“Well, good Lord in heaven,” Mr. Herze says. He tosses his keys into the air, catches them, and slams the door shut. “Unless you’ve got a third one running around, that must be the one you’re looking for.”
Down the block, James Richardson pulls into his drive. He has seen the same as Mr. Herze. Walking on the side of the street, where the last few elms throw a spot of shade, is the other twin. James Richardson walks to the street and makes a motion with his thumb, signaling to the girl she’d better hurry on home. She hugs something to her chest and begins a lazy jog. As she gets closer and sees Julia standing on the curb, arms crossed, the girl slows her pace. Malina walks toward her for a closer look. The girl definitely holds something in her arms. It’s a stack of paper-white, glossy paper-one sheet the exact size of the next. A stack at least a half-inch thick. Malina leans close as the girl passes. LOST CAT, it reads across the top in large black letters.
The girl continues the long, slow walk toward home. Without saying a word, Julia stretches out one arm and points a single finger at her house. The girl walks past Julia, head bowed. At the stairs leading to the front door, Grace, still pale, ruffles the top of the girl’s head with one hand. The girl ducks, pulls away from Grace’s touch, disappears inside, and the door closes. Leaning heavily on the banister, Grace makes her way down the last few stairs and walks up the sidewalk toward the street. Not until she hears the front door close does Julia drop her arm. She looks past Malina and turns to face Grace.
A few days ago, Malina saw a stack of paper exactly like the one clutched in the girl’s arms. It came home with Mr. Herze. The girls at the office made them-flyers for Elizabeth Symanski that the men taped in windows along Woodward. The paper was glossy, smooth, not like regular writing paper. A machine at the factory churned out one sheet exactly like the next. The girls knew how to make it work. Mr. Herze would never bother with such a chore. One flyer after another, each sheet exactly like the last and the next. Now the twin who is bold enough to walk right past Malina without even a hello carries a stack of those same flyers. LOST CAT, the top one read. All the rest will be exactly the same.
There is something final about the sound of Julia’s screen door slamming behind Izzy. First there is the squeal as the door opens, the creak when its springs are stretched as far as they’ll go, the momentary silence as it falls closed, and then the slap. The afternoon breeze is cool on Julia’s shin and knee where her torn nylon bares her skin. She tucks in the loose tail of her white blouse, straightens her skirt’s waistband, and pulls the bent safety pin from her blouse. Across the street, Malina has followed her husband inside. No sign of James Richardson, either. He must not have seen Grace here at Julia’s house and he’s gone inside his own house to look for her. Julia will send Grace straight home so James doesn’t worry. As Grace waddles toward her, this is what Julia intends to do. News of Elizabeth will weigh heavily on everyone and Grace is in no condition to abide all this sadness. Even though most had stopped expecting Elizabeth would come home, expecting a thing is a wide world away from knowing a thing.
“You heard, then?” Grace says. She stops beside Julia, clasps her hands together under her large stomach, and clears her throat as if preparing to say something bigger.
Julia nods. “Do you know how?” she says and then starts again. “Do you know what happened to her?”
“The river,” Grace says. “That’s all Mr. Symanski told me.”
“It all stops now, doesn’t it?” Julia says. “No more lunches? No more desserts and coffee? No more searching?”
“People think those men took her.” Grace dips her head in the direction of the Filmore Apartments. She doesn’t have to say more. “Do you know? Even the police think it. They arrested one of them but had to let him go. You know that, right? You know that’s happened?”
“Yes, I know that.”
It’s not the words that warn Julia what’s to come, it’s how Grace says them. Her tone is flat, as if she’s reading from a typed sheet of paper.
“Then, why?” Grace says.
“Why what?”
“Why do you leave the girls to their own devices? It’s not safe. They’re not safe.”
“I know it’s my burden, Grace. No need to make me wallow in it.”
“I don’t think anything is your fault, but I don’t think you realize how our street has changed.” Grace’s skin is pale and her lips are dry, cracked. “I think you need to mind those girls,” she says, “before something terrible happens.”
“Mind them like I didn’t mind Elizabeth? You’re as bad as Malina.”
“Julia, stop.” Grace reaches for Julia’s hands, but Julia pulls them away. “What happened to Elizabeth wasn’t your fault, and I wish you’d stop saying it was.”
“Why do you wish that, Grace?”
Julia is going to make Grace say it. She is going to stare at Grace, hold her eyes firm, not move an inch until Grace says it right out loud.
“Because if you think it was your fault, you must think it was my fault too.”
Everything did change with that slamming door. Elizabeth will never come home and this is Julia’s fault. Her own daughter will never come home and this is Julia’s fault too. Julia doesn’t know how to be a mother. She failed Maryanne and she will fail the twins. Julia’s own daughter died because Julia was a careless, hapless mother, and now there will never be another baby and Elizabeth will never come home.
“It was your fault, Grace,” Julia says. “Yours as much as mine.”
It’s five o’clock, must be because that’s the time the colored men always pass. From her bedroom window, Grace sees him. Yes, that’s him. That’s the one. She recognizes him even from this distance. It’s the way he walks, with a rounded back and a swagger. That’s what she’d call it. A swagger. And then he lifts his left hand. One other time she’s seen him and it was his left hand. He draws it down over his chin, his beard. This is how he trains it. Over and over, stroking the short, dark beard, drawing those fingers together, drawing them to a point.
James is gone and Grace is glad for it. A few minutes ago, he left the house. Go to Julia’s, Grace had said to him after he reported to her what she already knew. While he sat at the kitchen table, telling her Elizabeth was gone for good, Grace stood beside her ironing board, her new steam iron in hand, one of James’s Sunday shirts laid out before her. She worked the iron back and forth over the shirt’s yoke, every so often pressing a button to release a stream of water. It was supposed to make life easier, more manageable. No more sprinkling from a bottle or pre-dampening in the sink. The iron sizzled and hissed and she inhaled the light steam. James thought she was pale and that her eyes were red and swollen because Elizabeth was gone and because the ironing was too much work. It was the moment she should have told him about the man who came for her and for Elizabeth and that she worried he hadn’t set things right yet, so he’d come again for the twins or someone else. But she said nothing.
Julia was right. It was Grace’s fault Elizabeth died. She would bear the weight of that truth for the rest of her life. And because she didn’t tell James in that quiet moment sitting in the kitchen as he stroked the back of her hand and brushed his fingers across her cheeks, she was dooming herself to carry the weight of what was yet to come. Saying none of these things to James, she asked him to check on Julia and the girls. Bill’s not yet home. She’ll need your help. She’ll have to tell the twins about Elizabeth and she shouldn’t do that alone. Sit with her awhile, make sure she and the girls are well, and then hurry home for supper. Grace owed Julia something-an apology, an admission, some sign of regret-but her husband was all she had to offer. She also knew the men would soon pass by her house, every day at five o’clock, and that today, the one who had come for her would be among them. Elizabeth was never a danger to him. Only Grace. But she lied to the police. She said it never happened. She made it safe for him to return, and so she sent James away.