did not know was the reason for the lies. “For heaven’s sakes, just tell me the truth.”
He hitched his hands on the hips of his pin-striped trousers and glanced at Judith, who was now on her knees, playing with the shiny mound of paper clips. Finally he answered in the begrudging tone of having hoped to never have this conversation.
“When we brought Isaak in, he spilled it all. The details of their plans, the agents’ locations, their training and strategies. Everything we needed to shut down the ring.”
Vivian narrowed her eyes. “You told me he changed his mind. You said George Dasch was the one-”
“Dasch collaborated too. That’s the God’s honest truth. And Isaak was found guilty by a tribunal, in spite of me doing everything I could to help. His family was taken care of, like I promised. But in the end, they still slapped him with fifteen years in the pen.”
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