Out of Splinters and Ashes

by Colleen L. Donnelly

  Chapter 69

  “If they manage to put Crawley in Berlin…” Randall stopped talking to Dietrich the moment Dietrich spotted me and gave his reporter friend a quick shake of the head.

  Crawley in Berlin. I looked at Dietrich from behind his slimy companion. Amabile could put Grandpa there if fiction became the testimony, as an illicit lover on top of being called a traitor in Poland.

  “Good morning.” Randall grinned his hello, twisting his upper half my way as he leaned against the hallway wall outside the courtroom.

  “Excuse me.” Dietrich stepped around Randall. He took me by the arm and kept me moving down the hall away from his friend. I looked back over my shoulder at the grin. If they manage to… I glanced at Dietrich’s profile. There was no “if” to him. Dietrich could seal my grandfather’s fate—a lover as well as a traitor, if he tied Grandpa to Berlin.

  “Stop.” I turned to face him.

  “We can’t talk here.” He stared down at me.

  “We don’t need to talk. I’m here to listen. But I can’t to you.” No one engaged an enemy except in warfare. I pivoted toward the courtroom, caught short by long fingers and a corduroyed arm.

  “I saw them, Cate.” He spoke in a whisper. “I didn’t mean to. I don’t even want to. At least I think it was them.” He let go of my arm. “In the mirror. They were together…he was tall. Blond. She was smaller…” His hand came toward my hair but stopped. “Hers brown. But it’s silly, isn’t it? Ludicrous? Living by imaginary images and silly stories?” He shook his head. He backed away, turned on his heel, and hurried down the hall.

  I watched him. Fast. I’d seen it too, once in Non Bookends’ window, then in the store, and again at the race. Tall and blond behind the mirror, small and brunette in what he held. A writer and a runner.

  I staggered to the courtroom’s door. The guard smiled, called me by name, and opened it for me. Miles was there, thread perfect next to where I always sat. I slid down a line of seats several rows behind him, choosing one where it would be too banal for him to twist and look.

  The sounds of people coming in created a background of whispers, pardon me’s, and creaking seats as everyone sat. I touched my hair where Dietrich almost had. If they manage to put Crawley in Berlin. Loving an enemy, betraying his fiancé…maybe his country. The faint fragrance Dietrich wore rose from my sleeve where he’d touched it. Loving an enemy could ruin Grandpa. Loving an enemy could ruin a fiancé… I turned, and he was there. Gazing back at me with hazel the same shade of blue Amabile saw in “his” eyes. The same shade reflecting in mine.

  Chapter 70

  “They got the wrong man.” Randall leaned close to Dietrich as two officers led Private Crawley from the room. It wasn’t Crawley Dietrich was watching, it was Crawley’s granddaughter. Dietrich glanced away from her tiny back to the reporter’s half-cocked smile beside him. Randall nodded his head and arched a brow toward McCoy as the lieutenant stood.

  McCoy. Dietrich watched Crawley’s commanding officer, ashamed he was doing it for the first time, the way he would have looked at him, or should have, had he been doing a real job instead of…he glanced again at Cate and thought of Oma…whatever he was doing. And whatever that was it had landed him on probation for refusing to come back to Der Spiegel when he was supposed to.

  McCoy was tall, possibly brownish hair at one time…hard to tell, with age and the cap. Dietrich thought back to the photos he’d looked at when he believed this was a data situation only, not an emotional one. Years ago, it seemed, certainly too long for his employer. McCoy stood erect, shifted from one side to the other, shaking hands with both attorneys.

  Cate stood. Miles did, also, a few rows ahead of her and turning as if he had known she was there all along. Miles was almost as good as Dietrich was…or used to be. There was nothing on Emerson’s campaign manager’s face. No regret, no false assurance, nothing to help the small runner he looked at. Dietrich counted the rows between him and the suited stick figure at the front. He could cover them before Miles knew what hit him.

  Cate stepped along her row to the aisle and marched straight to the front, where the minor reporters sat. There were three of them. Hacks from local papers, just doing their jobs. Lepers, in Miles’ world, untouchables he stood back from as Cate slid in beside them. Miles brushed his hands down the front of his jacket and was gone. Cate got to her feet, leaving the reporters with nothing as she walked down the aisle, past him and Randall, and disappeared through the door.

  Dietrich looked back at McCoy. A commanding officer’s word against his private’s, meager evidence available but enough they’d led Crawley away, even without the list. If this charge stuck, Crawley could be convicted as other war criminals had.

  “You go on. I’ve got some work to do.” Dietrich slid around Randall. He threaded between the seats along his row until he hit the aisle. He turned and withdrew his journalist ID. It was time to actually meet Crawley.

  Chapter 71

  I needed to sit in Grandpa’s chair, in his place and in his shoes, terrified that I shared his situation, his guilt.

  Hazel eyes stayed with me as I drove to Grandpa’s house, my heart racing along with my car, my memory of winning, the mirror, and him above it…and in it…Dietrich. My face heated as I crept over the speed limit, steering with one hand while my other slid over the warmth of my cheeks and my neck. Dietrich was the enemy. I pressed harder on the accelerator. No one could love an enemy.

  Cars filled Grandpa’s drive and the street in front of his house. Uniforms dotted the yard, his porch, and both doorways, another in front of his garage. Every one of them turned at the noise my tires made as I screeched to a stop. Erect postures became even more rigid. Eyes trained my direction the way rifles would have. I let off the brake and hit the gas.

  Whatever they decided. I roared toward Non Bookends, hearing Grandpa in my head but with my voice. That was guilt speaking, an enemy hidden in the heart.

  ****

  More cars surrounded Non Bookends, uniforms posted at each door. Cameras flashed on the sidewalk, and I recognized one of the reporters I’d sat briefly near after Grandpa’s hearing, waiting for Miles to disappear. I gunned down the street to the first open parking space and yanked in. Crooked, like my family was, apparently. I slammed the door behind me and raced to Grandma’s store.

  “I’m family,” I announced to the soldier at the front door. Family for better or for worse.

  “ID?” He stared down at me like he would an insect.

  “It’s in the car.” I waved an arm down the street behind me.

  “She can come in,” a man called from inside. “That’s Private Crawley’s granddaughter.”

  The soldier stepped aside, and I entered, brushing past a uniformed man I didn’t recognize but who apparently knew me. Grandma sat at her table in a store teeming with milling men instead of customers. She waved me over with a finger. I grabbed an extra chair and dragged it next to her, and we sat.

  “Grandma?” I whispered.

  “You Catharine Elizabeth Hunt?” An officer stood in front of me, a notebook in his hands.

  I nodded.

  “I have some questions for you.”

  I nodded again.

  “Would you like to go somewhere private?”

  Grandma did what she never did. She grabbed my hand, hers icy and cold around mine below the table.

  “I’m fine here.”

  The officer balanced his notebook on one hand and wrote with the other, taking down boring details like age, birth date, address, things I was pretty sure he already knew.

  “My turn,” I said, surprising him. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” I felt Grandma’s hand squeeze mine—warmer—a thank you.

  “I’m asking the questions here.” He glanced over his notebook at me, a face that was chiseled the way the army’s buildings were. But life appeared behind his stony expression. I saw it. And he felt it when I did, a tinge of red darkening his cheeks. “But s
ince you asked, and you will see with the rest of my questions, we’re searching for evidence in your grandfather’s case.”

  “What sort of evidence?” I thought of the mirror above us—high, ugly, ridiculously absurd in their sort of investigation. Just like the stories around him that would insinuate enough to redden all their faces.

  The officer cleared his throat. “Are you aware of any correspondence your grandfather may have kept, especially from his term in the military?”

  I stared at the eyes peering down at me, the notebook’s bottom edge now butted against his stomach. They would find the letters I had found at Grandpa’s house. “Some mail to and from my mother,” I said, grasping Grandma’s hand as hers loosened. “There might have been another letter or two with those.” In the attic, where Grandma would be livid to realize I’d nosed around. In the garage, where the army would think it odd to store correspondence. “But they’re at the house, not here. Grandpa never came here.”

  The officer frowned as he wrote what I’d said. “Never?”

  There was a commotion near the back, and one of Grandma’s authors hit the floor. The officer turned that way, but not as fast as Grandma.

  “Are those men going to manhandle my books?” Grandma came to her feet. “They are old, and some are valuable, and I will certainly bill you for damages.”

  I came to my feet alongside her as the officer excused himself and walked to the back. Voices and words as regimented and nonsensical as they’d been that first day at Grandpa’s house rose from behind shelves. “They’re after a list,” Grandma whispered, her head turned toward the commotion.

  “I know,” I whispered back. “I doubt it exists, but they sure won’t find it here, if it does.”

  Grandma glanced at me. “No,” she said, her head doing one slow shake. “They certainly won’t.”

  Chapter 72

  It was late in the day when I finally stood in front of my grandfather’s chair. I had to set the cushion back in the seat…all the cushions, in fact. His home and his garage looked like a tornado had hit, quite different from the way Non Bookends looked. Grandma had insisted a reporter follow her as she dogged the men opening and closing her books, jotting notes along with the journalist, making mention of the damages the army would be responsible for. The army left Non Bookends pristine.

  I dropped into his chair and into the narrow groove his thin shoulders and hips had carved. I was exhausted from the army’s questions about letters I’d been asked to identify, and tools, furniture, and kitchen items I’d had to put back. Did you find what you were looking for? I’d asked the person in charge at Grandpa’s house, the “Whatever they decide” creeping back as I faced the man. Harboring an enemy. “Confidential information,” the man had said.

  I levered the handle at the chair’s side and leaned back. I stared at the ceiling Grandpa must have stared holes through for years. Betraying his country? Betraying his wife? Like the hazel in Dietrich’s eyes calling me to betray my mother, my grandparents, and Emerson.

  The yellowed white of the ceiling told me nothing, like pages without words. Sitting in his chair didn’t either. I knew what was right. I wasn’t the sort of person who followed whims, who lost track of my purpose by falling for an enemy.

  I righted Grandpa’s chair and stood. I wasn’t a traitor. After a glance around Grandpa’s house, I snatched up my keys and started out. I belonged at Non Bookends…with Grandma.

  ****

  I heard his voice before I saw him. The store was quiet except for his voice and hers. “Emerson?” He was in front of the table Grandma sat behind, she in the same chair she’d been in earlier today, the one I’d used still next to her.

  “Catharine. I heard what happened here today. I came to see if you were all right.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was too early for the news program Grandpa’s story might be on. And nothing about it would make the newspaper until tomorrow. There was the neighborhood, though, the local gossips…and Miles. “You just now heard?”

  He came to where I stood, set his hand on my shoulder. “You look tired. Both of you do. Can I run out and get you some food? Coffee?” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I needed close. I needed it all the way to my toes.

  I glanced down at my toes and waited for close to reach them. Emerson was holding on, but not to me. He was offering me coffee, but not the sort of warm I needed. Slipping from Emerson’s grasp, I found “close” in the chair beside Grandma, warmth in her hand I’d held earlier. “You want anything, Grandma?”

  “Oh, you know how I am,” she said with more push than I expected. “I settle things by being busy, not eating.” She squeezed my hand for the second time today…for the second time in my life…and stood. “I can make some coffee here. How about the two of you?” She looked from me to Emerson, then back at me. “Well, I’ll make a pot anyway, and you can have some if you like.”

  Grandma created background noise to our silence—water, coffee can, grounds being scooped. I crossed my legs, studied my nails. I pinched my leg where he couldn’t see. Get hold of yourself. No enemy.

  “There, that’s started.” Grandma came alongside Emerson, tired—more tired than the fists planted on her hips denied. “Let’s see. What can I do while that’s brewing?” She glanced around her store. Not a book was out of place, no evidence any had been handled by brutes. “Maybe something it takes a man to do,” she said. She went to the back of the store and returned with her ladder. “I would have died today if those army men had thought to look up.”

  “ ‘The herd looked everywhere but up,’ ” I chimed. “Little Hippo.”

  “That’s right.” Grandma smiled. She braced the ladder against the wall, holding it with one hand. “Emerson, you’re nice and tall. Would you mind climbing up there and bringing down two or three of my pictures? I’ll dust them off, and you can hang them back up.”

  “Well, I…” Emerson glanced at his watch, another “close” calling to him, then at me. “Of course. Where do you want to start?”

  “Those first two above the ladder will be fine.”

  I watched Emerson scale the small ladder. He really was tall, but not as tall as Dietrich. I pinched my leg again, even harder. No enemy.

  “That’s good. That’s fine,” Grandma coached from the floor. Her nerves must be shot. I’d never seen her so kind. “Now, Cate, you take them from him, so he can come the rest of the way down without falling.”

  I walked to the ladder. Emerson handed down a picture…and the mirror. I glanced at Grandma as I reached for it.

  “Good, good. Now I’ll grab my duster. Just take a jiffy.”

  I frowned after her, a picture dangling from one of my hands and the charred mirror from the other. It took more than a jiffy. Emerson dropped from the last step to the floor, and Grandma still wasn’t back. I shifted my load.

  “Here, I’m sorry. Let me take one of those.” Emerson took the mirror, and I looked at my fingers, expecting black sooty grit, but there was nothing. I frowned at my clean hand, then at the mirror’s blackened frame.

  “What sort of look is that, Cate?” Grandma waved her duster at my nose.

  “Are you all right, Grandma?”

  “Better than you, it seems. Busy is medicinal. Here, you take this duster, and I’ll get another.” She shoved the feathers into my free hand. “Get that one cleaned. I’ll be right back.”

  I toted the picture to Grandma’s table and held its top with one hand. Tiny strands of feathers and dust floated in the air as I swiped at the wood and glass.

  “You’re probably not supposed to beat the picture. Here, let me.” Emerson propped the mirror next to the picture and took the duster from my hand. He ran it over the frame I held, the glass in front, the paper behind. I was mesmerized by his slow movement, by his diligence, by his non-sweaty run. “Now this one.” Emerson angled the mirror my way as he dusted the wooden back. I heard Grandma’s footsteps as the reflection in the mirror caught my eye. It was a p
uddle, me on one side and…I frowned…Emerson on the other. He was a boy, but his black hair gave him away. The mirror shifted as Emerson worked the duster around the top and sides. “Not sure why you keep or clean something this old,” he said to Grandma. I stared at the girl and boy from the new angle. The water rippled, then it cleared. Emerson ran the feathers over the glass and the two of them, wiping from top to bottom.

  “Do you see them?” I asked.

  He looked up at me. “See what?”

  I glanced back at the mirror. I, as the girl, stayed bent over, my reflection gazing back at me. Emerson, the boy, leaned closer, staring into blank water, his face not there.

  “Done with these. I’ll put them back.” As Emerson took the mirror away, the boy disappeared. Emerson toted only me to the ladder, me, the puddle, and my reflection.

  I looked at Grandma, asking if she’d seen, without asking.

  “That’s probably enough.” She picked Emerson’s duster from the table. She had seen, in a way that said she’d seen being left behind before. “It’s late. Maybe I’m more tired than I thought.”

  Emerson balanced on the ladder’s top, stretching with the picture as a young reflection of me dangled from his other hand. “There,” he said after both were returned to their places, the mirror a glare of light again. “I need to go anyway, so good timing.”

  The older Emerson was about to do what his young reflection had—leave me standing where I was. I listened to the clatter of the ladder as he returned it to the back, and the dusting off of his hands as he reappeared. “Catharine, did you want to go?”