“You’re a liar.” Again, Izzy is the one to speak up.
Mrs. Herze smooths the apron that hangs at her waist. “My word against yours,” she says.
“Not quite,” Arie says, then reaches over the fence, flips the slide-bolt latch, and scoops up the hammer lying in the grass. Finally, she is the brave one, the quick-thinking one, the one who will make everything better.
Izzy lets out a cheer, claps her hands, and the two run away, leaving the gate hanging wide open.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Standing in her entryway, her cheek resting on James’s chest, Julia inhales. The air around Grace’s husband is warm. He’s thick and solid, what a man should be. This could be her life before. Before Maryanne died. Before Elizabeth Symanski died. Before Bill drifted away. Before.
She draws up her hands to James’s neck, weaves her fingers into the ends of his hair where it curls, tilts her face, and pulls him toward her. The clock over the stove ticks. A fan in the front room squeals as it rolls from side to side. In the distance, a car door slams. Julia presses against him. Raising one hand to the back of her head, James rests the other on her waist. He makes a sound as if clearing his throat, pulls back before their lips touch, drops both hands, lifts them out to the side, and stumbles away. They stand, neither of them moving. The doorknob rattles, and the front door swings open.
Wearing the same double-stitched work shirt as James, Bill walks into the house. No one would notice the way his steps are just off center, but Julia does. Soon enough, his face will swell again from the drinking, and his skin will take on a yellow cast. He’s later than all the other husbands but has made it home in time for supper. He doesn’t notice James and Julia as he fumbles with the lock on the door. His keys rattle and he steadies himself by holding on to the doorknob. With one good tug, his key comes loose. He straightens and turns. Saying nothing, he crosses his arms and his eyes come to rest on James, who has dropped his hands back to his sides.
“Didn’t expect to find you here,” Bill says.
James is almost ten years older than Bill and holds a higher-grade job at the factory. He was Bill’s first supervisor and helped him keep his job during that difficult year after Maryanne died.
“James came to check in on the girls,” Julia says. “He wanted to see to it that they were all right. That we were all right.”
With the back of her hand, Julia wipes her mouth even though her lips never touched James’s. The pulse of her beating heart carries to her eardrums, making it difficult to hear. She hugs herself with both arms.
“Can see to those girls myself,” Bill says.
“Grace asked that I check in on them,” James says. “Will be on my way now that you’re home.”
Bill takes a small backward step, giving way to James.
“Good enough,” Bill says.
The men stand face-to-face, filling up the small entry.
“Good enough,” James says after a long silence, and reaches for the doorknob. “I’m sure Grace will be checking in real soon, Julia.”
Julia looks up from the floor at the sound of small feet running up the stairs and across the porch. The twins stop short, one bumping into the other, both of them stumbling across the threshold. One of them, Arie, lifts a hammer with both hands as if it’s a trophy. She lowers it at the sight of Bill and James staring at each other.
“Leave that outside,” Julia says, and waves at the girls to hurry past and go straight to their room.
Outside the door, Arie sets the hammer on the porch, wipes her hands on her shirt, and follows Izzy upstairs.
“All right, then,” James says, reaching out to pat Bill on the shoulder. “You all have a nice evening.”
The walk back home is slow for Grace and Orin. When the colored men have reached the intersection of Alder Avenue and Woodward, Grace hurries Orin along because James will stay only a short time at Julia’s house and no good will come from him finding the twosome out on the street. After walking a few yards, Grace has to carry the rifle for Orin. With the barrel pointed down, she hugs it to her side where a passerby won’t notice what is cradled in her arms. When they have neared the house, Grace hears the twins. They are out and about again even though Grace tried to warn Julia to keep a closer eye. The street is otherwise silent. Grace stops every few yards to give Orin a chance to rest and to look over her shoulder for any sign of James. Orin says his shoes are pinching his feet and Grace says they’ll soak them when he gets home. At Grace’s house, they step onto her driveway and continue to shuffle toward the alley. Once there, Orin points at his chair. Still holding the rifle, Grace steadies the rusted seat, but before Orin can lower himself, James appears at her side, reaches for the rifle, and yanks it from her.
“What in God’s name?” he says, holding the gun in one hand and grabbing Orin by the arm with the other. “How did you get this back? Good Lord in heaven, what are you doing?”
Orin drops into his chair, pulls a yellowed kerchief from his pocket, and mops his forehead. “Taking care,” he says between breaths. “Taking goddamn care.”
“James, please,” Grace says. “Don’t fuss. There’s been no trouble.”
“I see trouble written all over this gun. You get inside. I’ll see to Orin.”
From her bedroom window, Grace again looks down on the alley as James helps Orin home. When they have disappeared, she slides open her closet door to hang up James’s freshly ironed shirts. She is always precise as to how she hangs them. White ones first, because he wears those on Sundays, and then his darker shirts for evenings at home and weekend projects. The tip of every collar is pressed to a sharp point and the cuffs hang down stiff. On weekends, when James tinkers with his car or mows the lawn, he rolls his sleeves, ruining the sharply pressed cuffs. After a few moments, the kitchen door opens. Footsteps on the stairs.
“Gracie?”
In one hand, James carries his work boots. He rests the other on Grace’s shoulder, leans in, and kisses her cheek. She covers his hand with hers, squeezes.
“Orin told me something happened,” he says. “You were talking to some colored men? He says you wanted him to shoot one of them? Is that true, Gracie? I told him that couldn’t be true.”
“Do I seem at all different to you?”
James lets out a long breath, probably tired of nothing going as it should, tired of something always being troublesome. “Well, sure,” James says. “You’re bigger.”
“But I’m different,” she says, letting her gaze float from the lifeless shirts to James. “Don’t I seem it?”
James squats in the open closet and slips his boots onto the shoe rack. He stands and unbuttons his shirt. Since this heat settled in, he stopped wearing an undershirt. Dark, wiry hair forms a long triangle on his chest that disappears below his brown leather belt. He turns toward the closet as if looking for something, pulls off his shirt, lets it slip first off one shoulder and then the other. He tosses it behind him so it lands on the bed and bends down again. When he stands, Grace’s white shoe dangles from one finger as it did the day he first discovered it in the closet.
“You’re fine, Gracie,” he says, staring at the shoe and not Grace. Something will be gnawing at him, though he might not be certain what it is. Maybe he’ll be wondering how one shoe found its way into the garage, where he crushed it with his car, while the other found its way safely to the rack in his closet. “You’re beautiful. Now, tell me what happened out there? Orin said one of them spoke to you. What did he say?”
“It’s no never mind,” Grace says, backing away from James to sit on the edge of the bed. She rests her hands in her lap.
“Orin told me. The man said you didn’t tell. What did he mean?”
Grace folds her hands together. “When will the funeral be? Do you know?”