“Is she yours?” Grace says to Cassia because she can think of nothing else to say and no other way to break the silence. “What’s her name?”
Cassia drops her fork. It bounces off the side of her plate and tumbles onto the table and then onto the ground. She grabs on to the carriage’s handle and yanks it toward her, the wheels letting off a high-pitched squeal.
“Uh-oh,” Lucille says. “Now you gone and done it.”
“Yeah, she’s my baby,” Cassia says, still rocking, the wheels squealing louder as she pushes and pulls the carriage. “Why? You think she shouldn’t be?”
“No, I thought she was…” Grace glances at Sylvie but doesn’t say her name. Cassia is so young. Her hips are narrow and her waist scarcely tapered, still like a girl’s. Sylvie has curves like a woman who has given birth to a baby. “I guess I only meant…”
“Something wrong with her being mine?” Cassia says. She rocks the carriage back and forth. The metal frame squeaks and whines. The tattered yellow blanket slips from the carriage’s handle and flutters toward the ground. As if the carriage’s handle has suddenly become too hot, Cassia jerks her hand away.
Struggling to stand, her large stomach slowing her, Grace reaches to catch the quilt before it falls. She snags one corner and raises it up so the end doesn’t drag in the mud. She starts to hand it back to Cassia, but she has lowered her head and is staring at the tabletop. The other two women are attending her, talking to her in quiet whispers and touching her lightly on the shoulder and back. Looking around for Mrs. Nowack but not finding her, Grace swings her legs off the end of the bench and stands. She shakes out the quilt like a sheet, snaps it, and lets it flutter down over the carriage, but before it has settled, she jerks it back. The bassinet is empty. It’s tattered and in places the fabric is worn away entirely, exposing the metal frame beneath. She looks from the empty stroller to Cassia to the other women at the table. A hand presses down on her shoulder. It’s Lucille. She yanks the quilt from Grace and forces her back into her seat.
Slipping around the end of the table, Lucille snaps the quilt just as Grace had done, and lets it float down over the carriage. “Well,” she says to Grace once the quilt is in place. “Something wrong with that baby? Something wrong with Cassia being that baby’s mama?”
Sylvie fixes her elbows on the table, but instead of Grace, she looks at the woman with the braids. “Don’t you be getting on this girl like that.”
“I’ll be getting on who I damn well want.” Lucille flips her braids over her shoulders, crosses her arms, and presses her chest up and out as if trying to make herself as large as Sylvie.
Sylvie stands. “Girl didn’t do nothing to you.”
“She asking about Cassia’s baby,” Lucille says, moving behind Grace so Grace can hear her but cannot see her. “That’s something.”
“She sure is my baby,” Cassia says.
“Yes, of course.” Grace clutches her bag to her chest and edges away from the sound of Lucille’s voice. “She’s lovely, I’m sure.”
“See there, Cassia,” Sylvie says, motioning for Lucille to sit. When Lucille doesn’t move, Sylvie jabs her finger at her and then at the bench, again reminding Grace of her own mother, albeit a taller, rounder, broader version. “Your baby girl is lovely. No need to get upset.”
Lucille lowers herself onto the bench, choosing to sit as far away from Grace as possible, and begins to eat. Across the table, Sylvie does the same. Cassia watches the two of them for a few moments and then picks up her fork from the ground and wipes it on her napkin, all the while keeping a firm grip on the carriage’s rusted handle. Sylvie waves her fork at Grace, a signal she should start eating too. Instead, Grace stands, drops her napkin in her plate, and to no one in particular, she says, “Thank you for having me to lunch.”
“You’ll come tomorrow,” Sylvie says. A light drizzle has started up again. The tiny drops sparkle on her dark skin. “Got to stay later if you want to make pierogi. We always roll it out after lunch. ’Course, you know we cook up all that pierogi.” She winks at Grace with her warm brown eyes. “We help you, will you bring those ladies back for Mrs. Nowack? Bring them back so she’ll have customers.”
“I’ll do my best,” Grace says. “I’ll do what I can.”
Sylvie waves her fingers in the air. “You want us teaching you. Not Mrs. Nowack. She got arthritis real bad. You don’t want Mrs. Nowack making your noodles. That’s for damn sure.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Grace only meant to rest her eyes for a few minutes after her trip to the bakery, but she slept several hours because here it is, suppertime. She walks down the stairs toward muted voices coming from the front room. The oven clicks and the soothing smell of one of the chicken casseroles Mother left in the freezer before going home fills the house. James must have come home while Grace slept and popped it in the oven. He would have woken her if there were news. Instead, the doorbell woke her. Friends and neighbors use the side door off the kitchen. They tap lightly on the glass or on the doorframe. The doorbell means company.
Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, Grace leans out to see who has come to visit. A draft blows across the living room and stirs her hair and the hem of her dress. James stands at the front door with his back to her. He leans against the jamb, one foot resting on the opposite ankle. He turns when a floorboard creaks under Grace’s feet.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he says. Only the middle two buttons on his shirt are buttoned and he didn’t bother to comb his hair after having washed it. It curls on the ends when he brushes it with his fingers and not a proper brush. Now that his days are spent searching, he comes home every night to have supper with Grace. He always freshens up, usually after they eat. He slaps cool water on his face, washes his hands and forearms with a good dose of soap-all meant to give him a second wind before rejoining the search.
A man wearing a dark blue shirt stands in the doorway. He tips his hat at her. A second man, dressed in the same blue shirt and wearing the same blue hat, stands next to him.
“Mrs. Richardson?” the first man says.
He’s a police officer, the same one who sat at Mr. Symanski’s kitchen table after Elizabeth first disappeared. He had rubbed his temples that night, not quite certain he understood how a grown woman was really no more than a child. He is the same age as Grace, but even late in the day when he should have a shadow on his lower jaw and chin, his face is smooth. His dark hair flips up in tight curls.
“She can’t tell you any more than I have,” James says. He rubs the bridge of his nose between two fingers.
“Do you mind?” The other officer, taller with light brown hair, leans into the house so he can speak directly to Grace.
“James, you should invite them in,” Grace says, not moving from her spot at the bottom of the stairs.
The men have shifted about in the threshold and have blocked the breeze. The oven still clicks, throwing off heat.
“May we?” the taller officer says to James.
James steps aside, allowing the officers to pass, and waves at Grace to join them. The officers remove their hats and tuck them under an arm.