Stepping on the Cracks

by Mary Downing Hahn

  He stared at me for a second. "Busted Mom's arm, that's what he did," Gordy said in a low voice. "Then he took her to the hospital and told them she fell down the basement steps. Come back again sometime, Magpie, if you and your mother want some excitement. Maybe he'll punch you out, too."

  Elizabeth, Barbara, and I huddled together. The chess board had tumbled to the floor when Gordy jumped off the bed, and all the pawns and kings and queens lay scattered on the rug. The vaporizer hissed, the Victrola needle continued to click against the record, and Brent managed to wiggle out of Barbara's arms. Toddling across the floor, he picked up his engine and gave it to Gordy.

  Gordy stared at the toy as if he had no idea what it was for. Then he zipped up his jacket. "I better go," he muttered to Stuart. "I just wanted to say 'Merry Christmas.' What a laugh."

  "Hold on." Stuart pushed himself up in bed and started coughing again. "Give me my clothes," he said to Barbara. "I'm going with him."

  "You aren't going anywhere!" Barbara stared at him. "Listen to that cough. Do you want to kill yourself?"

  "It's okay, Stuart." Gordy bent over the bed. "You know how the old man is. He busted her arm, and now he's sorry. He threw out a whole bottle of whiskey, swore he'd never take another drink."

  "How many times have we heard that?" Stuart asked. "He's probably going through the garbage right now, looking for it."

  "No, he'll be okay for a while. He even brought home a tree and gave Mom some perfume." Gordy patted Stuart's shoulder. "Don't worry. I'm taking care of things."

  Stuart frowned. "I can't keep hiding. Not from him, not from the war."

  "Just stay here till you get well. Please?" Gordy lingered in the doorway, his eyes filled with worry.

  "Are you sure everybody's all right?" Stuart stared at Gordy so hard you'd think he was trying to read his mind.

  Gordy pointed to his face. "He hasn't touched me since the day Mrs. Goody-goody Baker tried to help."

  Ashamed, I stooped down and started picking up the chess men. Mother hadn't meant to make things worse. Like me, she wanted to help.

  After Gordy left, Barbara remembered the record. Lifting the arm, she turned the Victrola off and sat down beside Stuart. Brent climbed up on the bed and ran his train back and forth over the blue quilt.

  "Well," Stuart said, looking from Barbara to Elizabeth and me, "it looks like Gordy and I aren't doing much to give you all a merry Christmas."

  "It wasn't too merry, anyway," I whispered, thinking about Daddy standing at the window, staring at the blue star hanging there, worrying about my brother.

  Nobody but Elizabeth heard me. On the way home, she said, "I know what you mean, Margaret. With Joe overseas, nothing's the same at our house, either."

  "If only he and Jimmy would come home," I said. "Then everything would be all right."

  Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder at me. "Sometimes I think the war will last forever," she said. "Nothing will ever be like it used to be."

  Then she bent over the handlebars and pedaled hard. Picking up speed, the old Schwinn flew down the street, bouncing over ruts and splashing our legs and feet with icy gray slush.

  24

  Christmas vacation dragged past, full of rain and wind and nothing to do but help Mother. After a week of vacuuming and dusting and polishing silver, it was a relief to go back to school. As much as I hated decimals and percentages, I hated housework more.

  After what we'd been through together, I thought Gordy would be friendlier to Elizabeth and me, but he was just as nasty as ever. When I tried to catch his eye on the playground, he turned his head to the side and spit in the dirt. Even worse, he stole Elizabeth's lunch bag and ate everything except her apple. Looking her in the eye like he was daring her to tell, he threw the apple in the trash.

  Elizabeth and I weren't the only ones Gordy was mean to. Except for Doug and Toad, he seemed to be mad at the entire world. Even Mrs. Wagner had trouble making him behave. As a result of talking in class, acting rude, and not doing his homework, Gordy spent a lot of time standing in the hall or staying after school scrubbing blackboards and pounding the chalk dust out of erasers.

  No matter how Gordy felt, he couldn't keep Elizabeth and me from visiting his brother. Stuart was out of bed by the middle of January, but he was still too weak to do any more than sit in a chair. He looked better, though, and I thought he was beginning to gain a little weight.

  One afternoon, Elizabeth and I were walking home from the Fishers' house. Barbara was with us, pushing Brent in his stroller. He was too big for his carriage now, and he liked feeling the wind in his face. Opening his mouth, he gulped in air the way a dog does when it sticks its head out a car window.

  "What's Stuart going to do when he gets well?" Elizabeth asked Barbara.

  For a moment, Barbara didn't answer. We'd just crossed the trolley tracks, and she paused on the corner to wait for a car to go by. Dartmoor Avenue stretched ahead of us, long and straight, striped with the shadows of trees. A handful of leftover leaves whirled around our feet, and Brent leaned over the side of the stroller to see what was making the rustling sound under the wheels. He laughed and bounced up and down.

  "I don't know," Barbara said. "Stu hasn't decided yet."

  "Sometimes I think he should go back to the army," Elizabeth said, "and other times I think he shouldn't."

  "He believes killing is wrong," Barbara said. "How can he go overseas feeling like that? It's not like the army needs Stu personally to win the war. Why can't they just leave him alone?"

  Elizabeth glanced at her, but Barbara was bending over the stroller, checking on Brent. The wind had whipped red splotches on her cheeks, and her hair billowed around her face.

  "Things are getting better in France and Belgium." Barbara straightened up and smiled at Elizabeth. "By the time Stu gets well, maybe it'll be all over, and he won't have to go anywhere."

  Elizabeth nodded her head in agreement. "My father says the Russian army is beating the pants off the Nazis."

  "We just got a letter from Jimmy yesterday," I added. "He says it's cold, and he's always hungry. He drew a funny picture of himself with a big fat stomach and under it he wrote, 'Me when I get home and eat Mom's cooking.'"

  I looked at Barbara, but she was staring down Dartmoor Avenue at the brick houses sitting on their tidy squares of lawn, one little box after another. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the handle of Brent's stroller. "Sometimes I can't believe there really is a war," she said slowly. "The whole thing seems like a story—until someone you love dies. Then you know it's real."

  We walked on a little slower. I was thinking so hard I didn't see Gordy, Toad, and Doug until their bikes skidded to a stop in front of us.

  "Oh, no," Elizabeth said. "Who let you out of the zoo?"

  Ignoring Elizabeth, Gordy leaned toward Barbara. "How's Stuart today?" he asked. Instead of looking at her, he bent over to check his front tire. With his head down, the tips of his ears looked bright red.

  "He's pretty good," Barbara said. "How about you?"

  "Me? I'm fine."

  "And your mother?"

  Gordy glanced at Barbara. "She's fine, too, and so's my old man. He got a job at the defense plant across the tracks." The familiar nasty edge in his voice cut at my nerves, but Barbara didn't seem to notice.

  "I'm glad to hear that," she said. "When are you coming to see Stu? He misses you."

  Gordy shrugged elaborately. "With you around, I didn't think he noticed whether I was there or not." Turning to Toad and Doug, he said, "Come on, let's go."

  We watched them pedal away, and Barbara sighed. A gust of wind tossed her hair, and she brushed a long strand out of her eyes. Brent bounced in the stroller, and Barbara looked down at him as if she'd forgotten he was there.

  "It's time for Brent's supper," she said. "I'll see you girls later."

  The two of us watched her walk away. Before Barbara disappeared around the corner, she started running, pushing Brent faster and faster, ma
king him laugh.

  Elizabeth and I waved, hoping she'd look back and see us, but she kept on going. Silently, we turned toward home. The wind rattled the branches over our heads and sent cold fingers down the back of my neck. Except for Elizabeth and me, the street was empty.

  Suddenly, Elizabeth gave a whoop and ran ahead. "Step on a crack," she shouted, stamping hard on the cement. "Break Hitler's back!"

  "Step on a crack," I echoed, yelling as loud as I could. "Break Hitler's back!"

  By the time we reached the corner of Garfield and Dartmoor, we were out of breath. As we leaned against Mr. Zimmerman's fence, trying to breathe normally, Elizabeth turned to me. The wind whipped her curls around her face, and her eyes sparkled. "I bet Barbara's in love with Stuart," she said. "That's why she doesn't want him to go to war."

  "You're crazy," I said. "How could Barbara be in love? She has a baby."

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes upward. "What on earth does Brent have to do with it?"

  "Well, she's a mother, and mothers don't fall in love."

  "Oh, Margaret, don't be such a dumbo." Giving me a friendly shove, Elizabeth ran off down the street. A whirlwind of leaves followed her, and she kicked them away.

  "Last one home's a rotten tomato," she called to me as I sprinted along behind her. "See you tomorrow, Magpie!"

  "Not if I see you first, Lizard!" I waved and hurried up my steps, pausing on the porch to return the face she was making at me. Then she ducked inside, the winner as usual.

  Laughing, I shoved open the front door. As soon as I shut it behind me, I knew something was wrong. Daddy and Mother were sitting on the couch. Daddy had one arm around Mother. In his other hand was a telegram. They were both crying.

  Motionless, I leaned against the door. My bones turned to water, and I couldn't speak, couldn't ask what was wrong. A huge, icy lump filled my throat, cutting off my breath. If I'd been able to move, I would have run out of the house. I didn't want to hear what they were going to say. Everybody knew what a telegram meant.

  "It's Jimmy," Mother said at last.

  I stared at her, paralyzed. The clock on the mantel chimed four-thirty, and a branch of the holly tree tapped against a window. On one side of the clock, Jimmy's face smiled at me from a silver frame, young and handsome in his uniform.

  "He's been killed in action," Mother went on in a flat voice.

  Crumpling the telegram into a tiny wad, Daddy hurled it into the fireplace. We watched it uncurl slowly on the cold hearth.

  "But we just got a letter," I whispered. "There must be a mistake."

  Not Jimmy, I prayed. Oh, please God, not Jimmy, not my only brother.

  Mother hid her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook with sobs. Daddy touched her arm. Without saying anything, he left the room. In a couple of seconds the back door opened, then slammed shut behind him.

  Mother and I stared at each other. Then she held out her arms, and I ran into them like a little child. Neither of us spoke. We just clung to each other and cried.

  ***

  No one ate dinner that night. When Daddy came home several hours later, he told Mother he'd gone for a walk, but he smelled like beer and cigarette smoke. Silently, I watched him stumble into the bedroom and shut the door. In a few minutes, I heard him snoring.

  Glancing at the kitchen clock, Mother said, "It's past nine. Go to bed, Margaret. There's nothing we can do now."

  Holding me so tightly I couldn't breathe, Mother kissed me and sent me upstairs. I paused on the landing to look back at her. She was standing in the hall, one hand pressed against her mouth, tears sliding silently down her cheeks. I wanted to run back to her, to cling to her, to beg her not to send me away all alone, but instead I turned around and crept up the steps.

  Before I went into my room, I tiptoed to Jimmy's door. Opening it slowly and quietly, I slipped inside and sat on his bed in the dark. Over my head, his model planes turned slowly in a draft creeping under the window. His miniature cars sat in a neat line on top of his bookcase. On the wallpaper, cowboys and Indians chased each other round and round the room. It was so quiet, I could hear my own breath going in and out, in and out.

  "Let it be a mistake, God," I whispered. "Please don't let Jimmy be dead."

  The wind shook the glass in the window and made a spooky sound in the eaves. A train whistle blew. A dog barked. Downstairs Daddy snored. I imagined Mother lying beside him, staring into the dark, still crying.

  I went back to my own room and got into bed. "Don't be dead," I whispered. "Please, Jimmy, don't be dead."

  ***

  The next day Elizabeth saw my face at my window and waved to me from her backyard. Grabbing my jacket, I went outside. Wordlessly, we walked down to the end of the yard and climbed up into the tree. Sitting on the platform Gordy had built for us, I shivered in the wind.

  "Mother told me about Jimmy," Elizabeth whispered. "You must feel awful, Margaret."

  I twisted a braid around my finger and then let it go, watching the coil of hair spring free. "It doesn't seem real," I said. "Jimmy's been over there for more than a year. When I woke up this morning, I couldn't believe it."

  Elizabeth nodded. "Maybe the army made a mistake."

  "That's what I've been hoping." I sighed and played with my braid, twisting it, untwisting it. "Sometimes it happens. There was an article in the Star not long ago about a soldier everybody thought was dead."

  Elizabeth nodded. "I saw it. He was captured by the Germans, and they mixed him up with someone else."

  Down the track, a train whistle blew. Elizabeth waved to the engineer as the locomotive thundered past, but I didn't bother.

  After it was gone, leaving nothing but smoke and cinders behind, Elizabeth said, "Do you feel any different about Stuart now? About his being a deserter and all?"

  I thought for a moment and shook my head. "I wish Jimmy had deserted too. When he left, he told Mother not to cry. 'Nothing's going to happen to me,' he said. I can still hear him laughing at her for being so upset."

  "Joe said the same thing," Elizabeth said. "I hope he was right."

  "Maybe that's what soldiers have to believe. If they thought they were going to die, they wouldn't go."

  We sat side by side, watching the clouds scud across the sky. The puddles in the alley had frozen again, and the wind tugged at us, but we stayed in the tree, ignoring the cold, as still as statues.

  "Look, there's Gordy," Elizabeth said after a while.

  Head down, hands jammed in his pockets, Gordy trudged slowly toward us. I didn't think he saw us, but when he was directly below us, he looked up. "I heard about Jimmy," he said. "I'm sorry, Magpie."

  Then, while I stared at him, too surprised to say a word, Gordy walked on. Silently, Elizabeth and I watched him dwindle in the distance and finally disappear around a corner.

  We looked at each other. Coming from Gordy's mouth, the words had a terrible, undeniable validity. Jimmy was dead. He wasn't ever coming home. Never, never in all my life would I see my brother again. While Elizabeth patted my back, I clung to the tree and cried.

  25

  The rest of January passed slowly, a series of cold, gray days. Even though we were pushing the Nazis back a little bit every day, I wasn't as excited as I once would have been. In some ways, it didn't make any difference to me what happened in Europe. Jimmy was dead. Nothing was going to change that. Not even victory and the end of the war.

  Outside, icicles dripped from the eaves, puddles of gray slush froze, melted, and refroze, and birds sang sad winter songs from bare trees. Shivering in the wind, I walked to school with Elizabeth and tried to work hard for Mrs. Wagner. Sometimes I visited Stuart at Barbara's house, but often I made up an excuse to go home, and Elizabeth went without me. Although I was glad Stuart was getting better, it hurt me to see him. If Jimmy had stayed here in College Hill, he'd be alive too.

  In my room, with just the radio to keep me company, I read and did my math problems while Mother fixed dinner. When Daddy came h
ome, we ate silently. No one laughed, no one smiled. It was like we were walking underwater, pushing our way along the bottom of a murky lake, feeling our way toward something new. The sadness was so vast and heavy it filled up all the space in our house, suffocating everyone.

  Mother spent a lot of time looking out the window. A few days after the telegram came, she bought a gold star at the dime store. Now it hung where the blue one used to hang. Like Mrs. Bedford, Mother touched Jimmy's star sometimes, tracing its outline with her index finger. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking about, but the sad expression on her face kept me from speaking.

  Every night I prayed hard for Joe Crawford and Donald, harder than before because now I knew they could die. It was possible. Before Jimmy was killed, I really hadn't believed he would be hurt. I thought he'd be in the war for a while, the war would finally end, he'd come home, and life would be normal again. Daddy would joke and laugh, Mother would cook big dinners, Jimmy would draw pictures and make up funny stories. We'd be happy. All four of us.

  Lying alone now in the dark winter nights, I knew our family was changed forever. The war would end soon, everyone said so, but Jimmy wouldn't come home. All we'd ever have was a box of his belongings and the letter from his commanding officer telling us he died bravely in the Ardennes during an assault on enemy lines. His body was buried in an American cemetery in Belgium. The commanding officer was sorry for Jimmy's loss; he said his sense of humor and courage would be missed. Daddy swore when he read the letter and said the officer didn't know the half of it.

  In the box was a little sketchbook full of drawings of animals dressed like soldiers. Cats shot at dogs, mice attacked cats; wolves and bears wearing Nazi uniforms faced foxes in American uniforms. Daddy let me keep the pictures, even though some of them were scary, and I added them to my scrapbook. Then I put it away, not sure I wanted to look at Jimmy's drawings or letters again for a long time. My brother's war was over.