“A hammer?” one officer says, glancing at the small notebook he holds in his hand. “Yes, a hammer. They were here to return the tool?”
“Why on earth would I know about such a thing?”
“They didn’t return a hammer to Mr. Herze?”
“In order to return something, one must have first borrowed it.”
“But the girls were here?”
“To deliver an apology, yes.”
“And have you seen them since? Today, have you seen them today?” the curly-haired officer asks. “Or your husband? Is he available? Perhaps he has seen them.”
“He is most certainly not available. I already told you he is searching with the others. And no, I haven’t seen them. They’re wild, you know. It’s no wonder. Can the police really do nothing to help this neighborhood? First Elizabeth Symanski and now this.”
The officer with the cropped brown hair flips his small notebook closed but does not answer.
“Do you mean to imply they have been gone since last evening?” Malina says. “Do you mean to imply they’ve been gone all this time?”
The officer with the curls nods and pulls a sheet of folded paper from his back pocket. “Is this familiar to you?”
Malina leans over the crumpled flyer. LOST CAT, it reads.
“They were taped up in a nearby neighborhood. Mrs. Wagner thought your husband may have given them to the girls. She said he’d made other similar flyers.”
Malina touches the glossy paper. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know. What difference does that make to the matter at hand?”
“Only trying to determine their comings and goings.” The officer pulls on his hat, tips his head, says thank you, and asks Malina to contact them should she remember anything else.
Once the officers are gone, Malina walks back into the dining room to continue her work. When she has grated the first carrot down to a nub, she picks another from her pile and gives it the same inspection. Outside on Alder, men begin climbing into cars two at a time. Like Malina, they have received word the girls have been gone for hours, have been gone since coming to see Mr. Herze. The men are spreading out. A few of them will likely drive to the river where they found Elizabeth Symanski.
Rolling the carrot from side to side, Malina decides it, too, is good enough for one of her cakes. She begins to scrub it over the grater but stops when blood trickles down the knuckles of her first and second finger. She wipes them on her apron, making a mental note to scrub the stain with a toothbrush and dollop of baking soda, and starts on the next carrot.
Soon enough, the pile of carrots grows too large and falls over on itself, spraying orange slivers across the white tablecloth. Two cups per cake and she must have at least six cups by now. Everyone who comes to the bake sale hopes for one of Malina’s cakes. It’s a shame to disappoint any of them. Three more cakes means three more happy people. With both hands, she scoops up a pile of carrots and walks from the dining room toward the kitchen. A few of the orange slivers float down, spinning, tumbling onto the floor. As she passes the side door, she stops. Outside, voices continue to call out. Holding the carrots in her upturned palms, she kicks open the door and walks across the driveway.
Mr. Herze keeps his garage just so. He sweeps the concrete floor every Saturday and stores his nails and screws in wide-mouthed mason jars, each topped with a gold lid. Malina has ruined his tidy space with her bags and boxes. As if presenting the carrots to someone, Malina walks into the garage, stepping this way and that and lifting her knees when need be. Once near Mr. Herze’s workbench, she stops. Straight ahead, every outline on the pegboard is full. The hammer-Mr. Herze’s hammer-fits perfectly inside its black outline. The red-handled hammer, second tool from the left, hangs exactly as it should. Exactly as it had been the night Malina took it from the wall, tucked it in her handbag, and drove to Willingham Avenue. Exactly as it had been when that woman startled Malina and then said such terrible things. Things like what happens when a white man fathers a Negro child, how that baby will be the spitting image of the white man and everyone will know who fathered that child. And the girl, Mr. Herze’s girl, shouted at the woman to shut her mouth. Told the woman to never say one thing bad about the baby in the carriage or she’d be sorry. Goddamn it, she’d be sorry. The woman laughed at the girl. You’re crazy as a loon, the woman had said, and Malina ran away, leaving her hammer behind. That hammer, that same hammer, hangs exactly as it should in its spot on Mr. Herze’s pegboard.
Grace gets off the bus at Alder, and the moment she starts down the street toward home she notices something is familiar. Not familiar in a way that makes her happy to be home. It’s familiar in a way that makes her breath quicken, her skin turn cold, and her mouth go dry.
Balancing the pastry box on her large stomach and cradling the bag of mended clothes in one arm, she walks straight ahead, trying not to notice all of the ladies standing in their front yards, a few poking about behind bushes. She doesn’t take notice when cars drive up from behind and men who should be at work climb out. She doesn’t even look when James’s black sedan rolls past. A block ahead, he pulls into the driveway, doesn’t bother driving around to the garage, and runs back to Grace. He takes the box and bag from her.
“Anything?” he asks.
James’s hair is slicked back from his face where he’s combed it out of the way with his fingers, and smears of black grease cover his forearms where he didn’t take the time to wash up. A dull pain rolls around Grace’s baby. She doesn’t answer.
“Anything?” he says again. “Has Julia heard anything?”
Grace backs away.
“The twins?” she says.
Next, James will sketch a map of the neighborhood on the back of an envelope. He’ll draw boxes around each block and assign men two at a time. When it begins to get dark, all of the ladies will switch on their porch lights and they’ll bring hot coffee. They’ll check under porches and behind shrubs. A few men will walk around the Filmore, waiting, almost hoping someone from inside will come out. But they won’t. The police have already arrived, probably the same two officers, but this time they park at Julia’s house rather than Mr. Symanski’s. Only Grace knows what has happened. Only she knows how the men have grabbed the girls by their thin arms, made them cry out. The twins are both stronger than Grace, if not in size, then in spirit. They would cry loudly, as loudly as they could, but the men would silence them. Only Grace knows.
“Grace,” James says, bending to see into her face. “Are you well?”
The elms used to shade the front of their house and their lawn. Grace could leave the drapes open on the living-room windows year-round, but now the late-day sun would fade her sofa and carpeting. She holds up one hand to shield her eyes. James looks small, smaller than he ever has in all their married years.
“Did you check in the garage?” Grace says.
“The garage? You mean for the girls?”
Grace stares straight ahead at their own garage, its door open because she never closed it. Orin Schofield’s empty chair leans against the far corner where James must have placed it. Orin hasn’t come back outside since Grace called him to the street and showed him where the colored men now walk. She should have told Orin to pull the trigger. He’d have done it, if only she’d have let him.
Out on Alder Avenue, more cars pull into driveways and more husbands disappear inside before reappearing in their white undershirts and soft-soled shoes. Mr. Symanski comes too. He stands on the sidewalk outside Grace’s house. He wears gray slacks, a pair Grace hasn’t taken to the cleaners in several weeks. His white shirt is wrinkled and his tie hangs loose around his neck. His skin is fading to gray as if the life is draining out of him little by little. He won’t really die. Instead, he’ll continue to fade until eventually all of him is gone.