Until She Comes Home

by Lori Roy

  “You’ll come tomorrow,” Sylvie says. A light drizzle has started up again. The tiny drops sparkle on her dark skin. “Got to stay later if you want to make pierogi. We always roll it out after lunch. ’Course, you know we cook up all that pierogi.” She winks at Grace with her warm brown eyes. “We help you, will you bring those ladies back for Mrs. Nowack? Bring them back so she’ll have customers.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Grace says. “I’ll do what I can.”

  Sylvie waves her fingers in the air. “You want us teaching you. Not Mrs. Nowack. She got arthritis real bad. You don’t want Mrs. Nowack making your noodles. That’s for damn sure.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Grace only meant to rest her eyes for a few minutes after her trip to the bakery, but she slept several hours because here it is, suppertime. She walks down the stairs toward muted voices coming from the front room. The oven clicks and the soothing smell of one of the chicken casseroles Mother left in the freezer before going home fills the house. James must have come home while Grace slept and popped it in the oven. He would have woken her if there were news. Instead, the doorbell woke her. Friends and neighbors use the side door off the kitchen. They tap lightly on the glass or on the doorframe. The doorbell means company.

  Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, Grace leans out to see who has come to visit. A draft blows across the living room and stirs her hair and the hem of her dress. James stands at the front door with his back to her. He leans against the jamb, one foot resting on the opposite ankle. He turns when a floorboard creaks under Grace’s feet.

  “Didn’t mean to wake you,” he says. Only the middle two buttons on his shirt are buttoned and he didn’t bother to comb his hair after having washed it. It curls on the ends when he brushes it with his fingers and not a proper brush. Now that his days are spent searching, he comes home every night to have supper with Grace. He always freshens up, usually after they eat. He slaps cool water on his face, washes his hands and forearms with a good dose of soap—all meant to give him a second wind before rejoining the search.

  A man wearing a dark blue shirt stands in the doorway. He tips his hat at her. A second man, dressed in the same blue shirt and wearing the same blue hat, stands next to him.

  “Mrs. Richardson?” the first man says.

  He’s a police officer, the same one who sat at Mr. Symanski’s kitchen table after Elizabeth first disappeared. He had rubbed his temples that night, not quite certain he understood how a grown woman was really no more than a child. He is the same age as Grace, but even late in the day when he should have a shadow on his lower jaw and chin, his face is smooth. His dark hair flips up in tight curls.

  “She can’t tell you any more than I have,” James says. He rubs the bridge of his nose between two fingers.

  “Do you mind?” The other officer, taller with light brown hair, leans into the house so he can speak directly to Grace.

  “James, you should invite them in,” Grace says, not moving from her spot at the bottom of the stairs.

  The men have shifted about in the threshold and have blocked the breeze. The oven still clicks, throwing off heat.

  “May we?” the taller officer says to James.

  James steps aside, allowing the officers to pass, and waves at Grace to join them. The officers remove their hats and tuck them under an arm.

  “I remember you,” Grace says to the officer with the smooth face and dark curls. His hair is dented where he wore his hat. “Please have a seat. May I get you something to drink?”

  “No, ma’am,” he says. “I’m Officer Warinski.” He nudges the gentleman standing at his side. “Officer Thompson.”

  “Do you have word of Elizabeth?” Grace says.

  “They wonder if something has happened here, Grace,” James says, gesturing for her to take a seat.

  She sits on the edge of the skirted sofa, gathers her crochet work from the coffee table, and spreads it across her lap. The tweed sofa, even through the fabric of her cotton skirt, is rough against the backs of her legs.

  “Wonder if what has happened?”

  “We’ve questioned a man,” the taller officer says, “in connection with a crime in the area.”

  Grace clears her throat, smiles for the two officers, and scoots back, settling into the cushions. When she started crocheting the baby’s blanket two months ago, she chose a bulky white yarn suitable for a boy or girl. Placing her fingers to the hook’s flat grip, she pokes the head through the bottom loop. As she begins her first stitch, James walks around the back of the sofa and rests his hands on her shoulders. She grabs his fingers and kisses the back of one wrist.

  “Is it to do with Elizabeth?” she asks. Yarn over, draw through, yarn over, release.

  “This man,” Officer Warinski says, ignoring Grace’s question, “has given us information about a crime at this location.”

  The door is closed behind the two men and the breeze is gone. The house is dark because Grace never drew open the drapes. She begins another single crochet. That was her twelfth stitch. She must remember to count. So often she forgets and has to pull out her work and start again.

  “A crime?” she says. The tightness begins in her stomach and rises into her throat. Again, “A crime?” She hears her own voice as if it’s someone else’s.

  “I told them they were mistaken,” James says, kneading her shoulders with his fingers. “No mischief around here.”

  “None,” Grace says, she thinks she says. She loses her stitch. “No mischief around here.”

  Both officers stare at her, only at her.

  “Could we speak in private, ma’am?” Officer Warinski says.

  “Our supper is growing cold.” Grace’s neck is damp under James’s hands. “I haven’t anything to add.”

  “Wrong house, I suppose,” James says, and pulls his hands from Grace’s shoulders. “Though I can’t say I’ve heard of any trouble for the neighbors, either.” He walks past the men and opens the door. “Other than the Symanskis.”

  He doesn’t tell them about Orin Schofield firing his rifle or the fire in the garbage can or the broken windows more and more neighbors are waking up to. Protecting the street, Grace supposes. Like parents protect a child. Since Elizabeth disappeared, all the neighbors are beginning to do the same. No one wants to admit what is becoming, what has become, of Alder Avenue.

  Officer Thompson steps outside. The officer with the curls, Officer Warinski, makes no move to leave and continues to study Grace. He is young, too young really.

  “This man, he says a woman was hurt here,” the young officer says. “At this address. Quite badly, we believe.”

  Grace lifts her chin. Her face must be red, but she could blame it on the heat. She touches her top lip with the end of her tongue. The sore spot has nearly healed over.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “If someone was hurt, I’m terribly sorry. Please tell her. If you find her. Tell her I’m so very sorry.”

  Waiting for the second officer to leave, James holds open the door. Fresh air rushes through the house again, chilling the damp spots James left on Grace’s neck and shoulders.

  “If you think of anything,” Officer Warinski says. Again, his eyes are only on Grace. “Any information would be helpful.” He dips his head, watches her. “It might be our only chance.”

  “To find Elizabeth?” James says. “Is that what you mean? Did this man take her? Is that what happened?”

  “I’m afraid we can’t discuss the particulars,” Officer Thompson says from the front porch.

  “Can’t,” James says, “or won’t? This is our neighborhood. We’ve a right to know.”

  Officer Thompson shakes his head but offers nothing more. The other officer continues to stare at Grace, waiting and watching for a clue that she has lied to them.

  “Mind if we have a look out back?” the curly-haired Warinski says. “Give your garage a once-over.”

  James leans against the doorjamb, crosses one foot over the oth
er again. “Don’t see the need,” he says. “It’ll only get the neighbors to talking, and I don’t see the sense in that.”

  “Ma’am,” Officer Warinski says. “Do you see the need?”

  Grace shakes her head and runs her fingers across the many rows she has crocheted over the last few months. Mother says the stitches are too tight, too simple.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t,” she says. “It would be a waste of your valuable time.”

  James dips his head as if he were wearing a hat. “Gentlemen,” he says, signaling the men should leave. “We’ll let you know if we hear anything.”

  Officer Warinski crosses in front of James and follows the other officer outside.

  “One moment,” Grace says from her seat on the sofa.

  The men reappear in the doorway, remove their hats again.

  “What is it you would have liked to hear me say?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “You’ve arrested a man?”

  “He’s in our custody,” the taller officer says.

  “What can I say to you, here and now, that will keep him from our streets? Tell me about this crime and I’ll say yes. I’ll say it happened. Even though it’ll be a lie, wouldn’t that help you?”

  The officer with the dark curls and smooth skin steps forward. “Sir,” he says to James. “Will you leave us?”

  “I damn sure will not,” James says, and drops down on one knee in front of Grace. “What are you talking about, Gracie? Did something happen?”

  Grace stretches out one hand, touches James’s rough jaw. He only shaves every few days now. All of the men look the same—tired, drawn, their belts cinched a little tighter because even though the ladies feed them every day, they seem to have lost weight. Or maybe it’s the way they carry themselves, walking with short strides and hunched backs as if burdened by a heavy load, that makes them look like less than they were before Elizabeth disappeared.

  “No, James. Nothing’s happened. But maybe I could say something that would help these men. Something that would help Elizabeth, help keep our streets safe.”

  It’s too late to protect Elizabeth, but Grace can still save the twins or possibly another one of the ladies. She can get that man off of Alder Avenue before he tries again to set things right. If the one they’ve arrested knows what happened to Grace and that it happened here at this address, he must be one of the three. It’s probably the one who slipped out into the alley because he couldn’t bear the sight. He can give the police a name, direct them toward the man who did this terrible thing to her and to Elizabeth. But if there was no crime, the police will have no need of a name.

  “Tell me,” Grace says. “I’ll say whatever I must to help Elizabeth.”

  “Would you say a woman was attacked in your garage?” Again, it’s the officer with the dark curls. “Would you say three men threw her to the ground, that one of those men violated her while another held her down? Would you say those things?”

  James pushes off the ground and lunges at the man. The second officer stops him with a stiff arm to his chest.

  “Tell me, Mrs. Richardson,” the curly-haired officer says, ignoring James and keeping his eyes firmly on Grace. He drops his gaze to the small cut on her upper lip and lets his eyes roam over her face as if searching for more scratches and bruises. “Did these things happen? Did they happen to you?”

  James stands at a distance, the other officer’s hand pressed to the middle of his chest. All three wait for Grace’s answer. She can feel the small hand of the girl, Cassia was her name, lifting Grace’s face, telling her the cut didn’t look so bad. The girl had seen worse, far worse. Nothing that won’t heal.

  “Gracie?”

  Grace shakes her head. “Well, of course those things aren’t true,” she says. “At least, not as far as I know. And I think I would know if someone were attacked in my own garage. I simply thought I could help.”

  James holds up both hands and backs away from the officers.

  “What will happen now?” Grace says. “Because there was no one harmed here, what will happen to the man?”

  The curly-haired officer with the smooth skin pulls on his hat, meets Grace’s eyes as if preparing to answer, but turns away instead.

  One more time, James makes a sweeping gesture intended to invite the officers to leave. They walk across the porch and down the sidewalk, and when they have neared the driveway, James slams the door.

  “Smells like supper’s ready,” he says, walking past Grace toward the kitchen.

  The legs of a chair scoot across the tile. Silverware clatters on the laminate tabletop.

  “Strange, huh?” he calls back to Grace. His voice is flat when he speaks. He’s angry but won’t want Grace to see it in his face. “Why would some fellow say that about our place? About you?”

  Grace walks over to the window and pushes aside the drapes. The officers have reached the end of the driveway. One of them, the curly-haired one, walks around the black-and-white patrol car, and from the driver’s side, he tips his hat at Grace.

  “They probably got the wrong address, don’t you think?” she says. The officers’ car rolls away from the front of the house. Across the street, a few neighbors shield their eyes as they watch. “It was silly, what I did. I’m sorry.”

  She’s now certain it’s the third man they’ve arrested. All she remembers are his eyes. They were a deep brown and his lids drooped, making him look sorry for what was about to happen. He’s the only one who would tell. Those men, all three of them, probably live at the Filmore. She has seen other colored men passing down the street at the usual times, but she hasn’t seen any one of the three, not since the night they came for her. The man, the one with sorrowful eyes, must have confessed to the police. He must have described Grace, told them the woman was pregnant and had long blond hair and lived at 721 Alder. That’s why the officer with the dark curls and smooth young face had looked at Grace like he knew everything. He knew about the sore spot on the back of her head and why her lip was split. Grace is the only pregnant wife on the block. Maybe the only one on the street. The officers want Grace to tell the truth because Elizabeth can’t. They are thinking it’s a shame when people won’t speak up. They are thinking Grace is their only hope. They are thinking there’s hope to be had.

  James’s body is warm when he steps up behind Grace. He wraps his arms around her, and she leans into him.

  “Don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you,” he says.

  Resting her head on James’s chest, Grace closes her eyes, holds his hands, and wonders if he loves her enough to stay should he find out the truth. Mother thinks not. “Nothing bad will ever happen to us.”

  “Promise me,” James says, burying his face in her hair.

  “I promise.”

  • • •

  Before climbing into bed, Malina scrubs her face, dabs night cream on the delicate skin beneath her eyes, and tucks her hair into a sleep net. From the drawer in her nightstand, she pulls out her white pills and sets the bottle where Mr. Herze is sure to see it. He knows how heavily Malina sleeps when she’s taken one. Dr. Cannon had said they’d calm her, minimize the stresses of her day. Mr. Herze doesn’t approve of them, never has, and most days she is able to refrain by doing her counting and breathing.

  The first weeks after she stopped taking the medication were the most difficult. The pills tugged at her all day from the kitchen cabinet where she normally kept them. Mr. Herze had insisted she stop. He said they made her eyes foggy and her habits lazy. Time and his insistence lessened the pills’ charm. Even as she swallows two of them while waiting for Mr. Herze, she doesn’t swallow them because she craves the relief they will bring to the tense muscle running from her neck to her shoulders or the order they will bring to the worries tumbling around her head. She swallows them because Mr. Herze, as angry as he might be at the sight of that small brown bottle, will know better than to try to wake her.

  Even if Betty Lawson was
telling the truth and Mr. Herze knows for certain Malina lied to him, he won’t be able to question her about it tonight. He won’t be able to rage about his hatred of Malina’s silly lies, a rage that always leads him to strike her. A rage that has led to blackened eyes, bruised cheeks, sore ribs, and a broken collarbone—or, more precisely, a fractured clavicle. She will sleep soundly and peacefully tonight, and tomorrow or the next day she’ll conjure a story to explain why she lied about driving the night that colored woman was killed. It was a trip to the shut-ins. She’s so sorry she lied. She thought he’d be cross at her for putting herself in danger by driving so late at night. Or she was delivering fresh linens to the church that were needed early the next morning. Or she was afraid Mr. Herze had had car trouble, a flat tire, perhaps. She didn’t see anything that happened on Willingham. She didn’t see anything at all.

  Thirty minutes after washing down the pills with a glass of lukewarm water, Malina slides beneath the cool sheets, switches off the lamp at her bedside, and stares at the white sheers fluttering in her window. The light, flimsy fabric dances in the breeze, and as it flutters and flaps, a thin fog settles in behind her eyes. Downstairs, the back door opens and closes. Mr. Herze’s footsteps cross the kitchen. The floorboards in the hallway creak as he passes through to the foyer, and then silence. He is standing at the bottom of the stairs, probably looking up toward the closed bedroom door, probably wondering what he is to do with Malina. One footstep and then a second and then a third as he climbs the stairs.

  It’s been another day and night spent searching for Elizabeth. Mr. Herze will be tired and sore. Normally Malina would rub his shoulders and fix him a sandwich. The bedroom door opens and light from the hallway spills into the room and across Malina’s face. Her eyelids are closed. Don’t let them flinch in the light. Those are the sounds of Mr. Herze pulling off his shirt and unbuckling his belt. Water runs in the bathroom sink and flows through the pipes that travel down the walls. He sits on the edge of the mattress, his weight causing Malina to roll from one side to the other because isn’t that what one would do in her sleep? He smells crisp and clean, like Malina’s French-milled soap. She buys the pink bars special-order through the Sears catalog. Her jaw loosens and her shoulders soften as the pills melt and soak in. A few feet away, air rushes in through Mr. Herze’s nose and out through his mouth.