Free Preview: What We Leave Behind

What We Leave Behind

Chapter 1

1935: Joliet, Illinois

I looked down at the mathematics equations on the page. Behind me I could hear my mother humming a folk song alongside the rhythmic pounding of her kneading dough. She had already made two cakes, two dozen cookies, and four loaves of bread. None of it was for us. All of it was to fill orders from customers. We normally got stale bread a customer forgot to pick up. Mother never let them walk away just because they couldn’t pay but sometimes they just didn’t show up, out of shame, out of pride, or because they had up and left. There were people hungrier than us, she would say. That was hard to believe. My mouth watered as I looked at the cookies. Oatmeal with raisins. My favorite. She had even used the expensive nutmeg! I wondered who had ordered them. Probably Mrs. Halliday who lived by the school. Her husband was a pawn broker and they seemed to be doing just fine. Her son, Raphael, even sported a gold thumb ring at school. I marveled at his store-bought clothes, brand new, the latest style. At home, my sister and I usually wore flour sack dresses that mother had embroidered for us. As pretty as the intricate patterns were, the fact of the matter was we were still wearing flour sack dresses. We saved our one cotton day dress for school and our one nicer dress for church. I sighed. There was no use wishing. The only way you got anything in this life, Mother said, was by working for it.

And today her orders were completed early. Soon, she would send Harry with his little red wagon to deliver the orders. Harry walked miles to deliver the goods. He said there was no use wearing shoes because they got busted up in a week’s time. And so, he went barefoot most days, even when there was frost in the air. Mother would make him put on shoes but he would take them off once out of sight and wrap his feet in news or wax paper. Today, Mother’s orders were done, a good showing for the day, but barely enough to pay the bills. And, now, she had us to feed. My mother always told my father at dinner that she had sent Bob to the butcher’s to get the cheapest cut at the end of the day. I knew from overhearing my mother and brother that Bob actually got the half spoiled meat that the butcher was going to throw out anyway and the butcher gave him as charity. My mother used this as an excuse to give Bob money to put in a savings account that my father didn’t know about.

“Because you never know,” was all she said when pressed and, then, “don’t tell your father.”

I looked down again. The numbers spun on the page. Sometimes letters in my books did the same thing. They moved up and down or would switch places if I let my eye wander. The symbols were more than that. They were alive. They curled around the page and each other like snakes in their den. And they sought special interest in making my life difficult. I traced my finger along the edge of the paper. The brownish red line that outlined the page even seemed to wave and undulate as I looked at it.

“Mor,” I started tentatively.

“Ja, tell me, Barbara, I am very busy.”

“I can’t do my homework.”

“What do you mean you can’t do it?”

“I mean I can’t do it, Mor.”

“Of course you can. You are just overheated from sitting in the kitchen. Go out to the backyard and get some fresh air. Then you start over.”

“Yes, Mor.”

I left the pages of my homework open so as to make it look like I really did intend on returning to it. Then, I carefully scooted out of the steel legged chair so as not to scratch the linoleum floor. I carefully buckled my shoes that rested at the back door and reached up to undo the latch. The screen door screeched as it opened and my shoulders cringed at the sound.

“You go check the garden and bring back any of the beans that are left. It's the end of the season and we need to eat it or dry it.”

“Yes, Mor.”

Outside it didn’t seem like the end of the summer. The air was still thick with heat and the ground still showed visible cracks in the soil where the air had sucked out all the moisture. There hadn’t been a real rain in weeks. I glanced up at the sky and let the sun beat down on my face. But I quickly looked down again. A girl in my class said that was how her sister had gotten so many freckles. The arms of the old oak tree that had survived demolition when the house was built swayed even though there was no noticeable breeze. Out past our yard where the fields began, I could see the now empty corn fields where the harvest had taken place. The dead stalks made the fields look like piles of driftwood. Only we lived in the middle of the country. Lake Michigan may as well be an ocean. But even though I had never seen the real ocean I knew that it must be a very different kind of water. People said it was blue. Sometimes, Lake Michigan was blue too. But mostly it was gray like the gray stalks of harvested corn. Gray like the winter skies. Gray like the buildings in the city. Gray like the roads. Gray like my eyes.

I grabbed a bucket from next to the door and went off to the side yard where the water pump was located. Usually Bob or Harry would have remembered to fill the buckets before school so that my mother wouldn’t have to do it herself. But they must have forgotten or had been too busy today. I walked slowly, swinging the bucket back and forth, letting gravity pull it down and then flinging my whole arm and shoulder to make it fly back in the air again. I could feel the tug of weight at the top of each movement like my arm would be pulled out of socket. I began to feel like I wanted this to happen. I flung my arm harder. Then harder. I willed my arm to dislocate and come out of socket. I wondered what the pain of it would feel like. I wondered how long it would take Mother and Father to notice. I wondered if Mother would take me to the doctor or have Bob do it when he came home from the butcher or from his afternoon job at Mr. Krakowski’s store. As I began to fling my arm as hard as I could, my father’s voice rang behind me:

“What in the hell are you doing!?” He practically shrieked. I spun around and sheepishly bowed my head. Father home before dinner could only mean one thing. “I said, what in the hell are you doing!?”

“I..,” not wanting to explain myself, unable to explain myself, “I was just getting some water to take to the garden. There are still vegetables that need to be watered.”

“That’s not little girl work,” my father said hard and evenly. He began to walk towards me but his legs were wobbly and he stopped after a few steps to lean against the house.

“I’ll do that,” he said rather half heartedly.

“That’s alright, Father, I can manage. I am a lot bigger and stronger than I used to be.” I smiled in a way that I hoped looked brave.

“I said that’s not little girl’s work! Vera!...Vera! Get your ass out here, woman.”

From inside I heard the oven door slam shut. I could imagine my mother taking a sharp breath and smoothing down her apron. Then the back door shrieked longer, slower, harder as my mother walked deliberately, but not quickly, down the concrete stairs. As soon as her feet hit the grass my father was on her. He buffeted the side of her face with the back of his hand.

“You don’t make that little girl do work like that. You hear?”

A thin rivulet of blood streamed from a cut next to her eye that one of my father’s rings must have left. She pressed her lips together and nodded an ascent. Clearly, this was not good enough for my father as he raised his hand again, this time in a fist. My mother closed her eyes, stoic in her practiced stance.

“It’s okay, Daddy. Really. I can do it!” He paused and looked over his shoulder at me as I raced to the well and began to pump furiously. But I wasn’t as strong as I had thought and only spurts of water came out. My father turned back to my mother and growled:

“Where the hell is Bob? This is supposed to be his job! I’ll beat him raw when he comes back here!”

“Bob is…” I started but my mother gave me a look that told me to hold my tongue. But even in his stupor my father had sensed a secret pass between us.

“Bob is…” he said as he stared at me with his eyebrows raised.

“Bob is…” I fumbled for a lie, any lie, any lie at all would do, but all that came out was: “Bob is downtown.”

He looked at me for a long moment. There was no flick of recognition. Just silence as we all waited for my father’s next move.

“I’m lying down,” he said.

He gently pushed my mother aside and went in the back door, dust and soil streaming behind him in the sunlight. My mother waited for the screen door to slam shut. She looked at me, nodded in a conspiratorial way, and went back in. I left the bucket on the side of the well and slid down the wall. The stones it was made of were cold even through the cotton of my dress. A cool breeze tumbled over the well walls. I noticed that, despite the heat, the ground underneath my bottom was slightly damp. I wanted to add to the dampness but no tears would come. Instead, all I felt was my heart slamming into my chest over and over. The sun was no longer as bright as it had just been as everything around me became shaded behind a veil. The oak limbs that were once so friendly seemed to reach across the yard and close in around me. I panted as quietly as I could and willed myself to relax. I tugged at my hair to distract myself. I tugged harder. And harder still. A few strands came out tangled in my fingers. My scalp throbbed. But the heart beat in my chest gave me something to focus on. Thunk thunk. Thunk thunk. Thunk thunk. As my heart beat began to slow, Bob came around the corner.

“Hey Lil’ bit,” he said cheerily. Then, as he approached, his tone changed and his voice grew ever so soft, “Hey, Lil’ bit, whatcha doin’ down there?”

I couldn’t respond. My throat was choked with words I couldn’t say. Bob sat down next to me and put his arm around my shoulders. He took my hand with my hair tangled around it and gently unfolded my fingers one by one. He blew on my hand and the strands floated away like dandelion seeds on his breath. I wanted to make a wish but didn’t know what to wish for. He intertwined his fingers in mine and gently pumped them a few times.

“Things will get better, you know,” he said. “It won’t always be like this. I have a plan. We have a plan.”

I looked at him and wanted to ask him what he meant but he pumped my hand one more time and got up again.

“I need to get these to Mom before we end up eating dog food.” He wrinkled his nose and motioned with his head to the paper bag under his arm. Then he raised his chin towards the empty bucket, “I watered the vegetables this morning. You don’t need to do that. Don’t fall in the well. Mom would kill me.” He walked away whistling a tune. From the window my mother whispered loudly, “Stop that now-your father’s asleep.” Bob paused to turn back and wink at me before he went in the back door on cat’s feet.

I stayed outside despite the dry heat. I didn’t want to risk waking up my father. Days like this were so normal now I couldn’t remember a different way of life. My mother told me that my father was a good man. He was normally kind to the girls, Babe and me. But my mother and brothers took the full force of his temper. My father wasn’t a tall man and he was rather slim, almost slight of frame. His hair was wiry and a little curly and his eyes were a deep brown that could be warm and loving but, more often than not, were dull and over-dilated. Bob was already taller than him and had inherited the sturdy farmer’s frame of my mother’s family. He liked to play football those rare afternoons he had free. I had walked with him to the high school to watch a few times. I thought he was really good. He protected the player who threw the ball at the start of a play. But, then again, Bob was as good at taking hits as my mother.

Harry, my other brother, was on his way to being tall but slim like our father. His sandy blonde-brown hair and blue eyes were as All-American as it got. But he never seemed to care much for his looks-or even knew how good-looking he was. My older sister, Babe, was short and sturdy like our mother but had dark eyes and wiry hair like our father. Then there was me, I wasn’t short but I wasn’t tall. My hair was blonde and my eyes were greenish-grayish. My father said my eyes were like his grandmother’s. She had been born in Turin, Italy, married a Belgian, and emigrated to the United States. I had never met this great-grandmother of mine. She died before I was born. I had a lot of questions, too, but my father would always grow melancholy when I mentioned her. Bob had taught me that word-melancholy. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I knew that Bob said it described our father well.

My mother poked her head out the back kitchen window and whispered, “Dinner’s ready.” I nodded and got up off the ground. I made my way around the side yard to the front of the house, skipped up the stairs to the front stoop and waited at the door for my mother to open it. We always kept the front door locked and the back door open. Today, I chose the front door because the hinges didn’t squeak and wouldn’t wake up my father. My mother opened the door just wide enough for me to squeeze in. As my eyes adjusted to the dimmer light indoors I realized my father was asleep on the couch and not in the back bedroom. I felt a quick flash of fear. There was no way we would be able to eat dinner without waking him. I looked to my mother for instructions. She put a finger to her lip and waved for me to follow her. She led me to the basement steps and motioned for me to go down. Normally, the basement scared me. There were no lights down there and we needed a flashlight or a candle to go down. I placed my hand on the walls on either side of me as I slowly felt my way on the staircase. As I turned the corner at the bottom I heard my siblings whispering in the dark. One candle on a small table lit the space. Food was on their plates and Babe was filling their glasses with a water jug.

“Hey, Lil’ bit,” Bob said. “Come sit down.”

I made my way to the empty seat next to him. I looked around for a chair for my mother.

“Mor, where will you sit?” I asked.

“I already ate, don’t you worry, sit down.”

I seriously doubted that she had already eaten. But I sat down as I was told. On my plate was a meatloaf made of god-knows-what, some of the last beans from the garden, and a freshly made drop biscuit. Harry tucked into his food with gusto. Babe moved everything around on her plate with her fork but finally took a tentative bite. Bob carefully cut his mystery meat and plopped it in his mouth. I followed suit. We ate in silence for a while until Bob said:

“I think there is enough, Mor.”

“It’s not time,” she said to him.

“But,”

“No, Bobby. It’s not the time.”

Rarely did Bob lose his temper with Mother so it was a surprise when he raised his voice above a whisper and said with force, “When IS the time, Mother? How many more times will you let him hit you? How many more of his debts will you pay? When is the time, mother? When he finally turns on the girls? When he….”

My mother didn’t need to raise her voice to make an impression. She raised her hand with an open palm to signal she had heard enough. She pressed her thin lips together so tight that they disappeared. The hollowness of her cheeks grew deeper as she breathed in.

“Gud vil alt bli bra,” she said in Norwegian, her maternal tongue, the one her own mother had instilled in her children, refusing to speak a word of English to them until they were at least five years old.

“God-you think God is going to help us, Mor? Where has God been the past five years? Where was God when he put you in the hospital? Where was God….”

“You do not blaspheme in this house,” my mother said quietly.

Upstairs the floorboards creaked. My father was on the move.

“You children finish eating. I will take care of your father.”

Bob opened his mouth to protest but my mother just raised her open palm again and shook her head firmly. She turned and made her way blindly up the stairs. She didn’t need a candle when a different kind of darkness awaited her at the top.

A few days later, Father came home early again, only this time he wasn’t alone. Two men in fashionable suits carried him by the shoulders out of a car that idled in front of the house. Harry saw them coming before anyone else.

“Mor, Father is home and it don’t look pretty!” He shouted from the front window.

My mother went rushing to the window, wiping her hands on her worn linen apron. She made a few “tut-tut” noises before she launched into action.

“Babe, take Barbara outside. I don’t want to see the two of you until I call for you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mor,” Babe said with a little salute.

Mother nodded her head and turned to Harry, “You must run as fast as you can and go to the shop where Bob is working today. If Mr. Krakowski can’t spare Bob, you tell him that you will work in Bob’s place. Send Bob home immediately.”

I was watching everything unfold from the kitchen at my usual perch next to the counter as I helped Mother wrap items cool enough to deliver. I was trying to finish tying a knot on the package of rye bread that was just cool enough to wrap without the newspaper getting damp from steam but warm enough that you could still feel the residual heat on your fingertips. And then, I began to feel my fingers shake. I tried to put the package down on the counter but my hands were already trembling too much. I watched in horror as the loaf of bread fell to the floor, knowing that Mother would never send it to her customer now, knowing that the loss of income from that purchase meant someone, probably Mother, was going to go hungry. My mind began to race. And, if the customer was angry enough, I reasoned, they wouldn’t ask Mother to bake them any more bread. That money would forever disappear. We were already barely getting by. How would Mother make up the difference? She only let Bob work a few hours a week at the five and dime. Mr. Krakowski had a soft spot for Bob, said he reminded him of his own boy who never came home from the war. But if Mother’s income couldn’t cover our bills then Bob would have to work longer hours, maybe even quit school. Harry might have to do the same. Only, where would he get work when there was no work to be found? Isn’t that what Father said every night when he came home, “there was no work to be had today,” he would say as he fell into his armchair next to the fireplace that never had a fire in it anymore. We saved what little coal we could afford only for the coldest of days, relying on the heat of the stove to heat the house most of the time. Father would shiver as he sat in his chair and look at the empty, cold hearth with hatred in his eyes.

The tears in my eyes welled up as I looked at Mother as she came back into the kitchen. She gave a sigh but all she said was, “There is nothing to be done about it, Barbara, these things happen.” Then, she picked up the loaf and took the torn paper off of it and reached for the broom to begin sweeping up the crumbs. Meanwhile, Harry had grabbed his hat and was running out the door when he paused just long enough to brush a soft kiss against Mother’s cheek. Babe was coming around the corner from the bedroom with two pairs of shoes-one for her and one for me. “Let’s go, Barb,” she said as she handed me my shoes. Mother paused her sweeping to help me down off the counter. Babe and I were half way out the back door with our shoes in hand when a heavy knocking came from the front.

“You go on now,” Mother said to us as she set the broom in the corner next to the door and began to untie her apron.

“Let’s listen from under the front window,” Babe whispered in my ear. I nodded and kept my shoes in my hand as we rounded the side of the house to watch for when the coast was clear.

From around the corner of the house, we watched as the two men lumbered with my father into the house. The screen door, torn and unable to be replaced, smacked shut sharply behind them. More quietly, the heavy front door latched with a quiet puff of air. Now was our chance to get in place before the adults got settled. Babe and I ran for it as we crouched under the height of the windows and were careful to put the ball of our foot down first before the heel to soften our steps. We arrived under the front window and put our backs to the house, breathing hard but not letting ourselves gasp for breath lest we be heard through the thin pane of glass. From inside, we could clearly hear the conversation between Mother and the two men.

“He owes us a hundred bucks worth of booze,” Man Number One launched into it right away.

“Now, Tom, let’s not frighten the poor lady,” Man Number Two said in a conciliatory voice.

“If he can’t make good on his debt then his dame here can,” Man Number One said, “And maybe there is more than one way she can pay it back,” he said in a menacing way.

Beside me Babe squeaked and I nudged her with my shoulder to keep quiet.

“Like I said Tom, there is no need to frighten the poor lady,” Man Number Two said. There was a pause as everyone seemed to catch their breath. “How many kids do you have, ma’am?” Man Number Two asked.

“Four,” my mother replied carefully.

“It must be hard raising four kids in an economy like today, even harder still a few years ago when the shit really hit the fan. Well…for some people…some of us are in the right business for when times get hard.” Man Number Two paused as if everyone didn’t already know what he was talking about. “And what do you do for a living ma’am, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I am a homemaker,” my mother replied.

“And what d’ya got goin’ on over there?” Man Number Two asked with a nod of his head towards the kitchen.

“I bake goods for a little bit of pocket money.”

“Pocket money?”

“Yes, pocket money.”

“I suppose there ain’t a lot of pocket money coming home with Vernon here.”

“He does what he can.”

“If you call drinking it down like a sewer, then, yeah,” said Man Number One.

“Like I said, he does what he can.”

“And your boy, Bobby, he works for the Polack downtown, doesn’t he?” Man Number Two said.

There was a long pause. “Bobby works for Mr. Krakowski, yes.”

“And how much money does that bring home every week?”

“A few dollars. I use it mostly for the children’s lunch money.”

“A few dollars? Well, it would take an awful lot of weeks for Bobby Boy to pay back Daddy’s debt,” Man Number One said sarcastically.

“What have I said about being polite, Tom?” Man Number Two said, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Wouldn’t you agree, Mrs. O'Kaye?”

“Yes, yes, you are certainly right, no need for us to be unpleasant.”

“Good, I am glad we understand each other,” Man Number Two said. “Bobby Boy takes a trip to the bank downtown at the end of every week. I wonder what he could be doing, eh? With dad not working, mom only bringing in pocket money, and he himself only earning a few dollars each week,” Man Number Two paused.

“You don’t suppose he is planin’ a heist, do ya Lucas?” Man Number One laughed.

A cold quiet came over the room. Babe and I sat breathless under the window. Harry must be close to Mr. Krakowski's store by now and Bob would be home. He would know what to do.

“I don’t think our football star and all around Mama’s boy is planning a heist anytime soon,” Man Number Two mused. “But I do wonder what is in that bank that he finds so interesting. Maybe we would find it interesting too.”

My mother drew in a sharp breath.

“Let me get to the point,” Man Number Two said, “I knows exactly how much ya’s got in that bank. And tomorrow, Bobby Boy is gonna get what I need and hand it over to Tom here, he’ll be waitin’ just outside the bank doors.

My father moaned something unintelligible. “And if he knows what's good for ‘im he won’t show up at our place again,” Man Number One chimed in as a muffled punch came through the air.

“Now, now, Tom, no need to be unpleasant,” Man Number Two said in a way that you could tell he was smiling. “I think the lady understands the situation perfectly well.”

“Yes, yes, I believe I do. You won’t be seeing him again, that I promise,” my mother said.

“Good, now, you be sure your husband understands things as good as you do,” Man Number Two said, “You know, a broad as good looking as you could do better, ya know.”

My mother remained silent.

“And loyal to boot,” Man Number Two said, “What a shame.”

“Let’s get on with it,” Man Number One said.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s get this over with,” Man Number Two said.

“This is so’s that neither one of ya get the wrong idea of what we mean,” Man Number One said with a bit of a growl.

From inside we heard the crack of bone on bone and the moans of my father. Babe looked at me with big eyes. She motioned with her head that we should move to the side of the house. I sat there paralyzed. I scraped my hand up and down the bricks but my feet didn’t respond to my brain. Babe motioned with her head again and this time grabbed me by the arm and started to drag me. This time, we didn’t bother to try ducking our heads under windows, we just ran for it. On the other side of the house, Babe said between huffs, “Let’s run to meet Bob.” I nodded my head in agreement and we took off down the road. Behind us we heard a car come to life and begin to come down the road.

“Quick! Into the ditch!” Babe yelled. We dove into the ditch. Luckily, the dry spell hung on and we didn’t land in any water-or worse. The car thrummed by us on the road. Babe and I peered over the top of the ditch at the back of the car. A man looked back at us from the back window. I screamed. Babe put her hand over my mouth, “Shut it, Barb, shut it!” she said.

Further up the road we saw Bob come into focus. The car saw him too and slowed down next to him. Bob and the men in the car spoke for a few minutes and the car took off again. Bob slowed his gait as he came down the road. He looked down at his feet instead of up at the sky, like he normally did, and there was none of his cheerful whistling. His shoulders slumped. Babe and I climbed out of the ditch and started to walk towards him. He looked up and noticed us, began to walk a little faster, and then began to jog. When he reached us, he caught each of us under one of his arms.

“What are you two rascals doing out here?” Bob asked us.

“Coming for you,” Babe said.

Bob paused. “How bad was it?”

“Mor banished us outside but we could hear through the window out front. It wasn’t good. I think they beat up Father,” Babe said quietly.

“It was foolish to eavesdrop on them, not to mention bad manners,” Bob scolded. Then he asked, “What did you hear?”

“Father owes them money. And they know all about you. And the bank.” Babe summarized quickly.

Bob nodded. “I guess we will have to wait, then,” was all he said as he took each of us by the hand. “Let’s get home, but I want you to let me go in first. Wait until I tell you you can come in, understand?” Bob asked. Babe and I nodded in agreement.

At home, we went to the back door where we normally came in and out. Only customers and people who didn’t know us used the front door. Babe and I sat on the lowest step that led down from the back door. Inside we heard shuffling and moaning and hushed voices. Mother came to the sink to wet a towel at one point. And Bob came out with Father’s freshly scrubbed clothes to hang on the line. “You two can go in now. Don’t go to the back room. Father is in there.”

Babe and I climbed the stairs and slowly opened the door. We stepped inside and the first thing we saw was bloodstains on Father’s chair. Drops of blood went down the hall to the back room. “We should finish wrapping Mor’s orders,” Babe whispered to me. I nodded in agreement. The two of us worked as quietly as we could, trying to muffle the crinkle of the newspaper in our hands and placing the baked goods delicately onto the table. There weren’t as many as usual. I chewed my lip as I looked at them. “We should deliver them too, since Harry is at the store,” Babe suggested. I nodded in agreement again. We carefully scooped the wrapped loaves of bread and a few savory pies into our arms and went out the back door again. Bob stopped us.

“Where are you going?” He asked.

“To deliver these things for Harry,” Babe replied.

“Do you know where you are going?” Bob asked.

“Well…” Babe trailed off.

“That’s what I thought,” Bob sighed, “I will take them. I know where they are going.”

“But won’t you need someone to help you carry everything?” Babe insisted.

Bob looked at her very seriously, “No, what I need for you is to stay with Lil’bit and to help Mor if she needs it. Father wouldn’t like you two walking around town delivering things close to dark anyway. And we know who would get it if he found out. Stay. Here.” Bob emphasized his last words.

“But…” I began as tears welled up in my eyes, “I’m scared.”

“You don’t need to be scared, Lil’bit, the bad men are gone and I will deal with them tomorrow.”

“No,” I began to cry a little harder, “I am scared of Father.”

“He is in no condition to do or say anything to anyone right now,” Bob said. “Just go to your room and lock the door. Only open for me or Mor.”

“Father won’t like that.”

“Well, like I said, Father is in no condition to be doing or saying anything to anyone right now.” Bob rubbed his forehead in a weary way, more like a man than a boy, and said, “Babe, go get the chess set from the basement and teach Lil’bit here how to play. That should keep you two occupied for a while.”

With that, he fluffed the hair on top of both our heads and began to walk away. Babe took me by the hand and started to pull me inside. “It is going to be dark soon,” she said. I let her pull me inside and waited in the semi-dark of our bedroom while she rummaged in the basement. We both played half-heartedly waiting for Bob or Mor to release us from our room. Finally, Mor knocked on the door with the palm of her hand. We opened to see our mother with sorrow and worry etched upon her face.

“Come eat a little something and then straight to bed, no arguing,” our mother said.

We ate a slice of the rye bread I had dropped and slathered it with hand churned butter and then went straight back to our room, no questions asked. It was definitely dark now and neither Bob nor Harry were home. Mother was working quietly in the kitchen. Father was snoring from the backroom. Babe and I each changed into our only pair of pajamas and got in under the covers. Babe turned out the light without trying to read from her book and I closed my eyes without asking Babe the question that had been running through my brain ever since Bob had said it: what did he mean we would have to wait now?

Chapter 2

The end of summer limped into autumn. The leaves on the oak tree turned yellow, then rust orange mottled with blood red, and then fell. I failed my mathematics test. Bob went to talk to my teacher so Mother could work all afternoon. She had been advertising by word of mouth in the church circles and she had a few more orders than usual. You wouldn’t know how hungry we were from the constantly running oven and food coming in and out of the house. I had a feeling that my mother’s frantic work pace and our chronic lack of money had something to do with Man Number One and Man Number Two. And then, one day, two different men dressed in pin-striped suits knocked on the front door when my father wasn’t home. Bob wouldn’t let them in but mother chastised him and had the men sit at the small eat-in kitchen as she continued to prepare orders. The four of us children were banished from the house while they talked. Bob took offense to being treated like a kid and huffed and puffed as he kicked imaginary footballs out in the yard. I had watched in silence, knowing not to interrupt Bob when he was frustrated. Harry laughed at Bob and Babe whistled between her teeth each time Bob made a pretend kick. The men weren’t there for long and after they left Mother sent Bob downtown. He was gone until it was past midnight. When he came home, he came to check on me as usual. I sat bolt upright when he cracked open the door.

“Not asleep, yet, Lil’bit?”

“No-where were you?”

Bob just shook his head. “It will be a little longer now.”

“A little longer until what?”

“Until it is time.”

“You are talking in riddles, Bobby.”

“When the time comes, you will know,” was all he said, kissed me on the forehead, and made his way back out the door to the living room where the boys slept. I listened to the couch creak as Bob’s weight fell into it. Then I heard him shift, probably making sure he faced out with his back pressed to the back of the couch. He always slept with his head at the end of the couch where the outdoor street lamp came in the window. He said he needed to keep an eye on the hallway. I could see him in my mind’s eye, fully clothed, shoes still on, the light washing over his face already lined with worry despite his youth, with one eye open while the other slept, ever watchful, ever vigilant.

Father was gone even longer now. He used to come home for dinner. Now we would hear him bang open the back door around midnight or even later. Sometimes, he would yell at Mother to get out of bed and make him something to eat. Sometimes, he would yell at Bob to get off the couch and go do something as if it were the middle of the day and Bob was a lazy lay-about. Sometimes he asked where the girls were. Mother usually told him we were at school since he seemed to have no concept of day and night. In the morning, Mother and Bob had blood-shot eyes and fatigued faces. But Mother never failed to have Father’s clothes washed, mended, and ironed before he was up in the morning. “So you look your best at the job interviews,” she would say, keeping up the farce. Most mornings Father would snatch his clothes away and mutter under his breath as he got ready in the small bathroom in the hall. Every now and then, remorse would fill his face and he would apologize to Mother, who always gave her forgiveness, and let him kiss her hand or her hair. But if you looked carefully you would see her body tense at his touch.

The days went on like this until there was another knock at the door. But not the front door. At the back door. I looked up from the kitchen table where I was pretending to do my homework and saw the outline of a man. I sucked in a breath. Mother looked to me and then to the door. But she pointed at me to stay where I was and, wiping her hands on her apron, opened the backdoor as if she didn’t have a care in the world. The man had retreated back down the steps and stood in the grass at the foot of stairs. He had removed his hat, a badly worn hat, with many mismatched patches and frayed edges on the brim, and he held it in both hands as he looked down to the ground. I could see that his clothes hung off of him as if he were but a clothes hanger. He didn’t have much in the way of shoes, taped around his feet and with patches of cardboard. Some of his toes showed through. The dirt was caked in and around his toes and under the nails. The rest of him wasn’t much better. Dirt and perhaps soot stained his once gray trouser pants and his once white shirt, bleeding together into a muddy yellow brown all over. His hair was too long and he needed a shave. A bum, my Father would have called him.

“Hello, Miss. I don’t mean to scare ‘ya but I was hoping you may have a few scraps of old bread crust or anything you can spare.”

My Mother paused and looked the man up and down, “Of course I do, won’t you come in?” she asked.

I sucked my breath in again. Father hated bums. He always railed against them. He said he would teach any one of them a thing or two if he ever got his hands on them. He would be outraged to find one of them in his house. Even though he never came home before dark anymore there was always that chance that today would be different. And neither Bob nor Harry were home. Babe was in the living room with a book and a blanket as the weather was picking up a chill in the morning and evenings. She barely glanced at what was going on as she continued on with her favorite pastime. The man hesitated though.

“I don’t think you would be wanting someone like me in your house, with all due respect, Miss. I am sure you can see that I would just leave tracks all through the floors. It is best I stay out here.”

“Are you alone?” My mother asked.

“Yes, Miss. I am alone. My buddy decided to hitch it out of town this morning but I am tired of life on the rails. It’s….” he began to explain but decided it wasn’t worth the effort and just let the sentence hang in the air.

“And where are you heading, then?” My mother quizzed him.

“I don’t know at the moment. There is talk of some work transporting milk into Chicago. The farmers have done a real bang-up job with their protest.”

“And why not go there now then?”

“Well, most of the time talk is just talk and by the time a man finds out about someone looking for workers there are dozens of men already there for the same reason. And I learned my lesson at the steel mills.”

My mother was silent again. “Do you drink?”

“On occasion, Miss. Like I said, life on the rails…” and he trailed off again.

“Well, no one is going to hire you looking like that,” my mother said matter of factly.

“I imagine not, no,” the man said.

“Well, come in and get clean.”

“Oh, no, Miss. I couldn’t do that.”

“Then the tub will come to you,” my mother said as she turned to me, “Barbara, get Babe

and drag the old wash tub from the storage building and bring it out here to the back yard.”

My eyes grew large and I just stared at my mother. She couldn’t possibly be serious.

She would bring Father’s wrath down on all of us.

“Do as I say, Barbara,” Mother said in a tone that left no room for argument.

“Yes, Mor,” I said and began to move out of my seat. I glanced back out the door

and I could see the man’s body waving side to side ever so slightly. Sometimes my Father did that when he came home smelling of gin. Then, I saw the man fall to his knees. Mother stepped down quickly from the steps and bent over him.

“Now, Barbara,” she said over her shoulder.

I went over to Babe and dragged her by the arm out the back door, skirting the dirty man and my mother. We went to the old storage building at the back of the lot. We used to keep a lock on it but there wasn’t much left out here worth taking so we didn’t bother anymore. The old wash tub was one of the things still there that we couldn’t get rid of if we tried. Everyone had bathtubs now and no one wanted to get into one of these things. Babe and I dragged it across the lawn and deposited it in front of Mother.

“Now go boil some water,” she told us.

We ran inside and put every pot we could find on to the stove. I peered through the kitchen window and saw my mother put a hand on the man’s shoulder. Then, she dragged the wash tub in between two rows of string where we normally hung our clothes to dry. She shouted to us, “Go get two sheets!” Babe ran to the back bedroom and got two sheets and ran outside with them. I continued to peer out the kitchen window while I kept an ear out for the telltale sound of water boiling. I watched my mother hang the sheets as screens and heard her order the man, “Get undressed so I can wash your clothes.” He tried to protest but it was no use. I turned away to give him privacy. My mother came in the back door with a bang “Barbara, get down from there and quit spying on the man.”

“Yeah, Barbara, quit spying,” Babe repeated as she came in behind Mother.

I rolled my eyes and got down off the counter. In the next thirty minutes Mother had his clothes washed and hanging on the line while he scrubbed clean and ate a sandwich of day old bread and a slice of mystery meatloaf. Inside, my mother sighed and lifted her hand to her forehead in that way she did when she was worried. I was worried too. The sun was going down. Bob and Harry would be home soon. And then Father would be too. I wondered why she had taken this risk; taking care of this stranger that we didn’t know from Adam. We didn’t owe him anything. And we certainly didn’t owe it to him to have our hides worn out if Father found out. I began to tear at the edges of my fingernails to rip them off. One by one I tugged at the white part of the nail and scraped it off with the edge of my thumbnail. The result was jagged edges that caught on everything.

Finally, the man was out of the wash tub and putting on still mildly damp clothes. My mother opened the back door and took a step out but didn’t approach the partitioned off privacy screen.

“Are you sure I can’t iron those clothes for you?”

“Miss, I am sure of it. You have done a great kindness here this evening and I don’t mean to take anymore from you. Anyway, my clothes would be just as wrinkled by morning time seeing as I don’t have anything to change into.” The man laughed a bit to himself.

“But there is a chill in the air tonight and those damp clothes may cause you pneumonia,” my mother insisted.

“Been through worse than this, Miss,” the man said as he came around the other side of the privacy screen. “I thank you, Miss, but I will be on my way now,” he said with a downward tip of his chin.

“You come back if you need it,” my mother said.

“Ah, I wouldn’t be putting you out like that, Miss.”

“Well,” my mother dithered.

“No need to be worrying about me, Miss. I will be alright. And if not,” the man laughed to himself again, “then not.”

My mother just nodded her head and we watched him walk straight back out through the yard and into the fields beyond. He disappeared into the smoky gray evening but we heard him laughing to himself for a full fifteen minutes after he fell out of view. I looked up at Mother.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because-what if that is your Father somewhere,” my mother replied.

I didn’t want to tell her that I imagined my Father slumped over a table somewhere more likely than wandering the roads looking for work or food. But I kept my mouth shut. Sometimes keeping up the game of pretend was easier than confronting it.

October rang in the World Series and no one was more excited than my brothers. The Cubs were on a twenty-one game winning streak and they were sure to win this year, or at least so said Harry. I rarely saw him so excited as he was talking about baseball. The day was so important that Mother had let us stay home from school, otherwise the game would have been over by the time we got home. Bob took the opportunity to put in a few extra hours at the store in the morning.

“The Tigers don’t stand a chance!” Harry yelped as he turned on the radio in the kitchen. “Not a one!” He added.

Bob knocked open the backdoor with a paper bag and a giant grin on his face.

“Mr. Krakowski paid me in pop today!” He announced proudly. “One each!” Bob reached into the paper bag and drew out a glass bottle of Coca-Cola for each of us.

“You’re my favorite brother!” Babe exclaimed and wrapped her arms around Bob’s neck.

“Gee, thanks,” Harry said with a half laugh, making off like he was offended.

My mother gave a little smile that didn’t reach her eyes, “Then let’s have popcorn, too.” she said and reached for the big cast iron dutch oven that we used to pop the popcorn in. Mother pulled out a bag of dried corn we had grown ourselves on the far side of the vegetable garden. As the popcorn began to pop, Bob turned the dial on the radio so he could hear every detail.

“Bridges is ready and starts his wind up….” the announcer on the radio said and Bob motioned with his hands for us to quiet down, “And here comes Billy Hermon, Cubs second baseman, with a batting average of two-fifty in the five games so far played…Bridges is ready and starts his wind up and the pitch is a little high and outside….”

We all listened to the opening minutes of the game with baited breath. Mother put bowls of popcorn in front of each of us. I found it hard to concentrate on what was being said. The noise from the crowd drowned out the announcer over and over again and the static didn’t make things better. I let my mind wander for a while. I imagined what it must be like to be in the stadium today. The announcer had said every seat had been sold. In the background you could occasionally hear someone calling out peanuts for sale. The roar of the crowd was exciting but terrifying. In my daydream, I imagined reaching out for Father’s hand to reassure me and having him whisk me onto his shoulders like when I was a toddler. From up there I could see the whole field and felt safe with my father’s hands holding onto my legs. When we got excited he would bounce me up and down and I would giggle like a little girl. Then, I got to thinking about how my father actually was. I wondered if my Father was somewhere listening to the game too. I yearned for him to be here with us and share in the excitement of it all. All of us together. As a family. I plopped another handful into my mouth and chewed absentmindedly.

“Stop chewing so loud, Barbara, we can’t hear anything,” Babe complained.

“Leave her alone, Babe, it’s not like you are any quieter, you sound like a washboard with nails scraping down it,” Harry said, clearly annoyed with both Babe and the game.

“How about we all just calm down?” Bob said between bites.

“Yes, let’s all just calm down,” my mother echoed and took a sip of Coca-Cola.

I ate two bowls of popcorn all to myself and my stomach felt overly full. The pop was warm by now and the sugar wasn’t sitting well on my overly full stomach. I got up and hopped onto the counter to crack the kitchen window open. The airflow cooled my face and I began to feel better. I turned on the faucet and splashed a little water on my face. I didn’t entirely understand everything the announcer was saying and I was getting bored. It had already been over an hour! How long was this game going to last? Harry was pacing the kitchen with his eyebrows furrowed in worry. Bob tapped the kitchen table with his knuckle rhythmically and deliberately. Babe was blowing into the top of her now empty pop bottle and making humming noises. Mother was busy as usual, prepping loaves to rise overnight but pausing when the moment was tense. Over the radio I heard the announcer:

“The Cubs have 12 hits and the Tigers 11 so far...his throw failed to get Cochrane…Cochrane is on second with two men out….a hard smash down the first baseline…threw to second base trying to get Cochrane…two men down in the ninth and the winning run on second…alright we’re ready to go….here is the pitch…strike one….the crowd is in a continuous uproar…time is being called for a moment here…here we go…and the next pitch…Cochrane coming home…He scores the winning run…And the World Series is over.”

Harry fell to his knees and cried out “No!” Bob balled his right hand into a fist and hit the palm of his left hand. Babe looked like she was going to cry. Mother sighed like she had been expecting it all along. I didn’t know what to do or to think so I just started to cry.

“Oh, shut it, Barb,” Babe complained.

“Elskling, come here,” my mother said and pulled me into her shoulder. She was warm and smelled of bread. The loose tendrils of her hair tickled my forehead and the crisply ironed cotton of her blouse caught my tears. I tried to sob quietly but it only made me start to hiccup.

“My little sensitive one,” my mother said. “You take things so hard. It is only a game. Only a game.” I knew she was trying to make me feel better because she thought I was crying that the Cubs had lost. But I was crying for a different reason, a reason I couldn’t quite name. It was more than the game. It was more than my upset stomach. It was a deeper hurt, a realization that things weren’t right. That they hadn’t been right for a long time. And, on top of it all, the Cubs didn’t even win and everyone was upset. It was too much.

My mother continued to hold me and stroked my hair. I heard the back door slam and the rest of my siblings calling to one another outside, organizing a pick up game of family baseball. Babe was the announcer, Harry was the runner and Bob was the pitcher. But this time, Bob struck out Harry and the Cubs won and everything was right in the world again. My siblings cheered at their re-worked version of history and my mother clapped for them, holding me between her arm and the rest of her body, her hands coming together just in front of my face. My siblings and their yipping and hooting appeared and disappeared with each clap of her hand. As was often the case, I was left feeling as though I was on the outside looking in. A family member but not a part of the game. A tag-along. New tears fell down my face but this time they were slow and silent. No one seemed to notice.

That evening, Father came home well after midnight. There were nights when his arrival didn’t wake Babe and I since we slept in our own bedroom. But tonight no one could miss his hurricane force hit the house.

I woke up with a start. Something had shattered in the living room. Something big. I swung my feet to the ground. Babe was already standing up. She put her hands on my shoulders and whispered, “Not a peep, Barbara. Don’t you dare make a sound.”

I looked at her in the darkness. Her eyes were big and she craned her neck toward the direction of the living room. She was listening. I hadn’t fully woken up and didn’t hear at first what she had already noticed. A giant fight. There was crunching of feet on glass, thuds as hits landed, an inhuman scream laced with rage that had to have come from Harry, Bob shouting to Harry to step down. Babe pumped my shoulders with her hands. She leaned in and rested her forehead on mine. She was breathing heavily. I was too stunned to do or say or think anything. I allowed a numbness to wash over me. I willed my body to not feel anything. I willed my soul to close off. I needed to be as though I were just an inanimate object, unable to be moved by the chaos. For how long Babe and I stood forehead to forehead I have no way of knowing. Seconds clicked by on a time scale the same as the building of the universe. Finally, we heard one final thud of what was unmistakably a body hitting the floor. And, then, silence. A silence that was more terrifying than the cacophony that preceded it.

“Do we go see what happened?” Babe whispered to me. “We should go see if anyone is hurt,” Babe said a little above a whisper.

I woke from my internal dream, or more like it, nightmare, “Absolutely not. We stay put until Bob or Mor come to get us,” I said firmly. I knew the rules and I wasn’t going to break them. Not on a night like tonight.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that Bob and Mor weren’t coming tonight. And I had a terrible feeling that something was even more wrong than usual. Fights at our house didn’t end in silence. There was always shuffling and moving about and water running or something else that signaled that a state of what we called normal had returned. Tonight was different. And I needed to see Mother. I needed to see Mother like I had never needed to see her before.

“I’m going,” Babe said.

I shook my head at her, “No, we stay here until Bob or Mor come to get us.”

“I’m going,” Babe said more resolutely.

Babe moved as quietly as a mouse to the bedroom door and slid the lock with precision to avoid any kind of friction. She cracked the door and the light flooded in. There was still no sound from the living room. Babe stepped out in the hall. The light consumed her and she was just a dark outline in the doorway. I realized I would be left in the dark bedroom all by myself if I didn’t pick up my feet and follow her. Babe had already made it to the living room by the time I began to emerge from the bedroom.

“Harry-where is Mor?” I heard her ask.

I picked up my pace and walked into the brightly lit living room. As my eyes adjusted to the light I heard Babe scream a gurgled, guttural scream. I turned and saw Bob out cold on the floor, every inch of his face swollen, his wrist turned at a wrong angle. And next to him, Harry was cradling Mother in his arms. His face showed he was crying but no sound escaped his lips other than a raspy attempt to breathe. And then I really looked at Mother. She was out cold too, but the side of her head had been bludgeoned. Blood filled her hair, matting it to her neck. Flesh was ripped in chunks from above her ear and across her cheek. A part of her skull showed under one missing chunk. I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream. I tried to scream. I opened my mouth and I willed my vocal chords to scream. But nothing came out. And nothing went in. My body forgot how to breathe. I couldn’t even gasp for air. I put my hands to my throat. But no one was looking at me. Harry was crying without crying over Mother. Babe was dabbing Bob’s face with a rag trying to get him to come to. I turned and looked out what I saw was the completely shattered front window of the living room. Outside, I saw my Father standing on the road, looking at the house and, then, walking away.