Mercy Train

by Rae Meadows

  “How much’ll you get for it?”

  “I don’t know. A dollar. Two.”

  Violet held the watch up to her ear, the tick soft and insistent. Holding the chain, she swung it back to Nino.

  “Maybe you should keep it,” she said.

  “What do I need a watch for? Someone’d just steal it off me anyways.”

  In the distance, the Fourth Avenue horsecar, one of the last in the city, came in and out of view between buildings. Electric streetcars and motorcars had been a baffling discovery when she and her mother had first arrived. In Kentucky, if it wasn’t pulled, it wasn’t moving.

  Violet didn’t know where they were, but as they walked east she could see the spires of the new bridge under construction. The river oriented her. She knew she could always follow it back to the neighborhood.

  When they neared Pearl Street, Nino stopped. Drunken men hitched and lurched down the sidewalk, and a pair of prostitutes stood outside a tavern and squawked, their shoulders white, their mouths crooked and red.

  “I got to beg off. Swing by Ollie’s,” Nino said.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  Nino chewed on his blackened thumbnail and then fake-boxed a few jabs toward Violet.

  “See you around,” he said. “I’ll buy you a root beer. With our haul.”

  He laughed before he jammed his fists in his pockets and trotted away.

  A pack of newsboys she didn’t recognize came toward her. They stopped, trying to force her off the sidewalk, but she wouldn’t concede to them. The boys pushed and poked her, and Violet shoved back. An older boy, a few fine black wisps above his lip, grabbed her arm and dug his fingers in as hard as he could through her coat sleeve.

  “I could cotton to you, sure,” he said, close to her ear. “A girl’s a girl.”

  She twisted away and spat at him. The boys whistled and guffawed before moving past her.

  Violet smelled the river, its sour brine a comfort. She plunked herself down on the curb, rolled up the sleeves of her coat, and inched a pebble out from her boot.

  Ready to run.

  IRIS

  The heat of summer had bloomed, and in the warm, slow evening, with the smell of wet soil and shorn wheat in the air, Iris sat with her parents drinking lemonade around the kitchen table, listening to a radio report about Amelia Earhart’s disappearance. Iris was riveted. The plane had lost radio contact somewhere in the Pacific a week before, but a massive search had yet to uncover any sign of wreckage or the bodies of the aviatrix and her navigator. She imagined them on a beach, windblown and suntanned, drinking out of coconuts.

  “Dead,” her father said. “Of course they’re dead. It’s irrational to think otherwise.”

  “They haven’t found the plane,” Iris said. “The announcer said it himself. They could have landed on one of those islands.”

  “Maybe it was all a hoax,” her mother said. “Maybe she got tired of being Amelia Earheart and changed her name and moved to Kansas.”

  Iris frowned at her mother. “She was famous! Why would she move to Kansas?”

  “You don’t think they’d recognize her?” her father asked.

  “If you saw her out of her fancy clothes without a plane in sight, you wouldn’t know who she was neither.”

  “Pfft,” he said, standing creakily. Harvest had taken its yearly toll on his body.

  “People disappear all the time,” her mother said.

  “You sure got a bee in your bonnet. Maybe the heat’s got to you.”

  Her mother sipped her lemonade. “Maybe so.”

  “Going outside with my pipe,” he said. After sleepless weeks of frenzied, ceaseless harvest labor, racing the weather, crop growth, and fluctuating market prices, he was spent and reflective. It had been a fine yield, better than last year’s, so he allowed himself an evening without work. He would walk down their long driveway and turn off into the trees and down to the river to smoke.

  “Pound cake’ll be waiting,” her mother said. “Strawberries from Wilson’s place.”

  He nodded and smiled at her.

  Iris walked to the edge of the field in the last of the light, a dazzling orange sun at her back. She knew Amelia Earheart wasn’t dead. She was just missing. And when you were missing, there was always a chance to be found. Iris looked out on the stubbled field yet to be plowed, the vastness broken only by the machine shed and row of cottonwoods. She gathered Queen Anne’s lace from the meadow near the barn. The broken stems smelled faintly like carrots in her hand. She thought she would put them in a jar for her mother’s windowsill above the kitchen sink. But as she neared the house she heard a rare sound, her mother singing, and she abandoned her ragged bundle on the step. She pulled the door open quietly and found her mother in the living room, mending an apron, her wooden sewing box open at her feet.

  “Oh tell me, pretty maiden, are there any more at home like you?” she sang softly, diving her needle back under the faded calico. She looked up as Iris came in, her face momentarily young and open before her cheeks colored and her face closed up. “I thought you were out back.”

  “I like when you sing.” Iris fell into the couch next to her.

  “Did you feed the chickens?”

  “Do you really think she’s alive somewhere?”

  “Iris.”

  “I forgot. I’ll go do it.”

  “Before your father gets back.”

  “Okay.” Iris sighed.

  “He’s right. Her plane surely crashed into the ocean.”

  Iris felt then that she would cry, her eyes hot with anger.

  “I’m still going to hope. I don’t care what you say.”

  She ran outside, letting the screen door slam behind her. She ran as fast as she could, straight toward the field, and tried to imagine what it would be like to fly, like it felt in dreams, to hear nothing but the whoosh of wind and to see the world grow small below.

  * * *

  It was midnight when Iris awoke with a jolt. She had not dreamed of flying but of falling, and she was glad to be up. She could hear music next door. The song was familiar, a jazzy tune from an era that she knew. Her head felt like a soggy rag, but she focused on the music, humming along, until it came to her. Of course. “Whatever Lola wants,” Iris sang, her voice a sleepy rasp, “Lola gets.” She and Glenn had played the Damn Yankees record in their first apartment on the twentieth floor of a high-rise on Michigan Avenue. He would come home from the office—a mere associate then—in his trench coat and fedora, and she would be waiting, the ice bucket filled, the meat loaf in the oven, the table polished. He was a handsome devil, Iris thought now. Tall, with dark curly hair and quiet brown eyes. It had been seven years since the divorce. She thought of Glenn now with affection. He had given her what she’d thought she wanted.

  Through the wall she heard the clink and crash of a glass breaking, and remembered poor Stephen on the landing in his towel. Iris rose—I’ll be sleeping soon enough, she thought—staggering a little, and wrapped herself in her robe. She didn’t want to arrive empty handed, so she settled on the bowl of raspberries (sorry, Samantha) and a half bottle of vodka she would never drink.

  Iris knocked loudly, and then knocked again until the music was turned down, and she could hear footsteps and a brief pause at the door.

  “Irene?” Stephen pulled open the door some. “Is it too loud? Am I keeping you up?”

  He had a martini glass in his hand, though it was not his first drink by the smell of him. He was dressed in a gray sweat suit, and his hair hung flat and fine without any of the goop he usually put in it. It was the first time she had ever seen him frumpy. Here was Stephen unadorned, she thought. He might as well have been naked.

  “I thought you might like some company,” she said boldly.

  Stephen was rightly confused by the appearance of his old neighbor in her robe, barefoot, and was about to turn her down when she cut him off.

  “You owe me one.”

  He laughed, his face red
and moist, and pulled open his door with a what-the-hell shrug.

  “Aren’t you a sassy bird,” he said, slightly slurring.

  “I’ve never been called a bird,” she said.

  “No? Consider it a compliment.”

  She walked into the living room. She had expected—what, mirrors, animal prints, a disco ball? It was modern yet warm, in shades of blue and dark brown. A row of large white candles glowed on the coffee table. She held out the berries and vodka to him. He set down his glass on the mantel—she had not once used her fireplace—and accepted her offerings.

  “What can I get you?”

  “A little wine would be nice.”

  Stephen went into the kitchen and clanked around. Iris sat in one of the leather club chairs across from the couch. When he returned, he handed her a glass of chilled white wine and relit a candle that had blown out.

  “Did you get your watch back?” she asked, taking a sip.

  He scowled and squinted, swaying a little on his feet.

  “The boy. On the landing,” she said.

  “Ah,” he said, falling into the couch. “No. That’s what I get, I guess. For being a lonely mess.” He laughed and popped a berry into his mouth. “How old do you think I am?”

  “I don’t know. Thirty-two, maybe?” Iris lied.

  “Forty! Forty years old. I don’t even know how to process that. Sorry, is that rude? I know you’re older. It’s just I don’t feel it. I don’t feel that many years.”

  “One never does,” Iris said.

  He exhaled and shook his head. They sat for a moment without talking, the music a low murmur underneath their silence. Earlier, Iris had set aside ten tablets of Roxanol, sure it would be enough morphine to stop her heart. She was relieved to have a plan in place. It calmed her now to think of those pills.

  “So,” Stephen said.

  “So,” Iris said.

  “Since I’m drunk, I’ll ask you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Are you sick or something?”

  “Cancer.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “A little.”

  “At least you still have your hair.”

  “At least,” she said, touching the cold wineglass to her cheek. “Are you going somewhere?” She pointed to a large suitcase in the hall.

  “For a few weeks. I haven’t taken a vacation in years. I’m going to go see my mother in Pennsylvania. Then on up to Provincetown.”

  “Good for you,” Iris said, knowing, sadly, that she would never see Stephen again.

  “I’ll send you a postcard,” he said, draining his glass. “From the Poconos.”

  Iris smiled and pushed herself to the edge of the chair. Her body ached, her head felt swollen. “Can you believe we’ve shared walls for five years?” she asked as she stood.

  “I’m glad to finally meet you, Irene.”

  She turned back. “It’s Iris.”

  Stephen clapped his hand over his eyes. “Iris,” he said. “Nice to know you, Iris.”

  “Happy travels, Stephen.”

  * * *

  Back in bed, Iris opened her book, thankful to the boy in the library who had chosen it for her. What a pleasure it was to be privy to the intricate pathways of the characters’ interiors, to recognize her feelings in theirs. At one time it might have been frustrating, even annoying to her, this dwelling on emotional fluctuations, but maybe this was, in the end, the stuff of life.

  It was quiet next door. She hoped for better for Stephen, for contentment, for love, even. And in this newfound magnanimity, she took an Ambien and set her alarm. Samantha would arrive tomorrow, and this made her happy.

  Iris couldn’t say she’d made peace with her private self just yet, but she could say, This is who I am, without hedging, without second-guessing, without reservation. That’s all one can really ask for, she thought. It was enough.

  SAM

  With her grandmother’s letter still in her pocket, Sam felt a new resolve as she raced across town to get Ella. But the traffic on Regent Street was backed up all the way to Park. She hit the steering wheel. It was 4:06 already, and she was late. How could a place as small as Madison possibly need this many bicycle stores? A group of college girls in jeans, heels, and tight little tops hobbled in front of her car holding their arms. And why didn’t the Coasties ever wear coats?

  The traffic started to move, and Sam jammed left through the tail end of the yellow light at Monroe Street, her palms damp on the steering wheel. On Jefferson, her brakes screeched as she skidded to a stop in front of Melanie’s house.

  “Hi,” Sarah sang, as she opened the door, Ella on her hip. “Melanie’s stopping off at the wine store. She told me to tell you to hang out for a bit.”

  But Sam wasn’t listening. She pulled Ella from Sarah’s arms; the recognition in that soft, perfect face, the smile on those pincushion lips, was enough to make her feel, for just a moment, grounded, holding fast to her child.

  “Dadadadada,” Ella said, pulling Sam’s hair.

  “Thank you,” Sam said to Sarah. “Here, let me pay you.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. Melanie already covered it.”

  Rosalee yelled a sing-song “Sarah” from inside the house.

  “Okay. Well, thanks again.” Sam turned, hugging Ella against her chest.

  “Come on in. Melanie will be here in a minute.”

  “We should go.”

  “Sarah! Come here right now!” the toddler called.

  “I’m coming, Rosa. Wait,” she said to Sam, “let me get your stuff.”

  She jogged to the kitchen and back with the diaper bag, her face ruddy and young.

  “See you soon, little girl,” Sarah said to Ella, touching her cheek.

  Rosalee raced down the hall and slid in her socks into Sarah’s legs.

  Sam waved quickly as she headed to the car. She strapped Ella into her car seat and kissed her on the forehead and on the petal-soft mouth, as her breasts surged with milk, hard mounds on her chest. The sun was already gone from the sky, the dusk, a cold arrival in the fall, unwelcome and gray.

  But she had her baby back.

  “What do you think, baby,” she said, “should we go home?”

  As she drove, Sam looked in her rearview mirror, at the reflection of Ella, who sucked her pacifier and watched the streetlights in the pale yellow sweater Sam’s grandmother had knit. Her life was coming back into view.

  * * *

  “I was thinking about what you said earlier,” Theo said. “About adopting.”

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything,” Sam said, rounding Lake Monona, lit up by the low moon.

  “It’s okay. I think, when it comes down to it, I don’t really want a kid that badly,” he said. “Not that I’ve ever admitted that to Cindy.”

  Sam thought of her friend Mina again, who had been a surrogate for her gay brother, and felt a bite of envy for such sibling closeness. To love someone enough to give over your baby—because how could it not feel like yours?

  “You won’t know until you have one,” she said.

  How strange to imagine the time before Ella when she didn’t yet know this feeling, this churning mix of worry, need, longing, joy, attachment, resentment, bewilderment, and obsession—this love that had flattened her.

  “Yeah. But that seems like a pretty big risk to take. I could be like that woman who gave her adopted kid back.”

  “I read about her.”

  “And I bet you thought she was awful.”

  “You’re right. I did,” Sam said.

  As she drove past the food co-op, she thought about all the things they were out of at home, and she tried not to think about the day, to parse its meaning.

  “I’m going to research the letter. Try to find out about Grandmother. We should know this stuff about our family.” She felt a tug on a cord deep within her, a link to a connection she hadn’t known she was missing. />
  “Go get ’em, Sherlock.”

  “You’re the one who did Dad’s family tree. Complete with a tree drawn in colored pencils.”

  Theo laughed. “Did you talk to him yet?”

  “No. But I’ll call him. I will.”

  “Yeah,” Theo said. “Right after you clean out the gutters.”

  She deserved her brother’s skepticism, but despite her earlier posturing she wanted to see her father. She was finished with harboring childish judgments. They were a waste.

  “Hey, what are you guys doing for Thanksgiving?” she asked.

  “Cindy’s brother’s family’s house in Arlington.”

  “Don’t sound so thrilled.”

  “We should plan a visit one of these days, Sammy. It’s been too long.”

  It happened about once a year. They would decide to be closer, and then a month later the sentiment was eclipsed.

  “Let’s do that,” she said.

  “For real this time.”

  “Yes. I’m in. Hey, Theo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We’ll bury Mom.”

  “We’ll bury Mom,” he said.

  Sam felt herself righted, optimistic even, gliding on a steel track toward home. She glanced back at Ella, her curious face visible in the intermittent streetlights.

  “Check your calendar. We’ll talk dates.”

  “All right, sister of mine,” Theo yawned. “I better go. A benefit Cindy’s dragging me to.”

  “For?”

  “Some children’s something or other.”

  “Nice, Theo.”

  “Oh, come on, they’ll get their money.” He laughed.

  * * *

  As Sam turned onto their street she was comforted by the block of worn-in houses wedged close together, warmly lit—dinnertime—the smell of oaky smoke from her neighbor’s wood-burning stove, the winking colored lights wrapped around Ted’s porch, which he had yet to take down from last Christmas.

  She juggled the diaper bag and hugged Ella to her, stepping carefully up the dark front steps to the house. She shoved the key in the door and kicked it open. Inside it still smelled deliciously like pound cake. They were home.

  The answering machine blinked red.