Ellis’s stomach was indeed running out of room—his weekly budget rarely allowed for a sizeable meal—but her smile was so encouraging he couldn’t say no.
“Sure. Just one more.” He swiped a roll, his third of the evening. The scent of warm bread always smelled like home.
When he took a bite, his mother sat a little taller in her floral housedress. Her blue eyes glimmered. They were a nice reminder of all the traits he’d inherited from her. Like the smile lines and rounded chin, the wavy black hair—hers invariably worn to her shoulders. She’d even passed down her medium build that ran slim through the hips.
Come to think of it, in his teenage years, a sturdier physique was the one way in which Ellis wished he’d taken after his father. Aside from the darker complexion they shared, reflecting their distant Portuguese roots, they bore little if any resemblance. Especially these days, with his father’s brown hair turning thin and gray, his black-rimmed glasses now worn full time—the latter being a product of his wife’s gentle but determined prodding.
“How about you, dear?” she asked her husband. “Another roll?” He was parked on Ellis’s other side, at the head of the table, though it was easy to forget he was there.
“I’m all right.” He waved off the basket, his hand calloused and fingernails stained faintly black. The same grease dotted his signature plaid shirt. He returned to the creamed corn on his plate.
The lull that followed didn’t survive half a minute. Ellis’s mother had long ago honed the art of filling the silence as one would potholes in a weathered road. She was a master of smoothing the tension with talk of radio shows, her knitting projects, health updates on the grandparents—her side living in Arizona for the sun, the others already passed—and the latest word on neighbors and friends, including those from Ellis’s school days.
His ties to old pals in the area had faded over time, but he nodded along. And every so often a topic would interest his father enough to chime in.
There was a single subject they would never broach, of course, despite its presence in the empty seat facing Ellis.
At the thought, he could almost smell wafts of cinnamon apples spilling from their old home in Hazelton. He’d been sitting outside, poking at the cast on his arm, fresh from a bicycle tumble that day. Inside, his mother was baking a pie. He didn’t realize the screams were hers—he’d never heard such sounds before—until she burst from the house with the swaddled baby, Ellis’s father right behind. Her face was frantic with fear as they both climbed into the truck. Ellis must have been at least five. Old enough to wait behind alone. Smart enough to save the pie from the oven, half of which he ate from the pan when hunger pangs set in.
That night, his mother had perched on his bed, her voice turned rough as sandpaper. Sometimes babies just stop breathing, for no reason at all. He remembered the tears on her cheeks and trying to comprehend how his brother had gone to live with the angels. He later awoke from his father’s heavy footsteps, traveling here and there over the squeaky floorboards. It was a late-night habit he continued for years to come, as if he’d lost something that could never be found.
If his father had laughed even once since that day, or uttered a word about Henry’s passing, Ellis couldn’t say for sure. Though he’d guess the odds were no better than his mother ever baking another apple pie.
“Ellis?” she said, pulling his mind back. “Would you like some peach cobbler?”
He smiled at her. “I’d love some.”
She was about to rise, leaving Ellis alone with his father. “Ma, hold on. You sit and relax. I can bring it out.”
Naturally she protested, but they reached a compromise. While he carted the used dishes to the sink, she served up the coffee and dessert, and they all settled back in.
“I hope it doesn’t have too much nutmeg,” she said as Ellis and his father took their first bites. “I was trying out a new recipe from Good Housekeeping.”
“It’s perfect,” Ellis insisted through a mouthful.
His father agreed. “Tastes fine, Myrna. Real good.”
She smiled with more pride than relief. Then she resumed leading the chitchat that would fill the rest of their meal, and Ellis realized his chance was dwindling.
When they’d first sat at the table, she asked him how all was going at the paper. The general question called for a general answer. Everything’s swell, he’d replied, certain she would eventually circle around and invite more detail. As of yet, that hadn’t happened, but she did ask her husband now about a new machine at the steel plant where he served as a supervisor. His face even lightened as he described the efficiency and safety benefits of the purchase he’d been advocating for a year.
Ellis found the topic refreshing, for both his father’s mood and the natural segue, since it tied in perfectly to the photo in his shirt pocket. He decided to finally bring it up himself, just as his father said, “How ’bout I check out your radiator before you go.”
It was the type of phrase that cued a guest to pack up, signaling the visit had drawn to an end.
“Um, sure. I appreciate that.”
In a single swig, his father finished off his coffee. But, as if reading Ellis’s thoughts, his mother intervened. “Oh, there’s still plenty of light out. No reason to hurry.” She succeeded in swaying her husband as only she could. “Tell us, Ellis. What new story are you working on?”
He could have hugged her right then. Thrown her a parade. “I’ve got a new feature in tomorrow’s paper, actually.”
“Another? Already? And in the Sunday edition, at that.” She brightened as she glanced across from her. “That’s tremendous, isn’t it, Jim?”
To answer, he gave his wife a mere nod, though his eyebrow lifted as if he couldn’t help being impressed.
Encouraged, Ellis straightened in his seat. “See, I was trying to think of a subject to cover, and with a picture that could mean a lot to local folks. That’s when I thought about the mines.” If nothing else, he’d learned that Philadelphians loved reading about their own. “I brought it along to show you.” He pulled out the photo and proudly slid it over.
“The two guys you see there, they grew up as breaker boys. And now they’re operating machines that sort the coal for them. More efficient and safer too, like your new buy at the factory, Pop. Can you imagine how many kids are alive and well today because of these mechanical sorters? On account of labor laws, too, thanks to the press not letting the problems go on as they had.” He hadn’t planned to insert the part about due credit; it just streamed out with the point of the article.
Yet something changed in the room. Ellis caught it in his father’s manner, his gaze, now absent of any levity from seconds ago. Could his father have recognized the efforts to prove him wrong? To discount old doubts over his son’s career, over notions of lowly muckrakers in the press? Or…was it something else?
His father always had a knack for spotting the strengths and weaknesses in any contraption. As a supervisor, he sought out the same in his workers. Maybe he alone could sense the fragment of deceit, like a faulty gear, in Ellis’s tale of success.
Whatever the cause, even Ellis’s mother appeared stumped by the wordless moment that was anything but quiet.
When his father came to his feet, his tone was raspy and low. “I better see about the car before it gets too late.” With that, he headed for the entry and grabbed his toolbox from the closet.
Once he was gone, Ellis’s mother pushed up a smile and handed back the picture. “Sounds like a wonderful article,” she said. “We’ll sure be excited to read it.”
Chapter 10
Over and over again Lily had lied. It wasn’t an ideal way to spend a Wednesday, but on four separate occasions, coworkers had asked if she was feeling well. She insisted she was doing just fine, which wasn’t the least bit true. Not since yesterday evening, when she had secretly phoned from th
e boardinghouse. In a residence for unwed women with the highest moral caliber, such calls had to be made furtively. Informed of Samuel’s condition, she began worrying herself sick.
I’ll be on a bus first thing tomorrow, she’d contended. She was told not to come, that it wasn’t necessary, that she was being ridiculous. After all, she would see him again on Friday. But that was still two days away. Days that would stretch out like years.
Thus, she strove to pass the hours as best she could. She busied herself with filing, phone calls, and dictation, reminding herself that to come and go as she pleased wasn’t an option, not with a boss like Howard Trimble. Unless she hoped to be out of a job.
She even managed to refrain from phoning again about Samuel, save for once over her lunch hour. But now the chief had departed for a four o’clock meeting, gone for the remainder of the day. With a good portion of the city room cleared out, and the rest focused on tomorrow’s deadline, Lily finally had sufficient privacy.
She summoned the operator on her desk phone and was connected to her family’s deli. A shared line with their home above the store meant two chances to obtain an update. How could she possibly rest until she knew he was well?
Samuel was the center of her world, and of her heart. He was her first thought upon waking, her last before sleep.
He was her cherished four-year-old son.
A series of bleating rings ceased when her mother answered, and Lily cut in.
“How’s he feeling?”
“Oh, honey. He’s fine.”
“His fever is gone, then.”
“I told you, there’s nothing to worry about.” Her avoidance of the question caused Lily to clench the receiver.
“How hot is he?” At the pause, Lily demanded, “What’s his temperature?”
A long, exasperated sigh. “A hundred and one.”
“I’m coming home.”
“But, Lily, you have work tomorrow. You’ll have barely arrived before you have to turn right back around.”
It was a valid point, given the two-hour bus ride each way. And the stops in their small town ran scarce in the evenings.
“Then I’ll stay overnight.”
“The first bus doesn’t leave until eight in the morning. You know this.”
“So I’ll be a little late returning. The chief will have to understand.”
“Now, that’s just foolish.”
Lily was already rising from her chair, ready to grab her handbag and set off straight for the bus depot. She would first leave a note for her boss, citing a vague family emergency.
“Lillian Harper.” Her mother’s tone shifted, firming on two words that instantly turned Lily into a child herself. “I understand you’re concerned. But remember the last time you rushed back? All over a tummy ache. Even the doctor said it’s not good for you to get riled up like this. And it’s not good for Samuel either.”
Logic said she was right. As was the doctor. Yet logic had nothing to do with the true reason behind Lily’s fears over her son’s well-being.
She was tempted to explain this at last. Her mother would understand, wouldn’t she? After all, through the most trying of times, her support was a constant. Even when Lily’s father, in an initial fit of devastation, had threatened to disown his only child. And who could fully blame him? Lily was supposed to be the “miracle baby” destined for greatness, a reward for ten taxing years of pregnancy attempts. At seventeen she had shown such promise, the first in the family line with plans to attend college, all of which she’d thrown away for a night with a boy she barely knew.
Mind you, that error became a blessing. Not only in the form of Samuel but also in the enduring love of her family, ultimately standing by her when so many others sneered. In fact, those looks of disgust had strengthened her with the will to part from her son every week. She had long ago learned to tolerate the judgment of her town, its size no larger than a thumbprint. She refused, however, to allow the same for Samuel, whose innocence provided but a temporary shield. Unlike the two poor boys in Ellis’s first feature, he would never question whether he was wanted. Not if Lily had any say. By the time he was of school age, she would have enough funds for a fresh start in another city and an apartment of their own. She could even pass as a young widow now at twenty-two, eliminating the need to hide the most cherished piece of her life.
But until that time, she would worry—yes, far more than she should. And though she had her reasons, she realized she would never speak them aloud. To her mother most of all.
“I can take you.”
The man’s voice startled Lily. She swung around to face Clayton Brauer, his hands resting in his trouser pockets.
“Pardon me?” She muted the mouthpiece against her chest. Her heartbeat quickened as she reviewed his comment.
“You need a lift, and my interview canceled.” He raised a shoulder in his typical style, not bothering with a full shrug. “A car will get you there twice as fast. Then if you want to come back tonight, you’ll make it in time for work.”
“I’m afraid I’m…not sure what you might’ve heard—”
“Miss Palmer, if your son is sick, you ought to look in on him.”
She froze, forgetting to breathe, until her mother’s voice reminded Lily of the connected line. “Mother, I’ll ring you back,” she said and hung up the call.
As the top crime reporter at the Examiner for the past four years, Clayton had the chief’s ear more than almost anyone on staff. The last thing Lily needed was her boss, along with her landlady, to learn she had been grossly untruthful, tracing all the way back to her job interview with Mr. Baylor, conducted on the chief’s behalf.
Married? he’d asked.
No, sir.
Plans to change that anytime soon?
Oh, no. Definitely not.
He had looked at her, pleasantly surprised. Good, he’d said and jotted a note.
Why’s that, may I ask?
The chief’s last secretary, she got hired as a newlywed. Quit the day she found out she was with child. Chief decided there’s less headache with no pesky family issues to worry about. Make sense?
In light of her goal, she had managed a nod. None of those pesky issues here, she assured him just to be safe, at which he smiled. The next thing she knew, she was being toured around the building, shown to a desk, and introduced to the chief, as well as to the publisher, a cantankerous man whose sightings were thankfully minimal. She even received a personal referral for a boardinghouse not far from the paper. In both settings, her acceptance and treatment as a virtuous young woman were undeniably refreshing, though never her main motives for keeping Samuel a secret.
She laughed now to convey amusement over Clayton’s assumption, her pulse still hammering. “I think you’ve misunderstood, Mr. Brauer. It’s my nephew I was checking on.”
Clayton regarded his watch, her words like dust motes that had wafted right by. “I just need to see to something downstairs before the paper’s put to bed. After that, we can head to Maryville if you’re ready. All right with you?”
He knew—about her son, her hometown—even before the call, it seemed.
Then it came to her. Of course he would. A person didn’t become a star reporter without picking up on the details, the subtle clues.
“How long have you…?”
“Not to worry, your secret’s safe.” With marked simplicity, he’d addressed two far more critical issues: Did anyone else know? Would he be telling the chief?
She nodded at him, thrown off but terribly grateful. Like the majority of the staff, Clayton resided in Philly. Delaware was hardly on his route home.
“I’ll swing by when I’m done,” he told her. “And listen, if you do decide to come back tonight, I’d be glad to drive and save you the return bus fare.”
Although it would prevent the chief fro
m throwing a conniption over her late arrival tomorrow, she was still reluctant to accept. “It’s lovely of you to offer, but I wouldn’t dream of making you wait around for me. You’re already doing too much.”
“The favor’s not for you, Miss Palmer. Seeing as I’ll be making the round-trip anyway, I’d much rather have someone to talk to other than myself.”
She smiled, unable to argue, and Clayton flashed one of his grins before going on his way.
• • •
In fewer than two minutes, Lily was set to leave. The next fifteen were spent stealing glances at the wall clocks. She had pulled on her cloche, travel gloves, and dusty-rose sweater. She held her handbag, clasped and ready.
Deciding she would spare Clayton the extra steps, she wandered toward his desk and found it vacant. He was still completing his tasks.
She reminded herself to be patient, not to dwell on Samuel’s fever, and happened to notice Ellis at his desk. Even from his profile, she detected a heavy expression as he stared at his typewriter, unseeing.
She suddenly reflected upon their encounter that morning. Two staff members had just questioned her about not looking well. When Ellis approached her desk, she’d insisted she was just fine before he could say a word. As it turned out, he had hoped to interest her in another outing after work, to a speakeasy called the Cove. A group from the Examiner often blew off steam there midweek. In hindsight, she had declined the invitation in a horribly rude manner.
Since their exchange at Franklin Square, she had made a concerted effort to maintain a comfortable distance, but over no wrongdoing of his certainly.
“Excuse me. Mr. Reed?”
He looked up at her, trance broken.
“Earlier today, I fear I treated you poorly. I hope you’ll accept my apology.”
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