All the Little Hopes

by Leah Weiss

  “When’s the last time you laid eyes on your uncle?” Lu asks.

  “Yesterday,” he says with his mouth full of cookie.

  “Yesterday? After the killings?” I think to ask.

  He nods and takes another cookie without hardly swallowing the first.

  “Were you close enough to talk to him?”

  He nods again.

  “Well, did he kill em or didn’t he?” I get vexed cause talking to Tiny Junior can be like pulling teeth.

  “He done it,” he says, and the soldiers look at our friend for the first time.

  “He said that he killed those poor men—for sure?”

  When Tiny Junior nods a third time and reaches for a third cookie, all our mouths drop open in shock at seeing the simple truth declared.

  Lu says, “Did you tell your mama?”

  “Yea. He done it.”

  Chapter 41

  Lucy: Quagmire

  Missing men from Riverton have become a variation on a theme, much like the clever music of Johann Sebastian Bach that Wolf played for us. That German composer would shift a tune from major to minor and from fast to slow. After our resident violinist introduced us, that very day Mama had us look up J. S. Bach in the Encyclopedia Britannica. He lived two hundred years ago and wrote over a thousand compositions. He sired twenty children and went blind. He died at sixty-five from complications from eye surgery. He was a prolific man.

  So far, our Missing-Man Theme has four variations: cruel Larry Crumbie, seductive Frankie Tender, unfortunate Wade Sully, and murdering Terrell Stucky.

  We wonder if there will be more missing men to come, and if so, who will be next. We never dreamt it will be our favorite music man, who casts a spell over all of us. One who inspires the swing and the Lindy Hop and the jitterbug—Mr. Glenn Miller.

  Couples fall in love, say “I do,” and make love to his music, but sometimes not in that order. Helen told me these things in private last year when she called me naïve, but I’m not. I know these days babies are born closer to the wedding date than they should, and Glenn Miller is one of the reasons. He makes twenty thousand dollars a year playing music and might be the richest man in the world. Songs like “Stairway to the Stars” and “Over the Rainbow” lift us above the tiring war life that has worn us down. When we got word back in November a year back that Wade was missing, Glenn Miller’s music was both a comfort and a torture for Helen. She had memories, and when one was resurrected by a song, she stopped what she was doing, went to her bedroom, and shut the door.

  One time, I followed her and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbed her back, watched her cry. Unlike Bert and me, Helen cried pretty. She dabbed at the corners of eyes made brighter by tears. Her nose didn’t even run or turn red.

  “I wish there was something I could do, Helen. I wish I had answers.”

  “We all wish we had answers, but we don’t. I have to hold tight to hope, this little teeny hope.” She picked at a stain on her apron with her fingernail. “Hearing Glenn Miller’s music makes it all raw and real. Did you know Wade proposed to me right after we heard ‘In the Mood’? All the while it played on his car radio, I could tell he had something on his mind. He was antsy. When that song ended, he said ‘You know what I’m in the mood for, Helen Ann Brown?’ And before I could even guess, he said, ‘I’m in the mood for you to be my wife.’”

  What could I say to that? So I called out to the air, “Wade Sully, are you listening? We’re in the mood for you to come on home now.” That made Helen half laugh, and she patted the back of my hand.

  “Thank you for that,” she said, and we stood and hugged. I couldn’t remember when I last hugged Helen. She had grown appallingly thin. If I squeezed, I would crush her bones.

  Now, she’s gotten even thinner.

  We know the words to every song Glenn Miller recorded. “Pennsylvania 6-5000” is a favorite, named after a hotel telephone number. You’d think we’d get tired of shouting the chorus until we’re hoarse, but we don’t. “Chattanooga Choo Choo” won Mr. Miller his first gold record. He is loved by Americans in ways no politician or military man could hope to be.

  When we think he can’t do more to help morale, he joins the army and makes us extra proud. At the old age of thirty-eight, he becomes a major and leads the U.S. Army Air Force Band to dizzying success. I don’t think Everett ever saw his orchestra play. He would have told us of that wonder, but Aunt Fanniebelle and Uncle Nigel did.

  They saw him for real in New York City two months back. They took the first-class train up the coast and stayed at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Central Park South. Patricia’s fiancé, Lieutenant Julian Sanders the Third, was on leave, and Uncle Nigel got tickets for them to dance to the Glenn Miller Orchestra performing in the ballroom. Patricia and Aunt Fanniebelle wore evening gowns purchased at Neiman Marcus, Uncle Nigel wore his tuxedo, and Lieutenant Sanders was dashing in his dress uniform. They had a picture taken standing next to Glenn Miller and had it framed. It sits on their baby grand piano. That trip made me understand that I had rich relations who boggled my comprehension. I was covetous to my core until they got home and gave us the new Glenn Miller record. They also gave Bert and me a silver frame holding our grown-up picture Patricia took on opening day of tobacco market. We don’t look one bit like ourselves, but we keep it in our room to remind us of possibility.

  Now ’44 is coming to an end—the year Mama foretold the war would be over and Everett and Wade would come home. Instead, the bizarre vortex in Riverton continues to swallow bad men, and when asked, Trula Freed says the same nebulous thing: “They’ll turn up.” Weegee goes to the same four letters: HOME. They’ve both lost their telling touch. But the Missing Men of Riverton is a conundrum that pales in comparison to the loss that sinks us to our knees. It happens on Friday, December fifteenth, when we’re going about our day without bracing for a disaster of epic proportion.

  We don’t know a single-engine plane took off from Bedfordshire, sixty miles north of London. A plane carrying precious human cargo in temperatures near freezing and icy fog at zero visibility. The pilot is confident they’ll make the crossing, but he’s inexperienced. The plane flies low over the English Channel, under the radar. It was supposed to land in liberated Paris in two hours, and Glenn Miller would step off and be greeted by adoring fans braving the cold to catch a glimpse. He was to be the star of the Christmas show for the Allied troops.

  That was the plan.

  The next day, the radio announcer tells us that Glenn Miller’s plane never made it to Paris and we send prayers heavenward and beg God to spare our music man. The weight of our prayers is a palpable thing as we beg for a miracle.

  But Glenn Miller stays missing.

  Into the next day.

  And the next.

  Through the dark days of December.

  Then the world begins to speculate. Maybe Glenn Miller was rescued but has amnesia. Maybe his plane flew off course and he’s being hidden by a French family. Maybe the Nazis captured him and will leverage his life in exchange for our surrender. We study our maps on the parlor wall to see where he could have landed. We hold tight to hope. We hope with a fervor we didn’t know we had. To our way of thinking, until they find his body, he can’t be dead.

  Then cruel rumors rise up, rumors we hear from Uncle Nigel who reads the Washington Post and the New York Times. Then the rumors are reported in snippets on the radio and become accusations. Did the British Lancaster bombers abort a mission? Did they drop their bombs in the English Channel before landing and hit Glenn Miller’s low flying plane?

  Glenn Miller tunes are played every day on the radio, but they’ve lost their sparkle. They are too lively. He stays missing.

  We don’t bother to ask Weegee.

  1945

  Chapter 42

  Bert: Redemption

  This year, we don’t leave our beds to watch the
New Year come. Mama don’t pretend the war will end anytime soon. She don’t say Everett and Wade is gonna come home. Glenn Miller stays missing and hope has run thin. I make up my mind to mend my old ways. I’m gonna let go of the things in my treasure box cause they ain’t special no more, but facing the people I wronged scares the bejesus outta me. I need a soft start, so I go see Aunt Fanniebelle.

  She’s in the sunroom drinking tea in a bright spot of January sun. A fuzzy green robe is wrapped round her like a peapod with her wrinkled face poking out. I’m nervous cause the sunroom was the scene of the crime that first time I come for me and Lu’s birthdays. That stormy night, I wrapped the silver infuser in a pressed napkin and slid it easy in my pocket. Today I put that napkin and infuser on the table beside Aunt Fanniebelle’s teacup. The silver’s turned dull.

  The old woman cocks her head to the side and says, “I once had me an infuser like that.”

  “This is your infuser. I took it.” Then I say, “I stole it,” cause Lu told me not to water down my sin but don’t puff it up more than need be.

  “We looked for that infuser for days but couldn’t find it. We even beat the bushes looking.”

  “I had it. In my box of stuff,” I say. “Stuff I stole.”

  But Aunt Fanniebelle isn’t hearing good. “It needs a good cleaning from the look of it. Hand it here and go get the polish in the butler’s pantry. It’s in the drawer to the far right. You need to learn to polish silver right. This is an embarrassment. A lady never lets her silver tarnish.”

  I get the silver cleaner and a rag, and Aunt Fanniebelle shows me how much polish and pressure to use, and I wipe off the stain from that infuser and let the shine come back. She don’t exactly forgive me. Instead, she tries to give back the thing I’m trying to give her. Finally, I say, “Can you keep it for me? If I have need for it, I’ll come to you,” and that pleases her.

  Next is Mama’s black button I took off the window ledge that first night. I want to sneak it back in her sewing basket and pretend it always lived there, but Lu said proper redemption don’t work that way. Repentance is not sneaky. The hurt should ping my heart in order to heal. I don’t want any of my family to witness my outright sin, so I pick a time when Mama’s alone in the kitchen. I put the black button on the table and step back, ashamed. She don’t throw a tizzy fit when she sees it. She says matter-of-fact, “I wondered when that button would turn up again,” and drops it in her apron pocket.

  “I’m sorry, Mama. So sorry.” I don’t want to get off easy.

  “Bert, I knew you took the button, but for a while, you needed that button more than I did.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did. I needed to hold on to something good, but that don’t make it right.”

  “Stealing is never right, but sometimes it’s necessary,” she says and confuses me.

  “Necessary?”

  “You were uprooted, looking for solid footing. Like Helen, who’s been in a dark place these months. But you’ve moved back into the light. You don’t need this button anymore, and I’m happy for you.”

  I wait. “That’s it? You ain’t gonna punish me? Take a switch to my backside? Give me extra chores?”

  Mama ties on her apron and starts making a butterscotch pie. She says, “Maybe that guilt you’ve been carrying around has been punishment enough. You’ve already done the heavy work.”

  “How you figure that?”

  “You’ve worried and reflected on your behavior and decided to right a wrong. There’s the lesson.” Then she adds, “But don’t get the wrong idea. Thieving chips away at your character. If it goes on too long, it can’t be remedied.”

  “You think my thieving ways went on too long?”

  “No, I don’t. You stopped at the right time.”

  So far, this letting go of stole stuff’s been easy, but Trula Freed’s green marble is the heaviest thing in my box. I know now I wasn’t fooling her one bit when I plucked it from her bowl of marbles and tucked it in my pocket. Today, I decide to lay that burden down and head to the hayloft to fetch the marble and take it to her. I hope the marble don’t carry bad luck that lingers.

  When I come outta the barn, I see her. I rub my eyes at the apparition, thinking I conjured her out of fear, but Trula Freed is real all right, walking up our road, wearing a red hooded cloak that drags the ground, carrying a burlap bag by a drawstring.

  This kind of spooky stuff is troubling.

  “Hey,” I call out. “I was coming to see you. You here for a visit?” I sound silly cause I’m unsettled at her being so close to the stole marble that burns in my pocket. I say, “What’s in the bag?”

  She says, “Marbles,” and bout stops my heart.

  “Marbles?” My mouth is as dry as cotton dust, and I follow her into the house, back to the kitchen, where Mama has tea steeping in Oma’s pot and the butterscotch pie is cooling on the table.

  Mama lays her hand on my forehead. “You okay, honey? You look pale. Want some tea and pie?”

  I stare at the burlap bag Trula Freed sets on the table. Marbles.

  “Miz Trula.” My voice is small, my hand sweaty around the little glass ball I pull from my pocket. “This belongs to you.” I open my hand. My palm is hot and sticky, and the marble burns my skin. “I stole it,” I say outright, because Mama already knows my wicked ways.

  The sorceress takes the green marble, opens the burlap bag, and drops it in. “It’s yours now.”

  Why’d she go and do that? How will I tell my stole marble from the other marbles? The marbles she had in her bowl that are now in that bag. Marbles the color of her eyes. Eyes that see through skin and bone and into my dastardly heart.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Real sorry.”

  “You are forgiven,” Trula Freed says and puts a piece a pie in her mouth and chews slow.

  “Mama says sometimes stealing is necessary,” I say, and they nod and sip tea, and I rattle on. “But that don’t make a lick a sense. Stealing’s a crime. Back home, there ain’t two ways bout stealing. You get a whipping. You get sent to your room with no supper. No breakfast the next day neither. Stealing is a sin against the Lord Jesus, so salt gets put on the floor, and you get on your knees on that salt and stay there till you cry out and your knees bleed, till you fall over and Pa says that’s enough.”

  Mama stands in a rush and says, “Yes, that is enough, sweet Bert.” She pulls me to her for comfort, but my body locks up on itself. She says, “You’ve carried unnecessary burdens for too long. You need to unlock these shackles that hold you down. Don’t you understand that you’re not meant to be perfect? None of us are.”

  “But you are. You’re perfect. All the Browns are perfect.”

  “No, dear. We’re only human.”

  But my body stays stiff against her softness.

  Mama looks at Trula Freed. “Can you help her heal? My words don’t seem to be working.”

  And the witchy woman holds out her hands, and mine quiver cause I remember that shock I got the first day, taking Trula Freed’s hands without knowing. She waits for my hands, and the kitchen and the air and the light grow bright. She says, “I’ll wait all day for you and tomorrow, too, if need be, because you are precious to us.”

  When I lay my hands in Miz Trula’s, something buzzes in my head like the beat of tiny angel wings, and warm honey runs through me and fills up them empty holes.

  Chapter 43

  Lucy: Mibster

  Trula Freed brought us a burlap bag of marbles. They were all sapphire blue except for a green one that puzzled my brother and sisters because they never saw the bowl of green marbles like Bert and I did. Bert stole one that long-ago day but gave it back. I’m proud of her.

  All us Browns are better than average marble players. Even six-year-old Lydia knows how to knuckle down with a taw and shoot with precision, but it’s Grady who was born with the gift of a ch
ampion. He draws perfect three-foot circles in the dirt without needing a yardstick. He shoots with the deadly aim of a rattlesnake. The rest of us play a fair game where we take back our marbles at the end and only hold bragging rights. Grady likes to play for keeps. He’s the master mibster of Mercer County, but he’s run out of challengers who’ll take him on.

  We know the Nazis prisoners come from the land of the best shooters, because Oma told us so. These men are older and experienced in ways our Southern boys and girls are not. Our feelings toward them have mutated into something abnormally different from what we thought would happen.

  And they play marbles.

  Prisoners and guards alike drop to a knee to play when challenged. Byron tells us such things and stirs our curiosity about new marble talent. We want to see these moves that defy belief. Mama reminds us of her order to stay away from the prison camp, but the passing of time is making that rule tenuous. Like a spider silk stretched to its limit, we hope the rule will break and we’ll be liberated.

  Playing marbles is the oldest game in the world. It started at the beginning of time with round stones and polished nuts and clay balls before marbles were made of glass. Then from the mid-eighteen hundreds, the center of the marble-making world was Germany, deep in the forest of my family’s roots, beside the Lauscha River. Oma’s father left the Black Forest to work in the factory that made a million marbles a day. The marbles filled a railroad car that was sent out into a world hungry for marbles. Rich people paid an astonishing penny for one mib. It’s because of our ancestor that playing marbles is as natural as breathing in the Brown family.

  All the talk of marbles these days has Mama get out the locked wooden box she keeps in her room. Bert hasn’t seen our great-grandfather’s marbles. Mama spreads out a blanket on the kitchen table so the marbles won’t roll off and possibly crack on the floor.