LOST TO THE WORLD

by Libby Sternberg

  The goddamned silence about it all was what had bothered her the most after a while. The refusal to admit that the whole process of physical therapy was a nightmare. They were expected to be cheerful, like the March of Dimes children featured in movie reels and on posters, smiling as they hobbled forward, grateful to be alive, thankful to regain the smallest crumbs of movement.

  And that, too, had been another torture. Wondering what the limit would be, where the muscles would stop coming back. Some polios stayed in wheelchairs. Some, like Julia, graduated to canes and braces. She remembered how surprised and hurt she’d felt when she was discharged eight months later. She’d expected to stay until she was rid of the brace and cane entirely. No, Julia, dear, you go home when you’ve accomplished the most you can. They’d given up on her. And they were the ones constantly goading the polios to strive, to struggle, telling them they could do it, they could get it back! Dammit, they didn’t even come to pick you up if you fell in the hallway. You have to learn, they said smiling, how to get up on your own.

  “Is this your house?”

  She looked up, her memories fading into a fog of resentment. “Yes, yes, it is. Thank you so much. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there.” It came so naturally, the mask of pleasantness.

  “It was nothing, really.” He exited the car and came around to open her door. She swung her legs out and placed the cane on the curb, but she was so tired that it was hard to push herself up. He noticed and grabbed her elbows, hoisting her forward toward him until she was practically in his arms.

  And then she was in his arms, smelling his suit jacket, drinking in its scent because it smelt like a man. And he put his hand at the base of her head, and leaned forward, his lips poised over hers, so close she could smell his breath, the scent of life itself.

  It was spring, the season of longing, and it was dusk when the sky’s royal blue faded to the edge of black, and every hope she’d ever had seemed scattered on the cool, soft evening breeze. She had to grab it or ache with longing the rest of her life.

  She wanted—everything. She wanted the world back. She wanted this kiss especially, her hands clinging to his coat sleeves like a child, her face scratched by the late day stubble on his chin.

  But he stopped, pulling away from her lips, brushing the top of her head with a tender kiss, a sigh escaping his lips. He offered to walk her to her door. She declined, thanked him again, and was on her way.

  Chapter Fourteen

  NOT ALL THE LETTERS were anti-Semitic. Some of them merely urged the doctors to stop experimenting, to stop working against “God’s will.” They referred to the polio as a “plague sent by God to teach us a lesson, to lead us away from sin.”

  Why had he felt guilty when he’d driven, boys in tow, into his office this Saturday morning to pick up the Lowenstein file? He’d looked over at Sal’s desk and been stabbed by remorse. Yet he’d not made any commitments to Sal’s sister. He’d even phoned her when he’d gotten home last night, just to make sure she’d received his message about missing their date.

  Brigitta had been real nice about that call, so nice, in fact, that she’d suggested making him dinner. Tonight. How could he have refused? He’d owed it to her. Christ Almighty, Sean. What the hell are you doing?

  He’d arranged the letters into two piles, both chronologically, on his kitchen table. The largest pile contained the anti-Semitic ravings. A smaller pile contained the general anti-vaccination research messages. He was looking for a pattern. He’d gone into the office that Saturday morning to retrieve his notes because he was restless, about the case, about last night. He knew they had to corner Jansen again—that had gone out the window for the time being when he’d helped Julia with her father.

  What had it felt like when he’d fallen for his Mary? He hardly remembered anymore. He’d been introduced to her at church by a friend of his uncle’s. He’d gone over to her house—she’d been living with a maiden aunt who then passed away a year after their marriage. The aunt had looked him up and down, had asked him a dozen questions. He’d just joined the police force, was still a beat cop then, and she’d admired him in his uniform. He remembered the thrill of getting Mary alone, taking her to the movies, putting his arm around her shoulder and smelling her hair as she leaned into him.

  Was that what he’d felt last night when he’d wanted to kiss Julia Dell? Or was he just hungry for a woman, any woman?

  Not any woman. He’d not tried to make a move on Brigitta. But that was different, wasn’t it? He’d only seen her once, in the bright light of day. She was a good-looking woman. It’s possible he would have acted the same under the same circumstances.

  Oh hell. He looked up. Danny stood in the doorway, newspaper in tow.

  “What you want, son?”

  “Jerry Soloski’s Dad made a kite for him.”

  Sean smiled. “Out of newspaper?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Come here.”

  Danny shuffled into the bright kitchen and climbed onto his father’s lap when Sean patted his leg. He felt his son’s brow. It was cool. Outside, sunshine lit the cloudless sky, and a soft breeze blew. He’d even opened the back door to let some fresh air in, to blow out all the musty germs.

  “It might do you good to get outside for a little while,” he told Danny seriously. He rubbed Danny’s hair. “But you have to wear your jacket and cap. C’mon now. Go tell your brother to get ready. I’ll take you both to the park.”

  ***

  “There’s no debating this. You’ll learn. Period.” Beth tapped her finger forcefully on the kitchen table, locking gazes with her sister Helen, whose porcelain cheeks flushed a rose pink at the thought of learning to drive.

  “Maybe I can learn,” Julia added. “They can outfit the car in a special way or something. Roosevelt drove.”

  Beth looked at her with a skeptical grimace. “Don’t be silly. You can do other things.” She turned her attention back to Helen, reaching for her sister’s fragile hand. “You’ll enjoy it, Hel, you really will. I was scared, too, when I learned. Now I love it. Stu’s even talked about getting me a little used car, something I can have to take the kids to school, go to the store and whatnot when he’s working.”

  A shriek came from the other room. Beth’s sons were arguing over crayons. With an irritated moan, she pushed her heavy body up and went into the living room where her strong disciplinary tones reverberated.

  Julia cringed. “Mutti’s supposed to be sleeping in.”

  Helen smiled. “No more.”

  “Beth’s right, you know. About you learning how to drive.”

  “I know.” Helen sighed. “Part of me wants to learn. I just wanted to take my time.”

  “Sometimes it’s easier when we have to do things quickly. Dragging them out makes it worse.”

  Helen just looked at her hands, nervously turning the charm bracelet on her wrist. One of its charms was her engagement ring. Julia wished she wouldn’t wear it, even on the bracelet.

  “I bet you really will enjoy it, Hel. I bet you’ll like it so much you’ll wonder why you didn’t learn earlier.”

  “I know!” Helen stood and walked to the stove where she pulled a whistling kettle off and began brewing a pot of tea. “I’ll learn to drive and you can cook for Mutti. So she can take care of Father.”

  “That’s a good idea.” An excellent idea, in fact. An idea that nicely overlapped another one she’d thought of last night after Sean Reilly had brought her home and nearly kissed her. “In fact, I’ve made a decision. I’m going to break my engagement with Will. I’m needed here.”

  Helen turned around, teapot lid in one hand, teabags in the other. “What?”

  Beth appeared at that moment, holding the hand of three-year-old Andrew, his eyes red and his cheeks glistening with tears. “What did you just say?”

  Julia took a deep breath. She hadn’t planned on doing it this way, but sometimes, as she’d just explained to Helen, quicker was bet
ter. “I said I am going to break my engagement. I’m needed here. Helen will be doing the chauffeuring. Mutti will be taking care of Father. I’ll take care of cooking and cleaning. And I’ll contribute money from my job. If Father’s going to be out of work, we’ll all need to chip in.”

  Beth let out a disgusted snort of laughter. “One way to improve their financial picture is if they have one less mouth to feed. You getting married and out of the house would do that.”

  Julia’s mouth dropped in astonishment. Sometimes Beth infuriated her. “I don’t eat that much, for goodness’s sake!” She stood, slipped her arm into her cane, and went to the cabinet where she retrieved saucers and teacups. Balancing them against her chest, she took them to the table, carefully setting them at each place.

  “Really, Jules, you don’t need to prove you’re capable of doing things,” Beth continued, going over to her and grabbing cups from her. “The best thing would be for you to go ahead with your plans. Mutti will be very disappointed if she found out you were thinking of not marrying Will. Right, Helen?” They both turned to Helen whose back was to them as she fixed the tea. She didn’t answer immediately. In fact, she waited until she had put the teapot on the table before saying a word.

  “I think you could tell her you’re running off with the postman and she’d nod and say ‘gut, gut,’ right now.” Helen poured the tea. “She’s too upset about Dad to take in much of anything else.”

  “All the more reason not to add to her worries,” Beth persisted.

  At that instant, their mother appeared. Her usual neatly-combed hair sported an off-center bun. Her face was pale as wax, and her eyes rimmed with dark circles. A smile of greeting flickered on her lips as she went to the table.

  “I must get to the hospital to see your Vater,” she said. She looked at the teacups and a frown creased her brow. “No coffee?”

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” Helen said, pouring her some tea. “We were out. I’m going to go get some with Beth. She’s going to teach me how to drive.”

  Both Julia and Beth looked at each other, their eyes wide with pleasant surprise. Elise Dell, however, looked afraid. “But who will take me to see your Vater?”

  Beth let Andrew scamper back to the living room and moved forward to put her arm around her mother. “I’m taking you. Don’t worry. We’ll all stop in and then leave you to stay with him. We’ll take care of the rest.”

  They fussed over their mother for another quarter hour. Beth redid her hair. Julia kept at her to eat something. Finally she ended up snapping at them to leave her alone and get going. Beth whispered instructions as their mother went into the hallway for her coat and hat.

  “We’ll visit him for a half hour—just a half hour—and then let her talk to him for the rest of the time. I’ll take you to the store after that, Helen, and then we’ll go driving.”

  “What about your kids?” Helen pointed to the living room.

  “They’ll sit in the back seat.”

  “I could watch them,” Julia volunteered.

  “They run me ragged and I have two good legs, Sis.” Beth smiled at Julia. “No, you can go with us or come back here and tidy up.”

  “I most certainly am capable of watching those children,” Julia snapped.

  “Oh for goodness’ sake, Jules. Let’s not argue.”

  “Girls! Girls!” Their mother’s voice came from the hall. “I vill meet you in the car.”

  ***

  She couldn’t let go of the idea. She even began mentally rehearsing how she’d tell Will. I just can’t begin to think about marriage at this time. The doctors say my father will have to stop working. They have a little money saved but not much. He’ll get a pension of some sort, of course, but it won’t be what he would have received had he worked longer. I can’t in good conscience abandon them at this time.

  In her imagination he was disappointed but accepting, even admiring her for her sacrifice. And Sean Reilly would admire her, too, when he found out.

  That was the only problem with this idea. If Sean Reilly found out, he might have to go through some other opinions of her first before he got to admiration. He might think poorly of her for getting close to him when she was promised to another man, for example. And he might even think she wasn’t worth wasting time on if she was renouncing men in favor of sacrifice for her family.

  She didn’t have much time to worry through too many of those thoughts that day, though. Beth had been right. The boys did run her ragged, almost running away entirely after she’d forced them to take afternoon naps. And she was only watching two of them. Andy had gone with Beth and Helen. How did Beth do it, she wondered with a sense of unease. Surely it was just as hard for her.

  ***

  Brigitta fixed her makeup and opened the cabinet in her tiny apartment kitchen. Two cans of tomatoes, a garlic clove, some herbs. She threw a cardigan over her shoulders and grabbed her purse. She’d walk to the nearby market and buy fresh pasta, not the boxed dried kind, some crusty bread, salad greens, a few cannoli, and pick up a bottle of Chianti on the way back home. She would make a feast for Sean Reilly.

  He’d sounded so contrite last night when he’d called to apologize for standing her up that her own self-pity had been quickly replaced with sympathy for him. So she’d suggested a rain check tonight. He’d protested at first, saying he couldn’t find a babysitter for the boys so quickly, and she’d had a brainstorm. She’d go to his place and fix dinner for him.

  She wasn’t used to being rejected. She didn’t like it. It rattled her. And now she felt the need to grab for acceptance wherever she could find it before she spiraled down into the dark place she’d found herself in after Ernie’s death, with no prospects, no future, with the possibility of moving back home.

  God, it made her want to gag to think of that. She couldn’t do that. Not now, not after she’d learned to be an independent woman, someone of whom her Italian family would never approve. She hid a lot from them.

  She had to reconfigure her dreams. She need not give up on them entirely. She merely had to plot out a new plan.

  Her thoughts turned to Sean. What a decent, stable man he was. He had potential. She’d been wrong, she lectured herself, to think she could go it entirely alone as a single woman. And she’d been detoured, she thought with disgust, by the affair with Gavin. It had taken her out of the game for too long. There could be a man out there worth compromising for. A man like Sean, for example.

  She quickly walked to the market, greeted the owner in Italian, smelled the fresh basil leaves, tapped the bread, scrutinized the fresh pasta. Yes, she could certainly enjoy this, this leisurely preparation of meals, this savoring of the ordinary. There was independence in it, too. She didn’t have to conquer the world. Being a good man’s woman was a mountain worth conquering, one she could put her considerable skills and organizational powers to. It certainly beat moving back home.

  Humming to herself, she paid for her purchases and strolled back to her apartment. She’d wear the blue plaid skirt and white blouse with its voluminous sleeves and plunging open-collar neckline. When she leaned over, she knew her finest feature would be shown off to advantage.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “THIS IS MRS. LORENZO, BOYS. She’s going to fix us dinner.”

  They stared at her with silent eyes. The blonder of the two—was he Danny or was it the other one—sucked his thumb. Both wore dirty-looking pajamas. Sean had explained they had been sick but were better now. Good lord, she hoped they still weren’t contagious. What should she say to them? Yes, her sisters had children. But she never watched them and barely tolerated their noisy shenanigans at family dinners. What did one do with children that weren’t one’s relations?

  She held out her hand. “How do you do?” Her face flamed when they cowered behind their father’s legs. Obviously, one didn’t do that.

  Sean rubbed their heads and smiled. “I hope you’re hungry. You go play while I talk with Mrs. Lorenzo.”

  The
y remained in place. Sean bent to them and whispered some coaxing words. Eventually, they ran down the hall into their rooms.

  And so the evening began.

  With the children out of the way, Brigitta breezed into the kitchen. Here her organizational skills came to the fore as she quickly identified the pots and pans she’d need and found a large towel to tuck into her skirt as apron. Oh, she was smart enough to know she shouldn’t reach for any of the aprons still hanging on the pantry door. She knew those had belonged to her.

  It wasn’t that Brigitta was manipulative. She was intuitive. She herself would flinch if someone waltzed into her apartment and cavalierly grabbed one of Ernie’s hats to wear, even after all these years. She wasn’t sentimental. She was polite.

  She found some whiskey and improvised a cocktail for Sean, telling him to put his feet up in the living room, “turn on the television, read the paper,” and she went to work with the determination and intelligence that marked all her endeavors. In a half hour’s time, she had set the table—with two candles burning romantically in the center—made the meal, and dished up two children’s portions to be served on special trays in the boys’ room. This last task, she decided, was a stroke of genius. They were cute little tykes. But this was an adult dinner.

  Sean seemed to appreciate her attention to detail. He wasn’t the least bit reluctant to get his children eating in their separate room. And when he sat down with her, his attention was solely on her accomplishments. He complimented her cooking. He praised her “way with the children” (in truth, she’d hardly said more than a few words to them), and he lavished admiration on her appearance. By then he’d had another whiskey and was making good progress on the bottle of wine. She opened another.

  Not that she thought it was the liquor speaking when he commented on her looks. She knew in the dusky shadows of early spring evening, her eyes glowed in the candlelight. She knew that her skin’s olive hue shone through the transparent silky sleeves of her soft blouse. And she knew that its low neck showed off her well-proportioned breasts to greatest advantage. She saw Sean glimpse that way several times throughout the evening.