“Tell me. Tell me the truth! You lied this afternoon, didn’t you? You are my father, aren’t you?” She was shaking now.
Emma felt a hand on her shoulder. Someone stood behind her. She recognized the cologne. Boss Man.
“Come with me, Emma.”
Who is my father? Emma wanted to shout the question, but she was too shocked by Boss Man’s strong grip on her arm, leading her away from Filippo…to where? She soon got her answer as Boss Man led her across the back lot to a railroad car, a Pullman car with windows. A crow pecked at something on the ground near the railroad car and flew off as they approached.
“Go ahead,” Boss Man said. “Climb aboard.”
“Why?” she asked.
“You’ll see. Tell your dog to stay.”
“Stay, Lucky. I’ll be right back.”
Lucky stared at her with his large brown eyes and let out a small whine.
“I’m OK,” she said. “I’ll be right back. Stay.”
Inside the railroad car it was too dark to see much of anything, but the air felt damp and smelled musty. When her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, she saw men’s clothes on a hook, a pair of cowboy boots on the floor with a cowboy hat perched on top. She guessed this small room in the railroad car belonged to Boss Man. But why had he taken her here?
“Sit down,” he said, pointing to a narrow bunk.
She sat, while Boss Man reached up onto a shelf and pulled out a leather book the size of Nan’s scrapbook, the one filled with movie star photographs. He moved the single chair in the room in front of her and eased into it, flipping through the pages.
What was he looking for?
“Here,” he said, handing Emma a photograph that had been tucked between the pages. Boss Man switched on a lamp that sat on a small desk littered with papers.
Emma stared at the photograph. A young woman and young man sat together on a trapeze. She was wearing a feathered headband like the one hidden in Mother’s bureau. The girl, without a doubt, was a younger version of Mother and the young man was…Filippo. Emma’s eyes stung with tears. “So Filippo is my father. Why couldn’t he tell me?”
“That boy is your father, Emma. But he’s not Filippo.”
“What? You’re lying! That has to be Filippo!” She was so sick of all the lying, the secrets. All she wanted was the truth. Why wouldn’t anyone tell her the truth?
“That’s Paolo, Filippo’s brother. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Boss Man sat quiet for a moment as if to give her time to let his words sink in. “He and Sapphira…your mama…were in love. They had an adorable baby—you.”
Emma stared at the girl in the photograph, so happy, so young. At the movies, she’d seen girls in love. The girl’s face in the photograph, her own mother’s face, looked like those girls. And the young man? Did he love her back? And where was he now, her father, the man in the photograph?
“So, where is he? This man…my…father?” The words sounded strange to her ears.
Boss Man placed his hand over hers. It felt warm and leathery. “Gone, Emma. Dead.”
“Dead?” she felt the blood drain from her face.
“A circus accident. He was trying a new stunt. He asked for the net to be rolled back that night—”
“How could there not be a net?” she shouted.
“It was Paolo’s decision…to sell more tickets.”
She stared at the man in the photograph again—her very own father—doing something so stupid, so risky, so horrible that it caused his own death. How could he? And then she remembered the Kinzie River Bridge railing.
“This scrapbook belonged to your mama. I put the photograph of Paolo you showed me in it, too. Why don’t you take it to her?”
“I can’t.” Emma put her head in her hands. “Mother didn’t want me to know, but now I do. I can’t go home. Please let me stay here…with the circus.” She sat up and looked at Boss Man. “Let me have a chance. Please? I’m good at acrobatics. Filippo can teach me to fly. I learn fast. And you know I work hard.” She found the courage to look at Boss Man at last. And he looked at her…with that same look Granddad sometimes had, eyes soft, mouth hard.
Boss Man shook his head, his hand still on hers. “No. I’ve no doubt you could be anything you set your mind to be. But—”
“No! I can’t go home.”
“You belong with your mama and when you grow up—”
“Grow up? I am grown up!” As she said those words, she could feel herself wanting to sob like a baby. She was so tired, tired of fighting for every inch, and people pushing her back a mile. But she wouldn’t give in. She wasn’t a baby.
“Go home, Emma. Go home.”
Emma bent over and buried her face in her hands.
“Emma, I know this all comes as an awful shock to you. I’m sorry. I really am. But the truth of the matter is that your mama loves you more than you know. She could have given you up for strangers to raise or brought you back to the circus, but chose to go home to her father to bring you up proper. She never had a mama herself but wanted you to have one.”
This was all news to Emma. She never thought about why they lived with Granddad, about him not having a wife or her not having a Grandmother.
“Your arrival in this world, Emma, changed everything.”
Changed everything.
The whistle on the train sounded.
“The five-minute whistle,” Boss Man said. “You’ve got to go, Emma.”
She didn’t move. She couldn’t. Boss Man leaned over and wrapped his arms around her. They felt like Granddad’s and tears stung her eyes.
Then, as if she were two years old, Boss Man lifted her up and carried her off the train.
When her feet touched the ground, she wondered if her legs would hold her.
“You’re gonna be fine. And come next summer, if you feel the same way about the circus and you get your mama’s blessing…well, we’ll see.”
Steam began hissing from the engine and the whistle sounded again. Emma threw her arms around Boss Man. When she finally let go, he handed her the scrapbook. “Take this.”
Emma grasped the book, then turned around and ran, Lucky beside her.
Chapter Sixteen
Now What?
Emma found the bicycle and her boots where she had left them on the circus lot. She set the boots and the leather-bound scrapbook in the basket.
Now what? She watched the last circus train slowly disappear, heading south to the next town and the next show. With the back of her hand she brushed the tears off her cheeks. Boss Man had been so kind to her, so honest, more than Mother had been, and Filippo, was her very own uncle, a famous circus star. She couldn’t bear to think of them vanishing from her life, maybe for forever.
The sun had sunk low in the west and folks in Model-Ts, horse-drawn wagons, and on foot were heading to the lakeshore for the fireworks. Emma pedaled a block and stopped. She had to think. She leaned the bicycle against a bench at the edge of the bluff overlooking the lake and collapsed onto it. Lucky rested his head on her knees and stared up at her. “What am I going to do, Lucky?” she said, rubbing her hand across his soft fur.
The water that earlier had churned up white-capped waves was calm now. Only a few clouds lingered over the lake. The huge dome of the sky glowed a dusky blue, and the nearly full moon rose in the east. She thought about Boss Man and all that he had told her. It seemed like a dream. The whole day an illusion, some strange trick of her imagination. Still, Boss Man’s words echoed in her mind. Everything now started to make sense—why Mother didn’t want to talk about her father, why she had so easily learned to do cartwheels and back flips when the other kids struggled, why seeing the circus parade filled her with such longing. She was the daughter of circus people. The circus was in her blood. But would Mother let her do what sh
e had been born to do? Next July when the circus came to Racine would Boss Man let Filippo—her very own uncle—train her?
Mother! What would she do when she discovered Emma was missing this time? The thought made her scalp prickle and her stomach knot. She couldn’t bear another slap across the face. Still, she imagined she was in store for something far worse now. How could she face her mother ever again?
Unable to move, not knowing what to do, she sat watching the lake change color as the sun set, from burnt orange, to purple, to gray. She bent down to pick up a stone, so smooth and polished it shone. As she cupped her fingers around it, pressing it against her palm, something in the stone’s slippery coolness calmed her. Yes, her day had been a long string of lies and deceptions; still, in the end she had learned the truth. Had she the chance, would she have done things differently? No, she was glad she’d done what she had, for now she knew who she was and what she wanted. She drew back her arm and threw the stone as far as she could toward the water, then hopped back on the borrowed bicycle. “Come on, Lucky. Let’s go!” She pushed her bare feet hard against the pedals, suddenly no longer tired but filled with a fierce determination to set things right.
As she pedaled down Wisconsin Avenue, the streetlights flickered on. About half a block away, she spotted a boy running toward her.
“Hey, my bicycle!” he yelled. “You stole it!”
“I only borrowed it.”
“Yeah, right!” He grabbed the handle bar and jerked it hard. “Give me my bike.”
Emma lost her balance and tumbled to the gutter, the bicycle with her. Her boots and the leather scrapbook sailed from the basket onto the wet street.
“Hey, you’re a girl,” the boy sneered. “What happened to your hair? Did it get caught in a combine?”
Emma ignored his comment. She reached for the scrapbook lying near the rain-filled gutter. The boy got to it first. “What’s this?” he asked, picking up the brown leather book, its cover streaked with water.
A motor car rumbled by. A kid in the back seat hung his head out the window, staring at them.
“None of your business!” Emma shouted. She tried to grab the book from him, but he jerked it away. “Give me that!” she said. Lucky growled low in his throat.
The boy flipped through the pages of photos and news clippings, holding it out of her reach. A fury rose in Emma and she pounced on him like a wild animal. She landed so hard he lost his balance and fell onto the grass between the street and the sidewalk. Emma pounded him with her fists. Lucky clamped his teeth on the boy’s pant leg. Another motor car passed and honked at them.
“Oww! That hurts,” the boy whined. “Stop it! I’m not going to fight a girl, even if she is dressed like a boy. You can have your dumb book, you dirty little tomboy!”
Emma got up and grabbed the book out of the gutter, then looked over at the boy who slowly sat up.
“Come on, Lucky.” Emma marched down the sidewalk, the scrapbook and boots in hand. A more important battle lay ahead.
Chapter Seventeen
“It’s All Your Fault”
Dr. Rose’s backyard glowed with paper lanterns strung from trees. Some kids raced around waving sparklers. A few others were playing Simon Says. Grown-ups stood in clumps chatting, or lounged in the dozens of chairs that dotted the wide lawn overlooking the lake. The soft evening air echoed with laughter and conversation, as if this were any ordinary Fourth of July. Soon the fireworks would start—and not just, Emma feared, the ones exploding in the sky.
Emma surveyed the crowded backyard but didn’t see Mother.
Again, she felt the slap across her cheek and recalled the look on Mother’s face outside Filippo’s tent. Now that she thought about it, that look was more than just one of anger—Emma had seen Mother angry before. The expression on Mother’s face had been more like…what? Fear? And now Emma knew why.
As Emma waited, unseen, near the edge of the yard, a mosquito landed on her arm. She smacked it. How easy it was to kill a mosquito, but not before it left you with an itch you scratched till it got bloody. Emma scratched her arm and reached down to pet Lucky. Whatever happened, she would have Lucky. That thought gave her comfort and courage. Still, what was she going to say to Mother…and Mother to her…now that Emma had learned the truth, the truth Mother had tried so hard to keep from her?
As Emma started toward the lantern-lit lawn, a crow swooped from a tree and glided onto the grass a few feet in front of her, cocking its head toward her. She recalled the crow yesterday morning outside Brosky’s window where she had seen the poster, and the one that landed in front of Boss Man’s Pullman car. She clutched the scrapbook closer and stepped out of the shadows into the light. The crow flew off.
Nan spotted her first. “Emma!” she said, running to her.
“Look! It’s Emma!” Teddy called. “We thought you’d ran off with the circus for sure. I told everybody you did! Why didn’t you?”
“What happened to your hair?” Nan said. “Oh, my gosh! Emma!” Nan’s hand flew to her mouth.
Emma shook her head.
Kids, most of whom she didn’t know, gathered around her, petting Lucky. Grown-ups, who milled on the lawn holding plates of food and chatting, seemed not to notice her arrival. She still didn’t see Mother among them. Where was she?
“Did you find your father?” Nan asked, putting her arm around Emma’s waist and scooting her away from the crowd. “What’s that?” She pointed at the scrapbook.
Emma didn’t want to talk, not even to Nan. She felt so tired, like she could lie down right there on the grass and sleep for a million years.
“Here, sit down on our blanket,” Nan said. “I want to hear everything…when you’re ready.”
“Are you hungry?” a little girl in a white pinafore asked. “Here, you can have mine.” She held out a plate.
Emma stared at the hot dog with its stripe of yellow mustard and the wedge of watermelon and her mouth began to water. “Thanks,” she told the girl, smiling up at her. Until that moment, Emma hadn’t realized how long it had been since she had eaten the lunch Nan had brought her.
“How come you’re dressed like a boy?” the pinafored girl asked sweetly. “Teddy told us you can do circus tricks. Will you show us please…when you finish eating?”
“She’s tired,” Nan said. “Let her alone.”
Emma broke off a piece of hot dog and held it out to Lucky. He devoured it in one gulp. Emma bit down on hers. It popped in her mouth, the salty juices bursting over her tongue. If only she could enjoy it.
“Here,” a blond-headed boy said, handing her a glass of lemonade.
Several kids hovered around her as she ate, staring at her like she was some sort of sideshow freak. Pinafore girl lolled next to her on the blanket, her arm draped over Lucky.
“So, how come you didn’t join the circus?” the blond boy asked.
“Emma!” Clarence yelled, shoving his way through the kids. “Your ma’s sick, and you’re in a heap of trouble!”
Emma felt the hot dog and lemonade rise in her throat.
“She thought you’d run away with the circus,” Clarence said. “You’re mean and selfish, Emma. I should never have helped you.”
“Emma’s not mean!” Nan said. “She was just trying to find her father!”
The kids stood around gawking at her.
“Where is she?” Emma asked.
“In the house, on the sofa, sick. It’s all your fault!”
Mother never got sick.
Nan took Emma’s hand.
“Granddad’s with your ma, and Dr. Rose and some men went over to the circus lot to try and find you!” Clarence said. “Your ma may be dying and it’s all your fault.”
“You’re lying!”
“Yeah, well go and see for yourself. Get in there, Emma,” Clarence said, pointing to the hou
se. “You need to try to set things right…for a change.”
Emma jumped up from the blanket. “Shut up! What do you know about setting things right?”
The kids who had swarmed around her earlier had run off to play. Even Teddy had abandoned her now that it seemed she wasn’t going to do acrobatics for them.
“Want me to go with you?” Nan asked.
Emma shook her head. “Watch Lucky, OK? Don’t go home.”
Emma shoved Clarence out of her way as she stormed toward the back door. Her legs shook and she felt like she was going to throw up, but she held up her chin. She wasn’t going to show Clarence she was afraid, a kind of fear she hadn’t felt before. What had she done?
Dr. Rose’s brightly lit kitchen sat empty and silent. She could hear talking and laughter coming from the backyard. She looked toward the hall that led to the front door. The living room stood at the front of the house at the far end of the hallway on the left. She stepped slowly toward it into the long, wide hall, several doors on either side, her stomach tied in a million knots.
When she was halfway down the hall, the windowed doors to the living room opened and out stepped Granddad, staring at the floor, his shoulders sagging. At that moment Emma knew something was terribly wrong.
And then he saw her.
“Emma! Oh, thank God! Thank God.”
Tears stung her eyes.
“Mother…how is Mother?” She hurried toward him, stopping just before she reached him.
Granddad lifted his spectacles and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. His bow tie—red, white, and blue for the Fourth—bent cock-eyed. “Step in here, Emma.” He motioned to a room across the hall from the living room. A single lamp on a large desk lit the room that smelled faintly of antiseptic. Books filled an entire wall. “Sit down,” he said, pointing to a small leather sofa. She dropped into it. Granddad sat next to her.
“Mother’s dying, isn’t she? And it’s all my fault!” The words burst from her. The most horrible words she could ever utter, strung together to make one unimaginable thought. People died—Aunt Grace, the father she never even got to know, and now Mother. She buried her face in her hands.
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