by Lori Roy
Julia used to tell herself she kept the article because she loved the house pictured in it. A crisply painted balustrade wraps around the front porch and rounded arches stretch between the squared-off columns that support the second-story patio. Looking at the picture now, a greasy stain ballooning in its center, she imagines the unwed girls sit on that top patio when the weather is nice. They must be lonely, shipped off to Kansas City to quietly give birth to their babies. The girls come from all over the country because every railroad leads directly to Kansas City and eventually to 2929 Main Street, the Willows. Julia pulls the article from the trash, wipes it on her apron, and holds it close. There might be someone sitting on the small, private porch. In the grainy print, she can’t be certain, but if she went there in person, she could see for herself.
Uncertain how long she has stood in the kitchen and stared at the faded picture, it’s a knock that rouses her. When she opens the door, James stands there, one hand propped against the side of the house. His sleeves are rolled up and his shirttail is untucked. It’s the same double-stitched chambray work shirt Bill wears on weekends. The same navy twill pants. The same black leather work boots with the steel-tipped toes. When Bill used to come home at the end of the day, he would always do the same—yank out his shirttail. Sometimes, after he walked through the door, Julia would unbutton his shirt for him and slip it off his shoulders, leaving him in his undershirt. Before Maryanne was born, he would help Julia out of her shirt too, and they would make love on the living-room floor.
“Everything all right down here?” James says, pushing off the side of the house and glancing down the street. “Grace asked me to check in.”
Julia pushes open the screen door and invites him inside. As he passes, she inhales the warm air he brings with him. He smells the same as Bill always did. Is it grease? Oil? Metal shavings? Even though he didn’t work at the factory today, James carries that smell. She feels his footsteps through the floorboards. He fills up the entry, blocks the light shining through the sheers in the dining room.
“Julia?” James says, staring into the kitchen. “What’s happened?”
Julia tucks the article back in the drawer where she has kept it for the last year. “Bill won’t have another baby with me,” she says.
She can only say it because James isn’t looking at her. He’s looking at the pudding dripping down her wall and the browning slivers of banana stuck to the side of her trash can.
“Won’t even touch me.”
Unable to face him, she talks to the floor. The black boots come toward her. Warm hands grip her shoulders.
“I used to be the one who couldn’t take care of her own baby,” Julia says, her cheek resting on James’s chest. “Now I’m the one who couldn’t take care of Elizabeth. Caught the same trout twice, I suppose.”
With her eyes closed, it could be Bill before everything went wrong. The hands are sturdy. He’s broad like Bill, and tall. Makes her feel small. She’s usually the tallest woman. They called her lanky as a child. All arms and legs. Mother said she’d outgrow the awkward stage, said Julia would stop growing up and start filling out. Now it’s James standing in front of her, smelling like oil or grease or metal shavings. When she reaches out to touch his chest, it feels like Bill’s. Stiff fabric, small reinforced buttons, warm. She leans into him. The hands that cupped her arms slip over her shoulders and down where they wrap around her waist and draw her in.
• • •
Making her way across the garage, Malina tiptoes around the many bags of clothes she has accumulated for the thrift drive. Upstairs, Mr. Herze is napping, so she’ll work quickly and quietly. He hasn’t made use of his tools since he took down the storm windows this past spring, and he won’t make use of them during the hot summer months. By the time autumn arrives and he takes it upon himself to repair a fence railing or replace a windowsill, he’ll have long since forgotten he once owned a red-handled hammer. He’ll have no reason to wonder what became of it or why a brown-handled hammer hangs in its place.
Now that Elizabeth has been found, things will return to normal. The men will go back to work, and the ladies will continue their plans for the bake sale. When she reaches Mr. Herze’s workbench, Malina stretches across the smooth wooden slab, grabs the brown-handled hammer, and lifts it from the pegboard. It’s brand-new, the cleanest of all the tools. No sense getting herself dirty when she’ll have to get supper on the table shortly.
Outside the garage, Malina rests her arms on the top rail of the cedar fence surrounding her backyard. The fence offers plenty of privacy, and the gates on either side of the house are secured by a slide-bolt latch. Alternating yellow, white, pink, and red flowers line the yard’s outer limits. The plants are happier here in the backyard, taller than in the front, probably because of the shade thrown by the Petersons’ elm, one of the few left standing on the street. Its branches dip over her fence. No telling what kind of sickness that tree will dump in her yard. Feeling the seam on her right nylon is not quite straight, she yanks it into place, and seeing no one out and about because they’ve all been frightened indoors by news of Elizabeth’s death, she slips through the gate. She’ll start here. It’s definitely the spot those twins would first come upon were they to sneak into Malina’s backyard.
The sweet officer with the smooth blond hair hadn’t helped Malina. After the twin was safely home, Malina had followed Mr. Herze inside and from her front window she watched Julia and Grace argue on the street. When Mr. Herze called down the stairs that he would be bathing and taking a nap before supper, Malina shuffled through her papers until she found the number that the young blond officer gave to her. She telephoned the officer and told him someone had urinated on her flowers. She told him those twin girls living across the street were most probably the culprits. They run amok, trespass on private property, stay out past suppertime. They don’t even belong on this street. They have a perfectly good grandmother living somewhere east of Woodward. Consider what happened to poor Elizabeth Symanski. How much more tragedy could a neighborhood suffer? Could it bear the same happening to two young, innocent children? Couldn’t the officer see to it that those twins went home? But the officer, who wasn’t so sweet over the telephone where Malina couldn’t see his silky blond hair and thin red lips, told her kids would be kids and there wasn’t anything he could or would do.
Cupping the telephone’s mouthpiece to stifle the sound of her voice, Malina went so far as to beg. She wanted to make the officer understand that the gift of those flyers meant Mr. Herze’s interests had festered. And now she’s been told those girls might stay on, might stay on forever. She wanted the officer to understand this was always the way and Malina knew better than Mr. Herze what came next. There have been others for Mr. Herze, mostly women. But like the girl from Willingham, it can be difficult to tell. Could be a girl. Could be a woman. Such a thin line between the two. When it happens, Malina will see it in the twin’s eyes, whichever one Mr. Herze chooses. It will be an expression others might mistake for shock and then sadness and finally resignation. They’ll wonder why the girl’s eyes are suddenly hollowed out and darker than before. All the signs, Malina ignored them. The girls were supposed to go home in a few weeks. Every other year, they stayed only a few weeks. But Malina said nothing of Mr. Herze’s gift to the girls or all the other things she knew. Unless the twins cause you or your property damage, the sweet officer had said, there really is nothing I can or will do.
• • •
Because Arie is scared, because Arie is always scared, Izzy has to drag her down the stairs toward the front door. But Izzy is wrong. Arie isn’t scared, she’s worried. Aunt Julia doesn’t usually yell and throw food and say things like a cat is dead when probably it isn’t. Izzy keeps tugging, getting angrier with every stair. They tug back and forth, silently, making twisted-up angry faces at each other, all the way across the entry and out the door. It’s not fair Izzy always has to be the brave one and the strong one and the only one who will
fight back. Arie tugs the other way because sometimes it’s best to stop and think and Grandma always says calmer heads prevail. Before Aunt Julia or Mr. Richardson, who both stand inside the kitchen, can notice the girls sneaking from the house, they have run outside, off the porch, and across the lawn.
On Izzy’s way back from Beersdorf’s, she said she tried to put out the stolen tuna, but when she couldn’t get it open, she threw it away and hung up some of the flyers Mr. Herze gave her. As he handed her the stack of flyers and a roll of gray tape, he said she had to keep them a secret, not tell anyone where she got them or he’d be in trouble. He made her promise not to go off on her own to do the searching, but she did. She also taped a bunch of flyers to poles and on the sides of houses and buildings. Now she wanted Arie to go with her so they could take them all down before Aunt Julia found them and Izzy got in trouble all over again.
When they reach the middle of Alder, they stop running and check behind them. No sign of Aunt Julia or Mr. Richardson. Every house on the block is locked up tight. Across the street, Mrs. Herze walks out of her garage and that’s a hammer in her hand. Arie tugs on Izzy’s shirt so she’ll see Mrs. Herze too. Standing between the garage and the side of her house, Mrs. Herze checks both ways like she’s crossing a street, but since there isn’t any traffic, she must be checking for who might catch her doing whatever it is she is doing. Now, instead of tugging back and forth, the girls link up hands and when Mrs. Herze opens the gate and disappears around the back of her house, they follow.
A wooden fence runs around Mrs. Herze’s backyard, but it’s easy enough for the twins to look through the slats and see what’s going on back there. No longer concerned with who might be watching, Mrs. Herze drops the hammer into the grass, tucks her skirt around her knees, and lowers herself to the ground. Picking up the hammer again, she lifts it overhead with both hands and brings it down in the center of a tower of pink blossoms. The petals spray up as the hammer hits the ground with a soft thud. She lifts the hammer again, takes another swing. This time, white petals and green leaves scatter and a sweet smell oozes from the crushed and broken stems. Reaching out as far as she can in both directions along the fence line, Mrs. Herze beats those flowers. For several minutes, she pounds left then right, like two little feet marching through her snapdragons. When she can reach no farther, even by bracing herself with one hand, she sits back and tosses the hammer to her side. It bounces off the gate, rattling the slide bolt.
“You’re going to blame that on us,” Izzy says, “aren’t you?”
Using her forearm, carefully like she’s afraid to touch her face with dirty fingers, Mrs. Herze wipes the hair from her eyes. Her chest pumps and sweat bubbles hang on her upper lip.
“You two have no business in my yard,” she says. “No business at all.”
Arie tucks her chin, sorry that she dragged Izzy over here because now they’re going to get in trouble, and Aunt Julia is going to know they snuck out of the house when they were supposed to be upstairs in their room.
“We think there might be a dead cat around here,” Izzy says, lifting her chin to make up for Arie’s drooping one. “Have you seen it?”
“Yes, that cat is dead and I did see it with my very own eyes. Dead as could be. Now you two can go away, back to that grandmother of yours, and stop running around this neighborhood in search of that godforsaken animal. You stop or you’ll end up just like Elizabeth Symanski.”
“You ruined these flowers and you’re going to blame us.” Izzy pokes Arie in the side so she’ll agree.
Mrs. Herze presses both palms flat on the ground, pushes herself off her knees, and brushes pink and white blossoms from her skirt.
“I’m doing no such thing,” Mrs. Herze says. “I imagine you two will have some explaining to do. I suspect your aunt will be ever so interested to see this mess. And I know she’ll believe me because you two have been nothing but trouble for that woman since you arrived.”
“You’re a liar.” Again, Izzy is the one to speak up.
Mrs. Herze smooths the apron that hangs at her waist. “My word against yours,” she says.
“Not quite,” Arie says, then reaches over the fence, flips the slide-bolt latch, and scoops up the hammer lying in the grass. Finally, she is the brave one, the quick-thinking one, the one who will make everything better.
Izzy lets out a cheer, claps her hands, and the two run away, leaving the gate hanging wide open.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Standing in her entryway, her cheek resting on James’s chest, Julia inhales. The air around Grace’s husband is warm. He’s thick and solid, what a man should be. This could be her life before. Before Maryanne died. Before Elizabeth Symanski died. Before Bill drifted away. Before.
She draws up her hands to James’s neck, weaves her fingers into the ends of his hair where it curls, tilts her face, and pulls him toward her. The clock over the stove ticks. A fan in the front room squeals as it rolls from side to side. In the distance, a car door slams. Julia presses against him. Raising one hand to the back of her head, James rests the other on her waist. He makes a sound as if clearing his throat, pulls back before their lips touch, drops both hands, lifts them out to the side, and stumbles away. They stand, neither of them moving. The doorknob rattles, and the front door swings open.
Wearing the same double-stitched work shirt as James, Bill walks into the house. No one would notice the way his steps are just off center, but Julia does. Soon enough, his face will swell again from the drinking, and his skin will take on a yellow cast. He’s later than all the other husbands but has made it home in time for supper. He doesn’t notice James and Julia as he fumbles with the lock on the door. His keys rattle and he steadies himself by holding on to the doorknob. With one good tug, his key comes loose. He straightens and turns. Saying nothing, he crosses his arms and his eyes come to rest on James, who has dropped his hands back to his sides.
“Didn’t expect to find you here,” Bill says.
James is almost ten years older than Bill and holds a higher-grade job at the factory. He was Bill’s first supervisor and helped him keep his job during that difficult year after Maryanne died.
“James came to check in on the girls,” Julia says. “He wanted to see to it that they were all right. That we were all right.”
With the back of her hand, Julia wipes her mouth even though her lips never touched James’s. The pulse of her beating heart carries to her eardrums, making it difficult to hear. She hugs herself with both arms.
“Can see to those girls myself,” Bill says.
“Grace asked that I check in on them,” James says. “Will be on my way now that you’re home.”
Bill takes a small backward step, giving way to James.
“Good enough,” Bill says.
The men stand face-to-face, filling up the small entry.
“Good enough,” James says after a long silence, and reaches for the doorknob. “I’m sure Grace will be checking in real soon, Julia.”
Julia looks up from the floor at the sound of small feet running up the stairs and across the porch. The twins stop short, one bumping into the other, both of them stumbling across the threshold. One of them, Arie, lifts a hammer with both hands as if it’s a trophy. She lowers it at the sight of Bill and James staring at each other.
“Leave that outside,” Julia says, and waves at the girls to hurry past and go straight to their room.
Outside the door, Arie sets the hammer on the porch, wipes her hands on her shirt, and follows Izzy upstairs.
“All right, then,” James says, reaching out to pat Bill on the shoulder. “You all have a nice evening.”
• • •
The walk back home is slow for Grace and Orin. When the colored men have reached the intersection of Alder Avenue and Woodward, Grace hurries Orin along because James will stay only a short time at Julia’s house and no good will come from him finding the twosome out on the street. After walking a few yards, Grace has to carr
y the rifle for Orin. With the barrel pointed down, she hugs it to her side where a passerby won’t notice what is cradled in her arms. When they have neared the house, Grace hears the twins. They are out and about again even though Grace tried to warn Julia to keep a closer eye. The street is otherwise silent. Grace stops every few yards to give Orin a chance to rest and to look over her shoulder for any sign of James. Orin says his shoes are pinching his feet and Grace says they’ll soak them when he gets home. At Grace’s house, they step onto her driveway and continue to shuffle toward the alley. Once there, Orin points at his chair. Still holding the rifle, Grace steadies the rusted seat, but before Orin can lower himself, James appears at her side, reaches for the rifle, and yanks it from her.
“What in God’s name?” he says, holding the gun in one hand and grabbing Orin by the arm with the other. “How did you get this back? Good Lord in heaven, what are you doing?”
Orin drops into his chair, pulls a yellowed kerchief from his pocket, and mops his forehead. “Taking care,” he says between breaths. “Taking goddamn care.”
“James, please,” Grace says. “Don’t fuss. There’s been no trouble.”
“I see trouble written all over this gun. You get inside. I’ll see to Orin.”
From her bedroom window, Grace again looks down on the alley as James helps Orin home. When they have disappeared, she slides open her closet door to hang up James’s freshly ironed shirts. She is always precise as to how she hangs them. White ones first, because he wears those on Sundays, and then his darker shirts for evenings at home and weekend projects. The tip of every collar is pressed to a sharp point and the cuffs hang down stiff. On weekends, when James tinkers with his car or mows the lawn, he rolls his sleeves, ruining the sharply pressed cuffs. After a few moments, the kitchen door opens. Footsteps on the stairs.
