CHAPTER
fourteen
I busied myself the next day by sitting in my chair and reading. If a rainy day couldn’t be avoided, it was best spent with a good book. Fortunately for me, I had more than a few to choose from. I picked A Little Princess, a book I’d read so many times the binding was cracked and the pages soft, smelling just a little bit like a log cabin and a hint of vanilla.
Halfway through the afternoon, I opened the living room windows, letting in a cool breeze. Unfortunately, I also let in the plinking and plunking sounds of the neighbor girl practicing her piano lessons. The less-than-perfect playing of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” took my attention from poor Sara Crewe and the dastardly Miss Minchin.
I thought about shutting the window, but instead I leaned my head back against my chair and shut my eyes. Before I knew it, I was jolting awake, the room gone cold and the sounds of rain coming down harder on the windows. The day had gone dark and I didn’t know if that was because of the storm or if it had gotten late.
Shutting the book, I sat upright, trying to gain my bearings. The clock on the wall read seven, and I shook my head. I’d never get on a reasonable sleeping schedule again if I kept taking unintentional naps like that one.
On my feet and moving around the room to turn on lights, I noticed that a glistening of rainwater had collected on the windowsill. I pushed the window closed and headed toward the linen closet for a rag to put down on the floor under it.
“What a mess,” I said.
Before I got to the closet, I heard a knock on the front door. It startled me, making me flinch and clutch at my collar. Taking a good breath, I smoothed the front of my dress and went to answer the knock.
A tall woman stood on the concrete slab, her hair pulled back loosely with frizzy curls crowning her head. Her raincoat was held tight in one hand, a small and battered suitcase in the other.
She was too thin, too angular, and I wouldn’t have known her but for the eyes. Impossibly blue and clear and full of fire. That evening, though, the fire had gone down to an ember. Still, it was there.
“Clara?” I said, not even a whisper.
“Hi, Birdie.” She pinched her lips together as if she wasn’t sure she still had the right to call me that. “I’m sorry.”
“Come in.” I stepped to the side so she had room to get in out of the rain. “You’ll get soaked through out there.”
“I’m not alone.” Her eyes darted to the side to a place on the porch I couldn’t see from where I was standing.
“That’s all right. Both of you come in. I’ll make some coffee.”
Clara released her jacket, letting it billow out around her, and extended her hand to whoever was with her. A tiny brown hand clasped her creamy-colored one.
The little boy—he couldn’t have been more than six—nestled into Clara, holding on to her for dear life and peeking out from behind her at me.
Smiling at him, I tried to mask any reaction other than pure delight in seeing him. But in my mind I had a dozen questions stirring about who—and whose—that child might be.
“Oh, hello there,” I said. Then, looking at my sister, “Is he . . .”
“This is Hugo,” Clara said. “My son.”
Had I been wearing my pearls I may have clutched them. First at the surprise of Clara being a mother. Second at the shock that her little boy was black.
It wasn’t that I was prejudiced—or at least I didn’t think I was—and I knew that such things happened. I’d lived my first fourteen years in Detroit, after all. It was just that I hadn’t expected to ever have a blood relative who was, well, black.
Clara watched me, and I knew she was waiting to see how I’d react to the boy. I did my best to soften my eyes, to widen my smile, and to give them both the best welcome I could muster.
“I am so glad to meet you, Hugo.” I bent my knees so I’d be closer to his eye level and gave him the sweetest smile I could conjure. “Do you drink coffee?”
He shook his head and pressed his cheek into the side of her thigh, but I thought I saw just the hint of a smile.
“Honey, this is your Aunt Birdie,” Clara said, then met my eyes. “Or would you prefer Betty?”
“Either is just fine.” I motioned them in. “Please, come out of the rain. I’ll fix something for supper.”
Clara gave Hugo a little nudge toward me, but he hesitated.
“It’s all right,” she said. “Remember what I told you? She’s nice.”
He didn’t let go of her hand when he walked past me and into the house.
It wasn’t often that I had dinner guests and I wasn’t entirely sure what to serve them. When I asked Clara what they might be hungry for, she said that Hugo wasn’t picky. A peanut butter sandwich would be good enough. When I asked what she’d like, she told me that she didn’t have an appetite.
My sister had never been a very good eater.
Hugo whispered a thank-you when I put a plate on the table in front of him, and Clara grinned at him.
“Would you like a glass of milk?” I asked.
“Yes please,” he answered, his voice so soft I nearly didn’t hear him.
While I’d grown accustomed over the years to my house being quiet when I was alone, I wasn’t used to it being near silent when someone else was in it with me. Norman had filled spaces with sound—his voice, laughter, heavy footsteps. Clara and Hugo hardly made a peep, sitting at the kitchen table.
It unnerved me, making me want to fill that silence as much as I could.
“How old are you, Hugo?” I asked, pulling open the refrigerator.
When he didn’t answer, I took notice of his full cheek and moving jaw. Eyes wide, he turned to Clara.
“He’s five,” she answered for him. “Just turned in March.”
“Five is such a fun age.” I, of course, didn’t know what I was talking about. It had just seemed like the right thing to say. “Are you in school yet?”
He stopped just as he was about to take another bite of sandwich, closed his mouth, and shook his head.
“Not until this fall.” Clara nodded at him, and he went on eating.
“Kindergarten?” I poured a tumbler all the way full with milk.
“Yes.” Clara raised her eyebrows at the glass when I put it on the table.
“Is that too much?” I pulled my mouth into a cringe.
“Maybe.”
“He doesn’t have to drink it all,” I said. “It’s just Nick and Dick drink so much milk when they’re over.”
Sighing, I realized the twins were twice Hugo’s age and size.
“It’s all right,” Clara said and then encouraged Hugo to take a sip.
After I put the milk away, I sat on the other side of Hugo, across from Clara. While I usually liked a good peanut butter sandwich every once in a while, the one on my plate wasn’t quite appealing. I thought it was my nerves. I forced myself to take a bite anyway.
“Shouldn’t Norm be home by now?” Clara asked, glancing at the clock over the stovetop.
I swallowed hard, the bread and peanut butter moving like a lump—sluggish and far too big—down my throat. Hand on my chest, I coughed until the food went down.
“Are you all right?” She leaned forward, mouth drawn in a tight line.
“Yes.” My eyes watered and my throat felt tight. It wasn’t entirely due to my brief episode of choking. “I’m fine.”
“Let me get you a glass of water.”
The hinges of the cupboard door creaked just slightly, and the faucet sputtered as she drew cold water for me. Taking a few sips, I felt instant relief.
“Thank you,” I said, waiting until she was back in her seat before going on. “Norm passed away, Clara.”
“It was a month and a half ago.” I drank another gulp of water. “I should have tried to find you. I just wasn’t sure how.”
Clara shut her eyes and bit her bottom lip. When a tear came, she swiped at it and wiped her hand on the skirt of her dress. Hugo got out of his chair and put his arms around her. She held onto him and rubbed his back, turning her head so she could kiss the top of his.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I’m fine.”
When she opened her eyes, I thought I saw a familiar hurt there. In her life she’d carried that pain far too often.
“I’m so sorry, Betty.”
My proper name sounded foreign in her voice.
Clara didn’t offer a lick of protest when I asked if they’d like to stay over for the night. In fact, from the way her face relaxed when I offered, I thought she’d hoped I would. I put fresh linens on the beds in the small guest rooms upstairs.
Hugo would be in the room to the left and Clara to the right.
Once I finished fluffing pillows and turning down covers, I left Clara to get him in bed.
“I’ll be downstairs with Aunt Betty for a little bit,” Clara told him while she tucked him in. “I’ll check on you before I go to bed.”
“How long are we staying here?” he asked.
I stayed put on the middle stair, hoping she wouldn’t know that I stood there, eavesdropping.
“We’ll see.”
“It’s nice here,” he said.
“I know it. Now, let’s say your prayers.”
“Can we pray for the space girl?” Sleepiness thickened his little voice, slowed it down just a tad. “Who is she?”
“Valentina?”
“What’s her whole name?”
“Well, I’m not sure I’m saying it right,” Clara said. “Valentina Tereshkova.”
“Where’s she from?” he asked.
“The Soviet Union.”
“Where’s that?”
“Far away,” she answered.
“But not as far away as space.”
“Nope.” She cleared her throat. “What do you want to pray for her?”
“That she’s safe.”
“Well, baby, she already landed back on earth,” Clara said. “Remember?”
“Do you think she liked being up in space?” Hugo asked.
“I can’t be sure. What do you think?”
“If I could fly in space, I’d never want to come down.”
“Is that so?”
Hugo made a humming sound. “I’d stay up there forever.”
“Wouldn’t you miss me?”
“You’d come with me,” he answered. “I’d take care of you.”
“You’re kind.”
A rustling of covers and the creaking of the old mattress told me that she was getting him settled in for the night.
“Go on and say your prayers,” she said.
“God, thank you for making the space girl be safe,” he said. “And help her not to miss the stars too much. Amen.”
“Sweet dreams, baby,” Clara said.
Quietly as I could, I made my way down the other half of the steps and busied myself in the kitchen drying the dinner dishes. By the time Clara got downstairs, I had them all done and my towel hanging on the door of the oven to dry.
“I have a bottle of Dr Pepper in the fridge,” I said. “Would you like to split it with me?”
“All right.”
I rummaged through the drawer for the bottle opener, trying to think of something to talk to her about. Half a dozen questions occurred to me—Where have you been? Why did you come back now? How long are you going to stay?—but I didn’t feel that I had the right to ask any of them.
“You’re wondering about his father.” She stood with her hands hanging at her sides, fingers fidgeting with the fabric of her skirt.
“Well . . .” I couldn’t say I hadn’t been.
“He was just another mistake I’ve made,” she said. “But I got Hugo out of it. Sometimes good things come out of messes.”
“And he’s . . .”
“Negro?” she interrupted. “Yes.”
“Do you ever see him?” The bottle opener in hand, I pushed the drawer closed.
“Nope. And Hugo will never know him,” she answered. “I’d rather die than let him know about our son.”
Clara had always had a flair for the dramatic. At the drop of a hat, she’d bemoan the state of all things. The dim lights of the tenements were making her blind, the pepper on her eggs was making her sneeze so hard she’d wind up knocking herself out, the windows leaked so much cold air she was bound to freeze into a block of ice.
The bottle of pop fizzing as I opened it, I assumed she was just being melodramatic.
But when I tried to hand her a glass of the bubbly drink, I saw in her eyes that she was dead serious. I decided it would be best not to talk about Hugo’s father anymore.
“Should we go to the living room?” I asked.
We sat on either end of the couch, neither of us saying anything. After ten minutes of that, I asked if she’d like to watch something on the television.
“If you want to,” she answered.
But when I got up to turn it on, she cleared her throat and said something under her breath.
“What was that?” I asked, facing her.
“I said that I’m sorry.”
“Why, whatever for?”
“I never should have left,” she said. “I never should have been so mean to you.”
“Oh, I forgave you a long time ago.” I bent at the knees, crouching beside her and taking her hand. “I have never stopped loving you.”
“I almost didn’t come here. I worried that you’d moved or that you wouldn’t let me in.” She sniffled and blinked fast. “But I didn’t know where else to go.”
“You will always be welcome here,” I said. “You and Hugo. He’s a sweetheart.”
“He’s better than I deserve.”
“I’m sure all mothers feel that way about their children. Don’t you think?”
My legs started to burn from squatting the way I was, but I feared if I tried to get up, I’d just lose my balance. I shifted so that I was kneeling.
“I lost my job,” she said before biting at her bottom lip.
“What kind of job was it?”
“Waiting tables.” She cleared her throat. “It was a good job. Paid well enough. But I started getting nervous about it.”
“What made you nervous?” I asked.
“Everything.”
I waited for her to go on, remembering how she liked to take pauses to think before speaking and how she hated to be interrupted.
“Sometimes just the idea of going to work kept me up all night. I’d think of all the things that could go wrong,” she said. “That I’d spill coffee on someone or bring them the wrong meal and they’d be angry. I worried that I’d not be able to make change or that someone would rob the diner.”
She shook her head and scowled.
“Silly stuff,” she said.
“I don’t think any of that’s silly.”
“Then I would get afraid for Hugo.” She glanced toward the stairs. “That he’d think I didn’t love him because I had to work so much or that he’d get hurt at the sitter’s house. It got so that leaving in the morning made me sick.”
I thought of the mornings when Clara had begged to stay home from school, crying so hard that she’d make herself throw up. Dad had called it a nervous stomach and said she’d grow out of it.
It was just another thing he’d gotten wrong.
“I don’t know what to do,” Clara said, her voice sounding pinched. “I can’t afford a place to stay, and I have no money for food. I had to borrow a few bucks for the bus to get here.”
“You can stay here as long as you need to.” The words were out before I’d even given them any thought. “I have plenty of space, and it’s no fun to cook for one.”
“I didn’t come here to beg.”
She let out a breath, and her shoulders relaxed. Deflating, it seemed, she eased into the couch cushion.
“Everything is going to be all right,” I said.
Goodness. I hoped I was right.