The ladies, all ages, who waited alongside Grace stood a little taller that year, as if preparing for something. Mother said the whole country was bracing itself and had good reason to shore up its footing. Grace didn’t know what that meant or why the country needed a sound foothold, but the spirit of those ladies with their full sleeves and cinched waists and hair that hung loosely over one eye and down their backs lifted her up. She walked with her shoulders back and her head high and wished her dress weren’t one sewn for a child.
The men who boarded the Ste. Claire, that year and every other year, wore suits because when the sun set, a band would play on the upper deck. As the engines churned and the music throbbed, the gentlemen would wrap their arms around the ladies’ tiny bound waists and spin them across a dance floor polished with cornmeal. This was where Grace first saw James, his right hand cradling the small of a young woman’s back and his left hand wrapped around hers. Their feet floated across the glossy floor, and with each spin, he pulled her closer. He was tall, taller than every girl wearing her best heels, and his shoulders were broad and full and one dark curl fell across his forehead, tossed out of place by the spinning and twirling.
As he danced, James had laughed easily with the girl he held in his arms, perhaps too easily. He laughed as if she were a sister, and each time he did, the girl’s frown deepened. Grace noticed him because of the easy laugh. She always covered her mouth when she laughed. But he laid his head back and opened his mouth wide, not afraid of who might hear or who might see. She felt certain he would be a kind man, and this kindness is what she would most remember in the years to come. In the end, the girl with a hemline that floated scarcely beneath her knees and yellow hair that glowed under the overhead lights crossed her arms over her chest and flipped that yellow hair when she stomped away to find another partner. Grace had been happy to watch her go.
From somewhere north of Alder, more fireworks crackle. One shoe is gone, so she walks toward the house with an awkward gait. Step, pause. Step, pause. At the back door, she makes her way carefully up the stairs because she holds the trash can in one hand and her tattered blouse in the other. She has no free hand to hold the railing. Careful, now, the doctor had said. You don’t want to take a nasty fall.
In the kitchen, the fan still sweeps from side to side, wobbling on its stand. The oven timer beeps in a steady rhythm. Clutching her blouse in two fists, Grace sits at the table, both feet flat on the floor. She stares straight ahead at the clock over the stove. She waits to feel the familiar rumbling that means her baby girl is stretching and rolling. The fan sprays gusts of air that blow loose bits of hair across her face.
“Good Lord in heaven,” Mother says, wiping her hands on a towel as she walks into the kitchen.
Mother has already wrapped a scarf around her hair and removed her makeup for bed. She still wears her gray duster but has changed into her felt slippers. With all that’s going on, she’ll spend the night. James insisted.
“See to those muffins before they burn,” Mother says.
And then she sees Grace.
Walking around the table, her duster’s full skirt fluttering about her, Mother keeps her distance. She picks up the trash can Grace set inside the door and puts it under the sink. She silences the timer and pulls the muffins from the oven.
“Mother?”
“Come with me, child,” Mother says, holding Grace’s forearm with one hand and cupping her elbow with the other.
They walk up the stairs and into the bathroom. Grace undresses because Mother tells her to and waits while Mother runs the hot water. Soon, the tub is full and Mother leads Grace to it, holds her by the arm as she lifts one foot and then the other over the edge. Grace lowers herself, pressing one hand to the tiled wall and keeping a strong hold of Mother’s arm with the other. The warm water chokes her. She coughs into a closed fist, feels as if she might vomit. Mother rests a hand on Grace’s shoulder until the nausea passes and then hands her a bar of soap.
“Go on and clean yourself,” Mother says.
Grace’s arms float at her sides, her belly rising up between them. Mother wraps Grace’s fingers around the soap and begins to pull the gold pins from her hair. One at a time, Mother drops them on the side of the tub. A few slip over the rounded edge and fall silently to the floor where they catch in the beige bathmat. When every pin is out, Mother brushes Grace’s hair until it is smooth and pins it up again using the same pins.
“I feel the baby,” Mother says, resting one hand on Grace’s stomach, where it rises out of the warm water. The one spot that is cool. “She’s moving fine. Kicking. Do you see? Kicking hard and strong.”
Grace slides both hands over her belly. It’s hard like a shell, and after a moment of stillness, the baby shifts. Relief is the thing that makes her cry. When she first married James, the other husbands winked and slapped him on the back. Need only brush up against one this young. You’ll have yourself a son in no time. But it didn’t happen. For so many years, it didn’t happen. Grace prayed every night for a baby, lit candles at St. Alban’s, slept with a scrap of red ribbon under her pillow. She wanted a baby beyond all else, not only for herself but also for James. It will happen, James said when she cried. It will happen.
Mother helps Grace into her white cotton nightgown and into her bedroom and into her bed. She pulls up the sheet to Grace’s chin and folds back the top blanket. This is what Mother did when Grace was a child. In the window, the white sheers flutter. A breeze brushes across Grace’s face.
“I’ll tell him you’re feeling poorly, that you have a fever. I’ll tell him to sleep on the sofa.”
Grace rolls on her side and lays a hand on the baby. Another nudge from inside. “Elizabeth?” she asks.
Mother tilts her head. “Nothing. I’ve heard nothing.”
Grace wants to ask Mother if anyone searched the Symanskis’ garage even though she knows they did. She knows James looked there and others, too.
“The twins,” she says, pushing herself into a sitting position with one hand while keeping the other on the baby. “Julia left them at home tonight. She said they were old enough. She thinks they’re safe.”
“I’ll see to them,” Mother says, waving at Grace to lie back and then pulling the curtains closed, cutting off the breeze. “You stay. Rest. Hardly a mark on you. You’ll be well in the morning.”
A flick. The door closes. The room goes dark. The air is still. In the bathroom, the water drains from the tub and Mother shuffles about, probably collecting Grace’s clothes. She’ll throw them away, won’t bother to mend them.
The door opens again and light from the hallway spills into the room. Grace’s eyelids flutter.
“Did you see the color of him?” Mother asks.
Grace nods or perhaps she only blinks.
“No man wants to know this about his wife,” Mother says. “He can’t live with it. Do yourself this favor. No man wants to know.”
Surely this is what became of Elizabeth Symanski. Surely this is what she suffered.
The door closes again, and the room falls dark.
For tonight, the search is over. Outside Julia’s dining-room window, the block is mostly quiet except for the steady buzz of insects, cicadas though it’s early for them to be out. One by one, bedroom lights switch off up and down Alder Avenue, though every porch light still shines. Nearby, a baby cries. That will be Betty Lawson’s little one, her cries carrying through the open window in her nursery. Upstairs, Bill and the twins sleep. Nothing should wake them. No more slamming doors, no more cars rolling down the street. The pie plates have been washed and dried. The unused rhubarb has been wrapped in aluminum foil and stored in the refrigerator. Julia promised the twins a pie of their own tomorrow. She’ll have to get up early to roll out the crust before she goes back to the church. The twins will be able to do the rest.