Until She Comes Home

by Lori Roy

  Snubbing out her second cigarette, Julia tugs at the blouse that dips a bit low for a luncheon and exhales a louder-than-intended sigh. A few of the ladies frown at her. They want to hear what Malina has to say. Her husband is in charge down at the factory and so she knows more than most. The woman was found yesterday morning in the alley that borders the factory and is within casting distance of the shops on Willingham Avenue. She was most definitely colored and most definitely deceased. Someone bashed her in the side of the head, so it wasn’t an accident. No chance of that.

  Over and over, Malina issues these warnings, and as ten minutes stretch into thirty and she has nothing new to tell, the ladies tire of her. They begin to whisper to one another, some sharing stories of what their husbands have told them, others fretting over why their husbands have told them nothing. They stand to talk across one another and switch seats to hear something new, and as they move and shift and sit and stand, they stir up perspiration and the room grows hotter and the scent of their perfume and hairspray and body lotion and styling gel grows stronger and stronger. Sucking a lungful of smoke from her cigarette, Julia considers excusing herself to see to the twins. Every summer, her nieces visit for two weeks, and they arrived a few days ago. They’re home alone, poor things. They’re probably desperate for a bite of lunch. That would be a plausible excuse.

  Even given the unseemly circumstances surrounding today’s meeting, Julia is more comfortable at Grace’s house than she ever is at her own. Whenever the two get together for coffee, it’s almost always at Grace’s house. When they play cards, it’s at Grace’s kitchen table. When their husbands watch a game, it’s in Grace’s living room. When they barbecue steaks, it’s in Grace’s backyard. The two houses stand on the same side of Alder Avenue and are separated by two blocks. From the outside, one house is the exact replica of the other, but inside, they have their distinctions. Grace has a tiled kitchen; Julia, linoleum. Grace’s walls are freshly painted. Julia’s are not. The linens are ironed at Grace’s house. They are wrinkled at Julia’s. Grace is pregnant. Julia is not.

  The sound of breaking glass is the thing that finally silences the room and gives Julia her excuse. It also sets Betty Lawson’s baby to crying. She has been out in the kitchen, where it was supposed to be quiet so she could sleep undisturbed.

  “Let me,” Julia says, leaping from her seat. She drops her half-smoked cigarette in the remains of her iced tea and raises a hand so Betty Lawson will keep her seat on the sofa. “I’ll see to her.”

  A few of the ladies tilt their heads and press a hand over their hearts as if to say how sweet. A few others raise their brows as if to warn Betty against trusting Julia with her baby. Crying or not, this little one, the first born on Alder in three years, is a reminder to Julia and every other lady that Julia no longer has a child of her own.

  In the kitchen, the baby is still crying, and on the floor near the sink lies a broken jar, partially held together by its paper label. White globs of mayonnaise are splattered across the tile and the bottom of the refrigerator.

  “Soapy hands,” Grace says, rocking the carriage to calm the baby inside.

  For the occasion of hosting today’s luncheon, Grace has swept her blond hair into a French roll. She wears an apron stained with barbecue sauce, and a few loose hairs dangle about her face, and yet she is the elegant one. Julia, who labored all morning on her hair and twice ironed the blouse she bought at Hudson’s for just this event, is the rumpled one.

  “Do you mind?” Grace nods off toward the back door. “It’ll be Elizabeth.”

  Julia sidesteps the broken jar, picking up the larger pieces along the way and dropping them in the trash can under the sink. It’s not the sound of a crying baby that draws up the memories of Julia’s own little one. It’s the smell. Julia bought the same lotion for Maryanne. Back then, Mr. Olsen kept it on the second aisle of his drugstore, top shelf, pink bottle. Probably still does. Sliding between the refrigerator and Grace’s dinette, Julia hears it—a quiet tapping.

  Elizabeth Symanski stands on the other side of the screened door. Every day, she comes to Grace’s house for lunch, and as is Elizabeth’s normal posture, her head sags, her shoulders are stooped, and her arms dangle at her sides. Her long blond hair, dull and frayed on the ends, makes her look much older than her twenty-one or so years. As Elizabeth walks into the kitchen, the hem of her lavender dress brushes against Julia’s shins. Elizabeth normally wears yellow on Fridays. The colors help her remember the days. Red for Mondays. Blue for Tuesdays. White for Wednesdays. Before Elizabeth’s mother passed away, a year ago this spring, she dressed Elizabeth every morning. In her final days, Ewa Symanski’s bony fingers struggled to thread the buttons and knot the bows, and she worried aloud who would tend to her daughter when she was gone. Now Mr. Symanski must struggle with the same. Even though Elizabeth is old enough to be called a young woman, twenty-one or twenty-two, she is unable to dress herself.

  Because she is wearing one of her finer dresses, Elizabeth also wears her black shoes, her Sunday best, and as she walks heel-toe, heel-toe, they click across the tile floor. Click, click, click, until she reaches the dinette, where she sits. By the time Elizabeth has settled into her seat, the baby has stopped crying. Normally Julia might remind Elizabeth to keep her voice down so as to not wake the baby again, but there’s no reason to hush Elizabeth. She rarely speaks, and when she does, she asks after her mother, Ewa. Mr. Symanski always says to humor Elizabeth, because what’s the harm? Tell her Ewa will be along shortly and that Elizabeth should mind herself until then.

  Backing away from the quiet carriage, Grace slips around the table and reaches for the telephone. Letting the receiver hang over her shoulder, she dials with one hand and, with the other, fingers the loose threads left by a button missing from the back of Elizabeth’s dress. By tomorrow, Grace will have picked up the dress from Mr. Symanski and reattached a new button. She waits for the phone to ring once, her usual signal to Mr. Symanski that Elizabeth has arrived safely, and then hangs up and flops into a chair at the kitchen table.

  “Did you know half the members wouldn’t come here today?” Grace waves a hand around her kitchen. “All this food will go to waste. They didn’t want to park their cars on this street, that’s what they said. As if it’s not safe here anymore.”

  Though no one actually thinks the prostitutes have made their way to Alder Avenue, other coloreds have. Three families have moved into the Filmore Apartments on the west end of Alder, and isn’t that proof enough trouble can’t be far behind? Just last night, the paper was filled with news of another plant closing. This is what should worry the ladies. So many factories already stand empty—rotting shells surrounded by boarded-up restaurants and taverns. The green glow, so much like a fog, that once clung to the city’s rooftops has begun to lift. Murray, Packard, Studebaker. All of them closed. This is what should worry the ladies.

  “Never mind them,” Julia says, wiping up the last of the mayonnaise spill. “So you and James will have leftovers for the next six weeks.”

  “Have you read today’s paper?” Grace asks.

  Turning her back on the baby carriage, Julia steps up to the stove and inhales the steam rising from the baked beans. The brown sugar and catsup that bubbles up does little to mask the smell of the pink lotion.

  “No, and I don’t intend to,” she says, dragging a finger through the simmering beans and sticking it in her mouth. “Needs more brown sugar.”

  Even over the stove, the sweet smell of a new baby fills the kitchen. It’s the white powder, too. Julia was always careful not to use too much on Maryanne.

  “But aren’t you curious? Don’t you wonder who might be involved?” Grace flicks her eyes in the direction of the living room as if one of the ladies’ husbands is the possible offender.

  “No, I don’t. I don’t have the slightest damned interest, and neither should you. It’s all but blown over already. Bill says the police are gone. Hardly even bothered with any questio
ns. Brown sugar?”

  Grace points to an overhead cupboard. “What more did Malina tell everyone?” Grace says, touching Elizabeth’s fingertips so she’ll stop tapping her foot. Though Elizabeth never has much to say, she has a habit of tapping her right foot. In her nicer shoes, it makes a clicking sound that might disturb the baby.

  “She’s doing nothing but frightening everybody, getting them all worked up. She keeps asking if anyone knows what the dead woman looked like. Was she portly? Was she slender? Why would she ask such a thing? I swear that woman couldn’t find her behind with a compass and a candle. Did you know she’s thinking of having a bomb shelter dug in their backyard?”

  Grace slips a rubber band off what must be today’s newspaper and spreads it across the table. “There has to be something in the news, don’t you think? It’s been two days. Who was she? Where did she come from? Don’t you wonder?”

  “James will tell you what you need to know,” Julia says, drawing a spoon through the beans in a lazy figure eight. “You shouldn’t worry about it.”

  “But he tells me nothing.”

  “Only because he adores you.”

  “Bill adores you,” Grace says, turning to the next page, “and he’s told you every horrid detail.”

  “No husband adores his wife like your husband adores you.”

  It’s the smooth blond hair and clear skin that plague Grace. She’s slender, when not pregnant, but not skinny. Her ankles are delicate, her neckline sharp, and her blue eyes startle people when they first look into them. Angelic, that’s the word to describe Grace, and no husband wants to pollute his angelic wife with news about a dead prostitute.

  “Besides,” Julia says, tapping another quarter cup of brown sugar into the beans, “you know I’ll tell you everything I hear.”

  “But I shouldn’t have to get the news from you. I worry there might be another reason James isn’t telling me things. Last night, I came right out and asked him about it.”

  “Asked him what?”

  “If he had ever seen them.”

  “And?”

  “He said he never has.”

  “There you go. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Do I dare believe him? Malina says those women stand topless. How could he not look?”

  Julia pulls the paper away from Grace, folds it over, and jams it into the trash. “So what if they look? It’s what men do. Be thankful James doesn’t want to burden you with it.”

  In the front room, the voices have grown louder. One of the ladies speculates on what the weapon might have been. A bat, perhaps, or a crowbar. Aren’t people always using crowbars for such things?

  “Malina told me the shops on Willingham will close on paydays now,” Grace says, fishing the newspaper out of the trash and returning to the table. “Did she tell you the same?”

  “Along with all her other gibberish, yes,” Julia says, shaking her head when she catches herself staring at the carriage.

  Grace irons out the wrinkles Julia caused when she shoved the paper into the garbage. Again, she pats Elizabeth’s hand, a reminder to still her feet. “Do you mind?” she says. “Would you see Elizabeth home? I’d rather she not hear all the talk going on in there, and I really should see to the rest of lunch.”

  “You don’t want help setting the table? Wrapping up all these leftovers?”

  “You should get home to the girls,” Grace says, and turns to the next page. “They’ll be getting hungry.”

  Grace, like Julia, will know this baby is the first on the street since Maryanne, and she’s giving Julia an excuse to escape, at least for today. In the early weeks after Maryanne died, Grace was the only one brave enough and stubborn enough to walk into Julia’s home. She came every day, even when Julia slammed doors and screamed at her to leave well enough alone. Grace kept the blood flowing, kept the house from collapsing. Even more than Julia’s own husband, Grace saved her.

  “You’ll ring Mr. Symanski again?” Julia says, holding the door open for Elizabeth and wondering if it will always be like this. Will Grace forever try to intercept the memories of Julia’s daughter, and how successful can she be once her own baby is born? “You’ll let him know Elizabeth is on her way?”

  Grace taps the tip of her thumb to her tongue, flips to the next page in the newspaper, and nods. “There has to be something in here, don’t you think?”

  And then Julia realizes. Grace is happily married. Her husband does adore her. She has no worries about James. She doesn’t wonder who that woman was or who killed her or whose husband might be the guilty party. Those discussions were for Julia’s benefit, a means to distract her from the baby in the corner, and they almost worked.

  Outside the house, Julia and Elizabeth walk together to the end of Grace’s driveway and from there, Julia watches Elizabeth make her way home. North of Alder, a round of fireworks explodes. For the past week, the air has been laced with the smell of them—sulfur, maybe charcoal. They’re another reminder, other than this heat, that July is fast approaching. The ladies’ voices and the sounds of silverware clattering against Grace’s best wedding china drift out of the living room’s open windows. Betty Lawson’s baby is crying again. A block and a half away, Elizabeth has neared her house. Reaching out with one hand, she trails her fingers along the top rail of the iron fence that hems in her front yard. She’s been taught hers is the house with the iron fence. When Elizabeth stops at her gate, Julia turns toward home.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Most of the ladies shop on Willingham Avenue every day. They stop first at Mr. Ambrozy’s deli. Their freezers frost over and ruin his hand-stuffed kielbasa, so they prefer to buy it fresh, daily. Things never keep as well at home, never taste as fresh as they do straight from Mr. Ambrozy. Every weekday morning, the ladies board the south-bound bus. They come with recipe cards tucked inside their handbags, some of them liking to share, others not. Strolling through Mr. Ambrozy’s aisles, they carry shopping baskets and pick through his sweet and mild sauerkraut and hand-stuffed sausages—among the best in all of Detroit. But they don’t come to Willingham Avenue only for the deli. At his shop on the corner of Woodward and Willingham, Mr. Wilson irons the sharpest pleats and stitches an invisible hem like none other. On the opposite side of Willingham, beyond the drugstore and a vacant fenced-in lot, Nowack’s Bakery sells the freshest bread and pierogi fine enough for the ladies to say they rolled and boiled it themselves. It’s a secret the ladies say is best kept quiet.

  At the kitchen table, her feet propped on the chair opposite her, one ankle crossed over the other and relieved for some peace after a long afternoon with the ladies, Grace studies Mother’s pierogi recipe and feels quite certain she has forgotten or possibly misplaced something. Before her passing, Ewa Symanski always made the pierogi for the bake sale. St. Alban’s has a good many widowers, and some would wait all year for Ewa’s pierogi because they no longer had wives of their own to roll and boil the pierogi. In the wake of Ewa’s death, Grace will take over and finally have a specialty like all the other ladies. First thing Monday morning, to avoid the sugar-cookie fiasco of last year, she’ll visit Mrs. Nowack at the bakery for some advice. No one makes better pierogi than Mrs. Nowack.

  “You shouldn’t trouble yourself, Mother,” Grace says, running her fingers over the crisp card that Mother wrote out when she arrived shortly after the last lady left. Mother sighed to have to write it down yet again. “I’m sure you’ll want to get home soon.”

  On the floor near Grace’s feet, Mother, on hands and knees, is scrubbing the tile. Her apron slips off one slender shoulder and her thinning silver hair glitters in the late afternoon sun. “You keep a clean house and tend to your husband,” Mother says, “or some other woman will.”

  It must be all the talk about the prostitutes and the dead woman that has Grace feeling out of sorts. Mother heard it too, though from where Grace isn’t sure, but when she arrived to help tidy up after the luncheon, Mother knew.

  Outside the kitche
n window, the back alley is quiet. From a few doors down comes the whirl of a reel mower, the hiss of someone hosing off his driveway, a neighbor’s clothesline creaking as the lady of the house takes in her sheets and towels. The children in the neighborhood are teenagers or altogether grown and off on their own, so there are no sounds of laughing or running, no children leaping the hedges between houses or throwing rocks in the alley. The late-afternoon air has finally cooled and a breeze blows through the kitchen, in through the open window, out through the screen in the back door. The sweet smell of fireworks blows through every so often. The sharp, cool air should make Grace feel better, and yet something in the house isn’t quite right. She tries not to watch the clock. No need to worry about James today. It’s not payday.

  At the sound of tires rolling over loose gravel, Grace checks the clock over the stove—5:30. The car slows as it nears the garage in back of the house. The engine idles and goes silent. James, home from work. Right on time. Always right on time. Again, Grace promises herself to stop watching the clock. James has given her no cause to worry, and she doesn’t, not really. A car door opens and closes, but there is no sign of James at the back stairs. Grace glances down at Mother, who raises a brow as if James has gotten himself into no good in the distance between the garage and the house. James has given Mother no cause to worry either, other than his being a man. When the back door finally swings open, James steps inside, drawing in a gust of the cool air that, for a moment, makes Grace set aside her worries over something forgotten.

  With his eyes only on Grace, James crosses the kitchen in three long strides. The smell of grease and oil, the smell of a day at the factory, fills the small room and masks the rich scent of fried onions and the tuna casserole baking in the oven. Taking no notice of the wet floor or Mother, who is still crouched near the sink, James stretches one arm out to the side, his hand cupped as if holding something, and wraps the other around Grace. He pulls her close and kisses the top of her head. His empty hand slides over her shoulder, down her arm, and rests on the baby.