“Did you agree on a meeting spot?”
“We did. The table—I was bringing food. He was supposed to be there with my friend’s daughter.” She motioned toward Grace, who stood with Tess a few yards away.
“But what about a place for you two to meet up, if he got lost?”
A basic precaution. How had she missed it?
She admitted her negligence by a stiff shake of her head.
“Not a problem.” He waved his hand as if to quell her rising shame. “We’ve already got guys combing the grounds. I’m gonna go check out the carnival booths. Kids wander over there all the time. Those big stuffed-animal prizes are like magnets.”
“I’ll go with you.” She couldn’t bear staying idle. She signaled to Tess that she’d be back.
Audra and the security guard traveled past the dart balloons and shooting gallery, the milk-bottle pitching booth. Between the ducky pond and ring toss, a little boy burst into a fit. His father looked to have reached his wit’s end.
Would bystanders dismiss any child’s screams as a tantrum, even if he was being abducted?
Applause soared from the stage, the sound of celebration. A man was talking to the crowd.
A microphone ... speakers ...
She asked the guard, “Could we make an announcement up on stage?”
“We’ve actually got someone about to do that right now.”
Audra’s mobile buzzed in her pocket. The screen read: Private caller. Tess could be borrowing a person’s phone.
“Is he there?” Audra demanded.
“Audra? It’s Meredith.” A quick pause. “Is everything all right?”
The question threatened to break her. No, it’s not all right! She could hear the sound of her own heartbeat. “It’s Jack. We can’t find him.”
“What? Where are you?”
“The park. At the waterfront. He wanted to sit and he, he left—” The answer collapsed as she caught sight of the river.
She hadn’t considered that Jack might wander past the jogging path and down to the docks, baited by the boats and Jet Skis zooming under the bridges. He had taken swim lessons years ago, but only the basics. Not strong enough for a cold, deep river.
“Audra? Audra!” Meredith’s voice. “Robert and I will come down there. Tell me where exactly you are.”
“Copy that,” the guard replied over the airwaves, and turned to Audra. “I think we found him. Over by the stage—”
That was all Audra heard before she took off running. She cut around obstacles, the guard trailing behind, until the profile of a boy swam into view. Jack. It was definitely him. There he was, talking to a uniformed soldier who had just stepped down from the stage.
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she said under her breath, a chant of boundless gratitude.
Meredith’s voice reached out from the phone, held low in Audra’s grip.
“We’ve found him,” Audra told her. “I’ll call you later.” She zipped between people reclined on their blankets, over trampled grass peppered with litter, and through wafting bubbles blown by a little girl with pigtails.
The band returned to the stage and proceeded to tune their instruments.
“Jack!” She threw her arms around him. She wanted to scold him, to shake him, to keep him close forever. “My God, you have no idea how much you scared me.”
The security guard caught up and fed a report over the radio.
Audra pulled back just enough to look into Jack’s eyes. “You can’t wander off like that. Ever, ever. Do you understand me?”
He nodded, and finally her tears dared to fall. She glanced up at the guard, then the soldier whose confusion constricted his features.
“I’m sorry,” she said to them both. “I’m ... so very sorry.” She grabbed Jack’s hand and briskly led him away, desperate to shed thoughts of what if.
With each mile that distanced them from the festival, Audra’s relief gave way to aggravation—less at Jack than herself. In a a place like that, she shouldn’t have let him out of her sight. Not for a second.
She recalled the child at the park harnessed by a leash. She and Devon used to condemn those inventions. Mostly, she now realized, because Jack never needed one. Even as a toddler, he always stayed near, always asked for permission.
So why had he ventured off?
She studied him in the rearview mirror. He stared wordlessly out his window, rubbing his little toy plane. She preferred not to relive the incident, but neither did she plan to let it happen again.
Taking the exit off-ramp, she rolled up to the red light. The ticking of her turn signal compounded the tension. “Jack?”
He connected with the reflection of her eyes.
“You know you’re not supposed to walk off without telling someone, right?”
He nodded.
“Then why on earth did you do that today?”
Jack parted his lips to reply, then pursed them and returned to the window.
She reviewed her own tone, firmer than intended. His disappearance had upended her emotions; though it all came out well, the effects were difficult to shake. She exhaled before trying again.
“Buddy, I’m not upset anymore. I just really want to understand why you’d do that.”
He didn’t respond, just stroked his personal worry stone.
Considering Jack’s military interest, like that of most boys his age, the Gl at the fair would have easily caught his eye. After all, the man had been a recruitment poster for valor, all spiffed up in an Army dress uniform.
“Did you just want to say hi to the soldier? Is that why you went over there?”
After a pause, he answered softly. “No.”
“Jack, I saw you speaking to him.”
It then occurred to her that he might be avoiding a confession: that he’d broken a basic safety rule by talking to a stranger.
“Could you please just tell me what you said? I promise, you won’t get in trouble if you’re honest with me.”
He gazed down at his plane, as if the answer lay in the grooves of its wings. He seemed to be growing even more introverted since his nightmares began. When he raised his head, he looked straight into the mirror. “Feel find feel air.”
At his altered voice, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck shot up. She twisted to face him, her foot still on the brake. She would have taken the words for gibberish if not for the distinct, purposeful syllables and guttural vowels.
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged at her.
“Jack, tell me what that means.”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled.
The phrase had sounded foreign. Yet how was that possible? With the prevalence of Spanish, few kids in America wouldn’t be familiar with standards like hola or adios.
But this was different.
“Do you ... remember where you learned it?”
He shrugged again, and a honk blared from the car behind. The light had changed to green. Audra scrambled to find the gas pedal and jerked the car into motion. She made a sharp left through the intersection, straining to remain in her lane.
They passed cars and crosswalks and neighborhood blocks. Her autopilot skills led the way as the fingers of her mind shuffled through Jack’s drawings. The Army plane in flames. The swastika on the man’s chest. And now Jack seemed to be imitating another language. Could it be a European tongue from World War Two?
She’d sat back all this time, not interfering when Robert showered him with fighter planes or reenacted invasions with battalions of toy soldiers, despite their inherent links to violence. She figured it was a normal hobby for boys. Her one condition had been no viewing of programs featuring the glories or brutalities of war.
Once parked in her apartment’s lot, she turned toward the backseat. She did her best not to convey an inquisition. “Jack, I really need you to tell me. Has Grandpa been showing you any war movies? About airplanes blowing up, or soldiers being hurt?”
A crinkle for
med on his brow, then he shook his head.
She’d seen that crinkle before, when he tried to keep a secret after a weekend with his grandparents. They’re supposed to spoil him, Devon had assured her, regarding Jack’s overdose of donuts. It’s a perk of the job. She had let it go, of course, even smiled at the benign tradition.
This, on the other hand, was anything but amusing.
She was about to press harder when her phone buzzed on the passenger seat. This time she had no doubt it was Meredith.
Audra handed the keys over to Jack. “Go on in, buddy. We’ll talk about this later.”
Jack climbed out of the car. She watched him enter their apartment, only a dozen feet away, before she picked up the call.
“Audra, are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“I just wanted to make sure Jack was okay.”
“He wandered off for a little while, but everything’s fine.”
“Oh, good. I’m so glad. I know how scary that can be.” Her voice lightened, sounding of a smile. “You know, we used to joke that Devon had bloodhound in him. Whenever Robert took him bird hunting as a kid, Dev would always go off exploring—”
The mention of killing animals for sport, combined with such breeziness over a roaming child—particularly after today’s scare—was anything but welcome.
“Meredith,” she cut in, “has Jack been watching any TV at your house?”
The woman stopped. “Once in a while, I suppose. Why do you ask?”
“Has he been watching war programs? Like on the Military or History Channel?”
“Gracious ... I wouldn’t imagine so.” Her air of uncertainty only raised Audra’s doubts. “Is there a problem?”
“He’s been drawing some violent pictures lately. Then there’s the nightmares he’s having. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of where he’s getting these ideas.”
Meredith went quiet, either brainstorming possibilities or sensing the onset of an accusation.
Another confrontation was the last thing either of them needed. The easiest way Audra could handle this was to provide clearer guidelines during their next visit.
“I actually need to check on Jack. But we’ll talk more later, okay?”
“Sure,” Meredith said. “That’s fine. Give him our love.”
“I will.”
Audra disconnected the call and leaned back onto the headrest. She gazed at the apartment door, home to a son she could have lost. To prevent that from ever occurring, maybe she did need help after all.
She dialed Directory Assistance.
“City and state, please,” asked the automated voice.
“Portland, Oregon,” Audra replied. “For Dr. Newman Shaw.”
14
The name came to Vivian muffled, as if spoken in a dream. She dropped her hands from her ears.
“Vivian!” On the pedestrian walk, parallel to the river, Isaak was hurrying toward her. She set off in a run to halve the distance between them. Upon their meeting, he crushed her to his body, squeezing out her breath, though none of her relief.
The siren continued its warning.
“We have to get to a shelter,” he told her.
She nodded against his cheek.
“Come.” He grabbed her hand and hastened down the path.
On the sidewalk a torrent of strangers scattered in a panic. They were ants fleeing a storm.
Isaak looked around, assessing, calculating. “The Underground station,” he decided aloud. Not waiting for a reply, he towed Vivian deftly through the crowd. They were about to cross the street when two taxis collided. Vivian ducked at the smash of metal and glass, and once more Isaak pulled her close.
For a full second the scene came to halt, like a photograph from the Daily Mail. Then all chaos resumed. Isaak led her onward, but a queue had swelled and divided around the immobile cabs. Each footstep ground shards into salt-like crystals. Over the crunching came a shriek. A woman at the corner had toppled from a shove and scraped her knee on pavement. Blood colored the rip in her stocking.
“I have another idea,” Isaak said.
Vivian nodded. If their surroundings were any indication, the station staircase could be more hazardous than a German bomber. Then again, in her frenzied state, he could lead her to hell and she wouldn’t think to object until waist deep in flames.
“This way,” he said.
Changing direction, they zigzagged in and out of the city blocks and into a vacant alleyway. He came to an abrupt stop. A square wooden door lay on the ground at an angle. A cellar. He jiggled the padlock.
“Damn.” He scanned the ground as though hoping for a dropped key. He resorted to a pile near the trash bin, discards from a building renovation.
Vivian raised her face toward the clouds. Would Hitler give only a taste of a threat, a chance for Chamberlain to reconsider? Or would he punish them unmercifully to deter other countries?
A sharp clank jostled her. Isaak had sent a gray pipe rolling over the cobblestones. “This’ll do,” he said, clutching a narrow piece of steel akin to a crowbar with no hook. He shoved the tool beneath the cellar latch and yanked up with a groan. He yanked again, harder. The fastener bent, yet clung to its bolts.
At minimum she ought to ask whose cellar they were invading; they were no doubt breaking the law. But circumstances, she was learning, dictated a separate set of rules.
Joining him, she grasped the end of the tool with both hands. Its rough, rusted surface pressed into her palms. On a count of three, they heaved and tugged until they pried the latch free. Isaak tossed away the steel and lifted the door. She peeked inside and flinched at the ladder. The shoddy rungs vanished into darkness.
He held out his palm to guide her in. “Trust me.”
For a slew of solid reasons she would be wise to decline. Yet her trust in him, like the depth of her feelings, ignored all sensibility.
She took his hand and mounted the ladder. The slanted wood bowed under her weight. She was halfway down when Isaak climbed on, and she prayed the structure could hold them both.
At the bottom, she found relief on the packed dirt, just as Isaak slammed the door. The cellar turned dark as a coffin. Her lungs sucked a dusty breath.
“There should be a lantern down there,” he said. Creaks marked his descent.
She spread her fingers, inched her shoes by feel. With the siren somewhat muted, she made out a scuffling sound from the side. She told herself it was Isaak, though her ankles awaited the slithering tail of a rat.
Then came the hiss of a match. Isaak used the sulfurous glow to locate a lantern. He returned the matchbook to his trouser pocket and transferred the flame to the wick. Adjusting the knob, he shrank the tall stretch of fire into an orange teardrop.
Shelves covered the walls, stocked with canned foods and dry goods, pickled vegetables and jarred fruit. Barrels of onions and sacks of potatoes huddled in the center of the rectangular space. The air smelled of stale dirt and perishables starting to rot.
Isaak set the lantern on the ground. “The father of one of my classmates owns the general store above us. We’d sneak in here for a snack on occasion,” he explained.
“They won’t mind that we’re here?” Not that it mattered at this point.
“His family evacuated a few days ago.” Isaak shook out a pair of burlap bags and laid them out like blankets. “Can’t say if they’ll ever be back.”
The comment struck Vivian as odd. Londoners would return from their rural hideaways eventually.
Then it dawned on her: “They went back to Germany.”
He affirmed this with his silence.
Saying no more, Vivian took a seat. A shiver from the cool ground moved through her. She thought of her parents. They would be safe in a shelter by now, her father at the embassy, her mother with her friends.
Vivian hugged her knees as Isaak walked around, scoping the area, fingering the shelves. He shouldn’t be so calm and collected. Envy itched at her
until his circular stroll revealed itself as pacing from nerves.
“No chance of starving anytime soon.” He picked up a jar and wiped the dust to view the contents. “Are you hungry?”
The knots in her stomach gave no hint of untying. “Sit with me.” She motioned to the burlap. “Please.”
Replacing the jar, he smiled. “Of course.”
He settled beside her, his back against the shelves, and she nestled beneath his arm. His cologne smelled of pine, his jacket of a sweet cigar.
“Darling, you’re shaking.” He rubbed her arm over the sleeve of her sweater, brisk at first, then long and even.
For an eternal stretch, she focused on the rhythm of his breathing. The flow of air, in and out. Anything to drown out the siren’s ghost-like cry. Isaak took a few stabs at casual conversation, but the attempts swiftly died.
Lamplight glinted off the rim of his shirt collar. His necklace. She reached for the chain, desperate for a distraction, and followed its path to a golden charm. She traced the grooves of the foreign engraving, as she had done in the past. It was a gift from his late grandmother-his Oma he had called her.
A bedlam of voices broke out above. Vivian’s muscles recoiled, braced for an invasion. The yelling grew, then dimmed as the stampede passed the door.
“It’s all right, Vivian. We’re safe down here.”
The comment brought scant assurance. Any minute, an explosion could rip through the cellar and blast the jars into pieces. She fended off the image, sharp as razors in her mind.
Sinking into Isaak, she rested her cheek on his neck. How she yearned for comforts of the familiar, a vision of life before war. “Tell me again, will you? All the things back home you used to love.”
“In New York?” he said.
She nodded.
“Well ... let’s see....” His subtle German vowels became more pronounced in the dimness. He rested the back of his head against a row of canned soup. “The diners, for one. There was a spot by our house that had the best burgers and fries in town. Probably because they didn’t clean the grill very often, so the grease had loads of flavor. And they had the thickest milk shakes you’ve ever seen. They must have emptied a whole cow to make the shakes that creamy.”
The Pieces We Keep Page 9
