“You are coming to buy bread?” Mrs. Nowack says, walking out from the back room. Her gray skirt is dusted with flour and her cheeks are red and shiny.
“I’m doing no such thing.”
Malina inches closer to the carriage.
Mrs. Nowack pushes aside the black curtain that leads to the back of the store. “Cassia,” she calls. “You are to be coming here to fetch this baby.”
A girl-the girl-walks out from behind the curtain. Her black hands are coated with flour up to her wrists and she wears a small white apron around her waist. She stops when she sees Malina.
“It’s too hot out back,” the girl says, staring at Malina. “You said my baby shouldn’t be back there.”
“You are to be taking her,” Mrs. Nowack says. “And you, if you are not buying, you are leaving.”
Malina takes another step toward the carriage, the narrow heel of her shoe tapping the floor. “I’ll do no such thing,” she says.
The girl is smaller even than she appeared the other night walking down a dark street. She rests her tiny hands on the carriage’s handle and pulls it toward her. Her face is like a doll’s; her shoulders and hips, slight. There must be an odor to her, like the one Malina washes from Mr. Herze’s shirts, but Malina can’t smell it over the onions and butter. With the carriage in hand, the girl backs toward the curtain, her feet so small and light they move silently. This girl wasn’t supposed to be the mother. The other woman-the larger one with rounded, full hips and thick legs-she was supposed to be the mother. But here is this girl, Mr. Herze’s girl, pulling on a carriage that carries Mr. Herze’s baby.
As if she belongs in this place, Grace Richardson walks out from the back room, a large white pastry box in hand.
“We have a good start, Mrs. Nowack.” She stops when she sees Malina and sets the box on the counter as if hoping Malina didn’t see her carrying it.
“I want to see inside that carriage,” Malina says.
Grace reaches out with one bare hand and touches the girl’s arm. She touches that girl as if they know each other. She touches that girl as if they care for each other.
“We’re nearly done back there,” Grace says to the girl. “It’s not so hot anymore.”
“I want to see under that quilt,” Malina says.
The girl tilts her small face and studies Malina. She is probably remembering Malina from a picture, perhaps the one on Mr. Herze’s desk. The girl shakes her head.
“I gave it back,” the girl says. “I already gave it back.”
“Stop talking your gibberish.” Malina stomps one white heel. “I’ve a right to look in that carriage.”
“I already gave that hammer back,” the girl says again.
Grace crosses in front of the girl and pushes the carriage behind her. “This is of no interest to you, Malina,” she says. And then, leaning forward so she can whisper, Grace says, “I promise you, it’s of no concern to you.”
“Of course it’s of no concern to me,” Malina says, and backs toward the door, but she stops when she notices the white box sitting on the counter. “Those are not pierogi, are they, Grace Richardson? I couldn’t imagine you’d let these women prepare food we are to eat. You have them do your cooking, and you leave your mending to me? It’s shameful.”
Grace was going to be Malina’s friend. She and James were going to come to supper and then she would call Malina for coffee and they might spend afternoons chatting together while the baby slept. Malina would bring sweet baby clothes as gifts and Grace would be her friend.
“You, Grace Richardson, are shameful.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
At the picnic table behind the bakery, Grace sits and, with white thread and a needle, reattaches a button to one of the dresses Mr. Symanski left in her garage. It’s the perfect excuse to stay a bit longer. She sits quietly, has for several minutes, so the baby has woken and is kicking and rolling. In between stitches, Grace rests a hand on her stomach to feel a small foot or knee. Each time she does, Cassia reaches out and lays her hand alongside Grace’s.
After Malina stomped out of the bakery, Cassia and the other women had worked silently to clean up from the pierogi, and because Mrs. Nowack had no more cooking or baking for them to do, they set to work on Grace’s mending. Sitting opposite Grace, Sylvie and Lucille each hold a dress close to their noses, squinting as they poke a needle through the fabric and pull it out the other side. Every so often, they hold up their dresses by the shoulders, swing them from side to side, and show off their work. Sitting next to Grace, Cassia rocks her carriage. Her motion carries through the wooden seat. Julia once said, before Maryanne died, that a woman rocks a baby in time to her own heart. That’s what Grace feels-Cassia’s heartbeat.
“Who these dresses belong to?” Sylvie asks.
Grace runs her fingers across the buttons on the bodice of the dress resting in her lap.
“Elizabeth,” she says.
“If you’re giving them away,” Cassia says, still rocking, “why you fixing them?”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
Cassia shrugs and Sylvie and Lucille carry on with their mending. Sylvie works a needle as quickly and smoothly as Grace’s own mother. Lucille struggles to reattach the buttons, shouting out every so often when she pokes herself.
“Do you know Malina Herze?” Grace asks, tugging on the cuff of one of Elizabeth’s dresses. She doesn’t look at any of them as she asks the question. “Before she came here today, did you know her?”
Sylvie sets aside her needle and thread, folds the dress over one arm. “Yeah, we know her. Know she causes trouble for Mrs. Nowack.”
“Does she cause any other trouble?”
“Person causes one kind of trouble,” Lucille says, biting through a strand of thread, “they bound to cause another.”
“You should stay away from her, Cassia.”
Cassia squirms on her seat. “I gave it back,” she says. “No one should be giving me any trouble. I kept it with me at first, but I gave it back.”
“The hammer?” Grace says. “Are you talking about a hammer?” She pauses, waiting for an answer. “Why did you have Malina’s hammer? Who did you give it to?”
“I found it,” Cassia says. “And I returned it.”
“She didn’t do no such thing,” Lucille says. She flicks her eyes toward the carriage and winks at Grace. “Cassia is confused, is all. She didn’t have no hammer. She just gets herself confused.” Having finished her work, Lucille passes the lavender dress to Grace and reaches into the brown bag for another. The beads on her thin braids rattle as she moves. “Will the ladies come back now? Will they come shopping here again?”
“I’m sorry,” Grace says, holding the dress by its shoulders so she can inspect it. “But I don’t think so.”
She gives the dress a shake, irons it flat with her hands, and fingers the lace collar. Elizabeth used to scratch and tug at her neckline whenever she wore the dress, but she never asked to take it off. Birthdays and Easter. It was always her favorite. And every year, twice a year, Ewa would bend and straighten her fingers and complain about the dress’s tiny buttons and stiff lace. Lifting the dress to her face, Grace inhales. It smells of Elizabeth, a light, sweet scent, the same as Ewa.
“The first day I came here, you mentioned a woman. I think her name was Tyla.” Grace hugs Elizabeth’s dress. “She was the woman who was killed here, wasn’t she?”
The women look among themselves but say nothing.
“You must have known her. You must miss her.”
“Ain’t no one missing Tyla,” Cassia says.
Sylvie lays a hand on Cassia’s shoulder. “She was mean as a snake, that’s for sure.”
“Both of you, hush.” It’s Lucille. With one eye closed, she is trying to thread a needle with blue thread. “No one needs to talk about that.” The thread finds its way through the eye of the needle and Lucille looks at Grace. “No need to talk about that,” she says again.