A Tiny Piece of Sky

by Shawn K. Stout

  Daddy grimaced. “You shouldn’t have written him.”

  “I didn’t,” said Mother. “Dottie did.”

  “He’ll just put his nose where it doesn’t belong,” said Daddy, shaking his head. “Thinks he has a better head for business, always has.”

  Mother patted his hand. “Don’t get yourself all worked up now.”

  Daddy closed his eyes.

  “We ought to be going, then,” said Mother after a moment. “You need your rest and we’ve stayed long enough.”

  His eyes flew open. “Stay, please.”

  “We’ll be back later,” Mother told him. “Try to sleep.” She leaned down and kissed him on his forehead. Elizabeth and then Joan said good-bye and each gave him a peck on his cheek.

  When it was her turn, Frankie leaned in close, but Daddy gripped her hand. “Stay here for a minute,” he whispered.

  Frankie stood alongside Daddy’s bed while he held on to her. All manner of things went through her head about why he wanted her to stay. None of them good.

  Daddy cleared his throat. “You go on ahead, Mildred. Princess, Joan, go on with your mother, would you please? I want to have a word with Frankie.”

  Mother looked like she wanted to stay as well, but she must have seen something in Daddy’s eye that changed her mind. She collected the two girls and ushered them out into the hall.

  55

  ONCE THEY WERE GONE, Daddy let go of Frankie’s hand. “Frankie,” he said.

  “I’m sorry I left the restaurant,” said Frankie. “I’m sorry you had to come looking for me. And I’m sorry this happened to you, Daddy.” The words collected in her throat in a pile of letters and she could barely get them out.

  “Nonsense,” said Daddy, patting her knee. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you in the kitchen. I let my frustration about Biggs get the best of me, and you just happened to be there to bear the brunt of it. You all right?”

  Frankie wiped her nose and nodded.

  “Good,” said Daddy, lowering his voice and glancing at the door. “Now, with all that behind us, this is what I wanted to tell you. Mr. Travers came to see me at the restaurant. He’s a council member on the chamber . . .”

  “With Mr. Price?” said Frankie.

  Daddy nodded. “But he and I go way back. He showed me something that Mr. Price has been circulating through town.” Daddy tried to sit up but winced again. “I think it’s in the pocket of my shirt somewhere in here, wherever they put it.”

  “About boycotting the restaurant,” said Frankie.

  Daddy raised his eyebrows. “You’ve seen it, then?”

  Frankie nodded. “They’re all over.”

  Daddy’s face fell. “When people are afraid, or made to feel afraid, they will believe anything.”

  She looked away.

  “You don’t think those things about me,” he asked, “do you?”

  Frankie could answer him truthfully. “No, Daddy.”

  Whether he believed her or not, she couldn’t quite tell.

  “I am German,” he said gently. “An American German. And I am proud of that. As you should be yourself. This is your heritage. But that does not mean I am proud of what is happening right now in Germany and other countries in Europe under Hitler’s rule. No, sir. For that I am ashamed. But that is not me, and I can’t help where my mother and father were born or where I am from any more than I can help the color of my skin or eyes.” Then one side of his mouth turned up in a smile. “Well, eye, anyway.”

  Frankie grinned.

  “And I don’t think it’s fair to make judgments about me, or anyone for that matter, based on the things we can’t help,” he said. “Do you?”

  “No,” said Frankie.

  “No,” he said in agreement. “That’s right.”

  “So what Mr. Stannum gave Mr. Price,” said Frankie, “what was it?”

  “Stannum?” said Daddy. “Stannum was the one?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I could’ve stopped him; I should’ve, but I didn’t know . . .”

  “Travers told me that Mr. Price was bragging about having gotten to someone. I never in my life figured it would be Stannum.” He put his hand over his chest and took in a long, jagged breath.

  Frankie panicked. “Daddy, are you all right?”

  He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them. “I saw him at the square. He was there in the crowd when I went down. He kept telling me he was sorry. Over and over he said it. I didn’t know what he meant.” He took a deep breath to slow his heart. “I thought I was dreaming.”

  “I couldn’t see what he found,” said Frankie. “Not too good, anyway. But even if I could’ve, I wouldn’t have been able to tell what it said. It was in German.”

  Daddy nodded. “It must have been something I got from the union. A representative came by a week or so ago and asked about using the banquet room for an upcoming meeting.”

  “What’s the union?”

  “The German Beneficial Union,” said Daddy. “They help American Germans with things like insurance policies.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Frankie,” said Daddy. “I need you to do something for me. It’s very important, and you’re the only one that I can ask.”

  If Daddy said anything else after that, she didn’t hear it, because you’re the only one repeated in her head at least a dozen times. Daddy needed her help—not Elizabeth’s, not Joan’s, but hers. This was a monumental day for Number Threes everywhere.

  “Yes.” Because it didn’t matter what he would ask of her; Frankie was up for the job.

  Daddy squeezed both of Frankie’s arms. “Your mother won’t want to keep the restaurant after I’m gone.”

  “Gone?” she repeated, shaking her head. “Please, oh please, don’t say that.”

  “Listen now, Frankie. You can’t let her sell it.” He coughed and squeezed her arms tighter. “Promise me.”

  “Are you all right?” asked Frankie. “Maybe I should get the nurse.”

  He stopped coughing. “No, don’t do that. I’m all right. Just a spell. Now, promise me you won’t let her.”

  “Why?” said Frankie.

  Daddy lifted his arm and clawed at the curtain beside him. He managed to take hold of a piece between his knuckles. Tugging a couple of times, he pulled the curtain back an inch or so, enough to let some light shine through. Then, taxed from the effort and unable to do more, he dropped his hand. “Because when I depart this world, I want to leave something behind that people remember. Something that people will talk about for years to come. Not just for me, but for your mother, for your sisters, for you.” He closed his eyes. “I want it to matter that I lived.”

  Frankie nodded. He did matter, of course he did, but she of all people understood what it was like to feel like you didn’t.

  “Listen to me, Frankie,” said Daddy, his voice fading. “If my brother has anything to do with it, well, that will be the end. We never did see things the same way, especially when it came to matters of business.” He rolled the top of his bedsheet in his hands and twisted. “Now, I know this restaurant can be something special, if only your mother will give it a chance.”

  “But how?” asked Frankie.

  Daddy shook his head. “That will be up to you. She’s as stubborn as you are, you know.”

  “But why me?” she asked. Mother would be much more likely to do what Elizabeth or Joan asked of her. She would listen to them.

  The corner of Daddy’s mouth turned up. “Because,” he said simply, “you, my dear girl, are the only one, I think, who can.”

  56

  THREE WEEKS LATER, HERMANN Baum came home from the hospital. Mind your heart, now, because I do not want to raise your hopes only to have them dashed. Hermann came home, not because his health was improving or t
here was the possibility of his recovery. No, I’m afraid that was not the case.

  Hermann, you see, had put all of his savings and business investments into the restaurant, and with it closed—which is how it remained—well, the Baums could not afford for him to stay in the hospital any longer.

  Alas, money was running out.

  And so was Hermann’s time.

  August

  57

  WHEN DADDY CAME HOME, he was confined to his bed and did nothing much but sleep. His weak heart was not strong enough for him to be up and about, so Mother and the girls made sure he remained as still as possible so that his heart wouldn’t have to work hard and wear itself out. Bismarck, too, looked after Daddy, staying at the foot of his bed and barking whenever Daddy needed something—a drink of water, a clean bedpan, an extra blanket.

  The human heart beats about 100,000 times in one day, pumping about six quarts of blood through the body and sending it a total of 12,000 miles. Did you know? That’s a lot of work for even a healthy heart, but for a sick one . . . my goodness. What a toll it takes.

  Most of the restaurant staff came by to see him at least a few times each week. Mr. Washington and Amy came almost every day and brought the mail from the restaurant. Mother was a stickler about visits, though, allowing the people to stay only ten minutes and not a second more. She instructed Frankie to sit by the door with Daddy’s pocket watch and give a holler when the time was up.

  Frankie didn’t mind that job. She got to be in charge of a schedule, and when nobody was visiting, she got to spend time with Daddy. For the first few days, he quizzed her about the restaurant almost daily, asking her if she’d thought of a way to persuade Mother to keep the restaurant after he passed. He talked about his dying as if he were simply going away on another business trip, and not as if it were something permanent.

  The truth was, though, she didn’t have any idea how to persuade Mother to hang on to the restaurant. And the longer Mother was away from it—she’d refused to go back to the building since the night Daddy got sick—the easier it was for her, it seemed, to forget about the place. Frankie did try to talk to Mother about it a couple of times, but Mother’s response each time was, “I wish we’d never opened that infernal place.”

  Well, what do you say to that?

  Frankie didn’t know. And she didn’t know how she could keep her promise to Daddy.

  After the first week or so, Daddy stopped asking about the restaurant and Frankie’s plan to convince Mother. She didn’t know if he had given up on her, or decided to forget the whole thing. Frankie didn’t bring it up, either, because for one thing, it meant they would talk about him dying. And talking about that made it real. As long as Daddy was here, they could go on like this forever—him being a permanent fixture in the apartment, and her snuggling up beside him in bed and listening to his stories.

  “I know about Victoria,” Frankie said one afternoon. “I’m sorry about her and her baby. Your baby.”

  Daddy flinched at the sound of her name, and Frankie immediately wanted to unsay it. “Thank you, honey girl. It was a long time ago.”

  “Grandma Engel said it was a boy,” said Frankie. “The baby, I mean.”

  Daddy nodded.

  Frankie hesitated, but there was something she had been wondering about, and she needed to ask. “Did you want another boy? After you married Mother?”

  “What?” he said. “Well, yes, I suppose so. But I was just happy to have any baby, boy or girl.”

  “But you have three girls,” said Frankie. “Didn’t you hope one of us would be a boy?”

  “Frankie,” he said.

  “I was your last chance,” she said. “I’m the one with a boy’s name. Did you want me to be . . . something else?”

  “Is that what you think?” whispered Daddy.

  Frankie shrugged and then told him that it was.

  “I’ll tell you this,” he said, patting her hand. “Never even crossed my mind.”

  58

  MR. STANNUM SAT AT the desk in his small apartment and removed the framed photograph from his leather satchel. He took a drink from a brown flask he kept in his top drawer and stared at the worn picture of his brother in uniform. Tommy had their mother’s eyes and carefree smile, their father’s generous heart. He was all that was good in the world, and he died much too young, and at the hands of the Germans.

  Mr. Stannum pulled the slip of paper from his pocket with the words WHERE IS YOUR HEART? and placed it on the desk beside the photograph.

  Where was it, indeed? he wondered. The truth was, he didn’t know. After Tommy, he was afraid he’d lost it for good.

  59

  SPEAKING OF NOT KNOWING things, Frankie didn’t know much about Uncle Reinhart, Daddy’s older brother, who arrived by train from California the following week. He took a room at the Dagmar Hotel instead of staying with the Baums, even though Mother offered him a bed. Frankie was just as glad that he declined, figuring that the bed being offered to him would likely be hers and Joan’s. And to tell the truth, Mother seemed relieved not to have a houseguest.

  Uncle Reinhart was quiet and serious and did not suffer well the whimsies of children or those whom he thought behaved like children. He was clean-shaven and wore round glasses perched at the end of his nose, which required him to tilt his head back in such a way that he looked down on everyone, even if they had the advantage of height. Although Reinhart was older than Hermann, he never married, and was no more interested in sharing his life than sharing a ribeye steak with a hungry dog.

  He showed up at the Baums’ one afternoon while Mother and Elizabeth were at Grandma Engel’s and Joan was in the kitchen cleaning up after lunch. Joan brought him to Daddy’s bedroom, where Frankie was sitting on a chair outside his door, swinging Daddy’s pocket watch and attempting to put Bismarck, who was in front of her on the floor, into a mesmeric trance. “Hello,” said Frankie, laying the watch in a pile on her lap.

  “Greetings, little girl,” said Uncle Reinhart. Stepping over Bismarck, he nodded at Frankie and went right past her into Daddy’s room without saying anything else. He closed the door behind him before Frankie had a chance to say that Daddy was taking a nap or tell him that visits were restricted to ten minutes.

  Frankie checked the timepiece and leaned her ear against the door, watching as each minute ticked by. Things inside were fairly quiet and cordial at first, but after about five minutes, Reinhart began to talk about the restaurant. “Don’t be any more of a fool, Hermann,” he said. “Get rid of the place before it takes down everything you have. You are in over your head here, man. And you can’t even see it.”

  “Reinhart, please.” Daddy’s voice was hoarse. “This is not your decision to make. You don’t understand me and I expect you may never.”

  “I certainly don’t. That’s one thing we can agree on, brother. You know nothing about running a restaurant and you see no problem with hanging your family’s financial security on a childish whim. What’s more, you’ve never been cut out for business. How many times have I said that to you over the years? You take too many risks.”

  “What do you want?” asked Daddy. “Why are you here?”

  “I’m here to try to keep your family afloat. Let me handle your business affairs, why don’t you? I can sort this mess out so that Mildred and your girls won’t have to be burdened by your mistakes after you’re gone.”

  Frankie gasped.

  “Just like old times,” Daddy said with a deep sigh. “You’ve never been one to mince words.”

  “Someone has to tell you the way things are,” he said. “And for Pete’s sake, it’s time you come to your senses. Frankly, it’s past time.”

  It was exactly that, thought Frankie. She opened the door and held up the pocket watch. “Time’s up.”

  “Thank you, Frankie,” said Daddy. “Your uncle here was just telling me that I s
hould come to my senses. And you know, I think he may be right.”

  Reinhart adjusted the glasses on the end of his nose and looked down on his brother. “Is that so?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Daddy. “I think I will have some lemon water with saltines instead of my usual afternoon iced tea and wafers, Frankie. That makes a good deal of sense to me, what do you think about it?”

  Frankie grinned. “I think so, too. Lemon water is much better for a day like today. I’ll get that for you now.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” said Daddy, sinking back into his pillow. “You can show my brother out on the way. Thank you for stopping by, Reinhart. I hope you have found your room at the Dagmar suitable? Nothing like those fancy California hotels, I’d wager, but we do all right here for a small town.”

  Reinhart turned his back and followed Frankie into the hall. “Good day, Hermann.”

  “It is indeed,” called Daddy, straining his voice to be heard.

  Uncle Reinhart didn’t return the next day, or the day after that. But at the end of the week, he came back with Mr. Dawes from the bank. As usual, Frankie waited outside Daddy’s room with her ear to the door and counted down.

  “What are you doing?” said Elizabeth, coming out of the bathroom, startling Frankie so that she nearly fell off her chair.

  Frankie showed her the watch. “Keeping time like Mother asked.”

  “You were eavesdropping,” said Elizabeth, “and don’t say you weren’t. Did Mother ask you to do that as well? Who’s in there?”

  “Uncle Reinhart and Mr. Dawes from the bank,” said Frankie, leaning her ear against the door.

  “Mr. Dawes from the bank?” said Elizabeth, scooting close to the door. “What does he want with Daddy?”

  “I don’t know,” whispered Frankie. “I haven’t been able to hear anything from all your talking.”

  Elizabeth elbowed her in the arm.