Stepping on the Cracks

by Mary Downing Hahn

  "No," Gordy said sarcastically, "I ran into a door."

  "I hate your old man," Elizabeth said. "He ought to be locked up, the way he acts."

  Ignoring her, Gordy pressed the bell. In a few seconds, the door opened, and a tall man with a pipe in his hand stared down at us.

  "Mr. Fisher?" Elizabeth said.

  Barbara's father nodded. "Elizabeth, Margaret, and Gordy," he said. "Right?"

  It was our turn to nod. Standing aside, he ushered us into a hallway smelling of pipe smoke and fresh green pine. In the living room, Mrs. Fisher was hanging balls on a big tree. A fire crackled on the hearth, and Bing Crosby crooned "White Christmas" on the Victrola in the corner. For a moment I felt as if I'd stepped into the kind of movie that always has a happy ending.

  Then Gordy said, "Where's my brother?" His loud voice shattered the spell of the Fishers' house.

  "He's asleep, dear." Mrs. Fisher laid the box of ornaments on the coffee table and joined us in the hall. "Oh, my," she said, looking at Gordy's eye. "How did that happen?"

  "His father hit him," Elizabeth said. "He socked him so hard he knocked him down and made his nose bleed, then he punched him again." Her voice rose, filling with admiration. "Gordy didn't even cry."

  "She's lying," Gordy said. "My old man never laid a hand on me."

  Mrs. Fisher looked from one to the other, then at me.

  "Mr. Smith hit Gordy," I said. "I saw him do it. There was blood on the snow."

  "Shut up, Magpie," Gordy said. "You too, Lizard."

  Our voices brought Barbara to the top of the steps. Holding Brent, she smiled down at us. "Stu's awake now," she said. "Would you like to see him?"

  Gordy was halfway up the steps before she finished speaking. Elizabeth and I were right behind him, but Barbara laid a hand on my shoulder, stopping both of us.

  "Whoa," she said softly. "Let Gordy have a few minutes alone with his brother."

  Elizabeth and I watched Gordy walk down the hall. His head was lowered, and he'd lost his swagger. From the back he didn't look very threatening. Seeing him hesitate outside Stuart's door, I realized I wasn't afraid of him anymore.

  21

  After Gordy disappeared, Elizabeth and I followed Barbara into her room. The first thing I noticed was a picture of Butch hanging on the wall over her bed. Tall and handsome, he smiled from the frame. He was wearing his high school football uniform and holding his helmet under his arm. Even though the picture was black and white, you could tell the sun was shining from the way he squinted into the camera.

  A Hyattsdale High School pennant was tacked to the flowered wallpaper above Butch's picture, and a megaphone from Barbara's cheerleading days sat on the bureau next to another photo. In this one, Butch wore his army uniform, and Barbara stood beside him, a beautiful bride in a long white gown. They were brave to get married in the middle of a war, I thought, and it made me feel sad to look at their smiling faces.

  Elizabeth flopped down on the floor to play with Brent, but I looked around the room, taking in everything it told me about Barbara. In her bookcase I saw six or seven Nancy Drews and a set of Winnie-the-Pooh stories mixed in with the kind of novels my mother read, Gone with the Wind, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and The Robe. Jammed in wherever they would fit were nursery rhymes, ABC books, and fairy tales.

  A big teddy bear lay on Barbara's pillow, and a collection of Storybook Dolls stared down at us from a shelf over the window. On the radiator cover was an arrangement of china shepherds and shepherdesses, delicate ballerinas, and a couple of graceful horses.

  Among all of Barbara's things, it was odd to see a baby's crib in one corner and a changing table in another. As further evidence of Brent's presence, a pair of Doctor Denton sleepers hung over the back of a rocking chair, and a set of alphabet blocks littered the floor.

  While I stood in the doorway, Brent took a few cautious steps to Elizabeth. Squealing with delight, he threw himself in her arms and Elizabeth hugged him.

  "When did he start walking?" Elizabeth asked.

  "Last week," Barbara said proudly. "He won't be a year old till February second. Isn't he the world's smartest baby?"

  While Elizabeth led Brent around the room by one hand, I sat down on the bed beside Barbara. "What did your folks say when they saw Stuart?" I asked her.

  "Well, they were a little surprised," she said.

  "They weren't mad?"

  Barbara shook her head. "Dad was kind of upset that Stuart's family wasn't taking care of him," she admitted. "I told him Stu had an awful fight with his father, but I was worried he was going to walk over to Davis Road and give Mr. Smith a piece of his mind."

  "How about your mother?" Elizabeth asked. "What did she say?"

  "Oh, Mother's liked Stuart ever since the days in grade school when I dragged him home with me for milk and cookies," Barbara said. "The minute she saw him, she fixed up the guest room and put him to bed."

  "I hope they don't find out he's a deserter," Elizabeth said.

  Barbara picked up one of Brent's toys, a little rubber duck that squeaked when you squeezed it. Turning it round and round in her fingers, Barbara said, "I hate deceiving them, but I don't know what else to do. I'm scared to tell them the truth."

  "Would your father turn him in?" Elizabeth asked.

  "I don't think so," Barbara said. Giving the duck a couple of squeezes, she handed it to Brent.

  He laughed and started chewing on the poor duck's head. Running her hand lightly over Brent's hair, Barbara smiled at him. Suddenly she leaned down and scooped him up in her arms. Giving him a fierce hug, she cuddled him on her lap.

  "How can mothers let their sons go to war?" she asked Elizabeth and me. "If there's a war when Brent grows up, I'll tell him to hide somewhere like Stu."

  "But Butch went," Elizabeth said. We all looked at his picture hanging over the bed. "He was a hero."

  Barbara frowned. "I wish he'd stayed in his foxhole and let someone else throw that grenade. Then maybe he'd still be alive, maybe he'd be coming home to Brent and me when the war's over."

  "But aren't you proud of his medals?" Elizabeth asked.

  Without answering, Barbara walked to her bureau and opened the top drawer. Lifting something out, she laid it in Elizabeth's lap. It was a neatly folded American flag. On top of it lay two medals.

  Elizabeth touched one as if it were a holy relic. It was a cross on a red, white, and blue ribbon. In its center was an eagle with upraised wings. "The Distinguished Service Cross," she whispered. "Only the Congressional Medal of Honor is higher than this."

  "He got it for exceptional heroism in combat," Barbara said. "That's what they told me when they gave it to me. He killed a nest of German machine gunners and saved a lot of other men's lives. But not his own."

  Elizabeth's finger moved to a heart-shaped medal on a purple-and-white ribbon. In its center was George Washington's profile. "And this is the Purple Heart," she said. "You get this even if you're just wounded."

  Taking the flag from Elizabeth, Barbara hugged it to her chest. "Of course I'm proud of Butch's medals," she said softly. "I just wish he hadn't had to die to get them."

  Putting the flag back, she pushed the drawer shut and looked at us. "I don't really know what to think," she said, brushing her tears away. "I know how important this war is, but I hate it. The killing, the bombing, all the people who have to die because of Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito. Why can't someone stop men like that before they start wars? That's what I want to know!"

  Except for Brent's laughter as Barbara squeaked the duck, the room was so quiet I could hear the steam hissing in the radiator. I wished someone could answer Barbara's question. I would have liked to hear what they'd say.

  ***

  After a while, Gordy came to the door. "My brother wants to see you dumbos," he said gruffly. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he walked back to Stuart's room, and we followed him.

  When I saw Stuart, my heart turned over with relief. He still looked sick,
but he was propped up on clean white pillows. A blue satin quilt lay over him like a piece of summer sky, and, even though he was pale, his eyes were clear.

  When he saw us, he smiled. "Well, well," he said. "Here are the angels of the battlefield again."

  "You look better," Elizabeth said, rushing forward while I hung back, suddenly shy.

  "Mrs. Fisher is a great nurse," Stuart said. "Not that you-all weren't," he added, "but she has better equipment." He pointed at the vaporizer puffing steam into the room and at the glass of ginger ale on a table by the bed. He had a big handkerchief tied round his neck like a cowboy's bandana, a treatment I recognized. Under it, his chest was no doubt slathered with Vick's Vapo-rub. I could smell it from the doorway.

  "Come on in, Margaret," Stuart said, "and close the door. You're letting out the steam."

  "Dummy," Gordy muttered at me as I hastily shut the door.

  In a few minutes, the door opened again and Mrs. Fisher smiled at us. "Visiting time is over," she said. "Stuart needs lots of rest." She had a bottle of medicine in one hand and a spoon in the other.

  Nicely as she spoke, we knew she meant it. We all left without protest, even Gordy.

  ***

  Outside, our shadows were long and dark blue against the snow. The western sky was a lake of fire, and the trees looked like black lace against it. The wind had dropped, but it was still cold, and our breath made little clouds when we talked.

  "Aren't you glad now that Barbara took Stuart to her house?" Elizabeth asked Gordy.

  Angrily, he kicked at the frozen clumps of snow left by the plow along the roadside. He was wearing an enormous pair of rubber galoshes, which he hadn't bothered to buckle. Clink, clink, clink, they went as he stamped along.

  "Her mother's a goody-goody," Gordy said. "And her father's a dope."

  Elizabeth stopped right in front of Gordy. With her hands on her hips she glared at him. "How can you say that?" she yelled. "You must be the most ungrateful boy in the whole wide world!"

  Gordy frowned at Elizabeth. In the light from the sunset, his face was rosy, but his eye looked even worse. "Just mind your own business and leave me alone, Lizard."

  We watched him run off down the trolley tracks toward Davis Road. Elizabeth shook her head. "Every time I think I'm starting to like Gordy a little better, he acts horrible, and I hate him all over again," she said.

  She was right. You could feel sorry for Gordy, you could try to help him, but he was like a stray dog who snarled and bit you when you tried to feed him.

  "How come Stuart's so nice and Gordy's so awful?" Elizabeth asked as we walked along the trolley tracks. Answering her own question, she said, "Maybe Stuart got left on the Smiths' doorstep when he was a baby. It's hard to believe he's related to any of them."

  ***

  When I got home, the first thing I noticed was the difference between our house and Barbara's house. No wreath hung on our front door, no Christmas tree stood in our living room, no Bing Crosby crooned "White Christmas" on our Victrola.

  Later we might get a wreath and put up a tree, but my father hated Bing Crosby. Once I heard him ask Mother how she could swoon over a man whose ears stuck out. "He looks like a jackass and sounds like a sick cow," Daddy said. "He doesn't croon, he moos." Then he'd sing "White Christmas" in what he imagined was a cow's voice.

  I liked Bing Crosby myself, and I thought Daddy could learn a lot from him. Not the way he sang—Daddy couldn't carry a tune, even he admitted that—but the way he acted. In all his movies, Bing was so kind and gentle and funny. He always understood how children felt; they could tell him anything and he would listen and give them good advice. If Daddy were like Bing Crosby, I could tell him about Gordy's father and he would know what to do.

  At the dinner table, I asked Mother if we were going to get a tree. "Christmas is next Monday," I said. "That's less than a week away."

  Before she answered, Daddy said, "What's the sense of celebrating? Your brother's not here, it's just us, and there's a war on."

  "Jimmy wasn't here last year, either," I reminded him, "but we had a tree."

  "And we'll have one this year," Mother said.

  Daddy glanced at her as if he were going to argue, saw the frown on her face, and just shrugged. "Have one, then," he said.

  "But you're the one who always chops it down," I said. "Mother and I can't go down in the woods and get it."

  "Sure we can." Mother glared at Daddy, but he'd already left the table.

  Sitting down by the radio, he tuned in "The Lone Ranger." At the sound of galloping hoofbeats, I followed Mother out to the kitchen.

  "Don't you want to listen to The Lone Ranger'?" she asked.

  "Not with Daddy." I leaned against Mother, and she put her arm around me. She didn't hug me very often.

  "I know it's hard for you to understand, Margaret," she said, "but he's so worried about Jimmy he can't think of anything else. Christmas just isn't very important to him this year."

  "Don't you think I'm worried about Jimmy, too?" I looked up at Mother, blinking hard to keep from crying.

  "Of course you are." She pulled me closer and kissed my forehead. "But your father sees you outside with Elizabeth, laughing and playing, and he thinks you don't have a care in the world."

  "Well, he's wrong," I told her. "I have more cares than he can ever know about."

  "Oh, honey, don't be silly." Mother gave me a pat on the fanny, her way of dismissing my problems. Turning her back, she began running water in the sink. "Help me with the dishes like a good girl," she said.

  22

  Several days later, Mother kept her promise about the Christmas tree. While Daddy was at work, she bundled herself up, grabbed a saw out of his toolbox, and walked down to the woods with me.

  Daddy took pride in never having bought a tree. Before the war, he'd always taken Jimmy and me on an expedition to find our own. "A nice fresh one," he always said, "one we cut down ourselves. We don't want some old thing that's been lying around on a lot for weeks."

  Last year he and I had gone, but now it was Mother and I who picked our way through the slushy snow and puddles, dragging the empty bobsled behind us.

  Mother paused at the rusty fence and stared at the No Trespassing sign.

  "The people who own the woods don't care if we cut down a tree," I said, quoting Daddy. "They'll never miss it."

  "Your father told you that?"

  I nodded. Somehow when Daddy said it, he made it seem perfectly natural to chop down a tree on somebody else's property. Standing here with Mother, though, I felt a little nervous. It was almost as bad as the first time I'd followed Elizabeth over the fence.

  "Well, I hope your father's right." Mother looked around uncertainly as if she expected to see an armed guard protecting the trees, but all we saw was a crow perched on a limb, watching us.

  Jerking on the rope, Mother managed to get the sled over the fence. As we entered the woods, I was glad Stuart was gone. Even if Mother saw the hut, she'd think a tramp had lived there for a while and then abandoned it when winter came.

  Just to be safe, though, I steered her away from the hut toward a grove of pine trees on the other side of the woods. Most of them were skinny and crooked, but we finally found one Mother thought might do.

  "We can tie branches on here and there to fill in the bare spots," she said.

  Kneeling in the wet snow, Mother set to work with the saw while I held the tree steady. Even though it was much warmer than it had been earlier in the week, the wind still had a cold edge, and the sun kept sliding in and out of clouds. The snow had melted from the streets and sidewalks in College Hill, but in the woods it was still deep. Soon my toes and fingers were tingling, and I was glad when the tree finally sagged to the ground.

  I helped Mother hoist it onto the sled. Slightly out of breath, she straightened up and smiled at me. Her cheeks were red, and her hair flew free around her face, making her look much younger. Tipping her head back, she laughed at the blue s
ky.

  "Well, we did it without Walt," she said. "I knew we could."

  Grabbing the rope, she eased the sled forward while I made sure the tree didn't slip off. Busy with my responsibility, I didn't notice which path we were taking until we stepped into the clearing and came face to face with Gordy.

  Although Elizabeth and I had visited Stuart several times, we hadn't seen Gordy since the day he'd run off down the trolley tracks. Now I stared at him, shocked. His eye was still bad, and his face was bruised in a couple of other places. He looked thinner, too, but he stood his ground and glared at me.

  "Why, Gordy," Mother said. "What are you doing down here all by yourself?"

  "Nothing, just taking a walk." Gordy shot me a look that clearly said I should drop dead on the spot, but Mother didn't notice. She was staring at his face.

  "What happened?" Mother asked. "Have you been fighting?"

  Gordy ducked his head, and his hair fell down, hiding some of the damage. "Me and some other guys were fooling around," he muttered.

  "Well, come on, walk back with us." Mother looked at the hut and shivered. "There's no telling who hangs around a place like this."

  "I'm okay," Gordy said. "I can take care of myself."

  "What in the world?" Mother stared past Gordy. June was standing in the hut's doorway crying. Her face was bruised, too, and she was clutching Mittens the cat.

  "I told you to stay in there!" Gordy yelled at June, but she just cried harder. Giving a frantic twist, the cat leapt out of June's arms and ran off into the trees. Mittens's escape made June cry harder.

  Mother looked at Gordy. "What's going on?" she asked.

  Ignoring Gordy, June ran through the snow toward Mother and me. All she had on her feet were slippers without socks, and her bare legs were mottled blue with cold. Her coat hung open, pinned at the neck. Under it she wore a skimpy gingham dress. Her hair was matted with tangles.

  "Don't tell Daddy where we are," she begged Mother. "We have to hide so he won't beat us no more."

  Mother picked June up. "Take the rope, Margaret," she said, pushing the sled toward me with her toe. "Gordy, you come with me right now."