Knowing James would come home to check on her, Grace had run a brush through her hair and freshened her lipstick and powder. She knew the glow of her hair when it’s newly brushed and the shine on her cheeks that comes with a dab of rouge would reassure him.
“It was a silly misunderstanding,” she says, drawing one finger through the mayonnaise and touching it to James’s lips.
He’s angry; of course he’s angry. He storms about the kitchen, nearly knocking over a chair, stopping several times to stare out the window over the sink, hoping, just hoping, to catch sight of Orin Schofield. He’s outraged. Gunfire at his own home. The police should come and have a word with Orin, but Grace says no. Orin shot into the dirt. He was really quite deliberate. He meant no harm. And a good scare might be just what those girls need. The real danger is how they disobey Julia and Bill.
“And the fire?” James says, wrapping his arms around Grace’s full belly. “What happened with the fire?” He has exhausted himself, stomping and ranting. He leans into Grace, lets his face sink into her hair, and breathes in. With each movement, the stone wedged in his shoe still taps.
Grace shuts off her mixer and pulls a warm hardboiled egg from the pot on the stove. She taps it lightly on the edge of the sink, giving herself time to think.
“The girls,” she says, scratching at the cracked shell with one fingernail and peeling it back. The white of the egg tears away with the thin shell. She should have cooled them first. “I think the girls were playing with fireworks.” The lie comes quickly, easily. “It really only simmered. Burned itself out. I promised them I wouldn’t tell Julia.” With a paring knife, she slices through the firm, slippery egg white and pops the sliver in James’s mouth. “You’re sweet to worry so. Mr. Williamson took the gun. It won’t happen again.”
James slides around Grace so he can stand at the window. He doesn’t notice the clicking sound his shoe continues to make or he would dig out the gravel with a nail or one of Grace’s steak knives. He is watching out that window for Orin or maybe for the colored men who walk down the alley. He’ll be wondering if those men are really the ones who started the fire. If Grace thinks it, James will think it too.
“What is that?” Grace says, pointing at James’s back pocket.
“Found it in the garage.” He pulls out a white shoe.
It’s a woman’s shoe. Two-inch heel. Everyday wear. It’s crushed and marred with black smudges. It’s Grace’s.
“Sorry,” he says. “Must have run it over.”
Grace takes the shoe by its cracked heel. After the men had gone, leaving her alone in the garage, she limped back to the house. She had walked on the toe of her bare foot, her nylon surely snagging, because on the other, she wore a heel. Always so forgetful. She should have remembered the shoe and thrown it away with the glass she and Mother picked up from the garage floor.
“It must have been in with the things Mr. Symanski brought,” she says. Another lie, quickly, easily. “Ewa’s, I suppose.”
“Probably right.”
James holds a can of tuna beneath the opener hung from the underside of a cabinet. “I don’t want you going out back anymore. Definitely don’t want you near Orin Schofield.” Then he locks the can in place and cranks the silver handle. “No reason for you even to go into the garage.”
Grace drops three diced eggs into her largest bowl but is unsure how much relish to add. She’s never made such a large batch. James dumps the tuna into the same bowl, sets the empty can on the counter, and leads Grace to the table, where he helps her to sit.
“I talked to a fellow today,” he says, pacing between the sink and table. His shoe clicks, though not as loudly, as if the stone has worked its way up into the tread. “He was down at the church, speaking with a lot of folks. I talked to him about selling the house. He says plenty of folks are ready to sell since Elizabeth disappeared. Says he’s had a dozen calls. Felt bad talking to him, what with Elizabeth still out there.”
The last time Grace heard tapping on her kitchen floor, she had been afraid it would wake Betty Lawson’s baby. She had been sleeping in the far corner while the ladies of the St. Alban’s Charitable Ventures Committee chatted in Grace’s living room.
“We can’t be the last to give it serious thought.” James drops into a seat and scoots his chair under the table. “Gracie, you listening?”
“We can’t leave Mr. Symanski,” Grace says. “Not now. What if Elizabeth comes home and we’re gone?”
Grace wants to believe the words, tries to speak them with the soft tenderness she thinks her voice should have, but they come out flat and hollow, each word too deep, too loud. She knows Elizabeth will never come home.
“I’m sorry to say it,” James says. “And I won’t say it to Charles, but I can’t have you living here. It’s not safe anymore.”
Grace shifts in her seat. Though her inner thighs still ache and her tailbone is yet tender, the small cut on her lip has almost healed over. It’s little more than a red blemish that might be mistaken for a smudge of lipstick. James doesn’t ask about it anymore.
“The agent says he’s bound to sell a lot of houses around here,” James continues. “Says folks will eventually start to worry. Can’t wait around, he says. Nobody wants to be the last to get out. Says those folks moving in at the Filmore are a sure sign of what’s to come. He’ll swing by in a few days. Give the place a once-over.”
James opens five more cans of tuna and Grace makes two dozen sandwiches, cuts them on the diagonal, and covers them with plastic wrap. As she works, James talks about where they might move. Well north of Eight Mile. Lots of folks are moving out there. It’ll be a three-bedroom ranch with wall-to-wall carpet and a double sink in the kitchen. Can be expensive, though, so he can’t make any promises. Drive won’t be so bad, not since the highway went in. He’ll give Grace everything she wants, everything she needs. A lawn, bigger than this one. Nice neighbors, too, with kids, lots of kids. And the buses run up north, so no need for Grace to worry. Or maybe it’s high time she take another stab at learning to drive.
“I won’t stop looking for Elizabeth,” he says, and lifts her face to his. “No matter where we go, I won’t stop looking until we find her.” Then he places both hands on either side of Grace’s large stomach and slides them up to her face and again tilts it to his. His eyelids are heavy. No doubt, he’s thinking about the day Grace isn’t pregnant anymore and he can be with her as only a husband is allowed.
“Will the agent put a sign in our yard, bring strangers through the house?” Grace pulls away slowly and begins to put clean dishes in her cupboards.
“If he likes this old girl enough, if the house is solid, he might buy her himself,” James says, walking toward the back door. His shoe continues to click. “Be best that way. No need to get the neighbors worried. He’d give us a nice price too. We’d be out of here before you know it. Even before the baby is born.” He opens the door, tugs on his hat, pulls it low over his eyes. “But I won’t stop until we find something.”
“She wasn’t wearing those sneakers,” Grace says.
James pushes the door closed. “Who?”
“She was tapping,” Grace says, pointing at James’s black steel-toed boots. “Like you are now. Tapping because she wore her black leather shoes. Elizabeth always wore them with her lavender dress, with any of her nicer dresses. That wasn’t her shoe they found.”
“It’s something,” James says. “We’ll tell them, tell the police. But I don’t think they ever made much of a single shoe. It could have belonged to anyone.”
“I don’t think Elizabeth wandered away, James,” Grace says. “I think something bad, very bad, happened to her. I think she’ll never come home.”