Malina Herze stares down on her dining-room table, her lovely dining-room table, and clutches a red-handled hammer to her chest. Her best linen, line dried and ironed this morning, still bears the round stains left by two water glasses. They sat on the table for almost four hours before Malina poured the tepid water down the drain. A highball glass still sits alongside her husband’s place setting, the ice melted and the drink inside ruined. On paydays, Mr. Herze likes a scotch and Vernors. That’s today. Payday. Every Wednesday of every week-the day he brings home the sweet, musky smell Malina has washed from his shirts for exactly one year.

That must be why, at this late hour, Malina’s driveway stands empty. It’s been one year. An anniversary, of sorts. There’s no reason Mr. Herze should stray. Malina’s waistband is looser than the last time she wore this skirt, hangs lower on her sharp hipbones. She’s not one ounce heavier than she was twenty-five years ago when she and Mr. Herze wed. He was almost thirty then; she, seventeen. He liked her the way she was-thin and slight. Don’t go changing on me, he had said. And she hasn’t. She weighs not one ounce more. No reason for Mr. Herze to stray. No good reason.

Walking from the dining room to the foyer, her white heels most probably denting the linoleum, Malina drops the hammer in her brown leather handbag, the largest of all her handbags. The tool, taken from the pegboard over Mr. Herze’s workbench, is rather heavy given its size. If called upon to defend herself with it, she may well have to use both hands. The women, Mr. Herze’s girl most certainly among them, come on payday when the men are sure to have money. They stand in the broken-out windows of the warehouse next door to the factory where all the men work. Most say the women are colored. Even now, Malina can imagine the smell of Mr. Herze’s girl as if it has come so many times into her home that it has seeped into the walls and the upholstery and the flocked drapes hanging in her living room.

In the hall mirror, Malina smooths her hair, reapplies a red lipstick suited for evening, wipes a black smudge from under one eye, and, lastly, pulls on her driving gloves. Once outside, she glances up and down Alder Avenue. Perhaps none of the neighbors have noticed the empty spot in her driveway where Mr. Herze’s car should be parked. Every night, he arrives home at 5:45 sharp. Every night, save this one, so of course, the neighbors have noticed. Even now, a few curtains ruffle where they’re peeking out to see if her husband has yet arrived home, and directly across the street that ridiculous Jerry Lawson goes so far as to wave at Malina. Clad in no more than an undershirt and boxers, the man stands at the end of his driveway, where he’s watching over that wife of his as she strolls their baby down the street and back. Nearly a month ago, Betty Lawson marched into her house, a new baby swaddled in her arms though she had never carried one in her belly. Adopted, all the neighbors had whispered. Before she suffers any further embarrassment, Malina hurries across her brittle lawn, slips into her car, and slowly, because the glare of the streetlights does so trouble her, drives toward Willingham Avenue.

Every morning, Malina and the other ladies board the bus and travel to Willingham Avenue to do their daily shopping. From the deli or the bakery or the cleaners, the ladies can look to the end of Willingham, where it dead-ends into Chamberlin Avenue in a T-junction, and see the factory where their men make a living. While dashing about, bags slung over their arms, the ladies can also see the warehouse where the colored women gather on paydays, but the ladies are afraid of what they might see there and so they cling to their wares and take only fleeting glances.

Malina rolls to a stop in front of Mr. Ambrozy’s deli and turns off the ignition. At night, under a glare that isn’t so troublesome because most of the streetlights don’t work in this section of the city, the shops have lost their foothold and seem to hover, loosely rooted, above the dark street. Next to the car, the easel where Mr. Ambrozy writes his daily specials still stands in the middle of the sidewalk. He never erased today’s specials-thick-cut chops and flank steak-and the white chalk letters are smeared as if someone drew a finger across them. Double-checking that the doors are locked, Malina rests her head against the seat, closes her eyes, and begins to count. At her last appointment, Dr. Cannon insisted this would relax her and that she need only practice the technique. When she reaches twenty, her heartbeat has not slowed and the tightness in her throat has not softened. If she tells Dr. Cannon of this failure, he’ll say that she need only practice more often and that the failing is hers.

As expected, Mr. Herze’s car is parked in the lot next to the factory where he spends his days. While the other men labor with the tool-and-die machinery, Mr. Herze acts as their boss. The simple rust-colored brick building is surrounded by a chain-link fence that sags in some spots and is rusted through in others. The factory is hanging on, just barely, Mr. Herze sometimes says. Staring at the lone car looking more like a shadow than an automobile, Malina has no idea what she is to do now that she has found her husband. She’d had plenty of time to formulate a plan as she sat alone at her dining-room table for several hours, a supper growing cold and dry in her kitchen, the empty spot in her driveway shouting out to the neighbors, but she squandered the time with anger. It’s quite likely, in the hours, days, weeks, or months to come, she’ll remember this as her first mistake.

A dozen or so times over the years, Mr. Herze has forgotten his lunch and Malina has delivered it to him. She has always used the side door just off the parking lot when visiting Mr. Herze on those days. This is the door that opens. A person-a small, dark person-appears in the doorway. She stumbles because the door is so heavy. Malina has done the same several times. A woman, or perhaps she is still a girl. Little more than a child. Long, thin legs. Narrow hips. She wears tapered blue slacks that hug her ankles and a white blouse and is no taller than Malina, both of them childlike in size. Of course she would be small. Petite, even. Just like Malina.

Standing partly in the shadows thrown by the building and partly in the glow of the closest streetlight, the girl rights herself and tugs at the tail of her blouse. This person, this small, dark person, doesn’t glance about as if feeling guilty, and neither does she look behind as if wondering who might have followed her. Instead, she turns sharply to her left and, taking strides that appear quite long, not because she is tall but because she is slender and lean and certain of her movement, she vanishes into the shadows that hug the side of the factory. Malina reaches for the ignition, tries to throw the car into drive before she has started the engine, and fumbles with the parking brake, but she drops her hands to her lap when the girl reappears.

She moves with the same sense of purpose, or perhaps she moves with the confidence that comes from having done a thing several times before. Her back is straight and her chin is cocked high, almost as if she is proud. The girl, the small, dark girl, pushes a baby carriage. Malina falls back against the seat. The girl crosses through the parking lot, turns onto the sidewalk, and walks toward the Detroit River.

Of all things-a baby carriage.

Grabbing the leather bag from the seat next to her, Malina throws open the car door. The air here is cooler than on Alder Avenue and tinted with the smell of dead fish and damp, rotting garbage. It’s the river. During her days spent shopping on Willingham, she forgets that the river runs nearby. She should get back into her car, start up the engine, drive home, and return to her upholstered seat at the dining-room table. The veal and creamed cucumbers will be ruined by now, but she could serve them anyway because Mr. Herze does so hate waste. She knows from all her married years that if she is to walk down this street, she is putting herself in the path of a danger not even her hammer will be able to fend off. But there is a carriage, a baby carriage. She’ll be quick about it. One glimpse is all she needs. What harm could such a small person do her? Any one of the ladies would do the same.

The girl is past the factory and half a block ahead of Malina. The high-pitched squeal, rhythmic and slowly fading, must come from the carriage’s metal wheels. Reaching the sidewalk and falling into the girl’s wake, Malina stops, can’t help herself, because the scent lingers-the same sweet, musky smell Malina had pulled from her hamper on every payday of every week for exactly one year. Up ahead, just past the factory, the girl turns right and is gone. Malina hugs her handbag so the hammer doesn’t knock about and follows.

Malina has never ventured this far south, has never had cause. When she reaches the spot where the girl disappeared, she stops. The familiar shops are behind her now; ahead, an unfamiliar street that eventually empties into the Detroit River. Keeping her feet on the sidewalk, she tips forward and looks down the dark alley that runs along the factory’s southern edge. She squints, leans farther. Still no sign of the girl. Here again, she should turn around. If not for that empty driveway, an embarrassment like none other except perhaps a baby carriage, she would run back to her car, head down, hoping not to be recognized and, despite the terrible glare, drive as quickly as she could back to the house. So many years of carefully grooming herself to behave just-so. Supper at six, breakfast at seven, shirts hung only on wooden hangers, collars lightly starched, newspaper untouched until Mr. Herze has his turn at it. The list goes on. When she was younger, she wrote down these things and checked off each reminder with a freshly sharpened pencil. After so many years, she should no longer need reminders.

One deep breath propels her. She steps from the sidewalk into the alley. A cool draft sweeps past. The sound of the squeaky wheels has faded. There is the quiet slapping of the river water and then a woman’s voice breaks through the night air and then another answers her. They are muted, as if coming from behind a closed door. There must be another building at the end of the alley, perhaps where the girl lives. So many of them do that now-live in abandoned buildings as if they haven’t anywhere else to go.

There is the squeal again. Warped metal wheels, wobbling, struggling in the alley’s soft, dry dirt. A carriage. Obviously a baby inside. A caramel-colored baby. Mr. Herze is soft and white, pasty white, with hair that was once blond but now is a thinning ridge that runs ear to ear leaving the top of his head bare. The girl, however, as far as Malina could tell, is dark brown. The baby would be a soft, warm color, somewhere between their two shades. Malina takes a backward step, lets her arms hang at her sides.

Mr. Herze’s baby?

She thinks again of the smudged easel. Like the muffled voices, the easel is a reminder that people are here, somewhere nearby. She slides one foot in front of the other, forcing herself into the alley. Dust will be gathering on her shoes. When she gets back home, she must remember to clean them with a damp cloth. Unsnapping the kiss-clasp on her brown leather bag, she pulls out the hammer and wraps both hands around the red handle.

A few more steps and Malina has walked beyond the reach of the streetlights. The only remaining light comes from a window in the factory’s second story. It’s little more than a yellow pane that does nothing to brighten her path. It’s Mr. Herze’s office. It must be. Holding the hammer as if it were the handle of a frying pan, she follows the girl’s path. The air continues to cool. It dries the damp spot on the back of her neck where her thick hair meets her lace collar. The steady pulse of the river follows her, growing no louder, no softer. She must see inside that carriage, has a right to see inside that carriage.

“And who the hell you think you be?”

Squeezing the hammer in both hands, Malina lifts it overhead and swings it toward the voice. The heavy forked head sails through the empty air, missing its target and yanking her off balance. She stumbles, drops her only weapon.

The woman who stands in front of Malina is plump. She has round, black cheeks and her eyes must be brown, although there isn’t enough light to know for sure. She stands Malina’s height but is much wider. It is not the girl. Malina leans toward the dark figure, squints to make certain. If she wanted, she could stretch out one hand and touch the woman’s face. To avoid the temptation, Malina crosses her arms. This one is not like a child at all, but like a woman. A round, rotund woman. Her stubby legs are planted wide and her back is straight. She leads with her chin as she bends forward, puckers her lips, and stares at Malina.

“Damn,” the woman shouts. Her breath is sweet, like a half-eaten peppermint.

From the end of the alley, another voice calls out. “What you all doing down there?”

Malina inches away. Her white cotton blouse clings to her back and her hair has most certainly wilted. The round woman stares. Her black cheeks and thick upper lip glisten.

“I know who you are,” the woman says, smiling, perhaps even laughing at Malina. “Bet you’re wondering what’s inside that carriage.”

Malina shakes her head, takes a few more backward steps, spins around, and hurries down the alley.

“Hey,” the woman shouts. “Where you going? You forgot your damn hammer.”

Julia Wagner sits at the back of the room. Somehow, this is always where she finds herself. It could be because her wiry red hair is impossible to tame. No matter how much she teases, pins, or sprays, she can never fashion the sculpted styles the other ladies wear. Her best hope is to corral it into a ponytail, as she has done for today’s luncheon. Perhaps she curses too much. On diet day, she definitely smokes too much. Or it could be because she is rounder than the other ladies. Her clothes have a way of fitting too tightly in all the wrong places. Or all the right places, according to her husband. Good Kentucky stock, her mother always says, often when reattaching one of Julia’s buttons. But the truth is, none of these force her to the rear of the room. She finds her way there because things like this-the monthly gathering of the Ladies of the St. Alban’s Charitable Ventures Committee-are altogether more tolerable if she keeps her distance.

And if Julia is generally at the back of the room, Malina Herze is generally-or more accurately, always-at the front. This is where she stands today. As chair of the committee’s annual bake sale and clothing drive, Malina should be handing out sign-up sheets and issuing instructions as to how, when, and where to deliver donations for the thrift store. Instead, she is doling out stern warnings to the dozen ladies scattered about the living room of their hostess, Grace Richardson. Grace is Julia’s best friend, only true friend really. This is another reason Julia sits at the back of the room. She is the friend who will stir the beans while Grace attends to her guests or answer the door should a latecomer arrive. But soon after Malina informed everyone that the woman found near the factory was most definitely dead, Grace excused herself to the kitchen, where she’ll stir her own beans, answer her own door, and won’t be in need of Julia’s help.

Snubbing out her second cigarette, Julia tugs at the blouse that dips a bit low for a luncheon and exhales a louder-than-intended sigh. A few of the ladies frown at her. They want to hear what Malina has to say. Her husband is in charge down at the factory and so she knows more than most. The woman was found yesterday morning in the alley that borders the factory and is within casting distance of the shops on Willingham Avenue. She was most definitely colored and most definitely deceased. Someone bashed her in the side of the head, so it wasn’t an accident. No chance of that.

Over and over, Malina issues these warnings, and as ten minutes stretch into thirty and she has nothing new to tell, the ladies tire of her. They begin to whisper to one another, some sharing stories of what their husbands have told them, others fretting over why their husbands have told them nothing. They stand to talk across one another and switch seats to hear something new, and as they move and shift and sit and stand, they stir up perspiration and the room grows hotter and the scent of their perfume and hairspray and body lotion and styling gel grows stronger and stronger. Sucking a lungful of smoke from her cigarette, Julia considers excusing herself to see to the twins. Every summer, her nieces visit for two weeks, and they arrived a few days ago. They’re home alone, poor things. They’re probably desperate for a bite of lunch. That would be a plausible excuse.

Even given the unseemly circumstances surrounding today’s meeting, Julia is more comfortable at Grace’s house than she ever is at her own. Whenever the two get together for coffee, it’s almost always at Grace’s house. When they play cards, it’s at Grace’s kitchen table. When their husbands watch a game, it’s in Grace’s living room. When they barbecue steaks, it’s in Grace’s backyard. The two houses stand on the same side of Alder Avenue and are separated by two blocks. From the outside, one house is the exact replica of the other, but inside, they have their distinctions. Grace has a tiled kitchen; Julia, linoleum. Grace’s walls are freshly painted. Julia’s are not. The linens are ironed at Grace’s house. They are wrinkled at Julia’s. Grace is pregnant. Julia is not.

The sound of breaking glass is the thing that finally silences the room and gives Julia her excuse. It also sets Betty Lawson’s baby to crying. She has been out in the kitchen, where it was supposed to be quiet so she could sleep undisturbed.

“Let me,” Julia says, leaping from her seat. She drops her half-smoked cigarette in the remains of her iced tea and raises a hand so Betty Lawson will keep her seat on the sofa. “I’ll see to her.”

A few of the ladies tilt their heads and press a hand over their hearts as if to say how sweet. A few others raise their brows as if to warn Betty against trusting Julia with her baby. Crying or not, this little one, the first born on Alder in three years, is a reminder to Julia and every other lady that Julia no longer has a child of her own.

In the kitchen, the baby is still crying, and on the floor near the sink lies a broken jar, partially held together by its paper label. White globs of mayonnaise are splattered across the tile and the bottom of the refrigerator.

“Soapy hands,” Grace says, rocking the carriage to calm the baby inside.

For the occasion of hosting today’s luncheon, Grace has swept her blond hair into a French roll. She wears an apron stained with barbecue sauce, and a few loose hairs dangle about her face, and yet she is the elegant one. Julia, who labored all morning on her hair and twice ironed the blouse she bought at Hudson’s for just this event, is the rumpled one.

“Do you mind?” Grace nods off toward the back door. “It’ll be Elizabeth.”

Julia sidesteps the broken jar, picking up the larger pieces along the way and dropping them in the trash can under the sink. It’s not the sound of a crying baby that draws up the memories of Julia’s own little one. It’s the smell. Julia bought the same lotion for Maryanne. Back then, Mr. Olsen kept it on the second aisle of his drugstore, top shelf, pink bottle. Probably still does. Sliding between the refrigerator and Grace’s dinette, Julia hears it-a quiet tapping.

Elizabeth Symanski stands on the other side of the screened door. Every day, she comes to Grace’s house for lunch, and as is Elizabeth’s normal posture, her head sags, her shoulders are stooped, and her arms dangle at her sides. Her long blond hair, dull and frayed on the ends, makes her look much older than her twenty-one or so years. As Elizabeth walks into the kitchen, the hem of her lavender dress brushes against Julia’s shins. Elizabeth normally wears yellow on Fridays. The colors help her remember the days. Red for Mondays. Blue for Tuesdays. White for Wednesdays. Before Elizabeth’s mother passed away, a year ago this spring, she dressed Elizabeth every morning. In her final days, Ewa Symanski’s bony fingers struggled to thread the buttons and knot the bows, and she worried aloud who would tend to her daughter when she was gone. Now Mr. Symanski must struggle with the same. Even though Elizabeth is old enough to be called a young woman, twenty-one or twenty-two, she is unable to dress herself.

Because she is wearing one of her finer dresses, Elizabeth also wears her black shoes, her Sunday best, and as she walks heel-toe, heel-toe, they click across the tile floor. Click, click, click, until she reaches the dinette, where she sits. By the time Elizabeth has settled into her seat, the baby has stopped crying. Normally Julia might remind Elizabeth to keep her voice down so as to not wake the baby again, but there’s no reason to hush Elizabeth. She rarely speaks, and when she does, she asks after her mother, Ewa. Mr. Symanski always says to humor Elizabeth, because what’s the harm? Tell her Ewa will be along shortly and that Elizabeth should mind herself until then.

Backing away from the quiet carriage, Grace slips around the table and reaches for the telephone. Letting the receiver hang over her shoulder, she dials with one hand and, with the other, fingers the loose threads left by a button missing from the back of Elizabeth’s dress. By tomorrow, Grace will have picked up the dress from Mr. Symanski and reattached a new button. She waits for the phone to ring once, her usual signal to Mr. Symanski that Elizabeth has arrived safely, and then hangs up and flops into a chair at the kitchen table.

“Did you know half the members wouldn’t come here today?” Grace waves a hand around her kitchen. “All this food will go to waste. They didn’t want to park their cars on this street, that’s what they said. As if it’s not safe here anymore.”

Though no one actually thinks the prostitutes have made their way to Alder Avenue, other coloreds have. Three families have moved into the Filmore Apartments on the west end of Alder, and isn’t that proof enough trouble can’t be far behind? Just last night, the paper was filled with news of another plant closing. This is what should worry the ladies. So many factories already stand empty-rotting shells surrounded by boarded-up restaurants and taverns. The green glow, so much like a fog, that once clung to the city’s rooftops has begun to lift. Murray, Packard, Studebaker. All of them closed. This is what should worry the ladies.

“Never mind them,” Julia says, wiping up the last of the mayonnaise spill. “So you and James will have leftovers for the next six weeks.”

“Have you read today’s paper?” Grace asks.

Turning her back on the baby carriage, Julia steps up to the stove and inhales the steam rising from the baked beans. The brown sugar and catsup that bubbles up does little to mask the smell of the pink lotion.

“No, and I don’t intend to,” she says, dragging a finger through the simmering beans and sticking it in her mouth. “Needs more brown sugar.”

Even over the stove, the sweet smell of a new baby fills the kitchen. It’s the white powder, too. Julia was always careful not to use too much on Maryanne.

“But aren’t you curious? Don’t you wonder who might be involved?” Grace flicks her eyes in the direction of the living room as if one of the ladies’ husbands is the possible offender.

“No, I don’t. I don’t have the slightest damned interest, and neither should you. It’s all but blown over already. Bill says the police are gone. Hardly even bothered with any questions. Brown sugar?”

Grace points to an overhead cupboard. “What more did Malina tell everyone?” Grace says, touching Elizabeth’s fingertips so she’ll stop tapping her foot. Though Elizabeth never has much to say, she has a habit of tapping her right foot. In her nicer shoes, it makes a clicking sound that might disturb the baby.

“She’s doing nothing but frightening everybody, getting them all worked up. She keeps asking if anyone knows what the dead woman looked like. Was she portly? Was she slender? Why would she ask such a thing? I swear that woman couldn’t find her behind with a compass and a candle. Did you know she’s thinking of having a bomb shelter dug in their backyard?”

Grace slips a rubber band off what must be today’s newspaper and spreads it across the table. “There has to be something in the news, don’t you think? It’s been two days. Who was she? Where did she come from? Don’t you wonder?”

“James will tell you what you need to know,” Julia says, drawing a spoon through the beans in a lazy figure eight. “You shouldn’t worry about it.”

“But he tells me nothing.”

“Only because he adores you.”

“Bill adores you,” Grace says, turning to the next page, “and he’s told you every horrid detail.”

“No husband adores his wife like your husband adores you.”

It’s the smooth blond hair and clear skin that plague Grace. She’s slender, when not pregnant, but not skinny. Her ankles are delicate, her neckline sharp, and her blue eyes startle people when they first look into them. Angelic, that’s the word to describe Grace, and no husband wants to pollute his angelic wife with news about a dead prostitute.

“Besides,” Julia says, tapping another quarter cup of brown sugar into the beans, “you know I’ll tell you everything I hear.”

“But I shouldn’t have to get the news from you. I worry there might be another reason James isn’t telling me things. Last night, I came right out and asked him about it.”

“Asked him what?”

“If he had ever seen them.”

“And?”

“He said he never has.”

“There you go. Nothing to worry about.”

“Do I dare believe him? Malina says those women stand topless. How could he not look?”

Julia pulls the paper away from Grace, folds it over, and jams it into the trash. “So what if they look? It’s what men do. Be thankful James doesn’t want to burden you with it.”

In the front room, the voices have grown louder. One of the ladies speculates on what the weapon might have been. A bat, perhaps, or a crowbar. Aren’t people always using crowbars for such things?

“Malina told me the shops on Willingham will close on paydays now,” Grace says, fishing the newspaper out of the trash and returning to the table. “Did she tell you the same?”

“Along with all her other gibberish, yes,” Julia says, shaking her head when she catches herself staring at the carriage.

Grace irons out the wrinkles Julia caused when she shoved the paper into the garbage. Again, she pats Elizabeth’s hand, a reminder to still her feet. “Do you mind?” she says. “Would you see Elizabeth home? I’d rather she not hear all the talk going on in there, and I really should see to the rest of lunch.”

“You don’t want help setting the table? Wrapping up all these leftovers?”

“You should get home to the girls,” Grace says, and turns to the next page. “They’ll be getting hungry.”

Grace, like Julia, will know this baby is the first on the street since Maryanne, and she’s giving Julia an excuse to escape, at least for today. In the early weeks after Maryanne died, Grace was the only one brave enough and stubborn enough to walk into Julia’s home. She came every day, even when Julia slammed doors and screamed at her to leave well enough alone. Grace kept the blood flowing, kept the house from collapsing. Even more than Julia’s own husband, Grace saved her.

“You’ll ring Mr. Symanski again?” Julia says, holding the door open for Elizabeth and wondering if it will always be like this. Will Grace forever try to intercept the memories of Julia’s daughter, and how successful can she be once her own baby is born? “You’ll let him know Elizabeth is on her way?”

Grace taps the tip of her thumb to her tongue, flips to the next page in the newspaper, and nods. “There has to be something in here, don’t you think?”

And then Julia realizes. Grace is happily married. Her husband does adore her. She has no worries about James. She doesn’t wonder who that woman was or who killed her or whose husband might be the guilty party. Those discussions were for Julia’s benefit, a means to distract her from the baby in the corner, and they almost worked.

Outside the house, Julia and Elizabeth walk together to the end of Grace’s driveway and from there, Julia watches Elizabeth make her way home. North of Alder, a round of fireworks explodes. For the past week, the air has been laced with the smell of them-sulfur, maybe charcoal. They’re another reminder, other than this heat, that July is fast approaching. The ladies’ voices and the sounds of silverware clattering against Grace’s best wedding china drift out of the living room’s open windows. Betty Lawson’s baby is crying again. A block and a half away, Elizabeth has neared her house. Reaching out with one hand, she trails her fingers along the top rail of the iron fence that hems in her front yard. She’s been taught hers is the house with the iron fence. When Elizabeth stops at her gate, Julia turns toward home.

Most of the ladies shop on Willingham Avenue every day. They stop first at Mr. Ambrozy’s deli. Their freezers frost over and ruin his hand-stuffed kielbasa, so they prefer to buy it fresh, daily. Things never keep as well at home, never taste as fresh as they do straight from Mr. Ambrozy. Every weekday morning, the ladies board the south-bound bus. They come with recipe cards tucked inside their handbags, some of them liking to share, others not. Strolling through Mr. Ambrozy’s aisles, they carry shopping baskets and pick through his sweet and mild sauerkraut and hand-stuffed sausages-among the best in all of Detroit. But they don’t come to Willingham Avenue only for the deli. At his shop on the corner of Woodward and Willingham, Mr. Wilson irons the sharpest pleats and stitches an invisible hem like none other. On the opposite side of Willingham, beyond the drugstore and a vacant fenced-in lot, Nowack’s Bakery sells the freshest bread and pierogi fine enough for the ladies to say they rolled and boiled it themselves. It’s a secret the ladies say is best kept quiet.

At the kitchen table, her feet propped on the chair opposite her, one ankle crossed over the other and relieved for some peace after a long afternoon with the ladies, Grace studies Mother’s pierogi recipe and feels quite certain she has forgotten or possibly misplaced something. Before her passing, Ewa Symanski always made the pierogi for the bake sale. St. Alban’s has a good many widowers, and some would wait all year for Ewa’s pierogi because they no longer had wives of their own to roll and boil the pierogi. In the wake of Ewa’s death, Grace will take over and finally have a specialty like all the other ladies. First thing Monday morning, to avoid the sugar-cookie fiasco of last year, she’ll visit Mrs. Nowack at the bakery for some advice. No one makes better pierogi than Mrs. Nowack.

“You shouldn’t trouble yourself, Mother,” Grace says, running her fingers over the crisp card that Mother wrote out when she arrived shortly after the last lady left. Mother sighed to have to write it down yet again. “I’m sure you’ll want to get home soon.”

On the floor near Grace’s feet, Mother, on hands and knees, is scrubbing the tile. Her apron slips off one slender shoulder and her thinning silver hair glitters in the late afternoon sun. “You keep a clean house and tend to your husband,” Mother says, “or some other woman will.”

It must be all the talk about the prostitutes and the dead woman that has Grace feeling out of sorts. Mother heard it too, though from where Grace isn’t sure, but when she arrived to help tidy up after the luncheon, Mother knew.

Outside the kitchen window, the back alley is quiet. From a few doors down comes the whirl of a reel mower, the hiss of someone hosing off his driveway, a neighbor’s clothesline creaking as the lady of the house takes in her sheets and towels. The children in the neighborhood are teenagers or altogether grown and off on their own, so there are no sounds of laughing or running, no children leaping the hedges between houses or throwing rocks in the alley. The late-afternoon air has finally cooled and a breeze blows through the kitchen, in through the open window, out through the screen in the back door. The sweet smell of fireworks blows through every so often. The sharp, cool air should make Grace feel better, and yet something in the house isn’t quite right. She tries not to watch the clock. No need to worry about James today. It’s not payday.

At the sound of tires rolling over loose gravel, Grace checks the clock over the stove-5:30. The car slows as it nears the garage in back of the house. The engine idles and goes silent. James, home from work. Right on time. Always right on time. Again, Grace promises herself to stop watching the clock. James has given her no cause to worry, and she doesn’t, not really. A car door opens and closes, but there is no sign of James at the back stairs. Grace glances down at Mother, who raises a brow as if James has gotten himself into no good in the distance between the garage and the house. James has given Mother no cause to worry either, other than his being a man. When the back door finally swings open, James steps inside, drawing in a gust of the cool air that, for a moment, makes Grace set aside her worries over something forgotten.

With his eyes only on Grace, James crosses the kitchen in three long strides. The smell of grease and oil, the smell of a day at the factory, fills the small room and masks the rich scent of fried onions and the tuna casserole baking in the oven. Taking no notice of the wet floor or Mother, who is still crouched near the sink, James stretches one arm out to the side, his hand cupped as if holding something, and wraps the other around Grace. He pulls her close and kisses the top of her head. His empty hand slides over her shoulder, down her arm, and rests on the baby.

During the day, the oil and steam of the factory dampen James’s clothes and body, and dust sticks to the thick, black hair on his arms, making his skin like gritty sandpaper. He will sometimes apologize for being so rough and coarse, and Grace will touch the hair on his chest or run a hand over his wrist and up his forearm so he’ll know she likes the feel of him. He’s the man she always hoped for, broad enough to fill a doorway, tall enough to look down on most around him, bristly enough that her skin, by contrast, will always feel smooth and young to him. What surprises her still is that he’s also a playful man. He’ll tease her over a ruined roast, chase her with the hose when she is trying to pull weeds from her flowerbeds, or press an ear to her growing stomach as if he can hear the baby inside. Touching the shadow on his lower jaw that has grown since morning, she kisses the rough cheek and frowns at his cupped hand. Shards of green glass sparkle in his palm. He jostles them as if they were a pair of dice.

Two blocks down, where Julia lives in the same style three-bedroom, two-story redbrick house with a porch off the front door and a detached garage out back, she finds broken glass in the alley almost every day. Usually green, sometimes brown. She says that over the past few months the glass has become as regular as leaves in autumn. It’s a sign of their changing neighborhood, one no one talks about. Grace nods in Mother’s direction so James won’t say anything he’d rather not. He greets Mother, drops the glass in the trash basket, letting the shards tumble from his hand one by one, and excuses himself to bathe before supper.

After a quiet meal, Mother gathers her purse and gloves. She’d just as soon not be caught in this neighborhood after dark, she says, and while James sees Mother to her car, Grace runs water to wash the dishes. Something begins to tug at her again. It might be the thought of those women on Willingham, but they are still a bus ride away, a safe distance from Grace’s life here on Alder. Or perhaps it’s the green glass. She has always assumed it was left there by the colored men who cut through the alley on their way to Woodward Avenue. She hears them during the day when James is at work and late at night when he is asleep and she is awake, nursing an aching back. The men always pass at the same time. They have a schedule. It must be the buses that drive their routine.

“You’ve missed a spot,” Grace says, nudging James who has returned to help her with the dishes. Soapy water drips from her rubber gloves.

“It’s time I do some checking, Gracie,” James says, setting the dish aside.

“Checking?”

“Not waiting until things get even worse. Time I get someone in here to tell me what this house is worth.”

“It’s just a few bottles,” Grace says. “A little broken glass.” But she knows it isn’t.

“I’ll find someone who can sell this place for us,” James says. “Someone who can get us a fair price.”

“But what about our friends? I’d hate to leave Julia. And Mother is so close.”

“Should be able to find something farther north with the money we make.” James wraps his arms around Grace’s round belly. His fingers are warm through her thin cotton blouse. “High time we face facts. Things are starting to add up in a way I don’t care for. No good to be the last ones standing.”

Wearing a pair of her nicer heels, Grace is the perfect height to rest against the broadest part of James. His white undershirt is soft against her cheek and smells lightly of bleach. She wants to ask if he, like the ladies who wouldn’t come to her luncheon, is worried the dead woman on Willingham means something to them. “I have brownies,” Grace says instead, because she’s not sure she wants to hear his answer. “Feel like dessert?”

James rolls his rough cheek against the soft spot at the base of her neck. She leans into him and lays her head aside so he can more easily kiss her there.

“And ice cream,” she says, closing her eyes and inhaling the spicy cologne he slapped on after he washed up. “I’ll bet I have some in the freezer.”

And then that nagging feeling, that certainty she had forgotten something or misplaced something, rises up. She drops her chin to her chest and shakes her head.

“Oh, James. Today is Elizabeth’s birthday. She wore the lavender dress. Not the yellow. Because it’s her birthday. The ice cream, I bought it for her. How could I forget?”

While Grace plates a dozen leftover brownies and grabs a gallon of ice cream from the freezer, James pulls the car into the driveway. It’s a short enough walk, but by the time they come home, it’ll be dark, so James insists on the car.

When Mr. Symanski answers the door, his silver hair, usually smoothed straight back, hangs across his wrinkled brow. His white-collared shirt is untucked, his tie has pulled loose at the knot, and his pants are rumpled at the knees. He has shrunk in the year since Ewa died, the kind of withering that happens when a man loses his wife.

“I’m sorry to disturb you so late,” Grace says. “But I realized, after all the ladies left…”

She leans around Mr. Symanski so she can see into the living room, where Elizabeth usually sits in the evenings. She likes the brown wingback that used to be her mother’s. Ewa called it her fireside chair. It stands empty.

“I realized that today is Elizabeth’s birthday,” Grace says.

Mr. Symanski looks first at James and then at Grace. “I was sleeping.” He tugs on the pants hanging loosely at his waist. “I think I was sleeping.”

Like Grace did, Mr. Symanski leans to get a better look, as if Elizabeth is standing behind James.

“She is being with you?” Mr. Symanski says.

James steps forward. “Charles, it’s James and Grace. Are you all right?”

“Elizabeth, she is with you, yes?”

“No,” Grace says. “No, she isn’t. She came home. Hours ago. She left me hours ago. We came to wish her happy birthday.”

Mr. Symanski looks into the house to where Elizabeth would usually sit, her head lowered, not noticing someone at the door. The living room is dark. One of Ewa’s crocheted blankets lies across the sofa where Mr. Symanski was probably napping. No smell of anything baking in the oven. No radio. No voices.

“Elizabeth is being with you?”

James begins the search in the backyard. He starts in the garage, where it stays cool even on the hottest days, and checks behind the weeping forsythia that grows along the back porch. And while James searches outside, Grace helps Mr. Symanski to a seat in the kitchen and then hurries through the house, both hands supporting her heavy stomach. She opens every door, leans into each stale room, calls out Elizabeth’s name. She checks every closet, waves away the smell of mothballs that reminds her of Ewa. In the bedrooms, she checks under the beds, brushing aside the cobwebs that cling to her forehead and coughing at the dust kicked up when she throws back the patchwork quilts and lifts the lace bed skirts. She calls the neighbors, one on each side. They call more neighbors, and they, still more. The husbands set aside their newspapers and shut down their televisions. Ladies leave the dishes not yet washed and the laundry not yet folded. From upstairs, from down the hall, from in the cellar, Grace calls out for Mr. Symanski to stay put. Don’t worry. You know how she sometimes wanders. We’ll find her. We’ll find her in no time.

In the Symanskis’ front yard, James gathers the neighbors, and on the back of an envelope, he sketches Alder Avenue and Marietta one block to the south and Tuttle one block to the north. He draws six boxes, dividing up the area, assigns one man to each and tells them, “Get together as much help as you can. She’s small, you know. Check every porch, every garage. Behind bushes. Inside cars. She might be scared. Might want to hide.”

The men separate themselves into groups and some run north, while others run south. One group lingers and Orin Schofield gathers them across the street from the Filmore Apartments. Orin lives two houses down from Grace and James on the opposite side of the alley. He lost his wife three years ago. Grace takes him a roast with carrots and new potatoes the first and third Sunday of every month, always the same thing because it’s one of the few dishes she can count on to turn out well for her, and while she cleans his kitchen, he talks about moving south to live with his daughter.

“I’d bet good money someone in there can tell you the girl’s whereabouts,” Orin shouts, pointing toward the Filmore. The top of his balding head is red though the sun has fallen low in the sky. If she could, Grace would tell him to take himself inside and sit in front of the fan. Your heart, she would tell him. The strain is no good for your heart. Continuing to shout, Orin shuffles up and down the sidewalk, dragging his tan suede shoes. Blue trousers pool at his ankles. As he walks, he leans on a three-foot-long scrap of wood as if it were a cane. James helped Orin replace the joists on his back porch last summer. The wood must be a leftover. Lifting the wood and stabbing it toward the apartments, Orin shouts again, “Good money says that’s the place to look.”

The men point to each side of the simple two-story brick apartment building, seemingly most worried about the shrubs and overgrown grass that run along the west side. Around back, they’ll find a thick stand of poplars hugging a narrow stream that runs east to west. The sun has set but the sky still glows with the last of its light. They’ll want to get a good look before darkness settles in. For the past year, these neighbors have been talking, some louder than others. More than being afraid of the coloreds living in the apartments, they are afraid of one buying and moving into a house, because that would be a lasting change and their lives would never be good again, never be the same. They have to stick together. If one falls, they all fall. That’s what the loudest neighbors say. Pointing this way and that, the men, a half dozen at least, split into two groups and flank the apartment building, disappearing around back for a time, reappearing in front.

“What’d you find?” Orin shouts, waving one fist in the air.

The men hold up their hands. Nothing. Most of the apartment windows are dark. The doors remain closed. No one from the Filmore comes out.

“You’ve got to go on in there.” It’s Orin again. “Nothing’s going to stop you.”

And then the police arrive, two black-and-white cars, two officers in each. They tell the men to stay clear of the Filmore.

“No one is allowed in there,” an officer says.

Leaving the group of six to linger on the curb, Orin Schofield still shouting and wielding his plank of wood, James escorts the officers into Mr. Symanski’s house. They sit around the kitchen table, and it takes him and Grace some time to explain about Elizabeth.

“No, she’s not a child,” Grace says. “A woman. Twenty-one years old. No, twenty-two today. But she’s like a child. She’s lost all the same. I saw her last. She left my house. Walked home. It’s such a short trip. That’s the last I know.”

The police insist Mr. Symanski stay at the house and not join the other men. James agrees.

“She’ll need a friendly face when we bring her home,” James says.

“Yes,” Grace says, resting a hand on Mr. Symanski’s shoulder. “James will see to it. He’ll see Elizabeth home.”

But really James must worry about Mr. Symanski’s heart. He won’t let Grace join the search either.

“See to him,” James says, nodding at Mr. Symanski. “Put on some coffee. Answer the phone. And keep yourself in the house.”

So while James goes outside to show the officers his map, Grace hunts for the coffee. She dumps the old grounds in a can she finds under the sink, rinses and fills the pot, brews a fresh batch. In the refrigerator, she finds a loaf of bread, cheese, and the sliced roast beef she delivered this past Wednesday. Like Orin Schofield, Mr. Symanski always gets the same dish. Spreading extra butter on the sandwich, she cuts it in half and slides it toward him.

“How long since you last ate?” she asks.

Mr. Symanski looks at the small white refrigerator as if it might give him the answer. “I am not knowing,” he says, then picks up one half of the sandwich but doesn’t take a bite.

Not worried that coffee will keep Mr. Symanski awake tonight, Grace pours him a cup. No one will sleep until Elizabeth is home. She adds cream and two sugars because that’s the way James takes it, and presses one of Mr. Symanski’s hands between both of hers. Perhaps Mr. Symanski would prefer bourbon, but James said coffee.

“Please,” she says. “You really should eat.”

As more people arrive to help in the search, Grace points them toward the police cars parked outside the house. One officer stands there, talking into a small radio. Grace calls after each neighbor, reminding him to check behind the bushes and in every garage because that’s what James said to do, and she jots down the name of every person who joins the search.

The neighbors continue to look well past dark. They carry flashlights and kerosene lanterns. Children from nearby streets swat at mosquitoes, and the ladies run home to flip on porch lights and kitchen lights, everything to light up the street for Elizabeth. Teenagers shuffle up and down Alder, the bright orange tips of their cigarettes glowing in the dark. In the kitchen, Grace scrubs the counter with baking soda while Mr. Symanski and two officers talk across the table. One officer has dark hair that curls on the ends, one strand cupping the top of his left ear. His name is Officer Warinski. The other officer, whose name is Thompson, has straight brown hair that was probably once blond, and he slouches as if he has always been the tallest. Both wear heavy, dark shoes that will leave scuff marks.

The curly-haired officer, Officer Warinski, points at Grace and then at the table. After Grace has taken a seat, the officer asks if Elizabeth would have had a plan and if anything is missing from the house that the girl might have sold for money. Hunched over the table, propped up by his elbows, his face resting in his hands, Mr. Symanski shakes his head.

“Elizabeth doesn’t know how to use money,” Grace says. “She doesn’t know what it is.”

Together, the officers, Grace, and Mr. Symanski walk to Elizabeth’s room. Again, the curly-haired Warinski does the talking. He asks if anything is missing. Officer Thompson holds a yellow pencil and a small pad of lined paper. Officer Warinski wonders aloud if Elizabeth had been planning a trip and asks Grace and Mr. Symanski for the names and telephone numbers of Elizabeth’s friends.

“She hasn’t any,” Grace says. “Only me. Me and a few of the other neighbor ladies. She’s like a child, frail, not well. You must understand that.”

Back in the kitchen, the taller officer bobs his head in the direction of the coffeepot, signaling he would like a cup. Both officers and Mr. Symanski return to their seats at the table. Officer Warinski brushes aside the curl that again grabs on to the top of his ear. He stretches his hands into the air, cups his head, and tilts his chair, balancing on the two hind legs. His skin is smooth like a boy’s.

“One more time,” he says to Grace. “You last saw her when?”

Placing an empty cup in front of each officer and pouring until both are full, Grace glances at Mr. Symanski. He stares down into his own empty cup, his hands wrapped around it as if warming himself. Grace pushes the sugar bowl and creamer across the table toward the officers.

“She comes every day for lunch,” Grace says. “Like always, she came. It gives Mr. Symanski time to catch up on chores or to nap. I rang him when she arrived and later sent her away because of all the talk.”

“The talk?”

“Talk of the woman found dead on Willingham Avenue. Most of our husbands, they work down there. Elizabeth left me at about one thirty. I rang Mr. Symanski again. One ring on the telephone to let him know she was on her way.”

Across the table, Mr. Symanski’s silver hair has fallen across his forehead and into his eyes.

“But I got busy,” Grace says. “I think he never rang back. I’m supposed to listen for him to ring back so I know she made it home.”

The curly-haired Warinski asks twice about the telephone rings that Grace and Mr. Symanski exchange. Grace explains that in the year since Ewa died, Grace and Mr. Symanski have taken to trading rings to signal Elizabeth’s safe arrival. She wanders too far sometimes, twice walking past Grace’s house, going as far as Woodward before she was spotted. The officer squints at Grace. He doesn’t understand.

“Elizabeth wanders. Those rings, it’s how we know she’s safe. We ring when she leaves or when she arrives. The other rings back to signal she made it safe and sound.”

“And did you ring Mrs. Richardson?” the officer asks Mr. Symanski. Before Mr. Symanski can answer, the officer says to Grace, “Did he ring to signal that the girl was on her way for lunch? Did he ring that she made it home? Did he ever ring?”

Grace shakes her head. She’s certain she phoned Mr. Symanski after Julia and Elizabeth left the house. She must be certain. She let it ring once just as she always does, but did he ring her back? Did he ever ring her at all? Did he know Elizabeth had come? Did he know she left his house?

“I don’t know,” Grace finally says, rubbing one palm to the bridge of her nose. “I don’t remember. But I rang when she arrived and when she left. I know I did. I’m certain of it.”

The taller officer slouches even when seated. He reaches across the table and taps his pencil in front of Mr. Symanski. “Sir?”

“I can’t remember things,” Mr. Symanski says. “It is being so shameful I can’t remember. I was sleeping. Sometimes I am sleeping too long.”

“So,” Officer Warinski says. He leans forward, the chair’s front legs hitting the linoleum with a thud. “Elizabeth made her own way home when she left your house?”

Grace starts to say yes but stops. She mirrors the officer’s movement, slides forward on her chair and presses her hands flat on the tabletop.

“No,” she says. “No, she didn’t. I asked Julia Wagner to see Elizabeth home. She didn’t stay for lunch. The twins, Julia’s nieces, are here. She had to get home to them. Julia saw Elizabeth last.”

Officer Thompson stands and says he will go speak to Mrs. Wagner. Grace is relieved, happy that this thing she has remembered will amount to something good. Julia will be able to tell them what happened. She’ll be able to help.

When the officers have left the house, Grace helps Mr. Symanski into the living room. He sits in Ewa’s chair. Grace sits on the tweed sofa, where she is close enough to reach out and pat his knee.

“Today is being Elizabeth’s birthday, you know,” Mr. Symanski says.

Grace nods to make him think she remembered even though she hadn’t. She hadn’t remembered because she’d been thinking about pierogi and those women on Willingham and how best to distract Julia from memories of her daughter. The lavender dress should have reminded Grace sooner. Mr. Symanski sinks into the chair that is too large for him and rests his cheek on one of the cushions as if it were Ewa’s shoulder.

“I’m sure she’ll be home soon,” Grace says, placing a hand on Mr. Symanski’s knee. It’s like a small wooden knob under her fingers. “You know James. He’ll take care of this.”

James always knows what to do, how to fix things, how to make things right. When the car sputters, he knows which tool to use and what needs to be tightened or replaced. When the water heater stops warming, he tinkers until it works. When the television shows only static, he knows just how to turn the antennae. When, after five years, Grace still wasn’t pregnant, he insisted no wife of his would have such worries. He scolded her when she cried over it, promised to stay no matter how many years passed, and eventually he put an end to that problem too and gave Grace a baby.

“He’ll have Elizabeth home in no time,” Grace says. “I have brownies for her. And I know how she loves the ice cream. She’ll be home before you know it.”

Mr. Symanski takes a sip from his coffee. “I’m feeling she won’t,” he says, staring at a blank wall. “I’m feeling very badly she won’t ever come home.”

It’s well past bedtime for Izzy and Arie, short for Isabelle and Arabelle, when they tiptoe down Aunt Julia’s stairs. Both of them wear nightgowns yellowed at the seams where Grandma used too much bleach. They stare straight ahead as they pass through the entry so they won’t be tempted to glance at the telephone. Mrs. Witherspoon, Grandma’s neighbor, promised to call if their cat turned up. Patches is her name. She ran away from Grandma’s house two weeks ago. Grandma said it’s what cats do when the weather turns warm and not to worry. Now that Elizabeth Symanski is missing, the girls shouldn’t be concerning themselves with a cat, but they didn’t know Elizabeth all that well, and they’d had Patches for almost a year. One thing’s for sure, though. Staring at a phone won’t make it ring. Once in the living room, where Aunt Julia says they can all wait together until Elizabeth comes home, the girls sit. Their bare calves hang over the side of the loveseat, and their feet dangle, nearly touching the floor, but not quite. Next year, they’ll reach.

Every summer since before they can remember, the girls have looked forward to visiting Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill. Back home, where the twins live the rest of the year with Grandma, they are almost never allowed out of the yard, especially when the weather warms up. It’s the polio, Grandma always says. No sense tempting fate. Now, here they are, cooped up just like at Grandma’s. Every other summer, Friday night at Aunt Julia’s meant an evening at Sanders. That’s the real reason the girls packed their store-bought dresses. They would sit, the girls, Uncle Bill, and Aunt Julia, at the Sanders counter, and as Uncle Bill ordered from the man wearing an apron and small white hat, Aunt Julia would scold the girls for twirling on the round stools. Then they’d all eat hot-fudge sundaes from fluted glass dishes.

Outside Aunt Julia’s front window, streams of yellow thrown from flashlights drift back and forth across the lawn. Dry grass crackles under heavy boots, and as broad-shouldered shadows glide past the windows, voices call out to Elizabeth. Mostly men’s voices, deep and scratchy. Some are close, next door or down the street. Others are muffled, as if coming from a block or two away. The quieter voices are harder to listen to. They mean the men have traveled farther and farther away, thinking Elizabeth has done the same. The quieter voices come from someplace dark, where all the porch lights aren’t shining and the front doors don’t stand wide open. The quieter voices mean maybe Elizabeth won’t be found as quickly as Aunt Julia thought. The twins, and Aunt Julia, too, are waiting for silence, because silence will mean the men, whether near or far, have stopped shouting and Elizabeth has been found. Silence will be a good thing.

“What will Elizabeth do?” Izzy says, turning her back on the telephone so she won’t be tempted to think about Patches or warm, bittersweet chocolate. Her stomach clenches and reminds her they skipped supper. Another great thing about Aunt Julia’s house is the food. She cooks as well as Grandma, maybe better, and never insists on clean plates and always makes enough for seconds. Food isn’t such a chore at Aunt Julia’s house. “When it’s time for bed,” Izzy says, “what will she do?”

Izzy’s damp red hair hangs in strands over her shoulders, the ends frayed where she didn’t bother to comb through them after her bath. Grandma is always shouting-Izzy, get busy. Izzy, get busy brushing your hair. Izzy, get busy making your bed. Izzy, get busy. Arie’s hair is nearly dry because she is better about scrubbing it with a towel. No one ever shouts at Arie to get busy.

“What do you mean, sugar?” Aunt Julia says.

“What will Elizabeth do without a bed to sleep in?” Arie says before Izzy can answer for herself.

Izzy stares hard at Arie and shakes her head. Grandma doesn’t like it when they do things like finish each other’s sentences and thoughts. She says it feels like something the good Lord didn’t intend. Scooting to the edge of the sofa so she doesn’t have to look Izzy in the eye, Arie begins rubbing the ends of her fingers, one after the other, no doubt wishing she held Grandma’s rosary in her hands so she could rub its smooth, ivory-colored beads instead of her own fingertips. But the rosary is upstairs, hanging from Arie’s headboard, where she has kept it since they arrived.

“I believe Elizabeth will sleep in her own bed tonight,” Aunt Julia says. She stands, tugging at her slim skirt where it buckles on her hips, and walks over to the front door. “I was with her just this afternoon at Mrs. Richardson’s. She’ll be happy as can be to see you two.” Pushing open the screen door, Aunt Julia leans out and looks up and down the street. “I bet she’d be pleased to help you find that cat of yours. Just as soon as she’s home, we’ll all go together. We’ll take out the sedan, drive over to Grandma’s, and have a look around.”

Outside, a few doors slam shut and, soon after, engines fire up, rumble, and fade as the cars roll down the street. The bushes along the west side of the house rustle. The men are kicking them or swatting at them with yardsticks. They must think Elizabeth is hiding there. Aunt Julia rubs her thin reddish eyebrows, inhales a deep breath, spins around on one heel, and returns to her seat at the larger sofa. Deep voices continue to call out to Elizabeth. “Come on home,” they shout. “Supper’s on the table.” Following Aunt Julia’s example, the girls rest their hands in their laps, cross their ankles, and sit with a straight back.

As the twins stare out the front window, Aunt Julia trying to smile each time they glance her way, they realize the neighborhood is quiet. The voices have stopped calling. The girls close their eyes and each takes a breath, together at the same time because that’s how it works between them. They don’t want to hear another man shout out that supper is waiting or that Papa is home and misses his Elizabeth. After a few more moments of silence, the twins open their eyes, look at each other and then at Aunt Julia. Arie squirms to the edge of the loveseat, stands, and leaps into the center of the room. She claps her hands together and draws them to her chest. Aunt Julia smiles, shows her teeth. She hears the silence too. All three turn when a heavy foot hits the front porch. Aunt Julia jumps from the sofa.

Uncle Bill’s head is the first thing to poke through the open screen door. He’s wearing his black Tigers cap, the same one he pulls on every night as soon as he gets home from work. His hair is almost as dark as that hat. He crosses into the house, his black steel-toed work boots clumping on the wooden floor, and as he passes Arie, still standing in the center of the room, he scoops her up with one arm, cradles her to his side, and together they drop down on the large sofa opposite Izzy. Aunt Julia closes her eyes and exhales a long breath. Taking steps that make no noise at all, she follows Uncle Bill and sits next to him. Uncle Bill wraps his other arm around Aunt Julia, settling back into the sofa’s deep, square cushions, dragging her with him. She laughs and slaps at his chest, but not slaps that would hurt. Then she leans into him, lets her head rest on his shoulder, and seems to forget for a moment that the twins are in the room.

“I’m so relieved,” Aunt Julia says, sinking into Uncle Bill’s side.

Grandma says the girls are the spitting image of their mother, but Izzy and Arie don’t know their mother. Grandma says take a gander at your aunt Julia. That’s close enough. Izzy resists a peek at her own flat chest. There is no chance Aunt Julia ever looked like Izzy and Arie and no chance Izzy and Arie will ever grow to look like Aunt Julia.

Stretching an arm around Uncle Bill’s waist, Aunt Julia hooks a finger through one of his belt loops. “Where was she?”

Uncle Bill kisses the top of Arie’s head and winks at Izzy across the room. It’s not too late, yet. Maybe there will still be time for a drive downtown and chocolate sundaes. When Uncle Bill doesn’t answer, Aunt Julia unhooks her finger, slides to the edge of the sofa, and shifts in her seat so she can face him square-on.

“You found her, didn’t you?” Aunt Julia’s voice becomes thick and slow. Her Southern roots have a way of breaking ground whenever she gets especially worked up. “That’s why you’re home, right? You found Elizabeth.”

Arie pokes Uncle Bill and points at the cap he still wears even though he’s inside. Uncle Bill gives her the same wink he gave Izzy and snaps the bill of his cap between two fingers. It flips off his head, spins end over end, and lands in his lap.

“Not yet,” he says, pinching the tip of Arie’s chin.

“What do you mean, not yet?” Aunt Julia stands and stares down on Uncle Bill. “It’s pitch-black out there. She has to be home.”

Uncle Bill pats the cushion next to him, and when Aunt Julia sits again, he pats her knee. “We’ve stirred up a hornets’ nest, girls,” he says, rubbing his rough face against Arie’s cheek. He’s done that to Izzy before so she knows why Arie tucks her chin and giggles. Izzy touches a hand to her own cheek because she can almost feel it too. “You’re going to have to stay close to home for a while.”

“Grandma says hornets will leave us well enough alone if we leave them well enough alone,” Izzy says.

“Not that kind of hornets, kiddo.”

“What is it, Bill?” Aunt Julia says.

“A lot of angry words being tossed around down at the Filmore. Best the girls stay close to home until Elizabeth is found.”

The Filmore Apartments are the reason Grandma almost didn’t let Izzy and Arie come to Aunt Julia’s this year. Coloreds live there, and Grandma said it’s only a matter of time now. If people are throwing around angry words, that must mean they think the coloreds have been stirring up trouble and maybe they stirred up trouble for Elizabeth. Maybe she didn’t wander off like Aunt Julia thinks she did.

“What about our cat?” Izzy says. The words pop out before she can stop them. It’s easier to think about a lost cat than a lost person. “If we can’t leave the house, we can’t very well find her. Isn’t that right? You’re saying we can’t look for Patches.”

“It’ll only be for a short time,” Uncle Bill says. “You can put out food on the back porch. Milk, maybe. Cats like milk. Try to tempt her home.”

Izzy stands and takes a few steps toward Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill. “Couple days won’t hurt, I guess,” she says, but before she can finish, Uncle Bill wraps one long arm around her waist and scoops her up too.

“But no leaving the house without Aunt Julia’s permission,” he says, rubbing his day-old beard against Izzy’s cheek like he did Arie’s. “Understood?”

Like Arie, Izzy tucks her chin and laughs.

Together, the twins say, “Understood.”

“So you’ll go back now?” Aunt Julia says. “You’ll go and help the others.” She stands again and smooths her skirt. Every part of Aunt Julia is plentiful and round. She is forever reattaching buttons and stitching up stressed seams. “You should get going. The girls and I will be fine.”

Uncle Bill squeezes the twins close and talks over Izzy’s head. “There’s one more thing, Julia. It’s the police. There’s a fellow outside, an officer. He’d like to talk to you.”

“To me?”

Uncle Bill nods. “I’ll come with you. You girls are fine here for a few minutes, aren’t you?”

“No,” Aunt Julia says. She waves a hand at the three of them and smiles but doesn’t show her teeth this time. “I’m happy to talk with him. You all stay put.”

It’s been one full day since Elizabeth disappeared. Grace stands at the kitchen window, both hands resting on her hard, round stomach, and looks onto the dark alley, hoping Elizabeth will shuffle out from behind the garage, her arms stiff at her sides, her head lowered. But there is no one. The night air is cool and motionless. Inside, the oven clicks and heats the house, filling it with the smell of apple-banana muffins. Grace gathers her hair on top of her head, twists it, pins it in place, and turns her face toward the small fan Mother placed in the open window. The fan rotates from side to side, drawing in the outside air, cooling Grace’s face and neck.

The neighborhood is quiet because after a full twenty-four hours, no one expects to find Elizabeth on Alder Avenue. The search has moved north and south, east and west. After the first night, James brought home maps of the city, and like he did on the back of an envelope, he drew boxes, numbered them, and wrote men’s names inside each. When Saturday morning broke, everyone piled in their cars and congregated at the church. James separated the men and told them where to go. All day, they searched. They walked along Woodward Avenue, stopping in every shop, store, or restaurant to ask if anyone had seen Elizabeth. They knocked on doors, asked neighbors to unlock sheds, and pressed their faces to the windows of parked cars. For now, no one is talking about who killed that woman on Willingham or if men will lose jobs for taking up with colored prostitutes. All is forgotten until Elizabeth comes home.

Grace spent the day at the church with the other ladies while the men searched. The ladies gathered in the basement and kept the coffee brewing and plenty of hot food at the ready. But at five o’clock, James took Grace home because her ankles and fingers had swelled and she was kneading her back with her fists. “No more,” he had said as he pulled into their driveway and left the car to idle. “You’ll stay home from now on, for the good of the baby.” He loves Grace, wants only to protect her and the baby they have dreamed of for five years. It’s all Grace has ever wanted-a man and a child to love. Now she has both. Maybe it’s too much. Maybe it’s more joy than one woman should have and that’s why this bad thing has come into their lives. “You and your mother stay with the phone,” James had said before leaving Grace and returning to the search. “Call the hospitals again. You never know.” And then he had held Grace’s face in his two hands, made her meet his eyes with hers, and said, “You have to stop blaming yourself. You know how she wanders. Don’t worry. I’ll find her.”

It’s well after dark when the ticking from the small timer over the stove begins to slow. It stops altogether and dings. Mother pulls a tray of muffins from the oven and sets them on the table. She’ll take them to the church in the morning. If Elizabeth is found tonight, and surely she will be, the muffins freeze well, so there’s no harm in making as many as they can manage.

“They’re dry,” Mother says, tapping the top of each muffin. “Told you those bananas weren’t ripe enough.” Her silver hair is pulled back as it always is for baking and she wears a loose gray duster. “I’ll have a new batch in the oven in no time.”

“Don’t throw them out,” Grace says. “We’ll need as many as we can bake.”

But even as Grace says it, Mother dumps the silver tray and a dozen muffins tumble into the trash can sitting near the back door.

“Put yourself to use,” Mother says, poking her fork at the overflowing garbage and then at the screen door. “Go on and take that out before it draws bugs.”

Grace gathers the trash can and pushes open the door. At her last appointment, Dr. Hirsh said her joints would start to loosen soon to make room for the baby. He warned her to take care she didn’t stumble into a nasty fall. The baby is growing heavier every day. She is especially heavy late in the afternoon and into the evening, so with her free hand Grace holds the metal railing and carefully makes her way down the three concrete stairs, testing each with her toe before stepping down with her full weight.

Any moment, news will come that Elizabeth has been found. Life will resume. Mother will return to her own house east of Woodward. James will fix the leak in the hot-water faucet upstairs, tighten the banister, trim the back bushes, so things will be just right before the baby arrives. Grace will wash all the diapers, blankets, and clothes the neighbor ladies have passed on. She will fold them, each one carefully, all the while talking to her baby girl, telling her about her new room; her strong, handsome daddy; the patch of green grass in the backyard where she will hopefully play next spring in the shade of the maple tree. Though James is rooting for a boy, because every husband does, Grace knows she is carrying a little girl, has known it from the first flutter, and once James sees the tiny face, he will love his baby girl as he loves his wife.

Outside, all up and down Alder, the houses, though empty because everyone has joined the search, are lighted up in hopes Elizabeth will find her way home. Rounding the back of the house, Grace listens for the deep voices she sometimes hears late at night. As she nears the garage, the light from the kitchen throwing a dim glow into the alley, she sees their glass. There’s more every day. Tomorrow, Grace will pick it all up and not tell James. She jerks her head left, thinking that was the sound of gravel being crushed by a heavy foot, and then right, thinking something or someone has rattled a doorknob.

Bracing the trash can against one hip, Grace backs toward the garage. The porch lights throw odd shadows, some long and thin that stretch across the ground, others round and broad that crouch at the alley’s edge. Only when she notices the Williamsons’ house does she exhale and realize she had been holding her breath. A light shines in Mrs. Williamson’s kitchen window and in an upstairs bedroom, where Mr. Williamson listens to his ball games. Not everyone has gone to the church. Some of the older folks have stayed behind. Those are probably the sounds of Mrs. Williamson fussing about in her cabinets or washing the supper dishes. On such a lovely evening, she would have left her windows open and noise does have a peculiar way of traveling among the tightly knit houses. But there is that sound again-tiny bits of gravel crushed under a heavy foot.

While the adults spent the day at the church, Arie and Izzy stayed inside like they promised. Mostly they stayed in their room and looked out the window onto Alder Avenue, hoping to see something, anything. Down on Woodward, the hum of traffic built as the day wore on, and the faster the traffic soared by and the more cars that piled up, the louder the hum became and the more Arie and Izzy felt themselves left behind. When, after an entire afternoon, they saw nothing down on Alder except a few cars and one stray dog, they gave up on the window and plugged in their record player. Sitting like a small black suitcase on the end of Izzy’s bed, it had been waiting for the girls when they first arrived at Aunt Julia’s house. A gift for both of them. Propped up next to the small case had been a Tune Tote carrier filled with 45s. All afternoon, Arie spun those records, always especially careful when she lifted the needle at the end of a song so as to not scratch the vinyl. She wanted the music to last. Not that she really cared much for the records. None of her favorites were inside the pink carrying case anyway. It was mostly full of Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra. What Arie did care about was making Izzy happy again so she didn’t do anything to cross Uncle Bill and Aunt Julia.

Song after song, Arie rolled the small knob on the record player, making the music louder and louder so Izzy would dance and spin and stop thinking about Elizabeth and their lost cat. Izzy had been sulking ever since Uncle Bill made them cross their hearts and swear to stay inside and not go searching. But listening to records, no matter how loudly, did not make Izzy forget and they did not make her happy, and what Arie feared all day finally happened after Uncle Bill checked in for the last time. He said he and Aunt Julia would be back home in an hour or so and that Izzy and Arie should behave until then. Even before Uncle Bill was out the door, Arie knew Izzy had a plan.

“Who’ll ever know?” Izzy says. “It’s dark now. No one’ll see us and we’ll be back long before Uncle Bill and Aunt Julia come home. We’ll look for Elizabeth, but we might find Patches, too. Happens all the time. Animals follow their people all the way across the country, so why not to the other side of Woodward? Street’s so quiet, we just might find them both.”

Arie agrees only when Izzy threatens to go with or without her. Together, they slip on their sneakers in case they have to do some running and decide to leave the house through the kitchen door. Less noticeable than the front. Arie goes first and Izzy follows, letting the screen slap shut. Arie scolds her with a shake of her head, but before she can follow up with a reminder to be quiet, Izzy yanks her down the stairs. They run across the backyard, brightly lit because Aunt Julia made sure both the front and back porch lights were switched on and that both bulbs were fresh. She didn’t want one burning out when they were most needed. They run until they reach the shadows thrown by Uncle Bill’s garage, Izzy dragging Arie all the way, and once there, they flatten themselves against the rough siding. Both breathe deeply. Their chests pound up and down, not so much from the long run, because it wasn’t so long, but because sneaking outside and running into the dark and listening for any sound at all on the empty street and hearing not one thing are all scary enough to make every breath hard to find.

“I’m not going on the street,” Arie whispers, one hand pressed to her chest to slow her heart. “Someone’s sure to see us out there.”

The garage scratches their bare shoulders and arms. They should have thought to put on long sleeves. The air is always cooler when the sun sets, so they should have known. Arie shivers, partly because of the cold but mostly because of the dark.

“Then I’ll search the street by myself.” Izzy talks a little too loudly, as if trying to fool herself and Arie into believing there is nothing to fear. “You check the alley,” she says, and begins to slide her feet, one after the other, toward the far end of the garage. “Nobody’ll see you back there. Be sure you kick all the bushes. We’ll meet here in fifteen minutes.”

Arie waves at Izzy to come back. She wants to ask what will happen if she kicks a bush and accidentally kicks Elizabeth or their cat or something else entirely. But before Arie can ask, Izzy has disappeared around the side of Aunt Julia’s house. Another question Arie should have asked is how are they to know when fifteen minutes is up. Neither of them wears a watch, so how are they to know? One thing she is certain of-she won’t be kicking anything. She’ll walk to the end of the next block and back again. That’s not so far, and when she returns long before Izzy, Arie will lie and say she only just got back too.

Stepping into the alley, Arie immediately drifts toward the middle. Even though the edges are more brightly lit, something or someone could hide along the edges. The center feels safer, like whatever might be hiding would have to jump out at her, giving her time to run for home. She continues walking, letting her eyes roll from left to right and, every few yards, checks behind her. It used to be, on a night like this, Arie would watch the dark sky for hours, hoping for a glimpse of that Russian rocket. She imagined it would look like a bolt of lightning, shooting from one end of the sky to the other. She stopped watching and stopped hoping the dog inside was alive when her teacher said the ship had fallen back to Earth. She forgets sometimes, on a night like tonight when the sky is especially dark, and still looks up, hoping to see that bright light.

When she reaches the Obermires’ house, she stops walking. They don’t have a garage, and Arie can see between the houses all the way to the street. No sign of Izzy. She takes a few more steps, keeping her eyes on the space between the houses as long as she can. She’s going to watch the street until she can’t see it anymore and then she’s going to run as fast as she can all the way to the end of the next block. It doesn’t matter how tired she gets or how much her feet burn or her lungs ache. She won’t stop running until she’s standing back at Uncle Bill’s garage. Buckling up her fists, she dips her head, takes three long strides, and stops.

He must have stepped out of the shadows hanging over the Richardsons’ garage and into the center of the alley because Arie would have seen him if he’d been there all along. He’s only a house and a half away. She would have seen him. She backs up a few feet and stops again when he lifts a hand. He holds it out like a stop sign and leans as if he’s talking to someone inside the garage. He straightens. He’s a solid shadow with arms and legs. He waves a hand like he’s swatting away a bug. He means for her to slip over to the side of the alley. He means for her to hide. He leans again, straightens again, and this time, touches a finger to his lips to silence her.

Grandma would call this prairie grass. No one must mow back here. Mrs. Schofield died and Mr. Schofield doesn’t care about the overgrown grass. Arie parts the tall stalks and pushes her way through, wishing again she’d changed into slacks and long sleeves. She slides down the side of the garage and squats there. Her breath is too loud. It rushes down into her lungs and back up again. She cups one hand over her mouth and wraps the other around her knees. The garage digs into the knobs of her backbone.

The man who was a shadow stands at the Richardsons’ garage. Mrs. Richardson is Aunt Julia’s best friend. Her blond hair is almost white and always smooth no matter what the weather is like, and in a few months, she’s going to have a baby. Izzy and Arie both agree: if they could look like someone, anyone, they would look like Mrs. Richardson. The man leans into the garage again, tilts his head in Arie’s direction, and when he straightens, two more men walk out. One of them is the same size as the man who waved Arie away, and the third is taller-taller even than Uncle Bill.

When the men have taken a few steps in Arie’s direction, she tucks her head and hides her eyes. Air races through her body, much too loudly, so loudly they’ll hear her. Count to twenty. Count to twenty and they’ll be gone. But the counting makes her dizzy. She holds her breath. Gravel crunches and tiny rocks bounce across the hard dirt path as they’re kicked about. The footsteps stop. Arie lifts her eyes. The group stands a few feet beyond her hiding place. One of them, the largest, stoops and picks up something from the ground near his feet. The other two walk on down the alley while the largest rears back and throws. Glass shatters and the three men take off running.

Izzy will be back soon. After fifteen minutes, she’ll come back and she’ll press herself against Uncle Bill’s garage where they started out, where she’ll be hidden from the men. Arie tries to count again, but her hot breath and the garage digging into her back and the stalks poking and scratching her arms make her want to cry and she can’t count when she’s crying. Somewhere close by, a door opens and heavy boots hit a wooden porch. Arie cups both hands over her mouth.

At the far end of the alley, where it meets up with Woodward, the men run around the corner. They’re gone. Arie unfolds her legs, rubs her hands over the scratches on her arms, and lifts one foot and then the next up and over the tall grass. Inside the Richardsons’ garage, something bangs about, not loudly, but quietly, as if someone is trying not to bang about at all. There is a thin, soft groan. Someone standing. Arie backs away from Mrs. Richardson’s garage, swings around, and runs for home.

Inside the empty garage, Grace’s skin cools. The men are gone. Somewhere down the street, glass breaks. Then silence. She inhales, exhales-only the sound of her own breath. Next to James’s car, green glass sparkles where the moonlight hits it. His car doesn’t have the sharp angles or sparkling chrome of some of the newer models. Its back end is rounded; its nose, short and blunt. Rolling onto her side, she pulls up her knees as high as her belly will allow and gathers the front of her blouse. Mother’s lace hangs in shredded pieces. Grace places her other hand on her baby. The doctor said she would drop in another month or so and begin to position herself for birth.

Piecing her blouse together, Grace pushes herself off the ground. The kitchen trash can lies on its side. The dry muffins are scattered across the dirt floor. A few have rolled under James’s car. A few more have been trampled, mashed into the ground. Clutching Mother’s ruined lace in one hand, Grace uses the other to pick up the muffins, even the few that are no more than crumbs, and empties the trash in the second silver garbage can.

Outside the garage, the alley is empty and dark as if the men were never there. Beyond the house, the lights from the street make her blink. She closes her eyes, breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth. Sulfur hangs in the air. She heard them earlier in the evening, fireworks crackling a few blocks over. They start earlier every year, kids and their firecrackers. Every July 4, she and James board the Ste. Claire at the foot of Woodward and travel down the Detroit River. It’s where they first met. This summer, because of the baby, James says they might need to skip a year.

She was ten that Fourth of July; James, eighteen. He says he remembers her, even as a child. That’s romance, and not reason, talking. Grace had stood among the adults and other fidgeting children, the wooden gangplank underfoot, and for a time, thought only of the cold river water below. Those are her first memories of the Ste. Claire-the tingle in her stomach when her feet hit the hollow wooden planks, the fear of plunging into the cold water below, and the sharp, sweet smell of sulfur. The ship’s horn soon followed, a deep blast. Mother said, because she said the same every year, that it was a sorrowful sound and this was no time for sorrow.

Because she was ten, Grace was too old to run ahead of her parents. In years past, she would leave Mother’s side and weave in and out of the other passengers to reach the front of the line. Being one of the first on the ship meant the brass railing leading to the upper deck would be untouched, unblemished, and the mahogany woodwork would shine. But it was high time Grace behave like a lady, and being a lady meant she wouldn’t be one of the first aboard. All the hands of the passengers who came before her would ruin that perfect shine. The year she was ten, she stood in line, hopping from one foot to the other, one gloved hand tucked inside Mother’s, already sorry for what she would see when she stepped aboard.

The ladies, all ages, who waited alongside Grace stood a little taller that year, as if preparing for something. Mother said the whole country was bracing itself and had good reason to shore up its footing. Grace didn’t know what that meant or why the country needed a sound foothold, but the spirit of those ladies with their full sleeves and cinched waists and hair that hung loosely over one eye and down their backs lifted her up. She walked with her shoulders back and her head high and wished her dress weren’t one sewn for a child.

The men who boarded the Ste. Claire, that year and every other year, wore suits because when the sun set, a band would play on the upper deck. As the engines churned and the music throbbed, the gentlemen would wrap their arms around the ladies’ tiny bound waists and spin them across a dance floor polished with cornmeal. This was where Grace first saw James, his right hand cradling the small of a young woman’s back and his left hand wrapped around hers. Their feet floated across the glossy floor, and with each spin, he pulled her closer. He was tall, taller than every girl wearing her best heels, and his shoulders were broad and full and one dark curl fell across his forehead, tossed out of place by the spinning and twirling.

As he danced, James had laughed easily with the girl he held in his arms, perhaps too easily. He laughed as if she were a sister, and each time he did, the girl’s frown deepened. Grace noticed him because of the easy laugh. She always covered her mouth when she laughed. But he laid his head back and opened his mouth wide, not afraid of who might hear or who might see. She felt certain he would be a kind man, and this kindness is what she would most remember in the years to come. In the end, the girl with a hemline that floated scarcely beneath her knees and yellow hair that glowed under the overhead lights crossed her arms over her chest and flipped that yellow hair when she stomped away to find another partner. Grace had been happy to watch her go.

From somewhere north of Alder, more fireworks crackle. One shoe is gone, so she walks toward the house with an awkward gait. Step, pause. Step, pause. At the back door, she makes her way carefully up the stairs because she holds the trash can in one hand and her tattered blouse in the other. She has no free hand to hold the railing. Careful, now, the doctor had said. You don’t want to take a nasty fall.

In the kitchen, the fan still sweeps from side to side, wobbling on its stand. The oven timer beeps in a steady rhythm. Clutching her blouse in two fists, Grace sits at the table, both feet flat on the floor. She stares straight ahead at the clock over the stove. She waits to feel the familiar rumbling that means her baby girl is stretching and rolling. The fan sprays gusts of air that blow loose bits of hair across her face.

“Good Lord in heaven,” Mother says, wiping her hands on a towel as she walks into the kitchen.

Mother has already wrapped a scarf around her hair and removed her makeup for bed. She still wears her gray duster but has changed into her felt slippers. With all that’s going on, she’ll spend the night. James insisted.

“See to those muffins before they burn,” Mother says.

And then she sees Grace.

Walking around the table, her duster’s full skirt fluttering about her, Mother keeps her distance. She picks up the trash can Grace set inside the door and puts it under the sink. She silences the timer and pulls the muffins from the oven.

“Mother?”

“Come with me, child,” Mother says, holding Grace’s forearm with one hand and cupping her elbow with the other.

They walk up the stairs and into the bathroom. Grace undresses because Mother tells her to and waits while Mother runs the hot water. Soon, the tub is full and Mother leads Grace to it, holds her by the arm as she lifts one foot and then the other over the edge. Grace lowers herself, pressing one hand to the tiled wall and keeping a strong hold of Mother’s arm with the other. The warm water chokes her. She coughs into a closed fist, feels as if she might vomit. Mother rests a hand on Grace’s shoulder until the nausea passes and then hands her a bar of soap.

“Go on and clean yourself,” Mother says.

Grace’s arms float at her sides, her belly rising up between them. Mother wraps Grace’s fingers around the soap and begins to pull the gold pins from her hair. One at a time, Mother drops them on the side of the tub. A few slip over the rounded edge and fall silently to the floor where they catch in the beige bathmat. When every pin is out, Mother brushes Grace’s hair until it is smooth and pins it up again using the same pins.

“I feel the baby,” Mother says, resting one hand on Grace’s stomach, where it rises out of the warm water. The one spot that is cool. “She’s moving fine. Kicking. Do you see? Kicking hard and strong.”

Grace slides both hands over her belly. It’s hard like a shell, and after a moment of stillness, the baby shifts. Relief is the thing that makes her cry. When she first married James, the other husbands winked and slapped him on the back. Need only brush up against one this young. You’ll have yourself a son in no time. But it didn’t happen. For so many years, it didn’t happen. Grace prayed every night for a baby, lit candles at St. Alban’s, slept with a scrap of red ribbon under her pillow. She wanted a baby beyond all else, not only for herself but also for James. It will happen, James said when she cried. It will happen.

Mother helps Grace into her white cotton nightgown and into her bedroom and into her bed. She pulls up the sheet to Grace’s chin and folds back the top blanket. This is what Mother did when Grace was a child. In the window, the white sheers flutter. A breeze brushes across Grace’s face.

“I’ll tell him you’re feeling poorly, that you have a fever. I’ll tell him to sleep on the sofa.”

Grace rolls on her side and lays a hand on the baby. Another nudge from inside. “Elizabeth?” she asks.

Mother tilts her head. “Nothing. I’ve heard nothing.”

Grace wants to ask Mother if anyone searched the Symanskis’ garage even though she knows they did. She knows James looked there and others, too.

“The twins,” she says, pushing herself into a sitting position with one hand while keeping the other on the baby. “Julia left them at home tonight. She said they were old enough. She thinks they’re safe.”

“I’ll see to them,” Mother says, waving at Grace to lie back and then pulling the curtains closed, cutting off the breeze. “You stay. Rest. Hardly a mark on you. You’ll be well in the morning.”

A flick. The door closes. The room goes dark. The air is still. In the bathroom, the water drains from the tub and Mother shuffles about, probably collecting Grace’s clothes. She’ll throw them away, won’t bother to mend them.

The door opens again and light from the hallway spills into the room. Grace’s eyelids flutter.

“Did you see the color of him?” Mother asks.

Grace nods or perhaps she only blinks.

“No man wants to know this about his wife,” Mother says. “He can’t live with it. Do yourself this favor. No man wants to know.”

Surely this is what became of Elizabeth Symanski. Surely this is what she suffered.

The door closes again, and the room falls dark.

It came down directly from the bishop. A special dispensation, he called it. No Mass on this Sunday morning. Every parishioner was excused. The search for Elizabeth was far more important and wouldn’t the good Lord agree. Malina was certain He would.

This morning, Malina has flyers for the men to nail on lampposts and tape in store windows. Mr. Herze had one of the girls in his office make them on a machine at work-a perfect, crisp stack of one hundred flyers, one exactly like the next. A marvel, really, and a blessing in a situation such as this. With the stack tucked securely under one arm, Malina kicks open the kitchen door, the pan of butternut rolls she carries still warm. At the car, she sets the rolls and flyers on the backseat, tucks under her skirt, and stoops to her flowers.

The snapdragons have sprouted early this year. The red, yellow, and pink blossoms draw a colorful border that extends along the front of her property and follows the walkway to her front porch. She reaches into the towering plants and yanks out a dandelion, inspects the threadlike roots, sniffs them, and tosses the weed aside. Another strange smell, but this time, it has polluted her flowers. This is her third visit to the car, and with every trip, the smell grows more robust, as if gaining strength as the day heats up. Whatever the source, it’s not the roots of a dandelion.

All along Alder Avenue, wives click up and down their sidewalks because, although there is no Mass today, it’s Sunday and they feel obliged to wear their leather heels, slender skirts, and white gloves. They carry trays of fried chicken and meatloaves baked early this morning. Others carry desserts, finger foods the men can easily grab. Something sweet and frosted to lift their spirits. Directly across the street, a burst of laughter erupts and those two young girls tumble out of Julia Wagner’s front door. Oversize gardening gloves dangle from their hands. Their wiry arms and legs are bare. Once on the porch, where they must remember the block is praying for Elizabeth Symanski’s safe return, the twins silence themselves, walk down the stairs to the front yard, kneel on the sidewalk that leads to the street, and begin to pull weeds.

It’s been the same since the twins were three years old. Early every summer, Bill Wagner pulls in the drive in time for supper and two girls crawl out of his backseat. When they were younger, they would wear sweet plaid dresses with puffed sleeves and Peter Pan collars. Wearing a full bib apron, Julia would greet them and kiss each on top of her head. But this year, instead of lace-trimmed dresses worn thin at the seams, the girls wear matching navy shorts and blue-and-white striped blouses. Malina didn’t get a good look at the one she saw last night because it was too dark, but this morning, it’s apparent they’ve grown up in the past year. They’ve let their red hair grow well beyond their shoulders and their cheeks have thinned out. It’s also apparent their skin is a darker shade. Obviously they are allowed to play outside unattended for hours each day. Their legs, too, are changed. They are longer, thinner. Their hips, straight and narrow. Their arms, slender, even frail. They could almost be mistaken for young women.

If not for the color of their hair, they could almost be mistaken for Malina.

At the sound of her own front door opening, Malina pushes back on her knees. Mr. Herze’s hard-soled shoes hit the wooden porch. The screen door slaps shut. Staring across the street, most probably at those two girls, Mr. Herze mops his forehead with a white kerchief. He is already suffering though the day has yet to heat up. Malina greets him with a wave and lifts a forearm to wipe the perspiration from her top lip, but stops short of touching herself because that smell has grown stronger. It’s urine. She’s smelling urine.

“I’m making a mushroom soufflé this evening,” she says, staring down at her bare hands. Someone has urinated on her flowers. “I hope you’ll be able to make it home for supper. These long days will take their toll.”

Without bothering to lock the front door, Mr. Herze marches across the porch and stomps down the stairs and toward the street. “Not in my yard, Jerry Lawson,” he shouts.

Malina stands, holding her arms out to her sides so as not to touch herself with soiled hands, and looks for what has drawn Mr. Herze’s attention. It’s Jerry Lawson, coming at them from across the street. He wears blue-and-white broadcloth boxers and a V-neck cotton undershirt. At the curb, Mr. Herze stops, stretches his shoulders back, which causes his large stomach to jut out, and lifts a flattened palm toward Jerry, who is fast approaching.

“Don’t you come any closer,” Mr. Herze says.

Jerry stops in the middle of the street. His lower jaw is gray with a heavy shadow. His undershirt is untucked; his boxers, rumpled. He wears only stockings on his feet. Across the street, the twins have disappeared inside. Jerry reaches out to Mr. Herze, not to shake hands, but as if he wants to brace himself on Mr. Herze’s arm.

“What is a man if he doesn’t have a job?” Jerry says.

Mr. Herze yanks Jerry toward him until they are standing close enough to whisper. Mr. Herze does most of the talking, though Malina can’t hear what is being said. He points toward the Lawsons’ home and shakes his head a few times.

“Wait,” Jerry shouts when Mr. Herze begins to walk away.

Mr. Herze stops, exhales, and circles back.

Jerry points at Malina, directly at Malina, and takes one step toward her.

“She knows,” he says. “Mrs. Herze knows.”

Malina slides next to the car, putting it between her and Jerry. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“You saw me,” Jerry says.

Mr. Herze jams a hand in the center of Jerry’s chest, preventing him from moving any closer to Malina.

“Tell him,” Jerry says. “Tell him you saw me from your car. I waved at you and you waved back.”

Malina leans into the sedan, not at all worried her yellow dress will pick up dust or grime. “What is all this about, Warren?” she says. “What ever has gotten into him?” She glances at the neighbors on either side, wondering who might hear. Most have already left for the church.

Mr. Herze drops the hand from Jerry’s chest and turns to Malina.

“I know you saw me,” Jerry says, stepping up beside Mr. Herze. “That Wednesday night. It was nearly eleven o’clock. I was here, in my very own driveway. You were driving that car.”

Mr. Herze stretches one arm across Jerry’s path but he keeps his eyes on Malina. “Malina?” he says.

“Yes,” Jerry says. “You remember. Betty was walking Cynthia. Pushing her in the stroller. I was nowhere near Willingham. Nowhere near that woman. Tell him, Mrs. Herze.”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Mr. Lawson,” Malina says. This is why the counting and breathing don’t work. There’s never time. Shielding her eyes from the scantily clad Jerry Lawson, she says to Mr. Herze, “I don’t drive at night. And certainly not at that ridiculous hour. Tell him, Warren. Tell him how the glare bothers me so. I don’t know what this is all about, but I most assuredly have no comment on the matter.”

“You were driving that car,” Jerry says, pointing at the pale green sedan parked in front of Mr. Herze’s car, and again he tries to press forward, but he can’t get at Malina because Mr. Herze blocks the path with a stiff arm. “That car right there. You drove to the corner and turned down Woodward.”

Malina knows from many years of experience to keep her eyes on Mr. Herze. She knows not to let them drift to one side or the other. It’s how he knows she’s lying. “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” she says. “You’re mistaken, I’m afraid.”

Mr. Herze grips the front of Jerry’s rumpled undershirt, pulls him close, and speaks in a whisper. Jerry says nothing else, certainly nothing Malina can hear. Mostly he shakes his head. Signaling the conversation is over, Mr. Herze drops Jerry’s shirt, tucks in the front of his own shirt where his belly has pulled it loose of his trousers, and walks back to the house. Reminding herself to smile, Malina opens the passenger-side door, smooths under her skirt, and sinks into the front seat. She closes her eyes and rests her arms on her lap, her palms open, not touching anything. Outside, Mr. Herze walks back to the front porch, locks and pulls twice on the door, and joins Malina in the car.

“Warren,” Malina says, blinking because keeping good eye contact is more difficult when Mr. Herze is sitting this close. “Have you fired Jerry Lawson?”

It’s the question any wife would ask under normal circumstances.

“Him and three others.”

“Has it to do with those women on Willingham?” Malina reaches across the bench seat and rests one hand on Mr. Herze’s thigh. It’s the thing any wife would do. “Has it to do with the dead woman?”

“The police will see to it,” Mr. Herze says. “It’s of no concern to you.” With both hands on the steering wheel, he stares straight ahead at the back end of Malina’s car. “Is there truth to what he says?” His knuckles and the backs of his large hands are white from clutching the steering wheel. “Were you driving that night?”

“Why would I ever be out at such a late hour?”

Mr. Herze lets go of the steering wheel with one hand, pulls the lever to put the car into reverse, throws his arm over the seat back, and looks out the rear window. Malina looks too. The twins have reappeared on the porch and Bill Wagner stands between them.

“You’re quite certain,” Mr. Herze says, waving at Bill and the twins through his open window as the back of the car swings around and the front points down Alder Avenue.

Perhaps Malina should have told Mr. Herze the truth when he first asked. Yes, she was driving and she did see that ridiculous Jerry Lawson. And then a lie. It had been her night to deliver supper to the shut-ins and she’d forgotten. Yes, it was awfully late to be serving supper, but because she had felt so guilty for overlooking her responsibility, she took the food anyway. That’s the reason she drove down Alder that night. She wasn’t checking up on him or looking for the source of that nasty smell he brings into her house. But she hadn’t said any of those things. She’d lied, promised she’d been at home all evening, and it’s too late now for stories about shut-ins and supper trays. In answer to Mr. Herze’s question, Malina nods but doesn’t try to speak because her voice will crack and give her away. That’s another one of the things that always gets her in trouble.

“Very well,” Mr. Herze says, and throws the car into drive.

Julia and Bill pull into the church parking lot later than most. Bill shifts the car into park, turns off the ignition, and crosses his arms on the steering wheel. He leans forward, resting his head on his hands, and exhales loudly. Julia and the twins have barely seen him in the past few days. His cheeks look to have thinned out, though it hardly seems possible it’s happened in such a short time, and dark circles hang under his eyes.

“Today,” he says, rolling his head to the side so he can see Julia. “Today’s the day we find her.”

Directly in front of them, the rounded nose of an old gray Plymouth rolls up, and the driver’s-side door opens. Mr. Symanski pushes himself up and out of the car. Wearing a shirt and tie and a dark jacket that sags on his narrow shoulders, he shuffles no more than a few yards before one of the ladies glides up alongside him, takes hold of his arm, and escorts him to the front of one of two lines that snakes through the parking lot.

The lines are new this morning. As the neighbors and parishioners of St. Alban’s climb from their cars, they take their place at the end of one of them. Bill motions for Julia to do the same, while he joins the men gathered near the entrance to the church basement. Julia cradles in one arm the loaves of sweet bread she mixed up and baked this morning and takes her place at the back of the closest line.

All of the ladies, like Julia, are dressed in fitted jackets and tailored skirts. Already many are fanning themselves with old church bulletins and fussing about desserts that will spoil if forced to sit out in this rising heat. Julia glances at her watch. She promised the girls she would come home at lunchtime to grill them cheese sandwiches, but given the length of this line, she might still be waiting when noon rolls around, though for what, she isn’t sure.

“Why the holdup?” Julia asks the gentleman standing in the line next to her. She recognizes him and his wife from services but can’t remember their names.

“Taking names,” the man says. Without looking in Julia’s direction, he helps his wife slip off her peplum jacket.

“Who’s taking names? And for what purpose?” Julia hugs her sweet bread in hopes of keeping it warm. When she goes home at lunchtime, she’ll mix up four beef-and-corn casseroles to be baked at the church and served up for the men’s supper. She’ll definitely have to make a trip to the market tomorrow.

“Police,” the man’s wife says. A gold bobby pin has pulled loose at the nape of her neck and sparkles where it catches the light. “They’re recording who is here and who isn’t. They found her shoe, you know. Down by the river.”

Julia starts to ask why the police would do such a thing, but even though she doesn’t entirely understand, it’s clear enough they think who is or isn’t here might have some bearing on what did or did not happen to Elizabeth. It’s clear enough that had Elizabeth simply wandered off, the police would have no interest in who is or is not participating in the search.

The line doesn’t move as slowly as Julia had feared and when she reaches the front, Bill rejoins her. Two police officers sit behind a metal table, thick binders opened up before them. One asks questions of Bill and Julia; the other, of the man and his wife. Bill answers, giving their name, address, and the names of their neighbors on either side. He answers yes without even a glimpse of his surroundings when asked if he recognizes everyone he sees and answers no when asked if he has seen any strangers joining in the search. He also points out the two latter questions are, in fact, the same question asked two different ways.

“That’s the point,” the officer says.

Julia leans around Bill. “The point to what?” she asks.

The officer ignores her and says, “Have any neighbors, friends, or relatives failed to include themselves?”

Again, taking no time to consider his answer, Bill says, “No.”

Next to Bill and Julia, the man and his wife scan the people who mill about before answering the same question.

“Jerry Lawson,” the woman says, finally tucking in the loose-hanging pin.

The other officer nods as if she is not the first to mention that name.

“What of Jerry Lawson?” Bill says, resting both hands on the table. Even hunched over, Bill is taller than the man.

“He is not here,” the woman says while her husband remains silent. “They asked who is not here, so we told them.”

“Why on earth would you take it upon yourself to mention the Lawsons?” Julia says. “They’re not neighbors of yours. If they were, you might recall they have only recently become parents.” She smiles at the officer. “A few weeks ago. We would never expect them to be here with a new baby at home.”

“Actually, they adopted,” the woman says. “And we have every right to mention Jerry Lawson. Everyone here knows of his troubles.”

“A new baby is a new baby,” Julia says, more loudly than she had intended. Ladies toting casserole dishes and covered pots and pans and gentlemen escorting the ladies by the arm stop to listen. Julia frowns at them and waves them on their way. “It doesn’t much matter where that sweet baby came from.” And then, because news of Jerry Lawson standing in the middle of Alder wearing little more than his undergarments while arguing with Warren Herze has obviously made its way to St. Alban’s, she turns to the officer and says, “This woman is spreading gossip, and it stinks so bad she might as well be spreading manure. She knows Jerry Lawson’s troubles have nothing to do with Elizabeth Symanski or this search.”

Before Julia can say anything more, Bill wraps one hand around her wrist and squeezes, a signal she need say no more. He gives her a wink.

“No one is unaccounted for among this group,” he says to the officer. “Write that down. No one is unaccounted for.”

When the officer has asked his last question, Julia follows Bill toward the church basement. She feels it as they pass among the others waiting in line and climbing from their cars. The early assumption that Elizabeth would be found walking aimlessly down Woodward first gave way to the worry she wandered all the way to the river and now, because the police are taking names and asking questions, these early theories have given way to fears of a violent end for Elizabeth.

It’s Monday morning and traffic is light along Woodward. It’s as if everyone in the city has spent these past few days searching for Elizabeth and is exhausted by it. Pressing one hand against the seat back in front of her as the bus pulls away and letting the other rest on the swell in her stomach, Grace hopes none of the ladies will notice she has forgotten her white gloves. She must have overlooked them on her bedroom dresser or possibly on the table near the back door.

Before leaving to catch the bus this morning, Grace had touched Mother on the sleeve and said, “I think I should tell.”

Setting aside the broom she had been pushing across the kitchen floor, Mother covered Grace’s hand with one of her own. “It’s Monday,” she said. “Go to Willingham. Fill your cupboards. They’ll be needing more food down at that church.”

“It might help the police.” Grace lingered in the doorway. “What if those men, that man, did the same to Elizabeth? What if he does it again? James’s only concern will be for me. For the baby.”

“Heaven help that child if those men got her,” Mother said, holding open the door so Grace could pass. “But your telling won’t change that.” Then she smoothed Grace’s blond hair, a reminder to keep her makeup fresh and her hair carefully combed, pinned, and sprayed. A pretty face will keep peace in the house.

“Don’t think more of your husband than you should,” Mother had said. “Don’t make that mistake.”

Continuing down Woodward, the bus gathers speed and the morning air, just beginning to warm, rushes through the open windows. Reaching up with one bare hand, Grace holds her pillbox hat in place. The other ladies don’t bother with hats anymore. They don’t care to ruin their new, higher hairstyles, but today Grace wears her gray pillbox with the velvet trim she normally wears only on Sundays. It covers the small gash on the back of her head she worries might be seen. She shifts her weight from one hip to the other to avoid the cross-breeze. Not meaning to, she lets out a soft groan. Mother said Grace’s tailbone is only bruised and she shouldn’t carry on about it.

“Grace,” Malina Herze says, leaning across the aisle. “Are you okay, dear?” Malina cups the tight curl on the end of her dark bob.

Grace drops her bare hand to her lap. “I’m fine. It’s just this heat.”

Reaching out with her own white-gloved hand, Malina squeezes Grace’s wrist. Grace flinches but doesn’t pull away. Her wrists and arms are sore, still ache where one of them pinned her to the ground.

“Don’t be fooled by the bake sale’s new date, dear,” Malina says. One of her carefully tweezed eyebrows, the right one, lifts, her forehead crinkling when she notices Grace’s exposed hands. “You heard, didn’t you? It’s postponed only a few weeks. You know, of course, pierogi freeze quite nicely. No need to wait until the last minute.”

While Saturday brought news of the white sneaker found along the river, Sunday passed with no news at all. And today, Monday, the search will continue even though the men should be returning to work. Others at the factory will work evening shifts and over the next weekend if they have to, over as many weekends as it takes, so the men from Alder and its neighboring streets can continue to look for Elizabeth. These workers have pledged their overtime to the families of those who search.

Monday also brought news that the bake sale has been officially postponed and that Malina Herze has taken up the job of organizing the ladies. Just as she had a schedule and a list for the bake sale, she now has a schedule and a list for the search. This morning, Malina gave the wives of Alder Avenue the morning off to tend to their families and run their errands. From this day on, they’ll work in four-hour shifts, preparing food, cleaning up after the men, brewing fresh coffee. They must hope and pray every day brings news of Elizabeth’s safe homecoming, but must also brace themselves for a new kind of life, one that may include never knowing what became of the girl and a search that may never end.

Just past the thrift store, the bus stops, its door opens, and Julia appears. She must have had Bill drop her at the store this morning. Usually, she and Grace do their volunteering together. Many times over the years, they’ve sorted donations at the small shop under Malina’s watchful eye. Grace would scold Julia when she pulled the blouses inside out before slipping them on a hanger. Julia would hang them up anyway and when Malina asked why they were laughing, Grace would say it was nothing, just a silly joke she had told. Once Malina busied herself with another load of clothes, Grace would turn the next blouse inside out, slip it on a hanger, and give Julia a wink.

Knowing Julia will sit next to her, Grace slides toward the window to make room and rests her face against the glass. A sharp pain shoots through her cheek and up into her eye. She straightens in her seat and pulls a compact from her purse to check her lipstick. Across the aisle, two of the ladies smile at her with tilted heads. Grace, with her bulging stomach, is a reminder to them, to everyone who sees her, that life will go on. No matter how terrible the news of Elizabeth might be, those ladies see Grace and think she is sweet and beautiful and that she’ll give birth to a child who is the same.

“Didn’t expect to see you today,” Grace says when Julia drops onto the seat next to her.

Julia doesn’t answer and instead points toward the street. Two men walk out of the hardware store next to the thrift shop. One of the two carries a clipboard. He scribbles as they walk to the next store. Once there, he yanks on the door’s handle and both disappear inside. They are men looking for Elizabeth. The busload of ladies has paused to allow the men to pass.

There is talk this morning of the women on Willingham. No one has thought much about that dead woman in the days since Elizabeth disappeared. There’s been no news of the woman, no arrest. Now that they’re traveling back to Willingham, thoughts of her work their way back to the surface. The ladies are worried, too, though no one wants to say it aloud, that maybe the dead woman sheds some light on what became of Elizabeth. All around Grace, the ladies have been talking about the police they’ll most likely see on Willingham. It’s possible there is no more work to be done in the alley where that woman was killed, but they’ll definitely be searching the river because today is day four, the day the men say Elizabeth’s body would surely float to the surface if she had drowned.

“Bill dropped me on his way to the church,” Julia says once the bus has pulled away from the curb. “I’ve had the girls cleaning out closets. Gives them something to do while I’m gone.” Then she whispers, “Too many bags to tote on the bus. It’ll drive Malina wild to find out I dropped them off at the store myself.”

Grace lets out a short laugh but tries not to smile. Every smile causes the small cut to split again. Julia is the only one of the ladies Grace laughs with. The others make her altogether too aware of the length of her skirt, the curls in her hair, or the shade of lipstick she has chosen. She worries her choices are all wrong and that the ladies will later whisper about her. Julia is the friend who would tell Grace if a lipstick shade was unbecoming, but only so she could snag the tube for her own use.

“Did you hear?” Julia says, leaning in to whisper. This is how it starts. She’ll say something funny, something irresistible, even today, even knowing Elizabeth is still gone. Julia wants things to be normal again too. “About Malina’s flowers?”

Grace shakes her head.

“Someone urinated on them. Walked right down the middle of the street and there in front of God and Alder Avenue, urinated on them. More than once, it would appear.”

“That is not true.”

“Told me herself. She’s started spraying them at all hours. Poor things are already waterlogged. They’ll be wilting before you know it. Probably won’t last the month.” Julia tells the rest from behind the cover of one hand. “She actually thought the twins had done it. Cornered me at the church and accused them. So, of course, I asked her to explain the logistics of that. She agreed it would be rather difficult. And rather conspicuous.”

“Julia, stop,” Grace says, trying not to smile so her lip won’t swell up on her. “It’s not right to carry on like this.”

On past bus rides, Grace and Julia would sometimes laugh until Grace’s cheeks and stomach ached. And when, later in the day, Grace would return to an empty house, she could never recall what had made her laugh, but the memory of it always made her smile. Later still in the day, Grace would call. What are you fixing for supper, one would ask the other. Coffee? I’ll be right down. Usually Julia came to Grace’s house. And then after supper, one last call asking how that beefsteak turned out or what’s the best way to tackle a grease stain, to which Julia would reply… don’t throw out the shirt, throw out the husband. And again, they would laugh.

Julia gives Grace one last nudge. “But it feels good, doesn’t it, to laugh?”

The bus continues toward Willingham Avenue. The morning air, light and almost crisp, blows through the open windows. Outside the bus, cars drive past, most of them with their windows rolled down. The ladies in those cars hold the steering wheel at ten and two and wear sheer scarves-yellow, pink, or white-folded in half, draped over their hair and tied under their chins. At the stoplights, the men rest an elbow on the doorframe and hang their lit cigarettes out the window. As the bus nears downtown, the cars stack up deeper at each stoplight and the buildings rise higher on both sides of Woodward, narrowing the street. The smell of river water pushes aside the smell of freshly clipped grass and concrete just hosed down. At the intersection of Woodward and Willingham, the bus slows. The air settles.

“Come with me to the cleaners?” Julia says, standing once the bus has stopped.

Grace shakes her head and slides back down onto the seat. “I’m not feeling well. I have enough in my freezer to get by. I think I’ll take the bus back home.”

Julia stretches over the seat to lay a hand on Grace’s forehead. “James mentioned you’d been feeling poorly. No fever.” She straightens. “Get some rest. I’ll call later, stop by before I go to the church.”

Julia slips into the aisle behind Malina Herze and plugs her nose as if smelling the urine from Malina’s flowerbeds. Again Grace resists the urge to smile. She lifts a hand to wave good-bye but quickly lowers it so no one will notice she forgot her gloves. Even before the bus has pulled away toward its last stop, where it will turn around to drive back up Woodward, Grace knows she’ll not come on the morning bus again. She can’t see the others because she is so changed. The other ladies are changed too, but not in a lasting way. Already they are easing back to a normal life, a life that won’t include Elizabeth Symanski. But Grace won’t ease back, and eventually they’ll notice. Eventually, they’ll want to know why.

Julia will be the first, maybe the only one, to raise questions with Grace. The others will be too polite, just as they’re too polite to mention an unfortunate lipstick color. They’ll assume it’s a private matter, perhaps a problem in Grace’s marriage or bad news regarding the baby, and they’ll be caring but distant because they won’t want Grace’s troubles to rub off on them. Julia, however, won’t concern herself with privacy or contagious problems. She’ll ask questions, many questions. She’ll be bold and persistent. She’ll come to Grace’s house, sweep the floors, wring the laundry, cook the meals. She’ll want to do the things Grace did for Julia when her daughter died. She’ll want to nurse Grace until she is well again. Julia will be a constant reminder that Grace’s life will never again be as it once was.

“Is there an afternoon bus to Willingham?” Grace calls up to the driver after the door has closed.

The bus pops and hisses and continues down Woodward.

Speaking to Grace through the rearview mirror, the driver says, “Twelve fifteen at Alder. That your street?”

“Thank you,” she says. “That’ll be fine.”

Once off the bus, Malina hurries across Willingham while the other ladies linger to stare at the warehouse. Positioned squarely at the T-junction where Willingham Avenue dead-ends into Chamberlin, the white stone building stands three stories high. Its windowsills are chipped and crumbling as if it’s sinking into the footings, and the doorways are boarded over. This is where those Negro women gather to show themselves to the husbands. Some say the women strip themselves of their blouses and undergarments so the men will want them more.

The ladies stare only for a moment, their lips puckered and their arms crossed, and then they remember their real concern should be for Elizabeth and not the Negro women or what the husbands may be up to. Reminding themselves of the finer things in life, they tug at their gloves, check the clasps on their handbags, smooth their curls, and head off to the deli or the cleaners or the drugstore. In twenty minutes, they’ll all meet at the bakery. On the bus ride over, the ladies agreed that if Mrs. Nowack insisted on keeping her doors open on payday, they’d be patrons no longer. Together, in twenty minutes’ time, this is what they’ll tell Mrs. Nowack.

Next door to the warehouse, the factory’s parking lot is only half full. Most of the men, Mr. Herze included, have gathered again at the church. Once Malina is certain Mr. Herze’s sedan is not among the cars parked there, she swivels on one heel and walks toward the river. For the next twenty minutes, the ladies will scurry from store to store. They’ll not notice Malina’s whereabouts. Twenty minutes is certainly enough time. If Mr. Herze’s girl is still alive, a block or so down Chamberlin is where Malina will likely find her.

“I’m quite certain it’s true,” Doris Taylor had said after the ladies of Alder Avenue boarded the bus. She sat on the edge of her seat and spoke loudly so her voice would carry over the air rushing through the open windows. “Mrs. Nowack has no intention of closing her doors on payday. What are we to do?”

Though it was Doris who spoke, the ladies scooted about in their seats to look to Malina. It was a reminder she was one of the oldest among them.

“I really haven’t any opinion,” Malina had said.

The ladies, a few with their mouths dangling open, stared at Malina, waiting, obviously thinking she had spoken in jest. Again, resenting the ladies for thrusting her into a matronly position, Malina snapped her own mouth shut so the ladies might realize their rude behavior and flicked a hand at them, urging them to turn away.

“We should all go to Mrs. Nowack,” Doris Taylor had said. Doris brought cinnamon rolls to the bake sale every year even though they always sold poorly. She used too few pecans and consistently overcooked them. “All of us together. As one. We’ll tell her we’ll not shop in her store if she refuses to close her doors. One of our ladies might be tempted to go to Willingham on payday if the bakery remains open. It’s for our own safety. Malina said so herself just the other day.”

Again, the ladies looked to Malina. “Of course,” she said, letting out a long sigh, and smiling. “It’s a fine idea. You should listen to Doris.”

Malina had worries of her own, more than enough, and no desire to take on the worries of others. Laying her head back so as to avoid any more gaping mouths, Malina had stared at Grace Richardson sitting across the aisle. Looking straight ahead, her eyes seemingly focused on nothing, Grace had rubbed her two bare hands in slow, steady circles over her round stomach. Every so often, her eyelids slowly closed and took so long in opening again, Malina wondered each time if Grace were asleep. She didn’t wake from this stupor until Julia Wagner boarded the bus.

“Maybe those women will leave now that one of them is dead,” a lady had said as the bus pulled away from its stop outside the thrift store. “And you know, don’t you, that men have been fired. If there are no men left who will open a pocketbook, those women will all but vanish.”

“We shouldn’t be talking about this,” said another. “Think of Elizabeth. It’s all so unseemly. It’s disrespectful to her, don’t you think?”

And then the conversation turned to Jerry Lawson. By now, everyone knew, even those who lived blocks from Alder, that Jerry had been fired. What a shame for poor Betty Lawson. What was she to do now that she knew such things about her husband? What was that poor child to do? What was her name? Cynthia, wasn’t it? Poor Cynthia, all but abandoned. Jerry would be able to make no sort of living. The ladies next wondered aloud if it was only one woman for Jerry Lawson or if he took several. One would be worse than many, they all agreed, because if it were only one, that might mean he actually cared for her. My God, it might mean he actually cared.

“My Harry said the woman was killed with a hammer.” The lady’s name escaped Malina. She lived somewhere just north of Alder and rarely attended services. “Can you imagine? The police could tell, just by looking at the woman, that it was a hammer, or something much like it. How do you suppose they know such things? How does one look at a hole in the head and know what caused it?”

“What do you know of the dead woman?” Malina said, still watching Grace rub her hands lightly over her stomach as she chatted with Julia Wagner. The two were not listening to the ladies talk but were giggling among themselves.

“Why on earth would you ask?” several of the ladies said, one echoing another.

Malina gripped the seat in front of her, bracing herself as the bus neared its stop at Willingham. What must it look like when a person is hit in the head with a hammer? “Have you read anything? Have your husbands told you what she looked like?”

Doris Taylor pulled a tissue from her handbag, folded it, and blotted her fresh lipstick. “She was one of them. What more could possibly matter?”

There must have been a time when Mr. Herze’s girl looked like Grace Richardson. The girl probably rubbed her hands over her stomach and stared at nothing, her thoughts filled with dreams of a healthy, happy baby and a man to love her. If Mr. Herze’s girl were the dead one, what had become of the baby in the carriage? Malina had leafed through every newspaper that landed on her doorstep since the day that woman, some woman, was killed. She studied the papers until the ink stained her fingertips and the paper had torn at the fold, not certain why it mattered to her or why she craved any hint as to which woman had died. But every day the craving grew. Even if she knew, it wouldn’t help her predicament. No matter who died or who killed her, Malina had still told a lie.

“It’s no never mind,” Malina had said as the bus slowed to its stop at Woodward and Willingham. “I’ll see you ladies at the bakery in twenty minutes. What a fine idea you’ve had, Doris.”

As Malina nears the alley where the woman was killed, she walks mostly on her toes so her red leather heels don’t slap the concrete and give her away. At the alley’s entrance, she stops and tugs on her three-quarter-length sleeves. The saleslady at Hudson’s said not everyone could wear the new length but Malina, being as tiny as she is, would carry it beautifully.

For so much to have transpired since the woman was killed, the alley looks no different, except perhaps it appears smaller in the daylight, less foreboding. Seeing it again for the first time since that night, the alley isn’t so long and dark, and what had seemed like quite a distance when she was following that woman and her carriage is really no more than a few steps. For an instant, Malina is tempted to travel those few steps and look for the hammer she dropped. It would be a relief to have the proper tool hanging on Mr. Herze’s pegboard again, but that is foolish thinking. The police will have found that hammer, or possibly someone else found it, and whisked it away. Before temptation can again overwhelm her better judgment, Malina continues toward the river.

The colored women stand in a small group. A few of them sit on the curb, their long black legs stretched before them. Others sit cross-legged on the same curb, picking at blades of grass or their own unkempt nails. Still others stand in the middle of the street. There was a time, not so long ago, those women wouldn’t dare show themselves on Willingham Avenue. But the highways have pushed them west and north, and now every day they inch closer. Often they are seen lounging, waiting, biding their time until the ladies finish their shopping and leave for the day. They’ll all but take over on paydays, some of the ladies say, and that is likely the beginning of the end. Soon the ladies will be chased from Willingham just as they were chased from Beersdorf’s Grocery. Already some of the ladies have begun traveling to Hamtramck to do their shopping.

Standing on the outskirts of the group, almost as if she is not one of them, is the girl. Malina worried that she might not recognize her, but even from this distance, almost a full block away, there is no doubt. The girl has a kind of grace about her, probably due to her slender limbs and long neck. Wondering if the girl has smooth skin, Malina takes a few more steps toward the group. Slowly, as if the girl senses someone staring at her, her head rolls to the side and she looks back at Malina. Other heads turn. A few of the women push themselves off the ground. Others cross arms over their chests.

A tall, round woman with heavy legs sticking out from a black skirt stands in the center of the group. She has narrow shoulders, flabby arms, and surprisingly large hips. Like the others, she turns to face Malina, but even as she turns, the large woman doesn’t move the hand that clutches the handle of a baby carriage. This woman is much taller than the one who frightened Malina in the alley that night, though she does bear the same unfortunate shape. The woman takes a step toward Malina, and yet she doesn’t let go of the carriage. She is protecting it, protecting the baby inside, from Malina.

There couldn’t possibly be more than one such carriage. The one parked in the middle of the street has the same large metal wheels, the same black canopy, and if Malina could get close enough, it would have the same squeal as the one the girl pushed. This large woman, however, is built like someone who has birthed a baby-full roomy hips, soft sagging arms. It hadn’t seemed possible Mr. Herze’s girl could be the mother. Her hips were narrow; her legs, frail and lean. That night on Willingham, the girl must have been watching over the baby, doing a favor for the real mother. It makes sense she would be kind. Mr. Herze likes proper manners and polite conversation. He appreciates kindness. His girl is graceful and considerate. It shouldn’t be a surprise. While Mr. Herze’s girl is clearly not the dead one, there is no need to peek inside that carriage.

Back on Willingham, the ladies will be finishing their shopping. They’ll gather now inside Nowack’s Bakery, where they’ll buy up all the apple cakes. It’s the thing Mrs. Nowack bakes every Monday and probably what drew many of the ladies to Willingham today when they might otherwise have preferred to stay away. Malina will want to get to the bakery to buy one of the cakes for Mr. Herze before they’re gone. He does like a slice, lightly dusted with confectioner’s sugar, before bed. Once Doris Taylor and the others have had their say with Mrs. Nowack, no one will be buying anything.

Malina should feel some relief that the child is not Mr. Herze’s doing, but there’s still the matter of Jerry Lawson pointing at her and accusing her. He might storm across the street again, give Mr. Herze reason to doubt Malina. She really does wish she hadn’t lied. After a few backward steps, those Negro women staring at her all the while, Malina swings around, no longer concerned if her heels slap loudly against the concrete, and walks back to Willingham and Nowack’s Bakery as quickly as her slender skirt and three-quarter-sleeve jacket will allow.

Arie and Izzy run all the way to Aunt Julia’s house, not once looking back at Mrs. Richardson. They drop the length of rope on the front porch, flip off their sneakers at the back door, and run through the kitchen and up the stairs, even though running is not allowed in the house. They toss the slender, jeweled belt in their bedroom closet, change into clean blouses that won’t smell of smoke, and return to the living room. While Izzy acts as lookout for Aunt Julia, Arie sinks into the sofa, hugs one of Aunt Julia’s ruffled throw pillows to her chest, and takes deep breaths until her heart begins to slow. The pillow smells like the cologne Uncle Bill wears to church, and it makes her feel even worse for having done something she knows will scare him and Aunt Julia. They’ll worry Izzy and Arie are going to end up like Elizabeth because they won’t stay inside and do as they’re told.

“Do you see her?” Arie says for the third time in twenty minutes.

Izzy lifts a finger, signaling Arie should wait. Alder Avenue has been quiet since a group of ladies marched down the street almost half an hour ago, their arms full of groceries. Aunt Julia was not among them.

“No,” Izzy says, “But there’s men at Mrs. Herze’s house now. Looks like police.”

Arie jumps from the sofa and joins Izzy at the window. Across the street, two men in dark suits stand on Mrs. Herze’s porch and a police car is parked in her driveway.

“Is that about the fire?” Arie says. “Are they here because of us?”

“Uh-oh,” Izzy says, letting the drape fall closed and pushing Arie back to her seat.

Uncle Bill never uses the driveway. He always circles the block, drives up the alley, and parks in the garage. But that’s his car pulling into the driveway and that’s Aunt Julia sitting next to him. An engine rattles and falls silent. Two doors slam. Footsteps, one light set, one heavy set, cross the front porch. Izzy and Arie sit side by side on the sofa, hands in their laps, feet dangling near the floor. Keys rattle in the front lock. The door swings open.

Aunt Julia is the first inside. Her hair has frizzed since she left the house this morning. Later in the day, when she tires of trying to tame it with pins and hairspray and it becomes a tangle of wild red hair, she’ll tie a scarf over it. She holds one bag of groceries that she tosses on the entry table before rushing into the living room. Behind her, Uncle Bill carries a few more bags, but he doesn’t toss his aside.

“You were shot at?” Aunt Julia says, first grabbing Arie and then Izzy. Like Mrs. Richardson did, she pushes the hair off their faces to check for cuts or bruises, trails her fingers along their arms, rolls their hands from front to back. “You’re not hurt?”

“He didn’t really shoot at…”

“Stop,” Aunt Julia says. “Not another word. You were forbidden… forbidden to leave this house.” She stands and paces the length of the sofa. Whenever Aunt Julia gets angry, her voice slips back to where it’s most comfortable. Her Southern twang, Uncle Bill likes to call it. “I told you, didn’t I? Didn’t I make it clear? Didn’t I make it crystal clear? My God, that bowed-up fool shot at you?”

Arie waits for Izzy to answer, but even she must have decided it best to keep quiet.

“Well,” Aunt Julia says. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“We were only looking for Patches,” Izzy says. “We’ll never find her if we can’t go outside.”

“Don’t you dare get smart with me.”

Uncle Bill walks to the entry, sets his groceries next to the bag Aunt Julia dropped, and returns. He rests his hands on Aunt Julia’s shoulders. His dark eyes always have a way of looking sad. Grandma says those dark, sad eyes are what snagged Aunt Julia. Grandma says women, all ages and all types, have a softness for sad eyes.

“Why don’t you two go out front for a few minutes,” Uncle Bill says, leaning around Aunt Julia. He is the only one who makes Aunt Julia look small. “Let me and your aunt talk in private.”

Arie waits for Izzy to stand first, then follows her to the front door.

“Do not even think about leaving that yard,” Aunt Julia says, swatting away Uncle Bill’s hands and flopping down on the center of the sofa. “Am I understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Izzy says.

“Yes, ma’am,” Arie says.

Izzy gives an extra tug on the front door to make sure it’s closed and lets the screen door slam, something she knows will upset Aunt Julia. The men and the police car are no longer at Mrs. Herze’s house. Arie exhales, thinking that is a good sign, then drops down on the first stair and slides over to make room for Izzy. But instead of joining Arie, Izzy grabs the rope she found in Mrs. Richardson’s garage and marches across the porch. Mrs. Richardson had been too worried about the fire and gunshots at her house to notice the rope Izzy had carried from the garage or the thin belt that had been wrapped like a bandage around Arie’s hand. Once down the stairs, Izzy walks to the very end of the sidewalk. She stands there, hands on hips, and even though she doesn’t say it, she’s thinking about stepping from their yard onto Alder and disobeying Aunt Julia all over again. Aunt Julia would say Izzy is chugged-full of angry, though Arie isn’t exactly sure about what.

Taking one end of the rope in each hand, Izzy lets it hang to the ground and, with a single swing, begins to skip. She twirls the rope faster and faster, slapping it against the hot concrete, probably thinking the noise will make Aunt Julia mad too, except it really isn’t all that loud.

Across the street at Mr. and Mrs. Herze’s house, a big blue car pulls into their drive. One of the car’s doors swings open and a black shoe appears. The rest of Mr. Herze follows. Without closing his door, he walks down the driveway using long strides, crosses the street, and marches directly up to Arie and Izzy. They’ve never been so close to Mr. Herze. He smells like Uncle Bill’s Sunday cologne, except much stronger, and his stomach pushes against his white shirt, making it look like his buttons might pop right off if he were to take a deep breath. He examines the girls just as Mrs. Richardson and Aunt Julia did, except when his hands run over their arms, they’re rough and dry and cold even though it’s hot outside.

“Your uncle is home, girls?” he says, brushing aside Izzy’s hair and then Arie’s. “You’re unharmed?”

“Yes, sir,” Izzy says.

Arie says nothing but slides one foot away and drags the other to meet it.

“Warren,” Mrs. Herze calls out from her side of the street. “What’s brought you home so early?” She waves one hand overhead and teeters on the edge of the curb. Her dark hair makes her white skin look plastic. Everything about Mrs. Herze shines like it’s store-bought.

Mr. Herze doesn’t answer. His eyes dart back and forth between Izzy and Arie. “Don’t let that Orin Schofield frighten you,” he says, his eyes landing on Izzy and sticking there. “He actually take a shot at you?”

“Not at us, sir,” Izzy says. “At the garage. In the dirt. Don’t think he meant to hurt anyone.”

“Shall I fix you something, Warren?” Mrs. Herze shouts, louder this time. She takes one step into the street. “A sandwich?” She continues to wave a hand overhead. “Are you at all hungry?”

“You tell your uncle to stay home with you girls for the rest of the day,” Mr. Herze says, his eyes still stuck on Izzy. “Tell him Mr. Herze said so.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if you two find yourselves in any more trouble, you let me know.”

Again, “Yes, sir.”

“Warren, will you want dinner? A change of clothes?”

“All right, then.” Mr. Herze takes each of them by the hand, gives a squeeze, drops Arie’s, still holds Izzy’s. “You two take care.”

Arie pulls Izzy by the arm. Mr. Herze’s hand drops away.

“Anything at all,” he says, reaching out to grab Izzy’s fingers but unable to reach them. “You call on me.”

“Thank you, Mr. Herze,” Izzy says, stumbling as Arie drags her toward the front door.

“We’ll tell Uncle Bill you were here,” Arie says, not sure why she says it or why she is suddenly happy Uncle Bill is much stronger and much bigger than Mr. Herze.

The moment the twins have left the house and Bill has closed the front door behind them, Julia kicks off her shoes, hikes her skirt over her knees, and runs up the steps two at a time, not caring that she’ll snag her nylons. Once upstairs, she throws open the girls’ bedroom door, yanks Arie’s suitcase from under her bed, and flings it into the center of her mattress.

“Don’t say a word,” she says when Bill enters the room. She pulls open the dresser’s top drawer, scoops an armful of undergarments and socks and flings them into the open suitcase. “They’re going back to my mother’s.”

Bill moves in front of the dresser, not allowing Julia to open the next drawer. “Your mother is not there, remember?”

Dropping one shoulder, Julia rams it into Bill’s side, trying to move him. He crosses his arms. “I’m not budging, and the girls are not leaving,” he says, and once Julia begins to simmer down, he rests his hands on her shoulders.

“Can you imagine what might have happened?” Julia says. Edging away from Bill, she flips the suitcase closed and drops onto the bed. Her skirt hugs her thighs well above her knees from her trek up the stairs. She tugs and wiggles until she has yanked it back into place. “Who on God’s green earth fires a rifle at two young girls?”

“You know he wasn’t firing at them.” Bill sits next to Julia but not so close as to let their legs touch. He always knows when best to keep his distance.

“I know no such thing,” Julia says. “You didn’t hear him caterwauling the other day.”

“I’ll speak to the girls,” Bill says, patting Julia’s hand. “We should make sure they keep clear of Orin for a while. But I’d guess the fright they got will do the best job of keeping them close to home.”

Julia slides off the bed, drops to her knees in front of Bill, and takes his hands in hers. “That’s not enough,” she says. “They’re going to be our responsibility one day. You know they’re getting to be too much for my mother. If not now, then soon enough.”

“Yes,” Bill says. “And I’ll be happy to have them.”

“We need to move,” she says. “Right now. Sell this house and move. Our own neighbors are firing on us.”

Bill shakes his head. “You’re overreacting.”

“Why shouldn’t we move?” Julia lifts up and rests her hands on Bill’s chest. “We’ll never be comfortable having a family here. And what about a baby? I know you wouldn’t want to bring a baby into this neighborhood. It’s not the same as it used to be. Even after Elizabeth finds her way back…”

“This is no time to think about a baby.”

“It’s the perfect time,” Julia says “Our baby and Grace’s, growing up together. Perfect. No matter where we live, it’ll be wonderful. We could adopt like Jerry and Betty. She’s not admitting it, but I know that’s what they did. We could go to Kansas City. The train, it’ll take us straight into Union Station. You were a good father to Maryanne. Why don’t you want that again? Did you not love her?”

“What did you say to me?”

Bill doesn’t make a motion toward her, doesn’t lift a hand or make a fist, but something in the room shifts and it feels as if he wants to slap her.

“There has to be some reason,” Julia says, leaning back and resting on her knees again. “Is that it? Did you not love Maryanne?”

“You think I didn’t love our daughter?”

“Is it me? Do you think I wouldn’t be a good mother? Do you think I’m to blame for what’s happened to Elizabeth too? That I’m unfit?”

“I think Elizabeth Symanski won’t ever come home,” he says. “Everybody knows it and nobody’s saying it. I’ve been up and down Woodward, me and others, more times than I can count. We’ve been through every neighborhood within five miles. We’ve talked to every employee in every store, in every restaurant, in every bar. We’ve been through every park and talked to every neighbor. We’ve asked them all, Julia, and not a single person remembers seeing her that day.”

“Stop,” Julia says. “You stop saying that.”

“You know how Elizabeth walks. She’d run into folks, people would notice. But no one, Julia. No one even thought they might have seen her. We have list after list of every person we’ve talked to. And not a single one. She didn’t wander away. She didn’t walk down the streets on her own. Someone took her, Julia. Took her away, and that’s why no one has seen her. Probably swept her up in a car and drove off. If not right here on Alder, then somewhere close. If she’d have wandered off like before, someone would have seen her. Someone would remember. But one thing’s for damned sure. Bringing a baby into this house won’t bring her back.”

“Of course she’ll come home. She’ll find her way. You’ll keep looking and you’ll find her.”

Bill shakes his head. “She’s gone, Julia. And I hate to think what became of her.”

“Don’t you say that. Don’t you dare say that.”

“Nobody is blaming you, Julia. You’re doing that to yourself. But now is the time to be thinking about the girls. Time we think about keeping them safe.”

“And you think I don’t want that?”

“They’re most important now. Those girls and you too.” Bill pushes away Julia’s hands and stands. “It’s no time to think about bringing a baby into this house. Not my own, and damned sure not one born of another man.”

The next morning, Grace stays home, keeping herself busy in the kitchen as the other ladies travel to Willingham to do their shopping. While the quiet of an empty house gives her too much time to think, it’s easier to tolerate than the fear of boarding the morning bus and sitting next to one of the ladies, most likely Julia. As she scrubs her sink and cleans out her nearly empty refrigerator, Grace listens for the twins. The other children in the neighborhood are too old to run through the back alley or play in the front yards. They are teenagers with cars and jobs, too old to be shooed off the street by the likes of Grace. When ten o’clock draws near, she hears the squeal of a rusted chair being unfolded in the alley, but no sign of the girls. Perhaps the threat of Orin Schofield scared them inside, or perhaps it’s the heavy drizzle after so many dry, hot days that has kept them behind closed doors. By the time Grace combs out her hair, dresses for the day, and boards the midday bus bound for Willingham, Julia will have finished her shopping and returned home. It’s the best Grace can do to keep the girls safe.

No ladies rode the bus at the later hour, and on Willingham, none scurry from store to store. They will be at the church, where they’ll stay all afternoon and evening, ignoring the shifts Malina assigned. And so Willingham Avenue is quiet except for the sounds of the factory-the pounding and drumming as the men stamp out the parts, metal on metal, and sharp edges being rounded off and made smooth. The gray sky hangs low, and rain drips off Grace’s pillbox hat and down her cheeks and nose.

“You are being soaked to the bone,” Mrs. Nowack says when Grace walks through the bakery’s door. As she normally does, Mrs. Nowack wears a full gray skirt that skims the floor and a bib apron tied around her thick waist. She squints at Grace through small, round glasses and frowns, which causes her wrinkled cheeks to plump up and her thin lips to draw in on themselves. “Come, child, get out of that weather.”

Inside the small shop, the air is gritty. It’s flour, and sugar, too, that cloud the air. While Mrs. Nowack calls out for someone to bring a dry towel, Grace removes the pins that secure her hat and adjusts the hair on the crown of her head so she’s sure that spot won’t show. From behind a black curtain that separates the back room from the front of the shop, a young colored woman appears, a white towel hung from one arm. She wears slim red pants that nip in at her ankles and a white sleeveless blouse with a slender lapel. Her dark hair is round and thick, too wide for her narrow face. The girl gives Mrs. Nowack the towel and glances in Grace’s direction before slipping behind the curtain.

“You are coming late today, yes?” After handing Grace the towel, Mrs. Nowack removes her glasses, rubs the lenses with an apron corner, and puts them on again. She dips her head and studies Grace over the tops of the lenses. “What is it I can be getting for you?”

“I’d like to make pierogi,” Grace says, patting her face and neck with the soft towel. No matter how upset James might be with her for leaving the house, Mother always says idle hands are troubled hands. “For the bake sale. I’m preparing them this year and have never had much luck on my own. I was hoping you might teach me.”

Mrs. Nowack slips behind her counter, her gray skirt swinging from side to side and making her appear to float. “You are seeing I have little else to do, yes?” She lays both hands on top of the glass shelves that run the length of the store. “The others, they are not shopping here anymore. This is what they are telling me.”

Tattered signs, some written in English, others in Polish, hang from shelves that are empty except for a few trays of braided bread. The wide loaves, knotted and golden brown, glisten where they were brushed with egg whites. While James has told Grace little of the search for Elizabeth and nothing of the dead woman from the alley, he was willing to share the ladies’ plan to boycott Mrs. Nowack.

“I’m sorry,” Grace says. “I only heard. I wasn’t here that day.”

Mrs. Nowack waves away the unpleasantness with one plump hand. “Come,” she says, holding open the black curtain that leads to the back of the shop. “You are having lunch with us and then we will be making pierogi.”

This is where Mrs. Nowack does her baking. Her double-stacked oven shines and the burners on the stovetop have been freshly lined with aluminum foil. Large bags of flour sit on the bottom rung of the wooden shelves pushed along the far wall, and on the higher rungs, square jars of spices sit side by side, their black-and-white labels perfectly aligned. Near the back door, silver pots and pans have been stacked and left to dry on the counter. Grace follows Mrs. Nowack through the small room, out the back door, and onto a narrow concrete patio. The rain has stopped, and for now the air is cool and light, though probably not for long.

“You can be sitting here,” Mrs. Nowack says, nudging Grace toward a wooden picnic table. “Go ahead. There is being plenty of room. I will be having lunch out soon.”

While Mrs. Nowack returns to the bakery to fetch lunch, Grace stands in the center of the concrete patio, wraps her arms around her chest so that they rest on her large stomach, and stares straight ahead. Three colored women already sit at the picnic table. One of them sits backward on a damp bench, her legs extended, one ankle crossed over the other. A strong brow shades her wide-set eyes and balances her square jaw. Long, thin braids hang over her shoulders and down her back. A small colored bead is threaded on the end of each, so that when she moves they must knock against one another and sound much like a wind chime. A second woman sits on the bench opposite the first, her legs tucked under the table in a more proper fashion. Plump brown rolls pop out of the deep, rounded neckline of her red blouse. Whereas the face of the first woman is defined by sharp angles, the second woman has round cheeks and a small dimple in the center of her chin. The last woman at the table is standing, one foot propped up on the bench. She is the one who brought Grace a dry towel. Her face is shaped like a perfect heart-large brown eyes, prominent cheekbones, and a tapered chin. Mrs. Nowack had called her Cassia. She is slender like a girl, but she’s not a girl. A black baby carriage, covered with a yellow quilt, stands next to her.

Grace only meant to rest her eyes for a few minutes after her trip to the bakery, but she slept several hours because here it is, suppertime. She walks down the stairs toward muted voices coming from the front room. The oven clicks and the soothing smell of one of the chicken casseroles Mother left in the freezer before going home fills the house. James must have come home while Grace slept and popped it in the oven. He would have woken her if there were news. Instead, the doorbell woke her. Friends and neighbors use the side door off the kitchen. They tap lightly on the glass or on the doorframe. The doorbell means company.

Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, Grace leans out to see who has come to visit. A draft blows across the living room and stirs her hair and the hem of her dress. James stands at the front door with his back to her. He leans against the jamb, one foot resting on the opposite ankle. He turns when a floorboard creaks under Grace’s feet.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he says. Only the middle two buttons on his shirt are buttoned and he didn’t bother to comb his hair after having washed it. It curls on the ends when he brushes it with his fingers and not a proper brush. Now that his days are spent searching, he comes home every night to have supper with Grace. He always freshens up, usually after they eat. He slaps cool water on his face, washes his hands and forearms with a good dose of soap-all meant to give him a second wind before rejoining the search.

A man wearing a dark blue shirt stands in the doorway. He tips his hat at her. A second man, dressed in the same blue shirt and wearing the same blue hat, stands next to him.

“Mrs. Richardson?” the first man says.

He’s a police officer, the same one who sat at Mr. Symanski’s kitchen table after Elizabeth first disappeared. He had rubbed his temples that night, not quite certain he understood how a grown woman was really no more than a child. He is the same age as Grace, but even late in the day when he should have a shadow on his lower jaw and chin, his face is smooth. His dark hair flips up in tight curls.

“She can’t tell you any more than I have,” James says. He rubs the bridge of his nose between two fingers.

“Do you mind?” The other officer, taller with light brown hair, leans into the house so he can speak directly to Grace.

“James, you should invite them in,” Grace says, not moving from her spot at the bottom of the stairs.

The men have shifted about in the threshold and have blocked the breeze. The oven still clicks, throwing off heat.

“May we?” the taller officer says to James.

James steps aside, allowing the officers to pass, and waves at Grace to join them. The officers remove their hats and tuck them under an arm.

“I remember you,” Grace says to the officer with the smooth face and dark curls. His hair is dented where he wore his hat. “Please have a seat. May I get you something to drink?”

“No, ma’am,” he says. “I’m Officer Warinski.” He nudges the gentleman standing at his side. “Officer Thompson.”

“Do you have word of Elizabeth?” Grace says.

“They wonder if something has happened here, Grace,” James says, gesturing for her to take a seat.

She sits on the edge of the skirted sofa, gathers her crochet work from the coffee table, and spreads it across her lap. The tweed sofa, even through the fabric of her cotton skirt, is rough against the backs of her legs.

“Wonder if what has happened?”

“We’ve questioned a man,” the taller officer says, “in connection with a crime in the area.”

Grace clears her throat, smiles for the two officers, and scoots back, settling into the cushions. When she started crocheting the baby’s blanket two months ago, she chose a bulky white yarn suitable for a boy or girl. Placing her fingers to the hook’s flat grip, she pokes the head through the bottom loop. As she begins her first stitch, James walks around the back of the sofa and rests his hands on her shoulders. She grabs his fingers and kisses the back of one wrist.

“Is it to do with Elizabeth?” she asks. Yarn over, draw through, yarn over, release.

“This man,” Officer Warinski says, ignoring Grace’s question, “has given us information about a crime at this location.”

The door is closed behind the two men and the breeze is gone. The house is dark because Grace never drew open the drapes. She begins another single crochet. That was her twelfth stitch. She must remember to count. So often she forgets and has to pull out her work and start again.

“A crime?” she says. The tightness begins in her stomach and rises into her throat. Again, “A crime?” She hears her own voice as if it’s someone else’s.

“I told them they were mistaken,” James says, kneading her shoulders with his fingers. “No mischief around here.”

“None,” Grace says, she thinks she says. She loses her stitch. “No mischief around here.”

Both officers stare at her, only at her.

“Could we speak in private, ma’am?” Officer Warinski says.

“Our supper is growing cold.” Grace’s neck is damp under James’s hands. “I haven’t anything to add.”

“Wrong house, I suppose,” James says, and pulls his hands from Grace’s shoulders. “Though I can’t say I’ve heard of any trouble for the neighbors, either.” He walks past the men and opens the door. “Other than the Symanskis.”

He doesn’t tell them about Orin Schofield firing his rifle or the fire in the garbage can or the broken windows more and more neighbors are waking up to. Protecting the street, Grace supposes. Like parents protect a child. Since Elizabeth disappeared, all the neighbors are beginning to do the same. No one wants to admit what is becoming, what has become, of Alder Avenue.

Officer Thompson steps outside. The officer with the curls, Officer Warinski, makes no move to leave and continues to study Grace. He is young, too young really.

“This man, he says a woman was hurt here,” the young officer says. “At this address. Quite badly, we believe.”

Grace lifts her chin. Her face must be red, but she could blame it on the heat. She touches her top lip with the end of her tongue. The sore spot has nearly healed over.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “If someone was hurt, I’m terribly sorry. Please tell her. If you find her. Tell her I’m so very sorry.”

Waiting for the second officer to leave, James holds open the door. Fresh air rushes through the house again, chilling the damp spots James left on Grace’s neck and shoulders.

“If you think of anything,” Officer Warinski says. Again, his eyes are only on Grace. “Any information would be helpful.” He dips his head, watches her. “It might be our only chance.”

“To find Elizabeth?” James says. “Is that what you mean? Did this man take her? Is that what happened?”

“I’m afraid we can’t discuss the particulars,” Officer Thompson says from the front porch.

“Can’t,” James says, “or won’t? This is our neighborhood. We’ve a right to know.”

Officer Thompson shakes his head but offers nothing more. The other officer continues to stare at Grace, waiting and watching for a clue that she has lied to them.

“Mind if we have a look out back?” the curly-haired Warinski says. “Give your garage a once-over.”

James leans against the doorjamb, crosses one foot over the other again. “Don’t see the need,” he says. “It’ll only get the neighbors to talking, and I don’t see the sense in that.”

“Ma’am,” Officer Warinski says. “Do you see the need?”

Grace shakes her head and runs her fingers across the many rows she has crocheted over the last few months. Mother says the stitches are too tight, too simple.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t,” she says. “It would be a waste of your valuable time.”

James dips his head as if he were wearing a hat. “Gentlemen,” he says, signaling the men should leave. “We’ll let you know if we hear anything.”

Officer Warinski crosses in front of James and follows the other officer outside.

“One moment,” Grace says from her seat on the sofa.

The men reappear in the doorway, remove their hats again.

“What is it you would have liked to hear me say?”

“Ma’am?”

“You’ve arrested a man?”

“He’s in our custody,” the taller officer says.

“What can I say to you, here and now, that will keep him from our streets? Tell me about this crime and I’ll say yes. I’ll say it happened. Even though it’ll be a lie, wouldn’t that help you?”

The officer with the dark curls and smooth skin steps forward. “Sir,” he says to James. “Will you leave us?”

“I damn sure will not,” James says, and drops down on one knee in front of Grace. “What are you talking about, Gracie? Did something happen?”

Grace stretches out one hand, touches James’s rough jaw. He only shaves every few days now. All of the men look the same-tired, drawn, their belts cinched a little tighter because even though the ladies feed them every day, they seem to have lost weight. Or maybe it’s the way they carry themselves, walking with short strides and hunched backs as if burdened by a heavy load, that makes them look like less than they were before Elizabeth disappeared.

“No, James. Nothing’s happened. But maybe I could say something that would help these men. Something that would help Elizabeth, help keep our streets safe.”

It’s too late to protect Elizabeth, but Grace can still save the twins or possibly another one of the ladies. She can get that man off of Alder Avenue before he tries again to set things right. If the one they’ve arrested knows what happened to Grace and that it happened here at this address, he must be one of the three. It’s probably the one who slipped out into the alley because he couldn’t bear the sight. He can give the police a name, direct them toward the man who did this terrible thing to her and to Elizabeth. But if there was no crime, the police will have no need of a name.

“Tell me,” Grace says. “I’ll say whatever I must to help Elizabeth.”

“Would you say a woman was attacked in your garage?” Again, it’s the officer with the dark curls. “Would you say three men threw her to the ground, that one of those men violated her while another held her down? Would you say those things?”

James pushes off the ground and lunges at the man. The second officer stops him with a stiff arm to his chest.

“Tell me, Mrs. Richardson,” the curly-haired officer says, ignoring James and keeping his eyes firmly on Grace. He drops his gaze to the small cut on her upper lip and lets his eyes roam over her face as if searching for more scratches and bruises. “Did these things happen? Did they happen to you?”

James stands at a distance, the other officer’s hand pressed to the middle of his chest. All three wait for Grace’s answer. She can feel the small hand of the girl, Cassia was her name, lifting Grace’s face, telling her the cut didn’t look so bad. The girl had seen worse, far worse. Nothing that won’t heal.

“Gracie?”

Grace shakes her head. “Well, of course those things aren’t true,” she says. “At least, not as far as I know. And I think I would know if someone were attacked in my own garage. I simply thought I could help.”

James holds up both hands and backs away from the officers.

“What will happen now?” Grace says. “Because there was no one harmed here, what will happen to the man?”

The curly-haired officer with the smooth skin pulls on his hat, meets Grace’s eyes as if preparing to answer, but turns away instead.

One more time, James makes a sweeping gesture intended to invite the officers to leave. They walk across the porch and down the sidewalk, and when they have neared the driveway, James slams the door.

“Smells like supper’s ready,” he says, walking past Grace toward the kitchen.

The legs of a chair scoot across the tile. Silverware clatters on the laminate tabletop.

“Strange, huh?” he calls back to Grace. His voice is flat when he speaks. He’s angry but won’t want Grace to see it in his face. “Why would some fellow say that about our place? About you?”

Grace walks over to the window and pushes aside the drapes. The officers have reached the end of the driveway. One of them, the curly-haired one, walks around the black-and-white patrol car, and from the driver’s side, he tips his hat at Grace.

“They probably got the wrong address, don’t you think?” she says. The officers’ car rolls away from the front of the house. Across the street, a few neighbors shield their eyes as they watch. “It was silly, what I did. I’m sorry.”

She’s now certain it’s the third man they’ve arrested. All she remembers are his eyes. They were a deep brown and his lids drooped, making him look sorry for what was about to happen. He’s the only one who would tell. Those men, all three of them, probably live at the Filmore. She has seen other colored men passing down the street at the usual times, but she hasn’t seen any one of the three, not since the night they came for her. The man, the one with sorrowful eyes, must have confessed to the police. He must have described Grace, told them the woman was pregnant and had long blond hair and lived at 721 Alder. That’s why the officer with the dark curls and smooth young face had looked at Grace like he knew everything. He knew about the sore spot on the back of her head and why her lip was split. Grace is the only pregnant wife on the block. Maybe the only one on the street. The officers want Grace to tell the truth because Elizabeth can’t. They are thinking it’s a shame when people won’t speak up. They are thinking Grace is their only hope. They are thinking there’s hope to be had.

James’s body is warm when he steps up behind Grace. He wraps his arms around her, and she leans into him.

“Don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you,” he says.

Resting her head on James’s chest, Grace closes her eyes, holds his hands, and wonders if he loves her enough to stay should he find out the truth. Mother thinks not. “Nothing bad will ever happen to us.”

“Promise me,” James says, burying his face in her hair.

“I promise.”

It’s long past dark and Grace should be sleeping. Instead, she is listening. The colored men have already come and gone. Every night around ten they pass, although now, because Orin Schofield sits in the back alley, the men walk down the middle of Alder Avenue. She’s glad Orin’s there. She even finds herself hoping, wishing he would find those men out on the street. Something is different since she told the police no woman was attacked in her garage. Saying it never happened is different from not telling. It’s worse. It means those men-that man-can come back.

The year Grace turned eleven, she again stood in line on the Fourth of July to board the Ste. Claire, but rather than entertaining worries over soiled brass railings, she had thought of the boy, young man, with the easy laugh and dark hair. Or she likes to believe she thought of him, that she remembered him from the year before. The ladies’ shoulders were still fortified by pleats and pads, their waists still sculpted, their frames tall and proud. But when the ship’s horn called out, Mother said nothing about it being no time for sorrow.

It was a different girl in James’s arms that year. Grace stood on the edge of the open-air dance floor, holding her hair at the nape of her neck, and she heard him before she saw him. He spun by, holding a dark-haired girl this time, spinning, twirling, faster with each pass. Grace had watched him, imagining how happy the girl in his arms must have been. She must have felt safe in his hands. Mother and Father danced that year too. It was the only year Father took Mother in his arms.

The floor pulsed underfoot as Grace watched the dancers. James says he remembers a little blond girl standing alone, the wind pulling at her hair. He says he spun by and ruffled that head of hair because even then, he knew she was special. Grace doesn’t remember him ever catching her eye or giving her a wink or a nod. But she smiles when he remembers and says she remembers too.

That was the last year Father would board the Ste. Claire. He, like others, like James, went to war in the months that followed. This is why the whole country had been bracing itself. This is why the ladies loosened their hair and wore stout shoulders in their suits. Wives and mothers rode streetcars to Michigan Central, waved good-bye to their husbands and sons as they boarded outbound trains, so many of them never to be seen again. By the next Fourth of July, Grace knew Father would never come home.

Downstairs, James bangs about in the kitchen. He came home an hour ago and will have made coffee and read the newspaper. It’s what he does every night. Grace has told him he’s drinking too much coffee and smoking too many cigarettes. There’s all that food, she says, knowing the ladies are filling the church tables every day and night. Eat. You’re wasting away. He’ll watch a ball game if there’s one showing. More and more of the games are airing on the television. Hardly any reason to go to the ballpark anymore. Grace blinks when the bedroom door opens and light from the hallway brightens the room. She slides into a sitting position, her back resting against the headboard.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” James says, yanking out his shirttail and unbuttoning his shirt.

Grace doesn’t have to ask. She need only inhale as if she’s about to speak.

“Nope, nothing,” James says, and lays a hand on Grace’s stomach. “How’s my little guy tonight?”

“She’s fine,” Grace says. Her smile comes easily and for a moment, things feel as they are meant to.

Pulling his black leather belt from his trousers, James hangs it from a hook on the back of the bedroom door and sits on the edge of the bed. Propping one foot on the opposite knee, he pulls at the laces on his boot.

“Did you have a good evening?” he says, not mentioning the police who visited at suppertime.

“I wish I could do more. It’s so quiet here on the street. Everyone’s helping but me.” Because she’ll go again another day and doesn’t want James to forbid it, she doesn’t tell him about the trip to Willingham or the pierogi or the women.

After taking off his first boot, James removes the second, bends to the closet floor, and hooks both on the shoe rack-right boot on the right side, left boot on the left. When he rises, a white leather shoe dangles from one finger.

“It was yours?” he says. “That shoe in the garage was yours. Here’s the mate.”

Grace doesn’t remember returning the single shoe to the closet. It should have been thrown away with the other clothes. It must have been there, hanging from the shoe rack since the night the man came for her.

“How about that?” Grace says. “I guess it was.” She smiles and shrugs because she is always the one to misplace the keys or her favorite hairbrush or one of Mother’s recipes.

It seems that it happened so long ago, that several weeks and months have passed since the men came. But it’s only days. Grace can count them on one hand. She wakes every morning, thinking so much time has passed. Things she should remember, memories that should be clear and sharp, have faded, even disappeared, as if many months separate then from now. It must feel this way because time is supposed to heal her. That’s what Mother said, so Grace’s mind is speeding it up, tricking her into thinking weeks and months have ticked by. But the slipping away isn’t because of the healing. That moment and those men seem far away, distant, because Grace is so changed. Not in a small way. Not in a passing way that happens over a day or a week. She is entirely changed. She is changed in a way so large it would usually take months and years to emerge. Surely something so huge must show through. Mother said not to tell, but surely James will see it.

The shoe dangles from James’s finger. He rotates it from side to side, inspecting it from all angles. He’s thinking, perhaps wondering about the police who said something terrible happened in the garage, perhaps remembering what the officer with the soft curls said about a woman suffering a horrific attack. Without saying anything else, James lowers himself to one knee and slides the shoe onto the round wire that will hold its shape.

“Shame,” he says. “We’ll buy you a new pair.”

Grace scoots down between the sheets, and James slides in next to her. Tomorrow, she’ll go to Willingham Avenue again. If the women ask, she might tell them what really happened. They would look at her a moment, maybe sigh, and then say it’s not so bad. Seen worse. Resting one hand on James’s chest where she can feel it rise and fall, Grace nestles against him in such a way that her head fits perfectly on his shoulder, and she thinks of Orin Schofield sitting in his chair in the back alley, waiting, maybe even hoping, the colored men pass. Earlier this evening, after Mrs. Williamson would have washed up her supper dishes and Mr. Williamson would have fallen asleep listening to the radio, Mrs. Williamson tied a blue scarf around her thinning hair, walked out her back door, across the alley, up to Orin Schofield’s house, and returned to him his rifle.

Izzy squints into the morning sunlight that bounces off the bathroom mirror and after counting out one hundred strokes of her hair, she sets aside the brush. Her cheeks and chin are red from her having scrubbed her face with a soapy washcloth, and her hair falls smoothly over her shoulders. Next she brushes her teeth, tucks in the white cotton blouse that had the least wrinkles when she pulled it from her drawer, and slips on a blue headband to keep the hair out of her face. No wonder Arie spends so much time in the bathroom every morning.

From out in the hallway, Arie bangs on the door for the third time because if Izzy doesn’t hurry up, Arie won’t be ready to leave for the church on time. Aunt Julia insisted both girls take a bath even though they took one last night because they spent all morning scraping paint off Uncle Bill’s garage. After Izzy complained at the breakfast table that the television was nothing but gray fuzz and the house was hot and they knew every single record by heart and why couldn’t someone take them to Jefferson Beach, Aunt Julia had handed Arie a three-inch putty knife and Izzy a wire brush and said if they were so bored, she would be happy to give them something to fill their time. Taking one last glimpse in the mirror, Izzy throws open the bathroom door, lowers her head, and rushes down the hall before Arie has a chance to notice Izzy has made herself up to look just like her twin sister.

Downstairs in the entryway, the front door stands open. A car trunk slams and Aunt Julia marches up the sidewalk and onto the porch. Though Izzy knows it isn’t possible, Aunt Julia’s chest looks bigger today than it was yesterday. Every day, Aunt Julia’s curves appear to grow, making Izzy certain hers never will. Ducking her chin to her chest, Izzy digs at the linoleum floor with the tip of one toe because that’s what Arie would do if she got caught staring at the gap in Aunt Julia’s blouse.

“Would you tell Izzy to get a move on?” Aunt Julia says, walking through the door and toward the kitchen, a sweet, perfumed smell following her inside. “We’re going to be late if that child doesn’t get going.”

Izzy continues to stare at the floor and tries not to smile. “Aunt Julia,” she says, pitching her voice the slightest bit higher so she’ll sound like Arie. “Could Izzy and I stay home today?”

Aunt Julia stops and crosses her arms over her chest. She thinks Izzy is Arie because Izzy has brushed her hair with one hundred strokes, scrubbed her face until it burned, and wears a tucked-in blouse that isn’t wrinkled.

“I promise to make Izzy behave,” Izzy says. “But I’d rather not go to the church. It scares me to be there.”

“What do you mean?” Aunt Julia runs a hand over Izzy’s glossy hair, thinking it’s Arie’s glossy hair.

“It makes me think about Elizabeth all the time,” Izzy says, “and that scares me.”

“I don’t know,” Aunt Julia says, looking overhead to where Arie is in the bathroom, brushing her hair and scrubbing her face. “It’s not that I worry so much about you, but Izzy isn’t one to mind me these days.”

“I’ll make her listen,” Izzy says. “I promise I won’t let Izzy out of my sight.”

Once Aunt Julia’s red taillights have disappeared around the corner at Alder and Woodward and while the water still runs in the upstairs bathroom, Izzy yanks at her crisp white cotton blouse so it hangs loose at her waist, pulls off her headband, and runs out the back door, across the yard, and into the alley. She would have brought Arie, but she is all of a sudden afraid of the alley and wouldn’t have approved anyway. Izzy runs until she reaches the Turners’ house, and once there, she squats behind the overgrown bushes Mr. Turner never trims. From this end of the block, Izzy can see the top floor of Aunt Julia’s house. She squints and maybe sees Arie standing in their bedroom window. Just in case, she gives Arie a big wave so she’ll know everything is all right. Then Izzy drops back behind the bush and watches for approaching cars.

After waiting for a good long time and hearing and seeing nothing, Izzy peeks out from behind the bush. Across the intersection, just outside Mr. Symanski’s house, a group of three men huddles around a clipboard. Two of the men carry walking sticks, the third holds the clipboard. After talking for a few minutes, the three men walk toward the Filmore and disappear around back, where they must be heading down into the poplar trees. They’ll poke at the shrubs and mushy piles of leaves back there in hopes one of them will finally poke Elizabeth. When Izzy is sure the men are gone, she jumps up from behind Mr. Turner’s shaggy bushes, gives one last wave in case Arie can see her, and runs toward Beersdorf’s Grocery.

After Izzy gives one last wave in case Arie can see her from the bedroom window, she runs out of the alley and onto Alder Avenue. When she sees a second group of searchers, she squats behind another bush. One block later, she spots a third group and hides on the far side of an elm that hasn’t been chopped down yet. Elms used to grow along both sides of Alder Avenue. The trees formed an arch in summer when their leaves were thick, and in the winter, their bare branches were like claws trapping the houses below. Most of the elms are gone now, from Alder and all the other streets too.

While hiding from the most recent set of searchers and watching as the three men walk up to a door, tap lightly, and step back to wait for the lady of the house to appear, it occurs to Izzy she recognizes none of them, and if she doesn’t recognize them, they won’t recognize her. Even if they do catch sight of her and wonder why she is running about a neighborhood no one considers safe anymore, they won’t know to tell Aunt Julia because they won’t know where Izzy belongs. She runs the rest of the way without worrying about who might see her until she spots Mr. Herze’s giant blue sedan on the corner just past Beersdorf’s Grocery. The car’s fins run half its length and the chrome front end glitters where it catches the sun-definitely Mr. Herze’s car.

The fans hit Izzy full in the face when she pulls open Beersdorf’s heavy door. The small store smells of sour milk and bleach. Behind the front counter, Mr. Beersdorf stands, one hand resting on his register, the other on his large belly. When the girls used to shop here with Aunt Julia-before the neighborhood turned like a bad banana-Mr. Beersdorf’s apron was crisp and white and his belly was even bigger. Now the apron is gray and his belly has deflated because Mrs. Beersdorf died and he doesn’t have anyone to do his cooking and cleaning anymore. He flicks his eyes in Izzy’s direction but quickly turns his attention back to the large Negro woman standing at the display cases that run along the far side of the store. The plump woman wears a pink-and-white calico dress belted at her thick waist. With one hand, she holds a young girl by the wrist and is picking through Mr. Beersdorf’s tomatoes with the other. Izzy scans the rest of the shop. No sign of Mr. Herze. He must be among those searching the neighborhood, probably one of the men who carries a clipboard.

“Don’t you bruise my wares,” Mr. Beersdorf calls out.

As if to get Mr. Beersdorf’s goat, something Grandma likes to say, the woman is taking her own sweet time picking through every single tomato. The woman pays no mind to Mr. Beersdorf and continues picking and sorting. While Mr. Beersdorf is busy frowning at the woman, Izzy makes her way to the far side of the shop, her sneakers sliding easily across the black-and-gray checkered floor. She walks with a straight back and lets her arms hang naturally at her sides. The trick is to move with a normal stride and not glance about to see who’s watching. Behind her, where the tall windows let in the only light, the shop’s door opens. A blast of warm air rushes inside, blowing strands of Izzy’s red hair across her face. That same blast causes Mr. Beersdorf to stand to his full height and stick out his belly. Izzy turns to see what has caused Mr. Beersdorf to double in size.

Three colored men walk into the shop. One of them leans against the doorframe while the other two walk inside. One of the men is much taller and wider than the others and a tuft of hair grows from his chin. As the two men stroll past Mr. Beersdorf, paying him no attention, Izzy continues across the store, back straight, arms loose, no glancing about.

At the end of aisle one, red and green pennants hang overhead, their narrow tips fluttering from the gust of air the men let in, and a large cardboard cutout of a boy wearing a cowboy hat points toward a bin of canned peas and corn. His cheeks and the end of his round nose are red as if he’s had too much sun, and a blue kerchief is tied around his cardboard neck. The same cardboard boy stood over that bin when Izzy and Arie used to come to the store with Aunt Julia. They were younger then and Mrs. Beersdorf would say the cowboy was glad to see the girls and that he had been waiting all year for them to return. Izzy dashes past the display, fearing the boy is watching her and knows exactly what she’s up to.

Izzy tried to find a can of tuna in Aunt Julia’s cupboards, even mentioned one afternoon that some tuna sure would taste good. Aunt Julia said she had used up the last of it for the men down at the church and she’d put more on her shopping list, but after two trips to Willingham, Aunt Julia still hadn’t brought any home. There was only one way Izzy was going to get tuna.

She first spotted the cans the last time she and Arie were at Beersdorf’s, shortly before Izzy slipped the stolen pop under her shirt. If they were going to ever find their cat, tuna would be the perfect bait, and finding Patches is about the only way Izzy can think of to get Arie feeling better. For months, Arie worried and fussed about that dog the Russians shot up into space. She would stare into a black sky, hoping she might see that spaceship with the dog inside, as if her seeing it would have meant that dog was safe. About the time Arie stopped looking for that dog, their cat disappeared and then Arie started being afraid of the alley and just about everything else, it seemed. If it’s not one thing with Arie, it’s another.

Keeping her head down, Izzy passes behind the little girl and the woman sorting through the tomatoes, continues to the far end of the aisle, and squats to the lowest shelf. Checking both ways to make sure Mr. Beersdorf hasn’t appeared, she palms a can of tuna and tucks it into her elastic waistband. Behind her, the little girl lets out a squeal.

“Hush up,” the girl’s mother says, rolling another tomato from side to side as she inspects it. “Mind yourself.”

Izzy twists up her face the same way Arie does when she’s angry and points it at the girl, who promptly wraps both arms around her mother’s wide legs and hides her face in her mother’s thighs. With the girl no longer watching, Izzy stands slowly so the tuna won’t break free of her waistband. Half a dozen long strides will take her to the end of the aisle and back to the front of the store. When Izzy reaches her full height, the can tucked securely in place, the little Negro girl peeks out from behind her mother’s thighs. Izzy holds a finger to her lips. The little girl lets go of her mother’s legs, jumps into the center of the aisle, and shapes her face into the same scowl Izzy made. Two pigtails stick out from the girl’s head like fuzzy black handles. She jumps up and down and tugs at her mother’s blouse. Looking first at Izzy and then down at her daughter, the mother sets aside her tomato and reaches out to scoop up the girl, but she bounces out of reach and begins flapping her arms and pointing at Izzy.

“Stealer, stealer,” the girl chants. “Stealer, stealer.”

The mother fends off the small flailing arms and manages to wrap one hand around the girl’s shoulder. In the wake of the flapping and floundering, a few tomatoes tumble out of the display case. Izzy dashes toward the cardboard cowboy at the end of the aisle. The girl squeals and yanks away from her mother. As the woman lunges for her daughter, managing only to grab the girl’s small wrist, her foot lands in the center of a fallen tomato. The woman slips, losing her grip on the girl, and the girl flies across the aisle and into Izzy’s path.

Throwing out both hands like she does when she flies over her bike’s handlebars, Izzy sails past the little girl and falls face-first toward the checkered floor. The can of tuna breaks loose of her elastic waistband, drops out the leg of her shorts, bounces up, and hits the little girl in the head. The can continues to bounce across the black-and-gray tile and comes to rest a few feet beyond Izzy’s reach.

“Hey there,” Mr. Beersdorf shouts.

At the end of the aisle, Mr. Beersdorf appears. He stops under the pennants that now hang motionless. To the left of him stands the cardboard cutout, but from where she lies, facedown, Izzy can see only the boy’s brown paper backing and the wooden slats that hold him in place.

“What’s happening here?” Mr. Beersdorf says. “You there.” He points down at Izzy. “What’s your name? Do I know your parents?”

Izzy scrambles to her knees. Behind her, the little girl is crying and the mother is trying to pick her up.

“You’ll pay for that produce,” Mr. Beersdorf shouts, jabbing a finger at the woman struggling with her crying child.

On hands and knees, Izzy snatches up the can, jumps to her feet, darts between Mr. Beersdorf and the cardboard cowboy, and runs toward the door.

“Stop there,” Mr. Beersdorf shouts over the screaming little girl. “Bring back that can.”

At the front of the store, the colored man who waited while the other two walked into the shop pushes open the door and ushers Izzy outside with a one-handed sweeping gesture. “That’s twice I saved you, huh?” he says as she runs past. He smiles down on Izzy, his teeth bright and white against his warm, brown skin. He has soft, lazy eyes like Uncle Bill and stands with a strong, straight back. Izzy smiles, though she isn’t sure what the man means to say, and holding the tuna in one hand she runs out of the store and through the empty parking lot. Knowing Mr. Beersdorf won’t follow her because he’ll be too worried about all those Negroes, Izzy slows to a walk when she reaches the street, tosses the can into the air, and catches it. Tosses it and catches it.

“I’m guessing your aunt doesn’t know you’re out and about, does she? And I’m guessing you didn’t buy that can of tuna.”

Izzy wraps both hands around the small can, hiding it as best she can. Three men walk toward her. Two carry long sticks meant for poking through bushes. The men wear hats, white cotton work shirts rolled up at the sleeves, faded blue pants that have no crease, and black boots. They stand on either side of the third man. Izzy knows the third man. Just as she thought, Mr. Herze carries the clipboard.

Grace agrees with Mrs. Nowack when she suggests it might be best that Grace go straight home, and after the fifth police car has raced past the bakery and turned toward the river, she boards the bus that will carry her back to Alder Avenue. But rather than stopping at her own house, she walks directly to Mr. Symanski’s, opens the iron gate, climbs the three stairs leading onto his porch, and knocks lightly. The door opens. Mr. Symanski wears a wrinkled shirt and a tie that falls too short. His pants hang loose on his waist and bag at his ankles. A pair of men’s shoes cut from soft kidskin leather sit to the side of the door. The tip of his big toe pokes through a small hole in his right sock.

“I thought to check on you,” Grace says. “I was down on Willingham…”

She lets her words trail off into silence, afraid to mention the many police cars and blaring sirens. Tugging off her white gloves one finger at a time, she checks the street for any sign of an officer who might be coming to deliver bad news.

Mr. Symanski blinks twice and squints again, as if not certain who Grace is, and then he smiles. “Come in,” he says. “Before the heat is getting you.”

Outside Mr. Symanski’s, tufts of crabgrass have grown up through the cracks in the sidewalk. The yard has become shabby in the short time since Elizabeth disappeared. It must have started when Ewa died, the slow, steady falling apart, but Grace hadn’t noticed until now.

In the living room, Grace tucks her gloves into her handbag. The air is heavy and stale, making it difficult to breathe. So often in the days since Elizabeth disappeared, it’s been difficult for Grace to breathe.

“The baby is well?” Mr. Symanski says.

Grace nods and pushes aside the heavy drapes in the front room. Light spills into the house, and the dust in the air sparkles. Across the street, the Filmore Apartments are quiet. They’re always quiet. In the evenings, when the people come home from work, they must park their cars and disappear inside straightaway. Everyone says some of the families living there are Negroes, but Grace has never seen them coming or going through the glass doors. She’s only seen the men who roam the alley and now the street. The one who came for her hasn’t been among them since the night of the attack. Grace excuses herself and, in the kitchen, pulls a bottle of diluted vinegar from under the sink, grabs a few pages from yesterday’s newspaper, and walks back to the living room.

“The police came to see you?” Mr. Symanski says.

“They did.” She sets aside the bottle so she can use both hands to wad up the newspaper.

A half dozen times since the officers questioned James and Grace, their patrol car has rolled down Alder Avenue. Each time, the car drove slowly as it crept past her house, giving her a chance to rush outside and admit to them she lied. They could find Elizabeth if only Grace would tell the truth.

“Yesterday,” she says. “They came yesterday.”

Sprinkling the diluted vinegar on the crumpled ball of newspaper, Grace rubs small circles on the living room’s cloudy window.

“They are asking you more questions?” Mr. Symanski says.

Another deep breath so her voice won’t quiver.

“I wish I could have told them something,” she says, and rubs her nose.

Ewa’s vinegar water is stronger than the mixture Grace has at home. But stronger is better. The glass glistens and squeals as Grace scrubs.

“I wish I could have told them something that would help. But they arrested a man. Does it give you any peace to know that?”

Maybe there is some comfort in knowing. Maybe not knowing is the thing that tortures a father, keeps him up at night, turns his hair to straw, makes his shoulders cave and his spine bow. The street must surely be safer with one of them arrested. This must bring some peace.

Mr. Symanski sits on the sofa. He used to sit in the brown recliner pushed against the wall, and Ewa would sit next to him in her chair. With his hands in his lap, he smiles at the bright window.

“They have no one,” he says.

“But they arrested a man.”

“They are telling me it was unrelated,” Mr. Symanski says. “I don’t understand unrelated. I am thinking Elizabeth doesn’t matter as much as another might.”

“I don’t understand, either,” Grace says. “They let him go? How can they do that?”

Mr. Symanski shakes his head. “They say they can be holding a man only so long. That is all they are telling me.”

“Did he live there?” Grace says, pointing at the Filmore. She squints into the freshly cleaned window just as Mr. Symanski had squinted when she first opened the door. As she stares across Alder Avenue, she wipes down the marble sill with her soggy newspaper. “Is he here on this street? Have you ever seen him?”

“I am never looking.”

“I wish I could have helped you,” she says, knowing the man is back on the street because she was too afraid to tell the truth. “I wish I could have said something to the police, told them something that would have stopped all this.”

From his seat on the sofa, Mr. Symanski stares down at the sliver of toe poking through his sock. “You are helping me now,” he says. “You are being a good neighbor. And always so good to my Elizabeth. Always so good. You’ll be having your own soon and knowing how wonderful a daughter is to love.”

After scrubbing the kitchen window, wiping down the counters, and promising to deliver a roast in a few days to fill Mr. Symanski’s empty refrigerator-or possibly a stuffed chicken if he has tired of a roast every week-Grace walks with Mr. Symanski to the front gate. Once there, she hugs him lightly and pushes on the gate’s latch. It sticks, so she gives it a second jostle. Down the street, near her own house, one of the twins walks toward her. From this distance, she can’t tell which one.

“The police came to see me today,” Mr. Symanski says. “Just before you are here, they came.”

Grace lets the gate fall closed and whirls around to face Mr. Symanski. “Oh, no.”

The twin is a half block closer. Because her head jerks from side to side as if she’s afraid of her surroundings and because her shoulders droop, Grace knows it’s Arie.

“Yes,” Mr. Symanski says. “It was being the river. That is all they are telling me. Today they are finding her. It is being the other men who tell them it is my Elizabeth.”

Grace reaches out, squeezes Mr. Symanski’s wrist, pulls him into her arms. “What can I say? It’s my fault. All of this. My fault.”

Mr. Symanski, hunched over at an awkward angle because of Grace’s large stomach, rests his head on her shoulder. “This is not being true,” he says. “My Elizabeth, she is being at peace?”

Grace dabs at her eyes. She wants to ask how it happened, what the police found, but Arie is only a house away and she shouldn’t see this or hear this.

“Can I help you inside?” Grace says, glancing back at Arie. She has walked a few yards closer and stopped. She stands at the sidewalk that leads to the Archers’, who live next door, and has wrapped herself in both arms. Even from this distance, Grace can see Arie is crying.

“Go,” Mr. Symanski says. “Go and see to the child.” Halfway up the sidewalk, he stops and turns back. “It is being hardest to be the only one left.”

Grace watches until Mr. Symanski reaches his porch, then she bangs on the latch again and once through the gate, she rushes toward Arie.

“Arie, dear. What is it? What’s wrong?”

Arie’s lips roll in on themselves and she backs away. She shakes her head but doesn’t speak.

“Honey, please. Why are you crying?” Grace takes another few steps closer, but this time, she moves slowly.

Arie must know about Elizabeth’s death. Grace should be crying too, but she’s known all along things would come to this end.

“It’s Izzy,” Arie says, still cradling herself with her own arms. “I’m afraid what happened to you is going to happen to her.”

Malina lingers in the middle of the street until a car forces her to move. She gives a kindly wave to the driver and steps onto the curb outside her house. Mr. Herze stands near his sedan. He rubs the top of the car’s fin as if it were Malina’s thigh. Her cheeks burn. Certainly, they’ve turned red. Across the street, Julia kneels before the twin and stares up at her. Grace stands at the girl’s side, one hand resting on her shoulder.

“Arie, you promised me you two would stay inside,” Julia says. “You crossed your heart and promised me.” One of Julia’s nylons is torn and a hole has opened up in her skirt’s side seam.

The girl shakes her head. “No,” she says.

Malina braves the street again and presses her ear toward the threesome.

“What do you mean, no? You stood right there in that entry and gave me your word. You gave me your word, Arie. You said you’d watch over your sister.”

The girl shakes her head. Malina takes another step.

“I didn’t make that promise,” the girl says. “It was Izzy. She was pretending to be me.”

They talk some more, the girl pointing toward the Filmore Apartments, Grace patting the girl’s shoulder and shaking her head, Julia looking up and down Alder Avenue. How long has she been gone? When did you last see her? Where would she go? Did you know she was going? Did you know she had gone?

“You said you saw one of the girls today,” Julia shouts when she notices Malina standing nearby. “Was it Izzy? Did she say where she was going?”

Malina shakes her head and can’t stop herself from glancing back at Mr. Herze.

Grace wraps an arm around the girl and walks her up Julia’s driveway. “I’ll get her inside,” she says. “And then I’ll check with the neighbors.”

“I’ll get my keys,” Mr. Herze calls out. “She won’t be far. I’ll drive around a few blocks.”

The screen door slams once when Mr. Herze goes inside and again when he returns. Another car comes along to force Malina and Julia from the street. It’s Grace Richardson’s husband. He pulls over, climbs out of his car, and jumps back in after Julia tells him of the missing child.

“Move this car,” Mr. Herze shouts at Malina. “I can’t very well get out with you blocking me in.”

Malina fumbles with the clasp on her purse and digs one hand inside, searching for her keys.

“How about you, Warren?” Julia says, after James Richardson has driven away. “Did you happen to see one of the girls while you were out today? It would have been Izzy.”

Walking out of Julia’s house, Grace’s skin is white except for the red glow that creeps up her neck. She has taken the other twin inside and now that twin sits in the front window, her face pressed to the glass, and looks as if she’s watching Mr. Herze.

Standing at the side of his car, his keys in hand, Mr. Herze stares across the street at Julia but doesn’t answer.

“Warren,” Julia says again. “Did you see her?”

He looks down at his keys, jostles them, pulls open the car door.

“Warren?”

“Well, good Lord in heaven,” Mr. Herze says. He tosses his keys into the air, catches them, and slams the door shut. “Unless you’ve got a third one running around, that must be the one you’re looking for.”

Down the block, James Richardson pulls into his drive. He has seen the same as Mr. Herze. Walking on the side of the street, where the last few elms throw a spot of shade, is the other twin. James Richardson walks to the street and makes a motion with his thumb, signaling to the girl she’d better hurry on home. She hugs something to her chest and begins a lazy jog. As she gets closer and sees Julia standing on the curb, arms crossed, the girl slows her pace. Malina walks toward her for a closer look. The girl definitely holds something in her arms. It’s a stack of paper-white, glossy paper-one sheet the exact size of the next. A stack at least a half-inch thick. Malina leans close as the girl passes. LOST CAT, it reads across the top in large black letters.

The girl continues the long, slow walk toward home. Without saying a word, Julia stretches out one arm and points a single finger at her house. The girl walks past Julia, head bowed. At the stairs leading to the front door, Grace, still pale, ruffles the top of the girl’s head with one hand. The girl ducks, pulls away from Grace’s touch, disappears inside, and the door closes. Leaning heavily on the banister, Grace makes her way down the last few stairs and walks up the sidewalk toward the street. Not until she hears the front door close does Julia drop her arm. She looks past Malina and turns to face Grace.

A few days ago, Malina saw a stack of paper exactly like the one clutched in the girl’s arms. It came home with Mr. Herze. The girls at the office made them-flyers for Elizabeth Symanski that the men taped in windows along Woodward. The paper was glossy, smooth, not like regular writing paper. A machine at the factory churned out one sheet exactly like the next. The girls knew how to make it work. Mr. Herze would never bother with such a chore. One flyer after another, each sheet exactly like the last and the next. Now the twin who is bold enough to walk right past Malina without even a hello carries a stack of those same flyers. LOST CAT, the top one read. All the rest will be exactly the same.

Julia stands in front of her refrigerator, staring inside. She should be getting supper on the table for the twins and Bill. From the top shelf, she grabs a loaf of banana bread tightly wrapped in aluminum foil. Some of her bananas were too ripe for pudding, so she used them to make bread because waste not, want not. She squeezes the tightly wrapped loaf until the ends pop open and then tosses it across the kitchen toward the trash can sitting at the back door. She grabs three more foil-wrapped loaves, all of them meant to feed the searchers tomorrow, but the search is over and all this food will go to waste after all. Like the first loaf, she throws all three across the kitchen. Next she slides out a pale blue casserole dish trimmed in a white Butterprint pattern. It’s her banana pudding with a three-inch meringue, also meant to go to the church tomorrow. Her meringues never bleed or weep, and this one, like all the others, is perfect. Sliding her palm under the cool dish, she holds it near her shoulder and launches it at the trash can, where it shatters against the wall. Next, the baby lima beans in cream sauce. They’ve always been Bill’s favorite. They sail across the room in a lemon-colored casserole dish and splatter on contact-the flat, pasty beans first sticking to the wall and then falling away to the floor.

“Aunt Julia.”

Julia swings around.

“Is something bad happening?” Izzy says. She stands in the kitchen entry, one hand on Arie’s shoulder, the other hanging limp at her side. Both girls’ feet are bare and their hair is damp from their bath.

“No,” Julia says. “It’s nothing. You two get on back upstairs.”

Arie steps away, but Izzy doesn’t move.

“Is it Elizabeth? Did they find her?”

“Not now, Izzy. Later, when Uncle Bill gets home.”

“I wasn’t doing anything bad,” Izzy says. “I was only looking for Patches. You never let us look.”

Arie has continued to back down the hallway, but Izzy stands firm.

“I’m sorry I pretended. Arie didn’t know. I was only-”

“I said, upstairs now.”

“But Aunt Julia, we-”

“You’ll never find that cat.”

Julia reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out the last loaf of banana bread, rears back, and throws it. The small, tightly bound package hits the wall with a thud.

“That cat is at your grandmother’s house, way across town, and it’s probably dead by now.”

Izzy’s bottom lip pokes out. “That’s not true. There’s no reason to think she’s dead.”

Turning her back on Izzy, Julia says, “Upstairs. Now.”

Julia stares at the mess she has made until the girls’ bedroom door slams shut. Once she is certain they have settled in, she walks over to the foyer and takes a quick look out the front of the house. No sign of Bill, even though the other husbands are home for the evening. She drops the curtain and at the entryway table picks up the tattered, yellowing article about the Willows that Malina returned. Julia’s unfolded and refolded it so many times, it has begun to tear along the creases. Back in the kitchen, she stands alongside the trash can splattered with yellow pudding, banana slivers, and slippery beans, and lets the flimsy sheet drop.

Julia used to tell herself she kept the article because she loved the house pictured in it. A crisply painted balustrade wraps around the front porch and rounded arches stretch between the squared-off columns that support the second-story patio. Looking at the picture now, a greasy stain ballooning in its center, she imagines the unwed girls sit on that top patio when the weather is nice. They must be lonely, shipped off to Kansas City to quietly give birth to their babies. The girls come from all over the country because every railroad leads directly to Kansas City and eventually to 2929 Main Street, the Willows. Julia pulls the article from the trash, wipes it on her apron, and holds it close. There might be someone sitting on the small, private porch. In the grainy print, she can’t be certain, but if she went there in person, she could see for herself.

Uncertain how long she has stood in the kitchen and stared at the faded picture, it’s a knock that rouses her. When she opens the door, James stands there, one hand propped against the side of the house. His sleeves are rolled up and his shirttail is untucked. It’s the same double-stitched chambray work shirt Bill wears on weekends. The same navy twill pants. The same black leather work boots with the steel-tipped toes. When Bill used to come home at the end of the day, he would always do the same-yank out his shirttail. Sometimes, after he walked through the door, Julia would unbutton his shirt for him and slip it off his shoulders, leaving him in his undershirt. Before Maryanne was born, he would help Julia out of her shirt too, and they would make love on the living-room floor.

“Everything all right down here?” James says, pushing off the side of the house and glancing down the street. “Grace asked me to check in.”

Julia pushes open the screen door and invites him inside. As he passes, she inhales the warm air he brings with him. He smells the same as Bill always did. Is it grease? Oil? Metal shavings? Even though he didn’t work at the factory today, James carries that smell. She feels his footsteps through the floorboards. He fills up the entry, blocks the light shining through the sheers in the dining room.

“Julia?” James says, staring into the kitchen. “What’s happened?”

Julia tucks the article back in the drawer where she has kept it for the last year. “Bill won’t have another baby with me,” she says.

She can only say it because James isn’t looking at her. He’s looking at the pudding dripping down her wall and the browning slivers of banana stuck to the side of her trash can.

“Won’t even touch me.”

Unable to face him, she talks to the floor. The black boots come toward her. Warm hands grip her shoulders.

“I used to be the one who couldn’t take care of her own baby,” Julia says, her cheek resting on James’s chest. “Now I’m the one who couldn’t take care of Elizabeth. Caught the same trout twice, I suppose.”

With her eyes closed, it could be Bill before everything went wrong. The hands are sturdy. He’s broad like Bill, and tall. Makes her feel small. She’s usually the tallest woman. They called her lanky as a child. All arms and legs. Mother said she’d outgrow the awkward stage, said Julia would stop growing up and start filling out. Now it’s James standing in front of her, smelling like oil or grease or metal shavings. When she reaches out to touch his chest, it feels like Bill’s. Stiff fabric, small reinforced buttons, warm. She leans into him. The hands that cupped her arms slip over her shoulders and down where they wrap around her waist and draw her in.

Standing in her entryway, her cheek resting on James’s chest, Julia inhales. The air around Grace’s husband is warm. He’s thick and solid, what a man should be. This could be her life before. Before Maryanne died. Before Elizabeth Symanski died. Before Bill drifted away. Before.

She draws up her hands to James’s neck, weaves her fingers into the ends of his hair where it curls, tilts her face, and pulls him toward her. The clock over the stove ticks. A fan in the front room squeals as it rolls from side to side. In the distance, a car door slams. Julia presses against him. Raising one hand to the back of her head, James rests the other on her waist. He makes a sound as if clearing his throat, pulls back before their lips touch, drops both hands, lifts them out to the side, and stumbles away. They stand, neither of them moving. The doorknob rattles, and the front door swings open.

Wearing the same double-stitched work shirt as James, Bill walks into the house. No one would notice the way his steps are just off center, but Julia does. Soon enough, his face will swell again from the drinking, and his skin will take on a yellow cast. He’s later than all the other husbands but has made it home in time for supper. He doesn’t notice James and Julia as he fumbles with the lock on the door. His keys rattle and he steadies himself by holding on to the doorknob. With one good tug, his key comes loose. He straightens and turns. Saying nothing, he crosses his arms and his eyes come to rest on James, who has dropped his hands back to his sides.

“Didn’t expect to find you here,” Bill says.

James is almost ten years older than Bill and holds a higher-grade job at the factory. He was Bill’s first supervisor and helped him keep his job during that difficult year after Maryanne died.

“James came to check in on the girls,” Julia says. “He wanted to see to it that they were all right. That we were all right.”

With the back of her hand, Julia wipes her mouth even though her lips never touched James’s. The pulse of her beating heart carries to her eardrums, making it difficult to hear. She hugs herself with both arms.

“Can see to those girls myself,” Bill says.

“Grace asked that I check in on them,” James says. “Will be on my way now that you’re home.”

Bill takes a small backward step, giving way to James.

“Good enough,” Bill says.

The men stand face-to-face, filling up the small entry.

“Good enough,” James says after a long silence, and reaches for the doorknob. “I’m sure Grace will be checking in real soon, Julia.”

Julia looks up from the floor at the sound of small feet running up the stairs and across the porch. The twins stop short, one bumping into the other, both of them stumbling across the threshold. One of them, Arie, lifts a hammer with both hands as if it’s a trophy. She lowers it at the sight of Bill and James staring at each other.

“Leave that outside,” Julia says, and waves at the girls to hurry past and go straight to their room.

Outside the door, Arie sets the hammer on the porch, wipes her hands on her shirt, and follows Izzy upstairs.

“All right, then,” James says, reaching out to pat Bill on the shoulder. “You all have a nice evening.”

The first two times Julia tries to wake Bill, he doesn’t stir. Now he will definitely be late to work. All the men will be returning to the factory today, and Bill should be among them. Behind her, the twins’ door is closed; their room, quiet. She checks her watch.

After James left the house yesterday, Bill had stood in the entry and stared at Julia. He didn’t speak, didn’t ask her to explain, didn’t notice the mess in the kitchen. Just stared. What had happened between James and Julia left something tangible in the room, something concrete enough that it filled up the entry and pushed Bill and Julia apart. By the time Bill left, slamming the front door behind him, he knew the truth even though Julia hadn’t uttered a word. She had waited up for him, but at some point during the night, she fell asleep on the sofa and didn’t wake when he came in.

“Bill,” Julia says, pushing open the bedroom door. She kneads her neck with one hand where it’s tightened up from sleeping without a pillow. “You’re late to work.” She leans into the room but doesn’t cross inside. “You need to get up.”

The bed creaks and Bill throws back the top cover. He is fully dressed in the clothes he wore the day before and still wears his black boots. Both are untied. Black laces dangle across the white sheets. Pushing himself into a sitting position, he swings his legs over the side of the bed. Even from across the room, Julia smells the liquor. Black-and-white scotch. He drinks it over ice.

“Figure I’d better get my house in order first,” he says, his voice rough from cigar smoke.

“What do you mean by that?”

Julia crosses into the room but stops at the foot of the bed. She leans over and tugs on the quilt, straightening Bill’s side.

“What did he do?” Bill says.

“What did who do?”

“James Richardson. In this house. What did he do to you?”

Feeling as if she’s naked from the waist up, Julia folds her arms over her chest. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why aren’t you going to work?”

“Asked you a question. Plain and simple.”

“And I’m telling you, it’s a silly question.”

Bill groans as he stands from the bed. He often comes home from the factory rubbing his lower back or the thick muscles at the base of his neck. He walks over to the window that overlooks the street.

“He touch you?”

“Keep your voice down. You’ll wake the girls.”

“Answer me, then. He touch you?”

Julia backs into the doorway and leans there. “Why aren’t you going to work, Bill?”

“You going to tell me what I walked in on last night?”

“You didn’t walk in on anything. James was… he was comforting me. He was being kind.”

“He was comforting my wife?” Bill says slowly, thinking about each word as if not quite certain what they mean.

“Yes, he was.”

Julia stares at him. His rounded shoulders hang, his hair is mussed on top, his jawline droops. He has lost more of himself than Julia has in the years since Maryanne died. Studying him now, she realizes how weak he’s become. So weak that all he remembers of their daughter is that she cried. All he remembers is her small red face and the tiny, rigid body. All he did during those few short months she lived was complain. He needed more sleep. Couldn’t be expected to work a full day if he couldn’t get a decent night’s sleep. No one else’s baby cried so much. Why theirs?

Bill unfastens the small buttons on the front of his shirt. Next, he unbuckles his belt, pulls it from his waistband, and tosses it on the bed.

“He lay his hands on you?”

Maybe Bill got so tired of all the crying he decided to stop it himself. Maybe that’s what has weighed so heavily on him all these years. When he mumbled about being sorry, he wasn’t talking about some woman down on Willingham or Elizabeth Symanski. Julia hadn’t considered it before. Never. Now it’s so obvious. The doctor was wrong. Babies don’t die for no reason. It’s not the grief that has made Bill so weak. It’s the guilt.

“I asked you a question. Did he lay his hands on you?”

“Only after I laid mine on him.”

Peeling off his shirt and tossing it on the bed, too, Bill lifts his eyes. “Excuse me? You want to repeat that?”

Though she’s gone too far, Julia can’t stop. She swallows and lifts her chin. She knows it now. Bill did something to Maryanne the night she died. He must have gone to the nursery while Julia slept. He must have decided he couldn’t live with it another day. All those nights after Maryanne died, he walked through this house as if Julia weren’t living in it alongside him. He looked past her, around her, through her. He was numb. He must have forgotten his guilt in these recent years, forgotten Maryanne. He became playful again, almost seemed to love Julia as he did in the beginning. But then came Grace’s baby, Betty Lawson’s baby, Elizabeth’s disappearance-one of them reminded him, drew his guilt to the surface. She knows he did it, knows that’s why he can’t live with the thought of another child.

She had overslept the morning it happened. When she woke, startled by the silence, she threw back the covers. She stood on the cool oak floors, curled under her toes, and as she rubbed her feet together to warm them, she listened. Inside the nursery, the weight of the air lifted. The temperature dropped. It was as if a window opened. Or someone shook a blanket. She walked across the wooden floor, slowly, hoping it wouldn’t squeak underfoot. At the crib, she placed one hand on the top rail, reached inside with the other. Maryanne’s tiny leg was cool.

The pain of it took two weeks settling in and then it stayed. The doctor rubbed his thick gray eyebrows and said it happens sometimes. No good reason why. Don’t go thinking you’ll find one. Then he patted Bill on the back.

“After a time, she’ll be ready again,” the doctor had said.

In the beginning, people offered privacy. A soft touch on the shoulder. A hug. They brought casseroles and lemon squares. Grace came every day, slipping silently through the front door to do the laundry, push a broom, scrub the pots and pans. She was the only one brave enough to wade through it day after day. James worked outside. He raked leaves and cleaned gutters. When a few weeks had passed, Bill thanked Grace and James, sent them away with a handshake and a hug, and closed the door to Maryanne’s room.

“Got to put it behind us,” he had said.

When a few more months passed, people began to talk about time. They said it would heal Julia and Bill. Not to worry, it always healed. But the pain continued to sink in, deeper one day than it was the last.

She’d asked Bill, “Do you feel it’s easier now?”

She needed to remember Maryanne, to talk about her. Julia needed to feel like she had been a good mother. Needed to feel like it wouldn’t happen again.

“All the talk in the world won’t bring her back,” Bill had said, and slowly he came home from work later and later. He would drive himself down Alder Avenue, stagger through the door. Other nights, someone from the bar would bring him home and help him up the stairs. Strangers stumbling through her house, dropping her husband on her bed.

And finally, signaling the grief should be over, when almost a year had passed, people began to say Julia and Bill should try to have another baby. Such a shame that a lovely girl and a good man shouldn’t have a child. Julia held out her arms to Bill, told him they ached. It started after Maryanne died, her shoulders and forearms and joints aching because she couldn’t hold her baby.

“You want to say that to me again?” Bill says. His chest swells. He squeezes both hands into fists.

“It’s been a long time since a man’s touched me,” Julia says. “James is as good as any other.”

Bill crosses the room in two long strides and, grabbing Julia’s upper arm, he slams her against the wall. Her head bounces off the doorframe. With one forearm across her chest, Bill holds her there. Standing over her, he smells like smoke from Harris’s Bar. He seems larger again, like he was before Maryanne died. His chest pumps up and down as he breathes through his nose, his mouth closed tight.

Barely able to speak because of the weight of Bill’s arm on her chest, Julia says, “Get. Out.”

It’s nearly suppertime. Izzy and Arie are especially hungry because Aunt Julia never made lunch and they had to fend for themselves. Izzy stands at the end of her bed and yanks the bottom two corners of her bedspread, but because she never bothered to straighten the sheets beneath, it won’t ever look as tidy as Arie’s. Izzy crosses both hands over her rumbling stomach and takes a good long look at her work. For the second time, Arie says that she would like to help but can’t because it’s against the rules, but do a good job and Aunt Julia might fry up some chicken for supper. Izzy says she can fix her own bed, thank you very much and now she wishes Arie hadn’t mentioned fried chicken because her stomach hurts even worse.

Arie always makes her bed first thing in the morning. She will tug at her sheets until they are taut, tuck sharp hospital corners, and snap her bedspread so it floats smoothly, perfectly down over the bed. Deciding she doesn’t care about a smooth quilt even if it means no supper, Izzy flops down on her mattress, folds her arms behind her head, and wonders why Aunt Julia would throw food against the kitchen wall and if Uncle Bill will ever come home again or if he, like Izzy’s mom, is gone for good.

Sitting on her own perfectly made bed, Arie shakes her head at Izzy and continues to work the tip of a steak knife through the belt they found in Mrs. Richardson’s garage. Before starting, Arie had measured out the size of Patches’ neck as best she could remember so when she eventually works the knife through, they’ll be able to buckle the belt to create a loop that is the perfect size.

“Girls?” It’s Aunt Julia tapping on the door. “May I come in?”

The door opens and Aunt Julia walks into the room. Her face and neck are red and her hair is mussed on top. If she had been downstairs frying chicken, she’d be wearing her white cotton bib apron, but she’s not. Izzy sure was hoping for fried chicken.

“Do you girls need to talk about Elizabeth?” Aunt Julia says. “Do you have questions?”

Both shake their heads. They saw Elizabeth only a few times a year. Sometimes they would sit with her while Aunt Julia talked with Mr. and Mrs. Symanski, but she never spoke.

“Then I think we need to have a conversation about stealing?” Aunt Julia says.

Izzy and Arie had hoped Aunt Julia was going to tell them not to worry, that Uncle Bill would be home soon and that the argument was just a silly thing between grown-ups. That’s what they had hoped for. That, and a plate of chicken.

“I would have thought you knew better,” Aunt Julia says.

“Izzy did it,” Arie says, holding the knife in one hand and the belt in the other. The clear jewels on the small buckle shine because she cleaned them with a cotton ball and rubbing alcohol. Arie points the knife at Izzy. “I wasn’t even there.” And then she lowers the knife when she remembers she’s not supposed to ever point one. “Sorry,” she says, even though Aunt Julia didn’t see.

Aunt Julia exhales and blinks slowly like she’s tired of teaching the two of them a lesson. She waves Izzy off her bed, pulls back the bedspread, and begins straightening and smoothing her sheets.

“You didn’t have any,” Izzy says. “I checked all the cupboards. We needed it for Patches. I’ll pay him back.”

“I’ll help earn the money,” Arie says, already feeling bad for telling on Izzy.

Aunt Julia tucks two perfect hospital corners on Izzy’s bed, shakes out the blue spread, and lets it fall into place. “You’ll pay who back?” she says, then sits and cradles Izzy’s pillow in her arms.

“Mr. Beersdorf.”

“The hammer belongs to Mr. Beersdorf?” Aunt Julia fluffs the pillow and, holding it by two corners, gives it a good shake and props it against the center of the headboard. “You know you aren’t supposed to go that far.”

“No,” Izzy says. “That’s Mrs. Herze’s hammer.”

“Why do you have Malina’s hammer, of all things?”

Arie scoots to the edge of her mattress and lets her legs hang over the edge. She sets the knife on the dresser between their two beds and lays the belt over her lap. “We saw her pounding her flowers with it and she was going to blame us. She tries to blame everything on us. We didn’t do anything. We caught her and I took it so we could show you. We weren’t stealing.”

“So the hammer belongs to Malina?” she says. “Why, then, do you owe Mr. Beersdorf money?”

“I stole a can of tuna from him,” Izzy says.

Instead of whirling around to face Izzy, Aunt Julia stares at the belt spread across Arie’s lap. The buckle glitters where it catches the sunlight.

“I wanted to put out tuna for Patches because she loves it. It was my idea. All my idea. Arie didn’t even know. I tricked you into thinking I was Arie and I went to Beersdorf’s by myself.”

Aunt Julia says nothing.

Arie glances at Izzy and then at Aunt Julia. Arie wants Izzy to tell her what’s wrong with Aunt Julia, but Izzy doesn’t know. Aunt Julia stands and lifts the thin belt from Arie’s lap.

“Where did you get this?” Aunt Julia asks, pulling the belt through a loose fist. When she reaches the buckle, she runs her pointer finger over the tiny, clear jewels.

Arie is frightened because Izzy can feel it deep in her chest. Izzy can hear her own heartbeat too, and the inside of her mouth swells until it feels too small for her tongue. That means Arie is feeling the same.

“Mrs. Richardson was going to throw it away,” Arie says.

“It was with her trash,” Izzy says. “We only took it because it was trash. It’s going to be a leash for Patches.”

Izzy stands so she can show Aunt Julia where Arie was making a new hole in the thin piece of leather, but Aunt Julia jerks the belt away.

“This is not Mrs. Richardson’s belt. This is Elizabeth Symanski’s.” She waves the belt in Arie’s face. “Where did you get it?”

“That’s not right,” Izzy says, slipping around Aunt Julia to sit next to Arie. She takes Arie’s hand. “It was trash in Mrs. Richardson’s garage.”

“You stole this from Mr. Symanski?” Aunt Julia shakes her head as she says it. “I can’t imagine you would do such a thing. How could you?”

“No,” Izzy says.

Arie’s eyes are closed and she is shaking her head so she doesn’t have to look at the belt. “We’d never steal from Elizabeth, never steal from Mr. Symanski.”

Aunt Julia hugs the belt to her chest. “How will I ever explain this to him? His daughter isn’t even buried yet and you’re stealing from her.”

“We didn’t, Aunt Julia,” Izzy says. “We didn’t.”

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear. You are forbidden, and I mean forbidden, to leave this house. And I assume that hammer belongs to Mr. Herze, not Mrs. Herze. He’s just come home, so you’ll return it now. See that you apologize and then straight back here with you both. I imagine Uncle Bill will treat you to a whipping and then give you chores to earn money so you can repay Mr. Beersdorf.” Holding the belt against her chest with both hands, Aunt Julia walks from the room.

“We didn’t steal it,” Izzy shouts after her. “I promise, we didn’t steal.”

“In this house,” Aunt Julia says, pausing in the doorway, “your promises amount to nothing.”

All of the ladies were out and about this morning after spending a quiet day yesterday to reflect on the loss of Elizabeth and the state of their own neighborhood. Because most of them traveled to Willingham for their regular shopping trip, news will have spread and everyone will know about Grace and Orin and the colored men. They will have watched Grace and the men from behind the cover of heavy drapes, but they won’t have heard enough. They’ll want to know more but won’t dare ask. Malina is one to ask. No longer able to ignore Malina’s shouts, Grace finally stops on the sidewalk.

“I’m running late,” Grace says, tugging at her white gloves as she walks toward Malina. Julia’s house is directly across the street. Another morning has passed with no phone call or bus ride. Maybe on her way home, Grace will be able to stop in for a visit. She’ll feel better after spending some time on Willingham, stronger again. Mrs. Nowack and the women will help her make pierogi and they won’t ask about the colored men or wonder what terrible things Grace has done. They’ll mix up dough, roll it, boil it, and send Grace home with a box full of pierogi. It’ll be easier to breathe as soon as she gets to Willingham, and when she returns, she’ll stop to see Julia. “I’m afraid I haven’t time to visit.”

“I didn’t realize how much mending there was to do with those clothes I took from your garage,” Malina says.

Inside her own garage, Malina is bent over one of the several boxes and bags that cover the floor. Old clothes, sheets, and towels spill out of each one. She lifts a delicate yellow blouse, holds it up by the shoulders, shakes it, and folds it over her arm.

“I’m afraid I didn’t realize either.” Grace checks her watch. The bus will be along shortly. She resists glancing back at Julia’s house. James said Grace should pop in for a visit because Julia was having a tough time of it. The bus will be along shortly and Grace can’t miss it. She’ll have to visit Julia later. “If you’ll point out which bag,” she says. “I’ll get right to it.”

Malina scans the garage floor. Beyond her, Warren Herze’s tools hang from a pegboard. More and more of the neighborhood men have taken up the same idea, all of them so worried about their tools. Folks can’t be trusted anymore, some of them say. Not like it used to be. Got to keep track as best we can. All the tools fit perfectly, as if they are part of a child’s puzzle. The hammer is the one missing piece.

“There,” Malina says. “Right near your feet. That whole bag needs to be mended. I hate to ask it of you. Perhaps one of the other ladies can help.”

“I’ll get busy on them today.”

There is a pause while Malina digs into another bag and Grace braces for the questions. What ever were you doing talking with a Negro, and why would you have Orin shoot the man? What is it that you know, Grace Richardson, that the rest of us don’t? With Elizabeth lying in a box, won’t you tell us what you know?

“You’re a dear,” Malina says, and continues her sorting and folding.

The pause ends. No questions. Not even a mention of Elizabeth or her funeral or what could be done for poor Mr. Symanski.

“I’ll get some help with these,” Grace says, groaning as she bends to lift the brown bag.

“Thank you ever so much,” Malina says, staring at the pegboard. “Feel free to drop them at the thrift store when you’re finished.”

At the picnic table behind the bakery, Grace sits and, with white thread and a needle, reattaches a button to one of the dresses Mr. Symanski left in her garage. It’s the perfect excuse to stay a bit longer. She sits quietly, has for several minutes, so the baby has woken and is kicking and rolling. In between stitches, Grace rests a hand on her stomach to feel a small foot or knee. Each time she does, Cassia reaches out and lays her hand alongside Grace’s.

After Malina stomped out of the bakery, Cassia and the other women had worked silently to clean up from the pierogi, and because Mrs. Nowack had no more cooking or baking for them to do, they set to work on Grace’s mending. Sitting opposite Grace, Sylvie and Lucille each hold a dress close to their noses, squinting as they poke a needle through the fabric and pull it out the other side. Every so often, they hold up their dresses by the shoulders, swing them from side to side, and show off their work. Sitting next to Grace, Cassia rocks her carriage. Her motion carries through the wooden seat. Julia once said, before Maryanne died, that a woman rocks a baby in time to her own heart. That’s what Grace feels-Cassia’s heartbeat.

“Who these dresses belong to?” Sylvie asks.

Grace runs her fingers across the buttons on the bodice of the dress resting in her lap.

“Elizabeth,” she says.

“If you’re giving them away,” Cassia says, still rocking, “why you fixing them?”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

Cassia shrugs and Sylvie and Lucille carry on with their mending. Sylvie works a needle as quickly and smoothly as Grace’s own mother. Lucille struggles to reattach the buttons, shouting out every so often when she pokes herself.

“Do you know Malina Herze?” Grace asks, tugging on the cuff of one of Elizabeth’s dresses. She doesn’t look at any of them as she asks the question. “Before she came here today, did you know her?”

Sylvie sets aside her needle and thread, folds the dress over one arm. “Yeah, we know her. Know she causes trouble for Mrs. Nowack.”

“Does she cause any other trouble?”

“Person causes one kind of trouble,” Lucille says, biting through a strand of thread, “they bound to cause another.”

“You should stay away from her, Cassia.”

Cassia squirms on her seat. “I gave it back,” she says. “No one should be giving me any trouble. I kept it with me at first, but I gave it back.”

“The hammer?” Grace says. “Are you talking about a hammer?” She pauses, waiting for an answer. “Why did you have Malina’s hammer? Who did you give it to?”

“I found it,” Cassia says. “And I returned it.”

“She didn’t do no such thing,” Lucille says. She flicks her eyes toward the carriage and winks at Grace. “Cassia is confused, is all. She didn’t have no hammer. She just gets herself confused.” Having finished her work, Lucille passes the lavender dress to Grace and reaches into the brown bag for another. The beads on her thin braids rattle as she moves. “Will the ladies come back now? Will they come shopping here again?”

“I’m sorry,” Grace says, holding the dress by its shoulders so she can inspect it. “But I don’t think so.”

She gives the dress a shake, irons it flat with her hands, and fingers the lace collar. Elizabeth used to scratch and tug at her neckline whenever she wore the dress, but she never asked to take it off. Birthdays and Easter. It was always her favorite. And every year, twice a year, Ewa would bend and straighten her fingers and complain about the dress’s tiny buttons and stiff lace. Lifting the dress to her face, Grace inhales. It smells of Elizabeth, a light, sweet scent, the same as Ewa.

“The first day I came here, you mentioned a woman. I think her name was Tyla.” Grace hugs Elizabeth’s dress. “She was the woman who was killed here, wasn’t she?”

The women look among themselves but say nothing.

“You must have known her. You must miss her.”

“Ain’t no one missing Tyla,” Cassia says.

Sylvie lays a hand on Cassia’s shoulder. “She was mean as a snake, that’s for sure.”

“Both of you, hush.” It’s Lucille. With one eye closed, she is trying to thread a needle with blue thread. “No one needs to talk about that.” The thread finds its way through the eye of the needle and Lucille looks at Grace. “No need to talk about that,” she says again.

Grace folds Elizabeth’s dress in half and then in half again. “Stay away from Malina,” Grace says to Cassia.

Grace will have to return to Alder Avenue soon. She’ll stop at Julia’s and apologize for having not visited earlier. It’s time to go home.

“As best you can, stay away.”

At the sound of a car door slamming, the officer with dark curly hair stands from his chair at the kitchen table and walks into the entry. Julia remains seated, her hands flat on the red tabletop. She leans back and fingers a small chip in the Formica. This is the spot where Izzy usually sits. Grace must have already cleaned the table because its chrome edging shines, no fingerprints or water spots. Julia is never able to get such a shine when she cleans. It’s the vinegar water Grace uses. Much stronger than Julia’s.

The slamming car door is followed by footsteps on the porch. It’ll be an officer or another man from the neighborhood asking for directions on where to search. Julia doesn’t bother to check who it might be. At the kitchen sink, Grace wrings out a dishrag. She hasn’t spoken since she arrived but promptly set about sweeping and mopping and scrubbing every surface with her strong vinegar water. Just as it was when Maryanne died. Grace is the one strong enough to tackle the inside of Julia’s house.

“They told me it happens sometimes,” Julia says.

Grace leans over the counter and continues to scrub the stains in the bottom of the sink, stains that have been there for years, stains Grace will get out that Julia never could.

“When Maryanne died, that’s what the doctor said. Did I ever tell you?”

Pushing off the counter, Grace takes a clean towel from the drawer to her left and dries her hands. Her blond hair is swept back and held off her face by a white band. It’s pure, lovely.

“Never seemed right to me. A baby dying for no good reason at all. Does that figure right to you?”

“No,” Grace says. “No, it never did.”

Julia should care this will upset Grace, make her worry after her own baby’s safety, but she doesn’t. She can’t.

“He killed her.”

A few feet shuffle, a reminder there are others in the room.

“Bill,” Julia says. “That’s why he’s gone. He killed Maryanne, and he’s seeing that I suffer for it. He’s seeing to it I never have another baby.”

Grace looks at someone beyond Julia’s shoulder, but she doesn’t care anymore what people know.

“Bill wouldn’t,” Grace says. “He’d never do such a thing.”

“He couldn’t stand the crying. That’s what he said. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t work. Couldn’t be bothered with her crying.”

“Did he tell you this, ma’am?”

The voice comes from behind her. It’s the officer with the dark curls, the same one who couldn’t understand why Julia didn’t remember when the girls disappeared.

“I kissed James,” Julia says. The lie is like the crack of a whip in the quiet room. “There.” She points to the entry. “I kissed him right there, and I’m not one bit sorry for it.”

Grace glances at the officer as if he can explain. He shakes his head.

“Pardon?” Grace says.

“There,” Julia says. “In the entry. Because he came and you didn’t.”

The officer approaches the table, where he stands over Julia.

“Everything is pitch-perfect for you, isn’t it?” Julia says, staring at Grace and ignoring the officer.

“Ma’am, who is Maryanne?”

“You have your fine husband, and soon, a baby of your own,” Julia says. “Your house. Your friends. People think highly of you and James. They don’t even realize Elizabeth was your fault too. Your fault as much as mine.” Julia pauses, inhales, smelling the soap Grace squeezed into the bucket of water she used to mop up the food Julia threw across the room. “And now the twins are gone just like Elizabeth. No one will blame you for them, either. Only me.”

“Ma’am, do you believe your husband has killed someone?”

“It won’t always be this way, Grace,” Julia says. “Your baby could die too.”

It’s the worst thing Julia could say to Grace, worse even than the kiss. It’s the most hurtful thing. She’s not brave enough or good enough to shoulder this pain alone.

Grace unties the apron around her waist and lays it over the back of a chair. While the heat causes Julia’s hair to frizz, it smooths Grace’s, makes it shine, even under the kitchen’s poor lighting. Her cheeks are flushed and damp from the washing and scrubbing, but her eyes are dry and clear. She tugs on the blouse that hangs over her large stomach and clears her throat as if to say something. But instead she walks past Julia, past the officer waiting for Julia to give him an answer, and out the door.

James tried a few times to teach Grace. When they were first married, she practiced in the parking lot at St. Alban’s on a Saturday afternoon. He had placed her hands on the steering wheel and kept one of his own on it to guide her. “Like this,” he had said. The car sprung forward when Grace jammed her foot into the gas pedal. And when she pressed too hard on the brake, James fell, both hands reaching for the dash. He laughed, pulled Grace to him, and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Eyes forward and straight ahead.”

Father never taught Grace to drive because he died before she was old enough to learn. Several summers passed before she and Mother boarded the Ste. Claire again. Mother taught herself to drive during those years after Father died and took a job as a receptionist for Ford. In the summer of 1946, she pulled on a linen jacket and her best Sunday hat and said it was time to get on with it.

Grace had no urge to run ahead of the crowd that year and felt no tingle when her feet hit the wooden gangplank. She was one of the ladies now, tall as any other. Her waist was narrow, her neck slender, her frame strong and straight. As it had been every other year, she heard him before she saw him. The musicians paused and there was that burst of laughter. When the music began again, he spun past, another girl whose hair color Grace doesn’t remember in his arms. He had thinned out during his years away. Many of the men had that look, as if they had been forced to go without. He had noticed her and smiled. He remembers this smile but says it wasn’t the first. He says the first was when Grace was a child. That’s romance talking, not reason.

First she lowers the gearshift into reverse. Then she taps on the gas. The car lunges backward. Again, another tap. It rolls and jumps past the sidewalk and bounces off the edge of the curb. In the middle of the street, Grace pulls the gearshift down, and with her eyes forward and straight ahead, she rolls the steering wheel, one hand over the other like she has seen James do so many times.

The one won’t move out of the way. Grace knows this. Because she didn’t tell the police. Because he knows her as he does. Because he took Elizabeth and now the twins. Because she wouldn’t let Orin fire. Because he feels he belongs, the one won’t move. The others will, and they do. As Grace starts down Alder Avenue, stomping on the gas so the car gains speed, the other two scatter. One of them is probably the kinder man with the tired eyes. One dives to the left, one to the right, where Mr. Symanski stands. Only one stays his course, not moving from the middle of the road. He’s daring her, wanting to make a fool of her, wanting to prove she can’t change what has happened and that some part of him will always live inside her. She jams her toe to the floorboard. Had James been in the seat next to her, he would have braced himself. There is a loud thump. The silhouette flies up and away. It’s gone.

The car is still now. Inside, the air is warm and thin as if she has used it all up and there is nothing left. The only voices are muted but slowly they become louder. There is yelling, screaming. She lies across the seat, one hand on her baby, waiting. She closes her eyes.

On hands and knees, Julia dips her sponge in a bucket of warm, soapy water and squeezes with both hands until it runs dry. She crawls a few feet, presses the clean sponge to the baseboard, and begins again. Leaning on her left hand, she scrubs with her right until her shoulder burns. She straightens, dips the sponge in the water again, which is quickly becoming cold, squeezes and wrings it, and rests it on the side of the bucket.

The baseboards haven’t been cleaned in three years. The oak wood shines, almost looks yellow where she has scrubbed away the haze of dust and dirt. She pulls off her rubber gloves, turning each inside out as she tosses them to the floor. The crib is the only thing left in the room, and Grace is the only person who might have use of it. Many of the ladies have given Grace things over the past several months-clothes, quilts, diapers-but Julia never offered. Even though the crib was used only a short time, what mother would want to lay her child in such a bed-one where another baby died? Or would the kiss be the thing that stopped Grace from accepting the crib? That’s what Julia thought during the three days Grace was in the hospital. But then she was released, still pregnant with a healthy baby, and came to see Julia.

There was silence when Grace entered Julia’s house. They stood together in the foyer, where Julia had said she kissed Grace’s husband.

“I’ve come to apologize,” Grace had said.

“You should sit,” Julia said. “Put your feet up.”

Grace shook her head. “I’ve worried about the girls all summer, you know.”

“Yes,” Julia said. “But you have nothing to apologize for, Grace. Nothing. I’m the one who should be apologizing. What I said about James, about the kiss, it was a lie. Such a terrible lie.”

And then Grace told Julia. She told Julia about three men-two of them faceless and one whose face and hands and smell Grace knows better than her own. One man who Grace knows so well he must live inside her even now. Julia looked at Grace’s stomach and nearly tripped as she stumbled away. Grace shook her head. No, the baby belongs to James. The men came only a few weeks ago, the night Elizabeth’s shoe was found. And as soon as Grace said it, Julia knew they were the ones.

“Elizabeth,” Julia whispered.

It was true, after all. Elizabeth didn’t wander off down Willingham to the river and find trouble far from home. Those men took her from Alder Avenue, from right outside her own house. They spared Grace, but they killed Elizabeth.

“No,” Grace said.

But Grace only said that because it was Julia’s fault Elizabeth was there for those men, Julia’s fault Elizabeth was such easy prey, Julia’s fault they could take Elizabeth from her own front yard.

“I know what you’re thinking, Julia. But I promise you, it wasn’t your doing.”

Again, Julia offered Grace a seat. Grace shook her head, walked toward the door, and placed one hand on the knob.

“The one who is dead,” she said, “the one I hit, I knew it was him. I wasn’t hoping to find the twins when I got in that car.” Her voice broke. She swallowed and continued. “I thought the girls were already gone. I thought it for certain. It wasn’t an accident. I wanted that man dead. I thought he’d killed Elizabeth and taken the twins. I was wrong. So now I have to say I killed him because of what he did to me.” She paused and looked at Julia for the first time since she began talking. “What he did to me, is that reason enough?”

Upstairs, the girls were quiet. They were in their room, or maybe listening at the landing.

“James?” Julia said.

Grace shook her head, knowing what Julia meant to ask. She meant to ask if Grace would ever tell James about the men.

“He’d never forgive himself,” Grace said. “Mother thought he wouldn’t want me after it happened, but she was wrong. It’s the guilt that would destroy him. I think he knows that too. Deep down, I think he knows that too. I can’t do it to him, to us.”

When Grace said it was time to get home, Julia asked her to wait a moment and rummaged through the coat closet’s top shelf until she found the belt the twins had stolen. She couldn’t repair the hole Arie dug in the thin leather, but returning it was the right thing to do.

“Could you give this back to Mr. Symanski?” Julia had said. “The girls, they stole it. Tried to tell me it was yours, that it was trash from your garage. I can’t imagine what they were thinking.” She ran a finger across the small buckle that sparkled where Arie had scrubbed it clean. “I remember Elizabeth wearing it. One of her favorites. Do you remember?” She stretched out her arm, handed the belt to Grace. “I know I’m a coward for it, but I can’t bring myself to face him.”

Grace stood at the front door, one hand resting on the silver doorknob. “I suspect they did find it in my garage,” she said, shaking her head and pushing away the belt. “You let them keep it. And talk to Arie, would you? Tell her I’m going to be all right.” She pulled open the door and paused on the porch as if enjoying the feel of the sun on her face. “Promise you’ll believe me. Promise because you are my dearest friend and I wouldn’t lie to you. What happened to Elizabeth… it wasn’t your fault.”

Regardless of whether Grace will want the crib or not, Julia can’t take it apart without Bill’s help. She was able to lug the small dresser downstairs by packing up all the tiny clothes, removing the drawers, and carting them down, one by one. She’ll ask Bill what he thinks when he comes in from outside. He’s been out back for forty-five minutes, struggling to tighten rusted screws and bolts so Julia’s clothesline won’t droop. But she doesn’t really need to ask. She knows Bill will say to save Grace the heartache and give the crib to the church. Give it to them and don’t tell them to whom it once belonged.

“What are you doing, Aunt Julia?”

Huddled together in the nursery doorway, the girls lean into the room but don’t cross over the threshold. Both have wet hair. They took their baths without being asked, a sign they are trying to make up for running off.

“You’ll both need a trim soon,” Julia says, pushing off the floor. “A nice haircut before school starts.”

“Where did everything go?” Izzy’s voice bounces off the walls, almost echoes in the nearly empty room.

The girls must have peeked into the nursery at some point over the last three years. What child wouldn’t? A mysterious door that is always closed. Of course they peeked. Julia motions with her head for the girls to come inside.

Izzy is the first to move because she isn’t afraid. She is never afraid. She marches across the small room, opens and closes the closet door, and then walks over to the window, where she waves at Arie to join her. The air is light and crisp this morning. Izzy draws a deep breath in through her nose. Across the street, the windows in Warren Herze’s house are dark, the driveway empty. He’ll likely move soon and eventually he’ll remarry. He could never stay in that house. He could never walk into that garage again.

“I owe you two an apology,” Julia says, and motions for Arie to join her inside the room. “I should have known you were gone. I left you both alone, and I’m sorry as I can be.”

“We thought you’d come the first night,” Arie says as she walks up next to Julia and leans into her until their bodies touch. Arie is warm and smells of soap and shampoo. She stares at the crib sitting alone in the corner of the room. “When it got dark,” she says, “we thought you’d miss us and that you’d come looking. We walked all night.”

“Will we lose privileges?” Izzy asks, resting her head against Julia’s arm. Her damp hair leaves a wet stain on Julia’s sleeve.

“You two should stay,” Julia says. “Stay here with Uncle Bill and me. Not live at Grandma’s anymore. Go to school here and live here. Izzy, this could be your room to have all to yourself.”

“What about that?” Izzy says, pointing at the crib.

“We’ll give it to someone with a baby,” Julia says. “Would you girls like to stay? To have your own rooms? Here with Uncle Bill and me. We’d like it very much if you’d stay.”

“Can we paint the room blue?” Izzy asks.

“Yes,” Julia says. “Blue would be a fine choice.”