A girl called to me from the porch. “They’re all at the wedding.”
I could picture her there, hiding behind one of the porch posts, almost as if I saw her myself. She wore her hair in a kerchief and pigtails, tall as a stalk. The buckets in her hands clattered at her thighs. The girl would never have known a stranger to visit the house.
“Whose wedding?”
“Why, Darlene’s of course. Aunt Agnes made her dress.”
I opened my door and stepped out, the heat of the sun in my eyes. “And your name?”
“Renie.” She stood in the yard, awkward as a boy. Soon she was telling me her thoughts on weddings and dressing up in all sorts. “I’m not going,” she said. “Any day, I’d rather do chores.”
Of course. Her eyes had a sureness I knew. With her height and her cheekbones, the girl had to be Nan’s.
“Weddings,” I answered. “You know what they say. Never make too much of something. ”
“Mother says that too.”
“Your mother, does she have many sisters?”
The girl stuck a knuckle in her ear. “She has two. But she used to have another one. As pretty as me, she said once.”
“Did she now?”
“Very pretty, Mother said. But the sister drowned.”
The yard rose up. I leaned against the hood of the car. I’d imagined the visit dozens of ways, but this one always repeated itself. “Are you sure?”
“Sure what?”
“That her sister. ”
The girl tilted her head.
“Never mind.” My hand burned on the hood and I shook it off. The wind struck, the barn door swinging. There wasn’t anything but the dark hayloft and a bell ringing from an animal’s collar, a curl of rope in the dust.
“What’s your mother’s name?” I said.
“Why, Nan of course. What’s yours?”
“Something of the like,” I said. “Some called her Nan. Some Margrit.”
“That’s a funny thing, to have two names.”
The girl lifted her buckets again and made her way to the barn. The buckets banged as she walked, though she couldn’t help but look back. I stood by the car under the sun. I had little energy left to explain myself. Before the girl disappeared again, I called out, “You tell your mother that her daughter loves her, you hear? Her youngest one. Tell her, her daughter loves her very much.”
The girl stopped. “But I’m her daughter.”
“That’s right.”
“What did you say your name was again?”
“Norma.” My voice grew hoarse. “Norma Byrne.”
“I’ve never heard Mother talk about you.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. She might not want to remember me now.”
The girl shrugged. The buckets must have been heavy. Her fingers reddened where the handles cut. “You sound like her, you know,” she called back. The cows lowed in the barn, and she hurried to answer them, the door behind her swinging shut. Like Nan? I thought. I imagined myself following the girl, asking her to explain — but I didn’t dare step away from the car for fear it might disappear altogether. Besides, what more could I say?
I drove. Out along the river, where the water ran full and loud. On the banks were violets, sweet williams, bluebells, and bleeding hearts. The Elliot house was gone, nothing but planks in a dry bit of grass. When I passed the Clarks’, three women stood on the porch in matching dresses. They had grown as large as their mother, the Clark sisters, and unmarried by the look of it, but maybe they were happier with that — they had their sisters, after all. When I raised a hand to them, they turned their heads to watch me as I drove on.
If I tried to imagine it again, I might take more time before I left. I might be sure to drop a stone at the door of Lee’s shop. That stone, it would be clean and white. Large enough he would pick it up before he stepped inside. With Lee, I always wanted to tell him no matter what he did, he did right.
But it all must be a dream. The kind I have in the dark when I can’t sleep, and there’s only Charlotte to tell me whether it’s true or not. Because a river only runs in one direction, no matter what.
III
I walk to the lake. The boardinghouse is behind me, my arms snug to my ribs. There’s a chill, worse than usual for this time of year, but I won’t stop yet. The sun sits far in the west. I turn my back to it. Blocks away, the old Chicago Theatre is long closed, but there’s talk of opening it again. Overhead, the sky has grown dark. When I raise my eyes to look, it blurs. I wonder if it’s a summer cold I have coming on or something more.
“Hello, Mrs. Byrne. How’s that girl of yours?” It’s Josey. He owns the flower shop. Short and squat without a hair on his head, his smile turns his cheeks to baby fat. The shopkeepers like to talk to a person whether they’ve had a bad day or not and they always talk to me — I’m not in a rush.
“She’s not so much a girl anymore, but she does all right.”
He smiles. “I saw it in the paper, her show in London. A director now! I always took a liking to her singing voice, myself.”
“Now she can do both.”
“Sorry her own father can’t see her. I know if she were my daughter, I’d be there in an instant. But you’ve done her straight.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t had much to do with it.”
A widow. That’s what they know me as, thanks to Mrs. Keyes. With her rosary, she prayed the lie would take — and for her, I never said otherwise.
“I’m sure her father misses her now,” Josey says.
“I’m sure he would.” In truth, I have no idea what has become of Tom Elliot, alive or not. Esther’s letters never said, and I’m not sure I care anymore.
Josey hands me yesterday’s newspaper and a single tulip, without its leaves. The newspaper has its coupons cut out, but I’m grateful for it.
“They’ve got a story about the Chicago in there.”
“The river?”
“‘A triumph of engineering,’ they call it. Can you imagine, reversing the current like that?”
I shake my head, the light suddenly bright.
“You okay, Mrs. Byrne?”
“Yes, Josey. It’s just the heat.”
“Good day to you, then.” He takes off his hat.
Mother, it’s such a rush, Greta said last night into the phone. The line ticked, an ocean between us. I never imagined a girl could go so far. I’ll be home in three months, she said. Four tops.
You’ll be home when you’re home, I said.
London is wild. I wish you could see it.
I stood in the hall with the cord bent around the doorframe. Outside, the windows showed little but a brick wall, even the bricks crumbling now. From the kitchen two floors down, Charlotte scolded one of the cats, “I bet you did, you nasty little thing.”
Oh, no, I told my daughter. I’ve seen quite enough.
Today the lake seems more than ten blocks. The streets are nearly empty. At night, the young ones go downtown. Not here, where the workers’ houses used to be. Here, which I’d always thought the heart of the city. When the shopkeepers pull the cages over their storefronts, there’s a roaring in the street, but soon it’s quiet. There’s a man sleeping under his newspapers and I hurry by.
You have to be careful, Mother, Greta says.
But what can they do to an old lady, after everything that’s already been done? Let the young be nervous for their own sake.