Between Before and After

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  Taking some of the good writing paper from the morning room, Elaine composed a letter to Howie in her most careful penmanship. But the words in her head didn’t work on the page. I’m in the family way. She crossed out the words and tried again. We are going to have a baby. These were words that couldn’t be let loose into the world without seeing how they were received. Without watching Howie’s eyes, she’d never know what the news meant to him. She tore the paper into tiny fragments and buried them in the trash.

  Daily, she ran her hand over her bare stomach, checking for any signs of swelling. It remained flat. Her breasts were larger, but that might be natural at her age; she didn’t know. She avoided Stephen and even her few friends at school.

  After that first night in July when she had felt like she was dying, she’d slept with Howie two more times. It was their own private miracle. Now they were bound forever.

  She would tell him the truth in person when he came home.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  INTO THE FIRE

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK—NOVEMBER 1920

  ELAINE

  Elaine expected Howie for the Thanksgiving holidays. She’d prepared her speech and imagined his surprise turning to joy. Of course, his family would have to help them out until he finished school. She also imagined a darker version: May refusing to help, Howard dropping out of school, and the three of them—Howard, Elaine, and Stephen—having to make do in a cheap apartment. It was a good thing she’d had lots of practice at making do.

  An unexpected snowstorm kept Howard in Ithaca over Thanksgiving, and he celebrated at a friend’s home. Now he was expected to arrive on December 20 by train. She’d received one postcard from him in early November, which she carried in her pocket and worried until the edges were bent and frayed. It showed the front of the library building, a piece of architecture he admired, and had a few scrawled lines about how wonderful college life was. He’d signed it Your Friend, Howard Gossley, as if she didn’t know his last name.

  On December 20 the Gossleys prepared for the trip to the train station. Mr. Seward elected to remain at home, likely because the temperature was a frosty 28 degrees. Stephen was attending a school friend’s birthday party. And so Elaine appeared alone in the hallway in her hat and coat.

  “May I come?” Her heart tap-danced in her chest. She’d let her bob grow out a bit and wore her new navy blue coat, an early Christmas gift from the Gossleys.

  “Well, that would be nice. I’m sure Howard will be pleased to see you.” May adjusted her fur-trimmed hat.

  But by this time, Elaine wasn’t sure at all. She tugged on her gloves. Her clothes were tight. Soon her condition would be obvious to everyone.

  They rode to the station in silence, Mr. Gossley intent on navigating the icy streets and May wrapped in thoughts of her own. In the backseat, Elaine breathed deeply, and went over one last time the way she would make her announcement.

  They drove to Brighton’s Prospect Park station, where trains from the Manhattan Street Bridge and the Fulton El arrived. As always, the station teemed with people. Elaine walked wooden legged behind the Gossleys to the platform. Would Howie notice right away? The coat strained a bit over her stomach.

  As the train pulled in, Mr. Gossley checked his watch. “Awfully punctual for the BMT—ice and snow too.”

  “Do you see him?” May was on tiptoe, straining to see over the sea of winter hats. As the first passengers disembarked, Elaine gripped her hands together. A mother with a toddler in her arms and two more children clinging to their father’s hands, an elderly woman leaning on the arm of a rotund man, two giggling college girls. Elaine strained forward. Then she heard May call out.

  From a car farther up the platform, passengers poured out. Howie was unmistakable. He wore a gray fedora and a charcoal overcoat. In one hand, he carried his traveling valise; the other was firmly supporting the arm of a dark-haired girl.

  If her legs had worked, Elaine would have run then. She looked for a way out through the swirling mob. May rushed forward to throw her arms around Howie. Howie, his quick smile lighting his face, grabbed his father’s hand and shook it.

  “Mom, Dad, you remember Sally.”

  Sally Wilson. The girl Howie had taken to the dance his senior year in high school. Up close she was even prettier than her picture. She had the pale skin, blue eyes, and dark hair of the black Irish. Two dimples framed her smile.

  “Sally’s ended up in Ithaca too. She’s studying pre-law. I told her you wouldn’t mind giving her a ride home.”

  “My parents couldn’t make it to the station today. My little sister is sick, and my father had to work. I so appreciate this.”

  All the while Elaine stood frozen, a smile etched on her face.

  “Elaine, I didn’t see you back there.” Howie pushed past his parents and threw an arm around her shoulder. He turned to Sally. “Sally, this is Elaine. I’ve told you about her. She’s like a kid sister to me.”

  “Hello, Howie.” Elaine watched from a great distance as her words dropped from her lips. She pictured them sinking unnoticed like a stone into a pond and settling in the muck of the bottom layer. The surface of the water barely disturbed.

  They gathered up bags and fought their way back through the crowds to the waiting car. Elaine realized with horror that she would be stuck in the backseat with Howie and Sally. Howie helped Sally into the car and then reached for Elaine’s hand. She jerked it away to climb in by herself. For a moment a puzzled frown creased his face, but it quickly disappeared as Sally talked of classes and Ithaca.

  Elaine heard none of it. She was too busy trying to breathe. Sally laughed easily, talking animatedly with her gloved hands. An overpowering fragrance of roses made Elaine break out in a sweat. Her stomach roiled. To keep from losing her breakfast, she fastened her eyes on Sally’s hands. Like small gray doves, they flitted against the dark leather of the car as she spoke, lighted on Howie’s arm, and finally came to rest in her lap. Then Howie reached out with his two bare hands and enclosed them. Sally smiled into his eyes.

  After they dropped Sally off, Howie turned to Elaine, his eyes still dancing.

  “How’s school? Have you won the prize in mathematics yet?”

  “Not yet.” Elaine placed a hand on her stomach.

  “You don’t look too good. Has Grandpa been working you too hard? By the way, you’d love Ithaca. It’s a dream town. You should see the buildings.”

  Elaine scooted into the far corner. “I got your postcard. Thanks.”

  “What? Oh, the postcard. Glad you liked it. You’ll have to catch me up on everything at home.” He leaned forward over Mr. Gossley’s shoulder. “What do you know? I made the field hockey team.”

  Elaine hurried to her room as soon as they arrived at Clinton Avenue. There was nothing to say now. Her carefully rehearsed speech crumbled to dust. Curling on her bed, she poked her stomach and wondered about the life inside her. She would not tell Howie. Not now. Not ever. She wanted her mother. She prayed for a miracle.

  The day finally came when the old woman could wait no longer. Hansel was not so fat as she would like, but she had Gretel heat the oven in preparation for a feast. She laid her plans carefully. Once Hansel was in the oven, she would push the girl in too.

  But Gretel had her own plans. She had learned a thing or two from all her travail in the forest. Restraining her panic, as one would corral an unruly dog, she listened to the old woman’s instructions. The brick oven was large and fired with wood. Its opening gaped like a maw ready to swallow them whole.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  FLIGHT

  SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA—AUGUST 1955

  Molly

  For one beautiful moment, the wind caught his wings. Instead of dropping straight down, Robert was lifted, blazing white against the purple sky. The faithful later said his face was radiant like an angel’s. I was too busy screaming to notice.

  The next moment a gust caught the corner of one wing. It lifted him higher. W
ould the wings really save him? Then he was tipping sideways, twisting like a leaf.

  I bit my lip until I tasted blood. I ran a few steps forward, but by then the wind had released him and he was plummeting headfirst toward the ground. Robert landed with a sudden ferocity, not on the hard-packed earth but half in the arms of a stout man, who fell over backward with the weight of him. They were both buried under the crumpled wings.

  I ran to the tangled bodies. Several of the faithful were running alongside me. Whatever had happened to Robert, it was my fault for goading him into it.

  I was the first to arrive. Robert and the stranger were completely covered by the enormous wings. Angus was screaming from the rooftop. With my eyes half-squinted shut, I lifted the heavy fabric. Robert, arms and legs jutting at strange angles, looked like my first doll after the neighbor’s dog got hold of it. No one would ever naturally lie in this position. His lips were slightly parted to reveal a pool of blood in his mouth and a thin line of red drool that trickled from his chin. His limp body was splayed across a large man who was gasping for air. I didn’t know if Robert was alive or not.

  An old man with skin wrinkled as a walnut carefully lifted the wings away from Robert and the stranger. He was speaking in Spanish, and although I couldn’t understand a word of what he said, the sound of his voice was comforting. He put a hand on Robert’s neck and turned toward the rest of us.

  “The boy, he is alive.” He spoke that much in English.

  At that news, a cheer went up from the remnant of the faithful, and I felt my heart lurch into beating again. Somehow, Uncle Stephen was by my side.

  “I’ve called an ambulance. How badly are you hurt?” he asked the stranger.

  “I think my back’s broken.” The man gasped.

  Then Angus was there, and he was crying, and Robert still wasn’t saying anything or moving.

  “Pray for him!” a lady called from the back of the group.

  And so Uncle Stephen did. He put one hand on Robert and one on the stranger, and thanked God that they weren’t dead and prayed that they’d be healed. I looked at Robert’s leg; the bone was poking like an umbrella rib clear through the skin.

  I wondered if he’d survive.

  I wondered what would happen when Uncle Stephen discovered it was my fault.

  DECEMBER 1920

  ELAINE

  Elaine talked to Maudie Jenkins at school. Her sister had been in the family way and then she wasn’t.

  “It’s awful.” Maudie’s round eyes grew even rounder. “They stick something long and sharp up inside you. Then you bleed and bleed. My sister almost died.”

  In the end, it wasn’t the pain or the money that decided Elaine. It was the memory of the babies her mother had lost and how she had cried for each one. How could she kill the tiny life inside her? If she did, she worried she wouldn’t see her own mother again in heaven.

  But what about Stephen? What would she tell him? It was as if her little brother, forgotten for the last few months, had suddenly reappeared in her consciousness as a giant. Perhaps this was her punishment for forgetting about him. Now, Elaine spent as much time with him as she could, knowing that she would be leaving soon.

  She had avoided Howie as much as possible during his visit home. For the most part, it hadn’t been difficult. He’d been out with Sally as often as he’d been in. But he’d noticed her rebuffs and seemed to be hurt by them.

  One night he knocked on her bedroom door. “Can I come in?”

  Elaine panicked. Try as she might, she had found it impossible to hate Howard Gossley.

  “Yes.”

  He entered tentatively and sat on the edge of the chair by her dressing table. “I miss our talks. I suppose you’ve got other things on your mind now.”

  “You’re the one with things on your mind. Things like Sally. Besides, all you miss is your midnight grope.”

  Howie blanched. “That never should have happened, but we were both young and didn’t know any better, I suppose. I wanted to make you feel better, and I didn’t know how. You are beautiful. I meant everything I said.”

  He had never said he loved her. He had never promised anything. Elaine massaged her forehead. She had been so sure.

  “You’ve been a good friend to me, Elaine. I meant it when I said no one knew me as well as you.”

  “And what about now? Who knows you now?”

  “College is different. Feels like you know everybody in your frat. And Sally. Sally’s a great girl. We’ve got the same ideas about things.”

  Elaine wanted to wail. To pummel him with her fists. “I thought we had the same ideas about things.”

  Howie smiled. “We probably do. But you’re still a kid. You’ve got lots of school ahead of you. I need to start taking responsibility for my life, getting serious. We can still be friends though, can’t we?”

  Elaine closed her eyes and tried to block out Sally’s name still ringing in her ears. “I’ve got something serious—”

  “Sally’s coming to dinner tomorrow night. You should get to know her. I think you two would really hit it off.” He paused. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

  The words were stillborn in her throat. “Nothing.”

  He stood up and stretched. “You’re too young to be so serious. Enjoy life while you can.” He turned toward the door and then stopped. “You’ll keep in touch with me, won’t you, when you go off into the big world?”

  Elaine didn’t say anything. There was a strange fluttering in her stomach that she couldn’t control.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  THOUGHTS LIKE QUICKSAND

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK—DECEMBER 1920

  ELAINE

  She’d leave after Christmas. Elaine counted the money she’d been hoarding ever since moving in with the Gossleys. She’d learned of a place she could stay temporarily with a classmate’s older sister. She stared out from her bedroom window into the growing dark and tried to imagine what life would be like without Stephen. A bitter and rainy winter loomed, much like her mood. Of course she couldn’t take him with her. His chances in life were better if he stayed with the Gossleys. As long as she could recall, she’d been his protector. He’d been the reason she kept going no matter how bad things were. Telling him she was leaving would be like trying to reassure a wounded animal. There was no way to explain to an animal that you were there to help. To keep down the hurt, abandonment, and fear he might feel, she needed a story to tell him. He mustn’t know how weak his sister was.

  She’d find a job, and then when she couldn’t work anymore, go to one of the charity houses like Woodward or Hope House. How hard could it be? She’d made do before and she could again. After the baby she’d find a place where Stephen could move in with her, if he still wanted to.

  Turning from the window, Elaine caught her face in the mirror. The same face. It should look different. But the rest of her body was betraying her now. Running her hand over her stomach, she felt the swelling. It was impossible to button her skirts anymore, and dresses wouldn’t be able to disguise her shame much longer. She’d tried to eat as little as she could in hopes that her stomach wouldn’t grow too much. But that wasn’t good for the baby, she was pretty sure. The baby. It was difficult to think of the thing inside her as human. What would she do with it when it came out? Would she keep it?

  “Lainey!” Stephen’s voice echoed in the hall outside her room. It was time to help with dinner. Taking a final look in the mirror, she knotted her shawl over her shoulders so that it hid the way her dress strained across her breasts.

  That Christmas, 1920, was the Christmas of electric lights. Mr. Gossley, claiming that he could take no more of Mrs. Theilen’s nagging about fires, bought electrified lights to string on the tree. Stephen was mesmerized. But the only thing Elaine noticed was that Howie left before New Year’s to get back for field hockey practice and parties in Ithaca. Sally left with him.

  Elaine then spent her free time looking for jobs. Stephen remarked th
at she was getting fat. So she ate even less, although she was hungry all the time, and she kept praying for a miracle even when none looked forthcoming. It all might have worked if it hadn’t been for Kay. Elaine had been helping polish silver for the New Year’s celebration. The kitchen was hot and steamy. After working all morning, she felt in desperate need of fresh air.

  “Kay, I’m going out to get some air. I’ll finish when I get back,” she called.

  Then she stood to fetch her coat. The room spun. When she reached for the table, it seemed to have moved. The floor rushed to her face.

  When she came to, she was on the couch with a cold cloth on her face.

  “I’ve sent for the doctor, love. You’ve been looking peaked far too long, and it ain’t natural for a young girl in good health to faint like that.” Kay face was rumpled with worry.

  “Don’t be crazy, Kay. I don’t need a doctor; I got overheated.” Elaine struggled to sit up and immediately the room spun again.

  “I’ll not have the flu untreated in this house.” Kay shook her head. “I’ve told Mrs. Gossley, and she agreed. Don’t you move. He’ll be along shortly.”

  There was no choice. Everyone would know her shame. Elaine pulled the blanket up to her chin. Underneath she laid her hands on her belly and prayed that the baby would die.

  The doctor’s visit was short and embarrassing. At the end of it, May was called into the spare room.

  “Your young charge is pregnant. I’d say five months.”