CHAPTER
three

My mother died when I was teetering on the tightwire between childhood and adulthood. I’d been just twelve years old. Clara was ten. In the years after, our father moved us around from one apartment to another all over the city of Detroit. I’d overheard him once confess to his sister—Aunt Flossie—that he was trying to find a place that didn’t remind him of my mother.

As it turned out, there wasn’t a place in that city that didn’t hold a memory of her in it for him.

So, just short of my fourteenth birthday, he got a custodial job at the William McKinley Memorial High School in LaFontaine and moved us well out of the city. It had amazed me how less than an hour’s drive could take me to a place so very different than what I was used to.

Dad had found an apartment for us to rent above a bakery, and it smelled so good that it nearly made me forget the sting of leaving everything I’d ever known behind. It almost made up for the small closet that was meant to be the room my sister and I were to share.

I supposed I couldn’t be too upset about it. At least it was clean and in a town that seemed friendly enough, which was a welcome change from some of the places we’d stayed.

We’d never been well off, but the years after the stock market crashed made life a bit more challenging for us, especially without a mother to make sure we girls had everything we needed. Upon our move to LaFontaine, Clara and I had four dresses between us, one of which fit me.

I never would have said anything to my father about needing something to wear when I started school. He thought Clara and I were bleeding him dry as it was, and he made sure we knew it.

As we unpacked our few things from the boxes Dad had carried up the stairs, our stomachs rumbled. It was well after three o’clock and we’d not had our lunch yet.

My father scrounged up a nickel and sent us downstairs for a loaf of bread, saying that since it was the end of the day, they might give us a deal.

“Don’t forget to use your manners,” he’d said. “And don’t get no fancy bread. Just whatever’s cheapest.”

It was a fine bakery with breads of all different types in the case and yeasty rolls piled high behind the counter. I hardly let myself look at the trays of cookies. “Sweet Family Bakery” had been painted on the glass of the big window in thick, black letters.

Two boys, not much older than my sister and me, perked up when we walked in, the bell above the door jingling upon our entrance. One of them stood out front, sweeping. He was all gangly limbs and jutting collarbones. His wire-rimmed glasses were smudged, and his apron rumpled and too big for him. His eyes seemed fixed on Clara, who had of late started the process of outgrowing the cuteness of a little girl and taking on the delicate beauty of a young woman.

When she noticed him looking at her, she scowled and he went, hastily, back to his sweeping.

I’d felt sorry for that boy and the way he looked so uncomfortable in his own skin.

The boy behind the counter, on the other hand, was tall and broad shouldered and had skin with just enough tan to make him nearly golden. He smiled when I met his eyes, and I knew right away that he was something special.

When I told him that my family had just moved in upstairs, he gave me a quick look and asked what kind of bread I wanted.

“Just a normal one.” I crossed one arm over my chest, hoping to hide how threadbare my dress was.

“Sure thing,” he said. “But if you wanted another kind, that’s all right too.”

“How much does that one cost?” I asked, nodding at a brown loaf.

“It’s free.”

I looked at the spindly boy, whose mouth dropped open. He seemed just as surprised as I was.

“I’m sorry,” I said, eyes back on the one behind the counter. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Rent covers one loaf of bread a week,” he said.

“You’re sure?” I held out the coin in the palm of my hand. “I have money. I can pay.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Our family owns this bakery and the apartment.” He lowered the bread into a paper bag, so carefully I might have thought it was made of glass. “Say. What’s your name?”

“Betty Johnson.” I felt the blush rising in my cheeks when I looked right into his hazel eyes, wishing mine were a pretty shade of blue or green rather than just boring old brown. “And this is my sister.”

“I’m Clara,” she answered, her hands balled in fists on her hips and her foot tapping. “We don’t need your handout.”

I cleared my throat, hoping to get her attention so I could give her the you-better-knock-it-off glare, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Fair enough. But this isn’t a handout. It comes with the price of rent.” He nodded toward the skinny boy. “Isn’t that so, Al?”

“Um,” the boy said and then swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his throat. “Sure it is.”

“Well, there you have it on good authority.” He clapped his hands together. “Next week when you come for another loaf, just ask for one of us. I’m Norm and that’s my brother, Albert.”

“It’s nice to meet you both,” I said.

Albert blinked fast and muttered out a quick greeting before going back to sweeping in earnest. I didn’t think he had the heart to take another peek at Clara.

“And this is my kid sister, Marvel,” Norm told us, grinning at a younger girl who had walked out from the back room, a half-eaten apple in her hand.

“Normie, is that your girlfriend?” Marvel teased. “Oh, and there’s one for Albie too.”

Norm smirked, and I thought I’d never seen a better-looking boy in all my life. When he handed me the bread, I nearly dropped it, my hands trembled so.

Clara stomped up the steps to our apartment, crossing her arms when she got to the landing and giving me a stink eye so severe that I worried she was thinking about slapping me across the face. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time.

“We don’t beg,” she whispered.

“I didn’t,” I said. “Besides, we paid for it.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re so dumb.”

“I think he’s nice.” I realized that I was hugging the bread to my chest and loosened my hold on it.

“You like him?” Clara asked, lips curled in a sneer. “Oh, Betty. A boy like him wouldn’t ever fall for a girl like you.”

It stung, and I was sure she was right. What could he ever see in me? I walked past her and pushed open the door to our apartment.

Every Monday morning for the three years my family occupied that apartment, I found a fresh loaf on the stoop outside our door.

Somehow Norm had known even then that I never would have asked for it.

Even though I knew it was of no use, I called for an ambulance to come for Norman. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Then I managed to call Marvel, who came just as fast as she could after I’d called, beating the ambulance that didn’t find much reason to rush, I supposed.

Marvel let herself in like she always did, and I turned to see her but didn’t get up from where I knelt at Norm’s side. Even if I’d wanted to, I doubted I had the strength to move from that spot.

“Oh, Betty,” she said, stopping just inside the vestibule and looking at Norm in his chair. She gasped and put both hands over her mouth, letting out a groan before crossing the room. “What . . . what happened?”

I shook my head, not knowing what to say.

Marvel lowered herself to the floor and touched the hand I wasn’t holding. Her mouth turned down into a frown when she looked up into his face. She didn’t speak and neither did I. The only sound was the clock ticking away the seconds and occasional sniffling from one of us.

We stayed that way until the ambulance driver knocked on the door.

“I’ll let them in,” Marvel said, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“I’m not ready.” I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have called them so soon. Can you tell them to come back later? I’m not ready.”

All our years together and he was to be taken away so suddenly, without a proper good-bye? It was too much. Too fast. I wanted more time.

“Of course you aren’t, honey.” Marvel put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not either.”

Somehow she found the strength to make it to the door and open it to let the men in, leading them to where I held on to Norman’s hand as hard as I could.

“Let’s get you a cup of tea or something,” Marvel said, hand pressing hard against her chest as if checking to be sure her own heart was still beating. Then she rushed toward me, grabbing my hand. “Come on, honey. We should let the men do their job.”

“I don’t want to leave him.” I wanted to resist her, to stay with him. Still, I followed as she tugged me toward the kitchen, Norman’s apron held tight to my chest. “I left him before to make some bouillon. For his stomach. He said his stomach was upset. I wasn’t with him when he . . .”

I pushed my lips together as tight as I could to keep the word from exiting my mouth.

“It’s all right, Betty,” Marvel said.

“I should have been with him. He shouldn’t have been alone.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“Please, I don’t want to leave him.” My voice sounded so small, so weak. My body offered no fight when Marvel guided me away from the living room. “I don’t want him to be alone.”

“You don’t need to see this. It will only upset you more.” Marvel gave me a weak smile. “It’s better this way.”

I looked over my shoulder just before stepping through the swinging door that led to the kitchen. It was the last time I’d see him in our home. That last glimpse would be part of what I remembered about him for the rest of my life.

At forty years old, I still had a lot of life left.

It certainly would be a long time to spend missing my Norman.