Summer 1936
Wilmington, North Carolina
It was a hot, bright day in the middle of August when Grace hugged Cecily goodbye at the train station. “Promise you’ll write to me,” she said, and there were tears in her vivid green eyes. “And tell me where you are, and that you’re all right, and whether you’ve found him?” She had given Cecily ten dollars, plus bought her a train ticket to New York City (Cecily had no idea how much that cost, but probably more than twenty). However much the ticket had been, Cecily understood that Grace, on top of probably saving Cecily’s life, had given her what amounted to a small fortune.
Cecily, at some point during her convalescence, had woken with a start, realizing that whatever money she’d had in her account at the Bank of Sturgeon Bay in Wisconsin had been used to pay the expenses of the Sax & Tebow Spectacular last summer—that Isabelle, who was joint holder of the account (or maybe, for all Cecily knew or had paid attention, the sole holder), must have written a letter authorizing Mrs. Sax to make the withdrawal and bring the cash down to Manitowoc that day everybody first got paid. Not that it would’ve been enough to keep the circus afloat all summer, but it must’ve gotten them over some hump. Why Cecily hadn’t realized it before, or why she was so certain of it now, she didn’t know, but what she did know was that there was no reason to try to go back to Wisconsin, and that, from all her years with Sax & Tebow, there was nothing left, nor any reason ever to speak or think of it again. Anyway, to think of Prince, Isabelle, or anyone else, let alone the life she’d had then, would break her heart into so many small pieces that only dust would be left.
All she planned to keep—all she hoped for—was Lucky. She had the snapshot tucked inside her bra again, for safekeeping. She was wearing a hand-me-down dress of Grace’s that Grace, who was much taller than Cecily, had tailored to fit her exactly. Cecily was almost back to the size she’d been before Tommy; the scar on her belly was a bright pink ridge.
“I promise,” she told Grace now, though she didn’t believe she deserved the kindness. All she’d done was take from Grace, and she didn’t plan to ask for anything more, nor get in touch, until she had something to offer in return. She had never shown Grace Lucky’s picture. She had told her only that the boy she loved had never known about the baby, and that she thought he might be in New York.
But neither she nor Grace knew if she’d have any luck—on any front—once she got there, and it didn’t seem fair to expect Grace to care about the outcome, after everything she’d already done. Anyway, Cecily didn’t trust that anyone could be as good, or as selfless, as Grace made herself out to be. Selfishness and greed would emerge eventually, and Cecily was glad to be getting away in time, before it had risen to the surface in Grace; before Grace had decided how she might make use of Cecily, with or without Cecily’s consent. “I can’t thank you enough, Grace. I really can’t. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. I’d have died, I bet.”
Grace touched Cecily’s face. “I’d keep you if I could. You know that, right?”
Within the past week, Grace’s father had started to walk again. Grace feared it was only a matter of time before he discovered Cecily in the house. Grace said, knowing him, he’d call the police on Cecily and disown Grace entirely.
Knowing him, she said, he was going to live a hundred years, just to spite her.
“Goodbyes are terrible,” Cecily said. “Let’s just say good luck, all right?”
Grace nodded and stepped back. “Good luck, Cecily. I love you.”
Cecily bit her lip, not believing her, hugged her again, and boarded the train.
On the steps of the library on 124th Street in Harlem, Cecily asked every person passing by if they knew Moses Washington Green, if they knew Lucky, and held up the snapshot for them to take a look. Some people just glanced and shook their heads. Others grabbed it out of her hand and stared closely for a while, squinting.
Nobody once said yes.
“Little girl, you been out here two months asking that same question,” a man finally said to her, one afternoon in the rain. “You are never going to find this boy. You might start thinking he may not want to be found.”
Cecily was hungry, tired, soaked through, and cold. She had been sleeping in Mount Morris Park near the old fire watchtower, climbing the winding stairs each night as if she could spot Lucky better from up there. She’d shown the snapshot to probably a thousand people. The money Grace had given her was almost gone, and the weather was getting colder. There wasn’t work to be found in New York City, at least not that Cecily had found out about; at least not anything that would pay enough to rent a place for the winter, if she even had the first idea how to go about finding one. She was in no shape to try to become a bareback rider again; it had been a year since she’d been limber and strong. Anyway, circuses weren’t hiring these days, either.
She had made up her mind to stop praying for impossible things.
“I just thought you might be interested in where she’s been all these years,” Cecily said to the pale, gray-mustached man sitting on the opposite side of the large oak desk.
There’d been only one thing she could think of to do. Once she’d made it to Providence by train—she was down to her last dollar—she’d walked straight to the library and looked up William Cahill, Senior, in the city directory. The maid at his home had let her in almost immediately, once she’d said she had news of his long-lost daughter, Betsy. “I thought you might like to send the police to fetch her home.”
He laughed. “Oh, you did, did you?”
“Yes, sir.”
His bushy eyebrows and mustache danced like caterpillars on his face. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
He didn’t seem to her like a bad man. He was just someone who’d done a few things wrong. She told him everything she could remember about what Isabelle had said—the stepmother, the baby on the way, stowing away on the circus train—then added, “From there, I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
Mr. Cahill tented his fingers. “I don’t have a job for you,” he announced. “I had to close the mill. I’m down to bare bones in my household. Hard times, you know.”
Cecily swallowed. “Sir, I’m desperate. I don’t want to have to tell you what Isabelle—what your daughter, Betsy—did to me. But she ruined my life. She really did. And she stole all my money, too.”
“I don’t see why any of this is my concern,” Mr. Cahill said. “Even if you’re telling me the truth, whatever she did to you was clearly outside of my control. She hasn’t been under my roof—or even in communication—in more than fifteen years.”
Cecily sat up straighter. “Because, sir, if you had loved her enough back then, back when she needed you to, everything would’ve turned out different. And that’s just a plain fact.”
His caterpillar eyebrows came together in a frown.
“I have a letter of reference from your friend, Mr. William Cahill in Providence,” Cecily said to the dark-haired man seated behind another ornate desk, this one inside a brick mansion in Newport. “He gave me your address and said I should ask if you’re in need of a housemaid. He said you owe him a favor.”