He asked again about his father. I still don’t have the heart to tell him, so I said he’s driving a Luftwaffe truck somewhere in Yugoslavia and can’t find a postman to deliver letters. He was pleased to hear this news and immediately asked for a toy truck. I offered him another piece of stollen instead, but took none for myself. I’m trying to lose the weight I gained from the twins.
So you attended your first SS party? My little sister, all grown up. I’m sure you loved it. My first Hitler Youth ball with Peter was a dream. By the way, is Josef single? I can’t recall if you said he was married or not. I hope not, for your sake. But if he is, do not be disappointed. Perhaps they’ll ask you to join the Lebensborn Program. I’d certainly love your company. It can be lonesome here. Sentimental folly, I’m well aware. However, I miss the sound of sleep, the rhythm of someone else’s breathing. I guess I spent too many years sharing a room with you.
I don’t sleep much these days. I try to imagine Julius across the compound in his tidy bunk bed and the sound of his steady in and out. It helps. I’m confident he will be a better man, a better German, because of my sacrifice. It is not too long before you could be a wife and mother too. You will see.
I think of you often, Elsie, and send my love.
Heil Hitler.
Hazel
Chapter Thirteen
3168 FRANKLIN RIDGE DRIVE
EL PASO, TEXAS
NOVEMBER 10, 2007
Reba was disappointed with the interview that day. She’d come home and transcribed the recording with the hope that her steno notes had missed some illuminating statement. But there hadn’t been one happy word about Germany or the yuletide. Reba hadn’t a clue how she’d rig together a feelgood article out of what she had, and her deadline was less than a week away. Her Sun City editor had already left two messages on her voice mail.
Reading through the transcription, Reba grumbled. Elsie’s comments had been so sporadic, but Reba couldn’t blame her entirely. She hadn’t been as professional as usual. Talk of weddings, fiancés, and love. Good Lord, what was she thinking? It was the Nazi thing. It threw her for a loop, and she never quite recovered. She’d forgotten all about writing a festive Christmas story; instead, she’d jumped into a World War II crime drama, dreaming of Elsie’s secret SS life. Now she reaped the consequences.
She turned the tape recorder on. “You, Reba Adams, are seriously screwed.” She clicked it off and flung it into her purse.
Frustrated and tired, she powered off her laptop. A nice, hot bath. That’s what she needed. She turned the tap as far to the right as possible, filling the tub up with steaming hot water, then she lit some candles. Something about the smell of matchsticks blown out reminded her of home, of summer campfires in the backyard and s’mores that tasted of a touch of pine.
When Daddy was on a happy high, the world was perfect—a “once upon a time” place that eventually showed itself equally fictitious. Summer had been his favorite season, hers too. She seemed as light as the long day hours, and all her memories dripped with honey and sunshine. On the first chill of fall, when she’d wake to find her momma had put an extra blanket over her bed during the night, she’d shudder and feel her heart go as cold and dormant as the Virginia maples.
“The trees are playing dead,” her daddy had once said while carrying her piggyback through the snowy woods behind their house. “Maybe if we tickle them, we could get them to give up the game.” With chapped fingers, he’d scratched the bark, put an ear to the trunk, and sighed. “Not a giggle. Quiet as a church.”
He never knew the hours Reba later stood outside, tickling the trees and hoping to hear something.
There was maybe one icy night a year in El Paso. Riki joked that the city had three seasons: spring, summer, and hell. It was the hard truth. She preferred that to the alternative. Reba’s hell wasn’t boiling; it was frozen.
She threw on her hooded college sweatshirt while she waited for the bathtub to fill. On the way home, she’d grabbed a McDonald’s salad and still tasted the Ranch dressing in the back of her throat. Wine would help clean her palate. She went downstairs and found an open bottle of chardonnay, poured it, and tried not to notice the stale pungency. It was late and the moon had risen round and full over the Franklin Mountains. She liked drinking in the moonlight. It made wine look magical, even in a tall water tumbler. Riki wasn’t home yet, not that that was unusual. But tonight, she felt like talking. She wanted to tell someone about Elsie and the Nazi Christmas party and watch their reaction.
To cut the wine’s bite, she searched the cupboard for something sweet. A can of tuna, a box of penne, a half-eaten bag of vinegar potato chips, Raisin Bran with less than two scoops within. There wasn’t much. A pastel bag of Whoppers Robin Eggs lingered in the back. She took a handful. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d grocery shopped or the last time she’d been compelled to. She and Riki never ate together, and maybe that was part of the problem.
Reba had grown up in a roomy, southern-style kitchen as the heartbeat of her home. It was a safe place away from the wet bar in the den and the darkness of the bedrooms. Over cheese omelets and buttermilk biscuits, her momma welcomed the mornings in robe and slippers. In the afternoons, she drank peppermint tea year-round. It was her momma’s domain, a stable comfort, that Reba found herself drawn to despite herself.
Only on his good nights could you find Reba’s daddy there. Then, he’d call his girls to the fridge to nibble leftover fried chicken and cold grits before bed. Her momma didn’t believe in eating after eight o’clock, and she pretended not to hear their laughter or see the bare bones in the garbage the next morning. Reba thought of her childhood like a coin, two sided and easily flipped: happy Daddy, sad Daddy.
She was nine years old the summer Deedee left for boarding school, and it seemed overnight a shroud had been wrapped around her home. Reba stayed in bed for days, heartsick, and not falling for any of her momma’s attempts to paint the situation in Technicolor cheer. Finally, it was a sharp cry one evening that pulled her toward the lamplight of her momma’s bathroom. There, Reba found her blotting a bloody nose.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” said her momma. “I ran into the door.”
It was well past 11:00 p.m., and her daddy was nowhere to be found.
Momma balled the spotty tissue into her palm and quickly put a fresh one to her face. “Daddy’s gone for a walk. I want you to go back to bed and stay there. He’s in a mood tonight.” When she’d attempted to smile, the tissue hanging out of her nose hid it. All Reba saw were her eyes and the fear.
She’d done as her momma commanded and gone back to her room where she lay in bed cracking her knuckles over and over, waiting to hear the click of the back door. When it finally did open, she held her breath as step by step her daddy moved up the stairs and into his bedroom. After half an hour of quiet, Reba finally allowed herself to sleep, but it was the kind that jumped at every creak and wind whistle.
The next morning, Reba’s momma, already wearing day makeup, woke her. “Rise and shine,” she’d said. “We’re having pecan pancakes and how about a matinee movie later? It’s a girls’ Saturday. Daddy’s sleeping in.” Purple shadowed her eyes despite the cakey foundation. “I can smell the toasted pecans! Better get those out of the oven before they burn,” she’d exclaimed, and off she’d gone without another word.