Willow Run

by Patricia Reilly Giff

  At last I heard the music that meant the news was coming next. The picture grew large on the screen.

  But it wasn't the same news I had seen with Ronnelle. There were soldiers, but they weren't marching; they sat in a muddy field, one of them drinking from a canteen, another with his head back against a stone wall, sleeping.

  Not one of them had daisies on his helmet. Not one of them was Eddie.

  The camera switched and a line of girls marched along a platform in white bathing suits. They made me think about Virginia Tooey. What would she think when she didn't get letters from Eddie anymore?

  The cartoon began. I closed my eyes, listening to Elmer Fudd sputtering over something Bugs Bunny had done. By the time I opened them again, Elmer had a rifle. He was chasing Bugs up and down a pile of rounded hills and into the woods.

  And a sign wrote itself across the screen in huge white letters: THAT'S ALL, FOLKS.

  Maybe there were woods in France. You could get lost in the woods and wander around for a while before you found your way out. Of course you could.

  And then I realized I couldn't remember what Eddie looked like.

  How could that be?

  And then I quieted myself. Lily had the key to our house in Rockaway. Everything was still there: the couch in the living room, the lamp Mom had gotten for her birthday two years ago, the picture of Eddie in his uniform smiling at us.

  As soon as I could make myself go back into the kitchen of our rabbit hutch, I'd write to Lily and ask her to send his picture.

  “I have to go home,” I told them.

  “Don't you want to see the second feature? It's a western,” Harlan said.

  I shook my head and stood up. Patches stood with me.

  Harlan waved his hand. “I'm going to stay until the end, otherwise we're wasting all this money.”

  Patches and I walked out of the movie, blinking in the light. I began to hurry when I heard someone in back of us, whistling “Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week).”

  Eddie used to sing that on his way out the door to go to the movies with Virginia Tooey. But I knew he didn't think it was lonely. He would pat the top of my head as he went by and do a little dance down the steps.

  “What are you thinking about?” Patches asked.

  I shook my head. If I told her, I knew I'd begin to cry.

  Chapter Twelve

  I said, “See you later,” to Patches and went into the kitchen. No one was there. A cup was on its side at the table, a lake of milky tea spread out beside it and dripping onto the floor. I dipped my finger into it: not even warm. It had been there a long time.

  “Nothing like a hot cup of tea to soothe the spirit,” Grandpa always said; and Ronelle: “Have to have food sooner or later.”

  I tiptoed to Mom and Dad's bedroom door. Their room was almost as small as mine, the double bed taking up most of the space. A tall floor lamp with a ripped shade leaned against the wall.

  In the dim light I could see Mom lying under the patchwork quilt, her arm hanging off the side, the crumpled handkerchief in her hand. I backed away, thinking she had gone to sleep, but she turned and sat up. She wasn't crying anymore, but her eyes were swollen, and a strand of hair was stuck to her cheek. “Oh, baby, where have you been?” Her voice was breathless. “We didn't know where you were.”

  I started to say I wasn't the baby anymore, but that would have made it worse. “I'm sorry.”

  “Dad is out looking for you. How could you do that?”

  I couldn't say I had gone to the movies. How would that have sounded?

  “Go outside, look for Dad. He's frantic trying to find you.”

  I didn't move.

  “I thought…,” she began, and stopped. “Two gone in a day.” She sank back on the bed again, her eyes closed, and tears seeped out from under her lashes. “Go find Dad,” she whispered.

  I went through the kitchen then, turning the teacup upright before I went outside.

  I heard Dad's whistle when I opened the door, a shrill sound that he used to call me home for dinner when I was at the beach.

  “I'm here,” I called, going down the cement walk. Kennis was sitting there trying to stick two pieces of wood together with a couple of rubber bands.

  Dad stood in the middle of the street, his back to me, whistling again. I kept calling and waving as I went toward him until he turned and saw me.

  “Meggie?”

  “I'm sorry,” I said again, but he pulled me to him, hugging me so hard I had trouble taking a breath. I knew he'd ask where I had been, so I rushed on. “Listen, I could make more tea. Some for you and some for Mom. Lots of sugar.”

  His eyes were red.

  My father crying. “What happened to you?” he asked.

  I stared down at the cracked cement under my feet. “I was with Harlan and Patches,” I said slowly. “The kids on the other side of the walls.”

  Dad nodded. “It's all right. We were just worried….” He swallowed hard. He was having trouble with his mouth, too.

  “Let's go home,” I said. “Let's just go home to Rockaway. Eddie won't even know how to picture us here. He won't know what it's like.”

  Dad closed his eyes for a moment; then we walked along the street together. “I want to show you something,” he said.

  He took long steps, so I had to hurry to keep up with him. We passed a row of ugly apartment houses, then a bunch of trailers with wash strung on lines from one to the other. People were coming and going from the factory, swinging their lunch pails.

  And then the houses were gone, and the people, and we walked along a dirt road toward open fields. “It's just a little farther,” Dad said.

  As the road curved, I saw what he wanted me to see: a row of trees that hadn't been sawed away, and after that a field of grass so high we could just about see over it.

  I stood there breathing in that dusty air; then I reached out with my fingers to touch the feathery top of a yellow plant. The sound of insects buzzing was everywhere, a sleepy sound like the one I always heard when I went around the back of Grandpa's house into his garden.

  One day Eddie hammered thin stakes into the ground and twirled the tiny bean vines around them. “What would I do without you, Edvard?” Grandpa said.

  Above, the sun was a glowing ball lighting a path through the field so the green stalks in the center were blurred. It was almost as if I could walk across the top of them and keep on walking straight up into the sky. And at the far end of the field was a small house, unpainted, with a tiny porch in front, and a stone chimney that leaned a little. It looked as if it had been there forever.

  “Willow Run. It was all like this before the war,” Dad said. “A small town named for a stream that ran through here long ago… trees, everything green and lovely.”

  He waved his hand in front of him. “Maybe it will be like that again afterwards.” He shook his head. “Europe in ruins. Monte Cassino, that beautiful cathedral, hundreds of years old, gone. You know, Meggie, it's all because people haven't learned to get along with each other. Jews gone because they were Jews. Old people because they were old.”

  I felt my breath catch. Grandpa was old. “Grandpa would love this,” I said.

  “I thought that, too, the other day, when I saw it for the first time.” Dad tilted his head. “I don't know why, but I keep thinking about that summer we went to the Catskill Mountains. August. The days were warm, but we could feel the beginning of fall in the air.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Grandpa snoring in the room next to us, and Eddie and I laughing. Mom shushing us, one finger to her lips, and then bursting out in a laugh so loud that Grandpa woke with a snort.

  “Eddie and I slept on cots,” I began, but Dad was talking about something else now.

  “If only my eyes were better. If only I could have gone.”

  I moved closer to him, so glad he was there with me and not somewhere in Europe with Eddie.

  “We have to keep thinking of places l
ike this,” he said. “Things growing, reaching for the sky, instead of being torn down.”

  It made me think of Grandpa bending over, turning the soil over or patting the plants.

  Grandpa.

  “What about Grandpa?” I said. “How will he find out about Eddie?”

  “Mom asked me to call him long-distance from the post office. I did that, an hour ago.”

  “What did he say?”

  Dad held up his hand. I could see his mouth trembling.

  Then he shook his head. “If only he were here with us. Mom would have …” He stopped.

  If only.

  Sometimes, coming home from fishing, late for dinner, Grandpa and I would cross the boulevard, dodging a car or two. I'd hold the tackle box over my arm, the handles making red marks in my skin. Grandpa would slap one hand on top of his head to hold on his cap, and grab my free hand with the other, and we'd run. Mom, seeing us come down the gravel path, would begin to laugh.

  Dad was right. He would cheer Mom up in two seconds. He'd tell us how good Eddie was at finding places, tell us about that time when Eddie and I took the wrong path in the Catskills, and Eddie yodeled so someone would find us. Grandpa always laughed about that, too.

  Back at the corner I nearly fell over Harlan, who was lying in the street, face to the sun, eyes closed.

  What was the matter with him, anyway?

  And then I saw Kennis shooting a gun, those two pieces of wood stuck together with a rubber band.

  Playing soldiers.

  What good was that?

  Harlan opened one eye. Orange ice ringed his mouth as if a volcano had just erupted. “I'm a Nazi,” he said.

  I stepped over him and kept going.

  “What about Virginia Tooey?” I asked Dad.

  Dad shook his head.

  Virginia didn't know, then. She must be in her house, writing letters and knitting khaki socks for Eddie.

  As we went up the path I could see Mom, still in her robe, standing by the kitchen window, looking out at us.

  She raised one hand, and as we went in the door, she was saying, “This is war. Look at this bare earth in front of us, nothing growing.” She held her arms out to Dad. “My child missing.”

  I stood there for a moment, wishing I were somewhere else. I picked up Judy and buried my face in her warm fur.

  Letter for Lily.

  Please go in my living room and get Eddie's picture. Send it right away, even if you have to ask your grandmother for the money. Tell her I'll pay her back when the war is over. I can't remember what Eddie looks like and now he's missing in action, isn't it strange, on a beach. It was on D-day. The telegram didn't come until this morning. He never even got any of the candy.

  Margaret

  Dear Virginia,

  I wanted to tell you that Eddie got lost in France. I know you'd want to know. Eddie thought you were very pretty. He told me that. The prettiest girl he ever saw. He said I might look like you someday.

  I hope so.

  Listen, I'll let you know when he's found as soon as I can and then you can start writing to him again.

  Yours truly,

  Meggie Dillon

  Dear Grandpa,

  Remember the time we were lost in the Catskills and Eddie found the way home?

  What do you think, Grandpa? Won't he find his way again?

  Love,

  Meggie

  To the Hot-O Soup Company:

  The first thing I'm going to do when the war is over is hope that there won't be another one. And if my brother comes home, I won't need to hope for anything else.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Meggie?” Patches said through the wall.

  I leaned closer to the wall. “I'm here,” I said into the dark.

  “Are you okay?”

  I wasn't. Everything was wrong. Eddie. Mom and Dad crying. Grandpa alone at home. Owing Arnold the Spy all that money. “If only I hadn't taken the ice cream,” I said, then blurted out, “I hate it here.”

  Patches took a breath. “It's wonderful here,” she said slowly. “You can switch the lights on and off, and there's a bathroom inside, and enough money for school shoes.”

  No electricity, no bathroom. Who ever heard of that? “Where did you come from?”

  She didn't answer for a moment. “The mountains,” she said.

  “When the war is over,” I said, “we'll all go home. There'll be parties.…”

  “That's true,” she said. “My three brothers and their wives will come over again on Sundays. My sister, Lou, always brings raisin pies, and Mom will roast a possum.”

  I covered my mouth. A possum. It sounded worse than Spam.

  We were both quiet. I kept thinking about the shoes on Patches’ table. And then I fell asleep, to wake up while it was still half dark. I had dreamed of Grandpa and Eddie in the garden, dreamed that I had been left out, watching the two of them talking and laughing. I sat up, tears on my face.

  At home in Rockaway I loved to wake up early while everyone else was still asleep. I'd patter around in the kitchen to peer out at the waves, silvery as they folded over on themselves, and listen to the swish-swish sounds they made on summer mornings. But this wasn't Rockaway; there was no Atlantic Ocean. Dad was at the factory on the graveyard shift. Only Mom slept; I could hear her mumble as she turned over in her bed.

  I went into the rabbit-hutch kitchen. The floor was wet, the linoleum squishing between my toes. Ronnelle must have been doing the wash earlier. Sometimes, if I listened against the wall, I could hear her humming as she put the clothes through the wringer. It was always that pilot song: “Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer.” She was thinking about her husband Michael.

  I looked out the window. The sky was still dark but the moon was almost full, throwing shadows across the street and onto the kitchen floor. One of Grandpa's sayings was about the moon, but I couldn't remember what it was, only that it had something to do with when to plant, or not to plant.

  I swallowed. I went back to my bedroom, standing still on one foot as I heard Mom turn over.

  I wondered what Dad was doing at work, what part of a plane he was working on. He said that the motors were made by Rolls-Royce, whoever they were, and that they were the best motors in the world. I wished he were home in the back bedroom, giving me that safe feeling.

  Ronnelle was at the factory now, too. Yesterday she had come across the lawn, running, the strings of her Hooverette apron flying, and Lulu toddling along with her. She called as she opened our door, “Mail for me. Michael has only two missions left. Then he's coming—” She broke off, looking at Mom's face. “I'm sorry.”

  Mom had put her arms around her. “Do you think I'm not happy for you? Oh, Ronnelle.”

  “But still…,” Ronnelle had said. “Two more. I'm so tired of being afraid for him.” She leaned her head back to look into Mom's eyes. “If we get through this, I'm going to be the best person.”

  Mom smiled. “You are that now.”

  I thought about being the best person, too, and wondered if Eddie felt the same way. I had to smile thinking that sometimes Eddie had gotten himself in trouble. Once on a sunny spring day he had played hooky from school and spent the whole day playing catch with his best friend on 102nd Street. And in fifth grade he had gotten a terrible report card. I still remembered the Cs marching in a row and how angry Mom and Dad had been.

  If only I could remember what he looked like. When I concentrated I could picture his eyes and his nose, always a little red from allergies. I knew the feel of his hair, and his hands on mine when he taught me to bat. I just couldn't put it all together into Eddie.

  I tiptoed into my bedroom, leaving the door open to the moonlight in the kitchen, and inched out the treasure box. I lifted everything out, my hands gentle on the smashed shells, the postcard collection, easing them onto the floor next to me. And then I ran my hand over the gritty bottom of the box, feeling the seeds still there.

  My handkerchief was on the table
next to the bed. I dug out the seeds with my fingernails one by one and dropped them into the hanky.

  On the way outside, I took a tablespoon from the kitchen drawer, feeling the dampness on my feet, and then I was in front of the house, the streets empty for once, the SUNDAE, MONDAY, AND ALWAYS truck chained to a tree on the corner.

  I knelt down next to the steps, one hand on the stone still warm from yesterday's sun, and began to turn over the earth with the spoon.

  It wasn't easy; the soil was packed down, and knobby roots crisscrossed the earth just under the surface. The sound of my breath was in my ears as I crouched there, but as I worked I felt each spoonful of soil turn soft, and as I went deeper, there was moisture that turned and turned with the spoon and I dug my fingers into it the way Grandpa would have, and I couldn't stop seeing his face. “I haf a garden to grow.”

  Suppose I had thrown my arms around him and said Come with us to Michigan?

  Would he have come?

  But what about the rest of it: “If this were anywhere else but Rockaway they'd probably put him in jail,” the boys had said.

  Could that be true?

  At last I had a patch of earth that could be planted.

  I took each seed out of the handkerchief and put it on the earth. “Things growing,” Dad had said, “reaching for the sky.”

  I sprinkled a little of the soil over the top and stood up, almost dizzy from bending over so long.

  The stars were fading now; it was almost daytime. Before I could climb the steps and go into the kitchen, I heard the gritty sound of footsteps in the street: someone coming home from work.

  It was Arnold the Spy, and he was walking slowly, coming toward me.

  For a moment I wasn't sure if he had seen me. I took a step back, covering the soft earth with one bare heel, my hand to my mouth, hoping that I was wrong, that he'd pass by, going on his way down the street, and never even notice I was there.

  I was reminded of a raccoon I had seen once in Grandpa's garden, late, after a party. Everyone was in the kitchen cleaning up, everyone but me.

  The raccoon had stopped when he saw me, one delicate paw up in the air, almost frozen against one of Grandpa's plants. I had held on to the porch railing, holding my breath. Then we both had run, the raccoon to go under the fence and me into the house.