Until She Comes Home

by Lori Roy

  The girl continues the long, slow walk toward home. Without saying a word, Julia stretches out one arm and points a single finger at her house. The girl walks past Julia, head bowed. At the stairs leading to the front door, Grace, still pale, ruffles the top of the girl’s head with one hand. The girl ducks, pulls away from Grace’s touch, disappears inside, and the door closes. Leaning heavily on the banister, Grace makes her way down the last few stairs and walks up the sidewalk toward the street. Not until she hears the front door close does Julia drop her arm. She looks past Malina and turns to face Grace.

  A few days ago, Malina saw a stack of paper exactly like the one clutched in the girl’s arms. It came home with Mr. Herze. The girls at the office made them—flyers for Elizabeth Symanski that the men taped in windows along Woodward. The paper was glossy, smooth, not like regular writing paper. A machine at the factory churned out one sheet exactly like the next. The girls knew how to make it work. Mr. Herze would never bother with such a chore. One flyer after another, each sheet exactly like the last and the next. Now the twin who is bold enough to walk right past Malina without even a hello carries a stack of those same flyers. LOST CAT, the top one read. All the rest will be exactly the same.

  • • •

  There is something final about the sound of Julia’s screen door slamming behind Izzy. First there is the squeal as the door opens, the creak when its springs are stretched as far as they’ll go, the momentary silence as it falls closed, and then the slap. The afternoon breeze is cool on Julia’s shin and knee where her torn nylon bares her skin. She tucks in the loose tail of her white blouse, straightens her skirt’s waistband, and pulls the bent safety pin from her blouse. Across the street, Malina has followed her husband inside. No sign of James Richardson, either. He must not have seen Grace here at Julia’s house and he’s gone inside his own house to look for her. Julia will send Grace straight home so James doesn’t worry. As Grace waddles toward her, this is what Julia intends to do. News of Elizabeth will weigh heavily on everyone and Grace is in no condition to abide all this sadness. Even though most had stopped expecting Elizabeth would come home, expecting a thing is a wide world away from knowing a thing.

  “You heard, then?” Grace says. She stops beside Julia, clasps her hands together under her large stomach, and clears her throat as if preparing to say something bigger.

  Julia nods. “Do you know how?” she says and then starts again. “Do you know what happened to her?”

  “The river,” Grace says. “That’s all Mr. Symanski told me.”

  “It all stops now, doesn’t it?” Julia says. “No more lunches? No more desserts and coffee? No more searching?”

  “People think those men took her.” Grace dips her head in the direction of the Filmore Apartments. She doesn’t have to say more. “Do you know? Even the police think it. They arrested one of them but had to let him go. You know that, right? You know that’s happened?”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  It’s not the words that warn Julia what’s to come, it’s how Grace says them. Her tone is flat, as if she’s reading from a typed sheet of paper.

  “Then, why?” Grace says.

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you leave the girls to their own devices? It’s not safe. They’re not safe.”

  “I know it’s my burden, Grace. No need to make me wallow in it.”

  “I don’t think anything is your fault, but I don’t think you realize how our street has changed.” Grace’s skin is pale and her lips are dry, cracked. “I think you need to mind those girls,” she says, “before something terrible happens.”

  “Mind them like I didn’t mind Elizabeth? You’re as bad as Malina.”

  “Julia, stop.” Grace reaches for Julia’s hands, but Julia pulls them away. “What happened to Elizabeth wasn’t your fault, and I wish you’d stop saying it was.”

  “Why do you wish that, Grace?”

  Julia is going to make Grace say it. She is going to stare at Grace, hold her eyes firm, not move an inch until Grace says it right out loud.

  “Because if you think it was your fault, you must think it was my fault too.”

  Everything did change with that slamming door. Elizabeth will never come home and this is Julia’s fault. Her own daughter will never come home and this is Julia’s fault too. Julia doesn’t know how to be a mother. She failed Maryanne and she will fail the twins. Julia’s own daughter died because Julia was a careless, hapless mother, and now there will never be another baby and Elizabeth will never come home.

  “It was your fault, Grace,” Julia says. “Yours as much as mine.”

  • • •

  It’s five o’clock, must be because that’s the time the colored men always pass. From her bedroom window, Grace sees him. Yes, that’s him. That’s the one. She recognizes him even from this distance. It’s the way he walks, with a rounded back and a swagger. That’s what she’d call it. A swagger. And then he lifts his left hand. One other time she’s seen him and it was his left hand. He draws it down over his chin, his beard. This is how he trains it. Over and over, stroking the short, dark beard, drawing those fingers together, drawing them to a point.

  James is gone and Grace is glad for it. A few minutes ago, he left the house. Go to Julia’s, Grace had said to him after he reported to her what she already knew. While he sat at the kitchen table, telling her Elizabeth was gone for good, Grace stood beside her ironing board, her new steam iron in hand, one of James’s Sunday shirts laid out before her. She worked the iron back and forth over the shirt’s yoke, every so often pressing a button to release a stream of water. It was supposed to make life easier, more manageable. No more sprinkling from a bottle or pre-dampening in the sink. The iron sizzled and hissed and she inhaled the light steam. James thought she was pale and that her eyes were red and swollen because Elizabeth was gone and because the ironing was too much work. It was the moment she should have told him about the man who came for her and for Elizabeth and that she worried he hadn’t set things right yet, so he’d come again for the twins or someone else. But she said nothing.

  Julia was right. It was Grace’s fault Elizabeth died. She would bear the weight of that truth for the rest of her life. And because she didn’t tell James in that quiet moment sitting in the kitchen as he stroked the back of her hand and brushed his fingers across her cheeks, she was dooming herself to carry the weight of what was yet to come. Saying none of these things to James, she asked him to check on Julia and the girls. Bill’s not yet home. She’ll need your help. She’ll have to tell the twins about Elizabeth and she shouldn’t do that alone. Sit with her awhile, make sure she and the girls are well, and then hurry home for supper. Grace owed Julia something—an apology, an admission, some sign of regret—but her husband was all she had to offer. She also knew the men would soon pass by her house, every day at five o’clock, and that today, the one who had come for her would be among them. Elizabeth was never a danger to him. Only Grace. But she lied to the police. She said it never happened. She made it safe for him to return, and so she sent James away.

  With her hands clasped under her belly, Grace crosses the bedroom and stands at the back window. She rests her fingertips on the cool marble sill. In the alley below, Orin Schofield sits in his chair just as she knew he would. He’s hunched over, maybe asleep. His rifle will be propped against his garage within easy reach but where the other neighbors won’t see it and take it away from him again. Go to Julia’s, Grace had told James, and now she’s happy for it.

  There are four of them today. They walk with a slow, lazy pace and are only just past the house when Grace pushes open the kitchen door.

  “Orin,” she calls out toward the alley. “I need you, Orin.”

  She waits, listens. The chair will creak when he stands. Hearing nothing, she calls out again, louder this time, but not so loud that the men walking down the street will hear.

  “Orin, up here. I need you up here at the house.”

&nb
sp; The metal chair whines. In a few moments, he’ll appear around the side of the garage. She wonders if he knows Elizabeth is gone and that the man walking down their street took her and killed her and whatever else he did, Grace cannot let herself imagine.

  “You there.”

  Now Grace shouts so the men will hear and so Orin will know there’s trouble and bring his rifle. She walks to the end of the driveway, slowly at first, but then more quickly. She doesn’t want them to get too near Julia’s house, where James might see them.

  “You there. You stop.”

  The street is quiet for this time of day. Having received word Elizabeth was pulled from the river, the husbands are already home. Garage doors are closed, curtains are drawn, even windows, it seems, have been shut because the usual sounds of supper being served—glasses knocking against one another, a stray piece of silverware being dropped, someone shuffling a stack of everyday china—have been silenced. Even though Grace can’t hear them, she knows her neighbors are sitting down to the table, all of them whispering about the funeral that will come and wondering what will follow. Will Alder Avenue ever be the same, or has it changed—have their lives changed—in a lasting way? Grace glances behind her. Still no sign of Orin.

  Only two of the men hear her and turn. The man with the beard continues his slow pace. Across the street, Mrs. Wallace, who had been sweeping her porch, props her broom against her house, walks inside, and closes the door. The two men look at Grace and then at each other. The first jabs the second in the side, shrugs, and they hurry down the street to catch up to the other men.

  “Yes, you,” Grace shouts. “I mean you.”

  The baby hangs heavy today, heavier always at the end of the day. That’ll mean a boy, Mother likes to say. But Grace thinks it means only a strong, healthy baby.

  “How can you walk here?” she says.

  Behind her, two footsteps and a tap, two footsteps and a tap. Orin is using his gun like a cane, just as he did the three-foot length of wood. He must see her and the men, too, because the steps and the tap quicken. Soon she’ll hear him breathing. He’ll cough because the walking is a strain. If she could turn toward him, she’d see his face flushed, sweat dripping from his temples, a white button-down shirt wilted and clinging to his soft midsection. Only one man pays her attention this time. He looks at Grace and then to each side as if wondering whom she means to question.

  “Ma’am?”

  He’s the one who couldn’t watch. Grace’s memory of him is correct. His lids droop over his large brown eyes in a way that makes him appear kinder and more thoughtful than the others. He let it happen but couldn’t bring himself to watch.

  “I know what he did,” Grace shouts. “I know it was him.”

  Two others turn, but the bearded man stands with his back to Grace. The footsteps and the tapping have stopped. Grace points so Orin will know which one. She points at the tallest man. His wide shoulders roll forward. Thick veins run like cords from his wrists to his elbows. Grace can’t see them from such a distance, but she knows they’re there because that night, he hovered over her, those arms flanking her, trapping her. Like the other three, he turns. He looks past her at first, past both her and Orin as if they’re not worth noticing, and then his eyes focus. They settle on Grace.

  “Did you know, Orin? They found our Elizabeth today. Pulled her from the river.” Grace lifts her hand again. Points. “That’s the one who took her and dumped her like garbage.”

  Orin must be tired. Every morning, every evening, and late every night he waits in the alley. He must have wondered why the men stopped coming, or maybe he thought he kept them at bay. Maybe he has felt pride these days since Elizabeth disappeared. For the first time in many years, he must have felt useful, powerful even. But now he sees the men are here on the street. He hasn’t frightened them away, and it’s Grace who has stripped him of his pride.

  “Orin,” she says again because he doesn’t move. “That one there. That one.”

  “Thought for sure you’d tell.”

  The sound of his voice, pitched so much deeper than James’s, knocks Grace backward. She’s remembering the smell of this man—spicy cologne sprayed on much earlier in the day and the sour patch under each arm. He knows the police came to see her. He knows the officers questioned her and that she lied. This is why he’s back. It’s safe for him now. Someone was arrested, someone stronger and less selfish than Grace. It may have been the man with the soft, kind eyes. Whoever it was, he was strong enough to try to stop it from happening again. He told the police a woman was hurt at 721 Alder. A pregnant woman, badly injured. But Grace lied. Because she wanted to protect her marriage and the life she had planned for her daughter, she had smiled for the officers, hid the ache in her tailbone and the stiffness in her neck, and now the man is back, walking down Alder Avenue, caring so little about what he did that he is scarcely able to recognize Grace.

  “I know you did it,” she says.

  It’s a whisper now. At her side, Orin shuffles forward. Standing, when normally he sits, he struggles with the gun’s weight.

  “What’d I do?” the one says, looking to the others who stand at his side. “Any of you all know?”

  The men shake their heads. The man with the lids that droop kicks at the ground and crosses his arms. It’s not only Elizabeth whom Grace has harmed, it’s this kinder man too. She wants to lay a hand on his shoulder to calm him. Stop your fidgeting, that’s what Mother would have said. As if knowing Grace’s thoughts, the man with the beard trained by three fingers wraps a hand around the kinder man’s shoulder, presses, probably squeezes, and the kinder man stands still.

  “You must be mistaken, ma’am,” the man with the beard says. “If nobody tells, then nothing happened. Ain’t that the way it goes?”

  From the corner of her eye, Grace sees a flash. It’s the late-day sun reflecting off dark metal. A thin barrel rises and levels off. Orin coughs. Each breath is a struggle for him. It wasn’t always so bad. Every year, the breathing, the walking, the standing, all of it becomes harder for him. The doctors give shots now that burn and pinch and what happened to Orin won’t happen to the rest of them. He nods in the direction of the men, confirming which is his target. The man knows Grace didn’t tell. He knows she never will and he knows the kinder man betrayed him.

  “No, Orin,” Grace says. She rests her palm on the thin barrel and pushes it toward the ground. It’s the way Mr. Williamson lowered it the day Orin shot into her garage. “No.”

  With his large hand wrapped around the kinder man’s shoulder, the man who ruined Grace and killed Elizabeth takes a shallow bow. He knew she wouldn’t do it, and he turns and they all walk away. But because Grace is too weak, they’ll come again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Julia stands in front of her refrigerator, staring inside. She should be getting supper on the table for the twins and Bill. From the top shelf, she grabs a loaf of banana bread tightly wrapped in aluminum foil. Some of her bananas were too ripe for pudding, so she used them to make bread because waste not, want not. She squeezes the tightly wrapped loaf until the ends pop open and then tosses it across the kitchen toward the trash can sitting at the back door. She grabs three more foil-wrapped loaves, all of them meant to feed the searchers tomorrow, but the search is over and all this food will go to waste after all. Like the first loaf, she throws all three across the kitchen. Next she slides out a pale blue casserole dish trimmed in a white Butterprint pattern. It’s her banana pudding with a three-inch meringue, also meant to go to the church tomorrow. Her meringues never bleed or weep, and this one, like all the others, is perfect. Sliding her palm under the cool dish, she holds it near her shoulder and launches it at the trash can, where it shatters against the wall. Next, the baby lima beans in cream sauce. They’ve always been Bill’s favorite. They sail across the room in a lemon-colored casserole dish and splatter on contact—the flat, pasty beans first sticking to the wall and then falling away to the floor.

>   “Aunt Julia.”

  Julia swings around.

  “Is something bad happening?” Izzy says. She stands in the kitchen entry, one hand on Arie’s shoulder, the other hanging limp at her side. Both girls’ feet are bare and their hair is damp from their bath.

  “No,” Julia says. “It’s nothing. You two get on back upstairs.”

  Arie steps away, but Izzy doesn’t move.

  “Is it Elizabeth? Did they find her?”

  “Not now, Izzy. Later, when Uncle Bill gets home.”

  “I wasn’t doing anything bad,” Izzy says. “I was only looking for Patches. You never let us look.”

  Arie has continued to back down the hallway, but Izzy stands firm.

  “I’m sorry I pretended. Arie didn’t know. I was only—”

  “I said, upstairs now.”

  “But Aunt Julia, we—”

  “You’ll never find that cat.”

  Julia reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out the last loaf of banana bread, rears back, and throws it. The small, tightly bound package hits the wall with a thud.

  “That cat is at your grandmother’s house, way across town, and it’s probably dead by now.”

  Izzy’s bottom lip pokes out. “That’s not true. There’s no reason to think she’s dead.”

  Turning her back on Izzy, Julia says, “Upstairs. Now.”

  Julia stares at the mess she has made until the girls’ bedroom door slams shut. Once she is certain they have settled in, she walks over to the foyer and takes a quick look out the front of the house. No sign of Bill, even though the other husbands are home for the evening. She drops the curtain and at the entryway table picks up the tattered, yellowing article about the Willows that Malina returned. Julia’s unfolded and refolded it so many times, it has begun to tear along the creases. Back in the kitchen, she stands alongside the trash can splattered with yellow pudding, banana slivers, and slippery beans, and lets the flimsy sheet drop.