Sideshow

by Amy Stilgenbauer

  The funeral is in two days. I know you won’t be able to make it back in time and I can’t ask you to, even though I need you here more than anything. It’s not because of anyone here that I won’t ask you. You have to do what’s right for you. It’s what Nonna wanted. She told me so. And, what Mama would have wanted, what I want. There will always be a place for you here. I need you, but I want you to do what you need to do.

  Amuri,

  Natale

  Natale’s words burned in her mind as she made her way through the unknown streets. “You should have been here.” She could hear his voice and see his face as plain as day. Natale didn’t ask for help. He looked out for her. He truly did need her, and no matter how many reasons she had for not wanting to go back—her fear of Frank, her desire to find out what there was between her and Suprema, her enjoyment of the carnival—if Natale needed her, she needed to go home to him.

  Then her brain spun through the words again, settling on why he needed her: “Nonna has passed.”

  Nonna Gaetana, Abby’s rock since childhood, had passed.

  How was that possible? She had been so healthy. Sure, her mind had taken a hit or two. She repeated stories. She forgot people’s names. Once or twice she spoke as though she were still a young woman in Sicily, or wrote letters to dead relatives. But she was healthy. Abby couldn’t process how the world could suddenly not contain Nonna Gaetana. It seemed as though the world had always had her in it. How could her life just stop?

  This wasn’t the first death Abby had known, of course, but her mother had been growing frailer for years. Her mother had gathered her to her chest and whispered her goodbyes, her hopes, her dreams. They had parted knowing what was to come, knowing their love for each other. They had had closure. This, this was different.

  Unwelcome tears streaming from her eyes, she made her way to the first pay phone she could find and flipped furiously through the phone book to the name Holland. There were at least ten “Holland, M”s on the page, but only one on the correct street. Abby took a deep breath, tried to choke back the tears so that should could sound poised, and then dialed.

  “Holland Residence, this is Therese,” said the airy voice on the other end of the line. Abby knew exactly what kind of training created that voice; plenty of the girls in her voice classes had been instructed in it. The person who answered was hiding an accent, and that fact was clear as day to someone who knew how to listen for it.

  “Aunt Teresa, it’s Abby. Ninfa’s little girl.”

  “You sound just like her.” The airy quality slipped just a hair. “Why are you calling? I agreed to meet you at the aquarium—”

  “Something’s come up. I need to get back to Cleveland as soon as possible.”

  “And you need money.” Any hint of warmth in the fake voice was gone.

  “No, it’s not that. I mean, I would need to get a ticket back, but it’s because I still—”

  “You’re more like your father than your mother. That’s for sure.”

  Abby wasn’t in the mood to think about what her aunt might have meant by this. “Can you meet me at the train station?” She really wanted to ask if she could stay with her aunt for the night, and they could drive back to Cleveland together in the morning, but she knew this was a pipe dream.

  A long pause followed, and Abby wondered if her aunt had hung up the phone. She sighed, about to hang up, when Teresa finally responded in a whisper. “No. I cannot come, but I will send our maid to meet you with the fare for Ninfa’s sake. You’ll want the Englewood station. Lake Shore line, New York Central should be the fastest route. Give her at least an hour, maybe longer.”

  The words stung, but Abby accepted them for what they were. She was already flipping to the maps, looking for the train station and hoping it would not take too long to walk. “It will probably take me that long as well.”

  USING THE MAPS TORN FROM the pay phone directory, Abby made her way through the unfamiliar city streets. Chicago held a sense of foreboding vastness that Cleveland did not. She shrank from every person she passed as she pushed through the crowds, convinced they were all staring at her. Though she knew deep down this wasn’t true, and that these people probably didn’t give her a second thought, she couldn’t shake the feeling; she had managed to convince herself that she was being followed, though she never saw anyone who stuck out when she turned around.

  With a feeling of immense trepidation, she waited, eying the ticket counter. Every time someone stepped up to it, Abby’s stomach clenched. Countless questions and anxieties raced through her head: What if her aunt’s maid didn’t make it in time? What if the train filled up? She held her hands tightly in her lap to keep them still, despite her trembling. She knew it was making people look at her, and that was the last thing she wanted. She wanted her aunt. She wanted to leave. She wanted—

  “Can I get a cookie?” a small voice asked from next to Abby’s elbow. For a split second, Abby believed that it was her own voice, an echo calling out from her last trip to Chicago to see Aunt Teresa. Then she looked. The voice belonged to none other than Phebe. “There’s a man with a cart over there. He has coffee, too. Please?”

  Abby gasped. “Phebe?! What are you doing here?”

  “I came with you,” she answered as though this were plain as day. “It’s boring in the trailer, and I was just walking around the carnival and … I heard you say you were going to Cleveland.” She looked at the floor of the station; her eyes trailed over each miniscule detail in the tiling. “I came to stop you.”

  Abby continued to stare. She had no memory of Phebe walking with her. “Why didn’t you say anything until now?”

  The little girl shrugged, still staring at the floor tiles and not making eye contact. “I… I was waiting for the right moment.”

  Shaking her head, Abby pulled the small girl into a hug. She was clearly upset, though Abby couldn’t imagine why. “Phebe, this is silly. My home isn’t here with the carnival. It’s with my family.”

  “That’s not true. They abandoned you like my family abandoned me.”

  Abby dearly wanted to ask what had given her such an idea, but years of similar conversations with her younger siblings, especially Annette, on the question of their mother, stopped her. “We have to get you home. Ruth and Constance are going to be worried. You’re far too young to be wandering around Chicago by yourself.”

  “I’m with you. I’m fine.”

  “But I didn’t know you were with me, Phebe. What if I’d gone somewhere that wasn’t safe for you? And, Phebe, you really shouldn’t be leaving the carnival; people can be—” she paused and glanced carefully around the station. If any eyes happened to peer in their direction, they turned away quickly. “Well, they can be cruel.”

  Phebe crossed her arms and looked at Abby with a fascinating mix of pout and glare that only an eight-year-old could ever master. “Can I just have a cookie?”

  Abby met the expression head-on, narrowing her own eyes and trying to look stern, just as she would with Carla. “One. Then we’re going right back to the carnival lot. Do you understand?”

  Phebe nodded. “It smells there.”

  “Don’t I know it?”

  Abby made her way across the station to the old man with the coffee cart, glancing back toward Phebe every so often to make sure that she stayed on the bench and didn’t wander off. “You wouldn’t happen to have anisette for that coffee, would you?” Abby asked, examining the cart and picking up one of the sugar cookies, which were iced to look like fall leaves. Was autumn really upon them already?

  The old man smiled, but shook his head. “I think I have some gin in this flask if you really need it.”

  “Thank you, but no.” Abby took a few sticks of black licorice from one of the candy jars and dropped one into the paper coffee cup that the old man offered her. He wrinkled his nose. “I can pretend,” she said, smiling, and gave him a few coins, which he took gratefully. Apparently, licorice in coffee wasn’t so disgusting that h
e would mention it after she paid.

  Phebe had waited patiently for Abby’s return and took her cookie with a grateful smile. Abby sipped her coffee, which was too hot and had not sufficiently absorbed the licorice flavor, and watched Phebe from the corner of her eye before asking, “Phebe, how did you come to be at the carnival?”

  Phebe swallowed politely before speaking. “I live with Ruth and Constance and Papa Lambrinos,” she said, sounding somewhat rehearsed.

  “Yes, but, you said you were abandoned?”

  Phebe nibbled at the cookie and stared off into the gradually diminishing crowd in the train station. Abby waited patiently. “My mama put a note on my collar,” she whispered after a minute or two of contemplative silence. “She left me at the sideshow. Constance doesn’t think I know what it said, but I do. I told her I couldn’t read it because I didn’t want her to be sad for me.”

  “Oh, Phebe.” Abby had expected something like this, but to hear it said in such a matter-of-fact, world-weary way from such a young child utterly broke her heart.

  “Don’t be sad. Ruth and Constance are better mothers anyway. They take good care of me.” She nibbled on her cookie. It was obvious from the wrinkles on Phebe’s brow that she had more on her mind. “Suprema will take good care of you.”

  Abby closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, then sipped her coffee. Phebe’s mention of Suprema shook her like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky. She didn’t know what she wanted or needed anymore. Not only was her brother’s letter almost two weeks old, but another voice in her brain competed with her brother’s written words. It belonged to Nonna Gaetana and repeated the last words that she had ever spoken to Abby: “Promise me you will never give in to what the world expects from you. Live the life that you want to live and be strong and never ashamed.” She had promised her. Of course, at the time, she would have told her anything, whether or not it was true, just to make her proud, but now…

  It wasn’t just the thought of Suprema, but every opportunity that came with staying with her and the carnival. She was on the road now, just as she had always hoped to be. Sure, it was quite different from what she and Nonna had originally planned for her life, but when did things ever work out exactly as planned? She took one last sip of her coffee before tossing the cup into a nearby trash can. One final time, she glanced around for Aunt Teresa’s maid. She had no idea what she might look like. But that didn’t matter now. She didn’t need train fare to Cleveland.

  “Come on Phebe, let’s go.”

  “You not leaving me after all?”

  “No one is leaving anyone. Not today.”

  Abby brushed off a fly that had landed on her wrist and took Phebe by the hand. A cord connected the people of McClure’s Amusements, and she was slowly beginning to understand how and why. They were outsiders, people who didn’t belong to the wider society. This community sustained them and gave them something to rely on. Still, there was more than that, more than the desperation that comes from feeling alone in the world. These people were a true family. These people loved each other. Even Della, cold, haughty, vain Della, would move heaven and earth to keep Phebe safe when they were in Michigan.

  Yes, there were fights. There were differences. There were cliques and people who weren’t as close as they could be, but Abby knew that families tied by blood had those problems, too. Didn’t Aunt Teresa prove that with her letter? The only thing she didn’t know was whether or not she was part of the carnival family, whether or not those ties of love extended to her. She was starting to believe that she needed them more than ever.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE CARNIVAL LOT SMELLED WORSE when Abby and Phebe returned because there was very little else to temper it. Except for a few straggling trucks and trailers, the lot was empty. The tents were down, the rides were disassembled, and most of the caravan had cleared out. It was hard to tell exactly what was left, since many of the light poles had been removed and the lot was rapidly growing darker as the sun set. Phebe gasped and looked up at Abby with panic in her eyes.

  Abby didn’t know what had happened. “Where is everything?” she asked.

  “The jump,” Phebe whispered, her lower lip shaking.

  “They left?” Abby couldn’t believe it. Sure the lot wasn’t ideal, what with the distinct smell and all, but business was still decently brisk. There was no way they weren’t going to finish out the week in a city as big as Chicago, unless something awful had happened. Beyond that, Abby couldn’t fathom why they had all left in just a few hours. What had occurred must have been dire. “How could they have left?”

  Phebe sobbed. Tears streamed down her face, and the only sounds she made were small heart-wrenching gasps for air as she clutched her arms tightly around her chest.

  “Come on, Phebe, don’t cry. There—there’s still some people here. Let’s go find out what’s happening.”

  This only seemed to make her sob harder.

  Abby gathered her close, trying to hold on to her the way she had seen Ruth do from time to time. “Come on now, Phebe, come on.” When Phebe continued to cry, Abby lifted her into her arms. She was a bit too big for Abby to lift properly, but Abby gritted her teeth and started toward the first truck she could see.

  She passed by the first and the second, not recognizing them and getting an odd feeling from the glares they gave her and Phebe. Pushing her way on through the empty field, she finally saw a familiar face, but it was one she wanted nothing to do with: Gregor was rushing toward them at breakneck speed.

  “You found her!” he cried, his expression changing from frantic to relieved.

  “I—” Abby had carefully avoided Gregor since day one. Even when she had been trying her hand at the sideshow bally, she hadn’t looked him in the eyes, and he had seemed to agree with this arrangement. Now, however, he rushed toward Abby and gathered her and Phebe into a hug. Abby couldn’t help freezing.

  “Sorry,” he said, backing away immediately. “I just—God, you must know how a father can be when a child is lost …” he trailed off, glancing at the beat-up truck and small trailer in the field behind him. Abby couldn’t see anyone else in it, but she could only assume his family was inside, waiting.

  “What happened?” Abby managed to force out.

  Gregor shook his head. “No one is quite sure. The word came down that we were out of here by midnight. Most have already left.”

  “But why?”

  Squeezing Phebe’s hand once more, Gregor backed away with a shrug. “I can only assume some sort of scuffle. Probably police, but possibly locals. I wasn’t told, but there have been many rumors, some of a raid. That scares people. We can all move very quickly when needed, as you know.”

  Abby’s heart sank as she ran through her options. Her ride, Della, was probably long gone. She didn’t see anyone else she knew. She could either go back to the train station in the hope that her aunt’s maid had waited there, or she could ask Gregor for a ride to the next town. “Gregor,” she began, trying to calm her nerves, which were racing under her skin.

  He raised an eyebrow, urging her to go on, but she couldn’t. She stared sheepishly, afraid of the answer.

  But she didn’t have to ask. Another voice broke through the gathering darkness. “Phebe! Phebe, where have you been?!” Constance ran to her and gathered her into her arms. Phebe began crying anew, but these tears seemed to be tears of relief.

  “You didn’t leave me?” she asked, her voice still small and more frightened than Abby had heard it.

  “Of course not!” Constance closed her eyes. Her face seemed to clear of a terror Abby fully understood. “How could you think that?”

  Phebe didn’t answer. She just clung to Constance as if she would disappear at any moment.

  Tears were also streaming from Constance’s eyes. She was usually so put together; Abby was quite shocked to see them. “Thank you for finding her,” Constance said, pressing her face against Phebe’s.

  Abby knew that expression well.
Her own mother had worn it from time to time: when Joseph fell from his bike, when Carla had a fever. It was a look that said, “Everything will be all right” and “Thank God, you’re okay” simultaneously. She took a step back, watching the pair of them, the tiny family, and felt a hollowness in her heart. Did she make the right decision at the train station? She had no way of knowing. She had brought Phebe back to where she belonged. She had brought about this moment, but she missed her own family now more than ever. Would that ache ever abate now that Nonna Gaetana was gone?

  “Constance?” Abby asked gingerly when she heard the sputter of Gregor’s trailer engine come to life.

  “Della’s gone,” Constance answered, not taking her eyes from Phebe. “But if you need a ride I can think of someone still hanging around who would be more than happy to take you.”

  As the three of them made their way back into the lot, Abby could see that there were still a number of trailers not yet ready to be moved. The Lambrinos’s was one of them. Ruth stood out front, pacing and staring out into the darkness. Her face looked paler than ever, and she resembled a sentry on the night before a battle.

  When they came into view, however, her face cleared and she rushed forward just as Constance had. “Don’t you ever do that to me again,” she whispered fiercely, pulling Phebe into a tight hug.

  Phebe squirmed but hugged her back. “Abby found her,” Constance said.

  Ruth sighed. She still looked somewhat shaken as she led Phebe back to the trailer. “I’ll make some hot cocoa; I think all of us need it.”

  “I had coffee an hour or so ago, I don’t need—” But Ruth’s expression brooked no argument. She followed the family inside.