CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Julia stands in front of her refrigerator, staring inside. She should be getting supper on the table for the twins and Bill. From the top shelf, she grabs a loaf of banana bread tightly wrapped in aluminum foil. Some of her bananas were too ripe for pudding, so she used them to make bread because waste not, want not. She squeezes the tightly wrapped loaf until the ends pop open and then tosses it across the kitchen toward the trash can sitting at the back door. She grabs three more foil-wrapped loaves, all of them meant to feed the searchers tomorrow, but the search is over and all this food will go to waste after all. Like the first loaf, she throws all three across the kitchen. Next she slides out a pale blue casserole dish trimmed in a white Butterprint pattern. It’s her banana pudding with a three-inch meringue, also meant to go to the church tomorrow. Her meringues never bleed or weep, and this one, like all the others, is perfect. Sliding her palm under the cool dish, she holds it near her shoulder and launches it at the trash can, where it shatters against the wall. Next, the baby lima beans in cream sauce. They’ve always been Bill’s favorite. They sail across the room in a lemon-colored casserole dish and splatter on contact-the flat, pasty beans first sticking to the wall and then falling away to the floor.
“Aunt Julia.”
Julia swings around.
“Is something bad happening?” Izzy says. She stands in the kitchen entry, one hand on Arie’s shoulder, the other hanging limp at her side. Both girls’ feet are bare and their hair is damp from their bath.
“No,” Julia says. “It’s nothing. You two get on back upstairs.”
Arie steps away, but Izzy doesn’t move.
“Is it Elizabeth? Did they find her?”
“Not now, Izzy. Later, when Uncle Bill gets home.”
“I wasn’t doing anything bad,” Izzy says. “I was only looking for Patches. You never let us look.”
Arie has continued to back down the hallway, but Izzy stands firm.
“I’m sorry I pretended. Arie didn’t know. I was only-”
“I said, upstairs now.”
“But Aunt Julia, we-”
“You’ll never find that cat.”
Julia reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out the last loaf of banana bread, rears back, and throws it. The small, tightly bound package hits the wall with a thud.
“That cat is at your grandmother’s house, way across town, and it’s probably dead by now.”
Izzy’s bottom lip pokes out. “That’s not true. There’s no reason to think she’s dead.”
Turning her back on Izzy, Julia says, “Upstairs. Now.”
Julia stares at the mess she has made until the girls’ bedroom door slams shut. Once she is certain they have settled in, she walks over to the foyer and takes a quick look out the front of the house. No sign of Bill, even though the other husbands are home for the evening. She drops the curtain and at the entryway table picks up the tattered, yellowing article about the Willows that Malina returned. Julia’s unfolded and refolded it so many times, it has begun to tear along the creases. Back in the kitchen, she stands alongside the trash can splattered with yellow pudding, banana slivers, and slippery beans, and lets the flimsy sheet drop.
Julia used to tell herself she kept the article because she loved the house pictured in it. A crisply painted balustrade wraps around the front porch and rounded arches stretch between the squared-off columns that support the second-story patio. Looking at the picture now, a greasy stain ballooning in its center, she imagines the unwed girls sit on that top patio when the weather is nice. They must be lonely, shipped off to Kansas City to quietly give birth to their babies. The girls come from all over the country because every railroad leads directly to Kansas City and eventually to 2929 Main Street, the Willows. Julia pulls the article from the trash, wipes it on her apron, and holds it close. There might be someone sitting on the small, private porch. In the grainy print, she can’t be certain, but if she went there in person, she could see for herself.
Uncertain how long she has stood in the kitchen and stared at the faded picture, it’s a knock that rouses her. When she opens the door, James stands there, one hand propped against the side of the house. His sleeves are rolled up and his shirttail is untucked. It’s the same double-stitched chambray work shirt Bill wears on weekends. The same navy twill pants. The same black leather work boots with the steel-tipped toes. When Bill used to come home at the end of the day, he would always do the same-yank out his shirttail. Sometimes, after he walked through the door, Julia would unbutton his shirt for him and slip it off his shoulders, leaving him in his undershirt. Before Maryanne was born, he would help Julia out of her shirt too, and they would make love on the living-room floor.
“Everything all right down here?” James says, pushing off the side of the house and glancing down the street. “Grace asked me to check in.”
Julia pushes open the screen door and invites him inside. As he passes, she inhales the warm air he brings with him. He smells the same as Bill always did. Is it grease? Oil? Metal shavings? Even though he didn’t work at the factory today, James carries that smell. She feels his footsteps through the floorboards. He fills up the entry, blocks the light shining through the sheers in the dining room.
“Julia?” James says, staring into the kitchen. “What’s happened?”
Julia tucks the article back in the drawer where she has kept it for the last year. “Bill won’t have another baby with me,” she says.
She can only say it because James isn’t looking at her. He’s looking at the pudding dripping down her wall and the browning slivers of banana stuck to the side of her trash can.
“Won’t even touch me.”
Unable to face him, she talks to the floor. The black boots come toward her. Warm hands grip her shoulders.
“I used to be the one who couldn’t take care of her own baby,” Julia says, her cheek resting on James’s chest. “Now I’m the one who couldn’t take care of Elizabeth. Caught the same trout twice, I suppose.”
With her eyes closed, it could be Bill before everything went wrong. The hands are sturdy. He’s broad like Bill, and tall. Makes her feel small. She’s usually the tallest woman. They called her lanky as a child. All arms and legs. Mother said she’d outgrow the awkward stage, said Julia would stop growing up and start filling out. Now it’s James standing in front of her, smelling like oil or grease or metal shavings. When she reaches out to touch his chest, it feels like Bill’s. Stiff fabric, small reinforced buttons, warm. She leans into him. The hands that cupped her arms slip over her shoulders and down where they wrap around her waist and draw her in.
Making her way across the garage, Malina tiptoes around the many bags of clothes she has accumulated for the thrift drive. Upstairs, Mr. Herze is napping, so she’ll work quickly and quietly. He hasn’t made use of his tools since he took down the storm windows this past spring, and he won’t make use of them during the hot summer months. By the time autumn arrives and he takes it upon himself to repair a fence railing or replace a windowsill, he’ll have long since forgotten he once owned a red-handled hammer. He’ll have no reason to wonder what became of it or why a brown-handled hammer hangs in its place.
Now that Elizabeth has been found, things will return to normal. The men will go back to work, and the ladies will continue their plans for the bake sale. When she reaches Mr. Herze’s workbench, Malina stretches across the smooth wooden slab, grabs the brown-handled hammer, and lifts it from the pegboard. It’s brand-new, the cleanest of all the tools. No sense getting herself dirty when she’ll have to get supper on the table shortly.