“It’s your turn,” I said. “It’s our only chance.”
Esther stared at my hand.
I closed it and opened it again, bloodier now. “Take it.”
She grabbed hold of the key. Closing her eyes, she slit her palm. It took her three tries.
“Promise,” I said.
“Promise.” She pressed her hand into mine.
“We’re going,” I said. “And we’re never coming back.”
Norma Byrne opens the door to the house. Norma Byrne climbs the stairs. If there is any part of me inside that old woman, it’s the part that remembers Mrs. Keyes opening the door to our room all those years ago. Mrs. Keyes who was as wide as the rails. There seem a great deal more steps now than there were then.
I count them as I climb, though already we’re halfway. “One, two,” I start. “Eight,” I say when I reach the landing. “Eight,” Charlotte echoes without asking why.
In our room, Charlotte pulls back the sheets and I rest my head.
“Water?” Charlotte asks. She kisses me.
“They reversed the Chicago River, Charlotte. Did you know that?”
“Of course they did.”
She turns off the lamp. Above my head, the ceiling shifts and the lights from the street, all those circles and lines, move as quickly as water in a glass.
The phone rings. Charlotte hurries into the hall.
“Who is it?” I ask.
“No,” she says into the phone. “There’s no one here by that name.” The phone snaps in its cradle. “Norma?” she says, closer to me now.
The phone rings a second time. Charlotte turns her head and listens. “Must be her again.” Then she’s out in the hall and picking up the phone. “Well, yes. But Norma doesn’t know anyone like that.” The snap in the cradle again.
Charlotte grumbles as she returns to the room. Her neck is flushed with that old Irish blood, something I haven’t seen in years.
“Some woman who says her name is Renie,” Charlotte explains. “Do you know a Renie?”
“Renie?”
“She says she’s someone’s daughter.” Charlotte shakes her head to think. “Bernadette’s daughter, that’s what she said.”
“My sister Nan.”
“I thought she said Bernadette.”
“Is she all right?”
Charlotte drops her hand on my forehead. “What did you say?”
The phone rings again. Charlotte hurries into the hall. “Yes, yes, I might have been wrong. But she’s feeling ill. Can I take your number?”
“Nan?” I call out.
“Yes, that’s right,” Charlotte says into the phone. “I have it. I’ll be sure to give it to her when she’s better.”
Nan with a child. But of course that’s what the letters said. I would have liked to see my sister’s face again. I would have liked to know my niece, the one who’d rather do chores than dress for weddings. Maybe if I have energy enough, I could make the trip. The train isn’t so many days now. When I try to imagine the place, it seems like a foreign country — if I ever knew it. But with those faces again, I might.
“Norma?” I hear.
A hand on my forehead. The hand is cold and smells of salt. “Is it Greta?”
“Are you all right?” Charlotte asks. “Can you hear me? I’m going to call the doctor.”
“The doctor now?”
But Charlotte is on the phone again. “Yes, come at once. She seems very confused. Must you keep asking your questions?”
Greta is in England, I remember. The daughter doesn’t feel the distance, but the mother always does.
“Look,” Charlotte says. I open my eyes. Charlotte holds a yellow square of paper with numbers written in small sharp lines.
“Nan was like a mother to me,” I say. “I never should have left.”
“Norma?” But Charlotte’s voice is distant now. I try to raise my head to hear her better.
“You stay still,” Charlotte says. “They’re coming. Can you wait?”
The bed lifts. A hand sweeps my face. Charlotte and her worries, but it’ll be all right. They’re coming. I’m not so far from home as I thought. So easy to have a number, to drop a line. So easy for them to be here at the door, less than a day’s travel now, or so I’ve heard. Nan and her daughter, Renie. Father with his cane. Lee walking across the hill with his limp, but maybe he doesn’t limp so badly now. Ray and Patricia, arm in arm. Agnes with her trio of children, taller than she ever was. And Esther, she’s running ahead of them. She’s already in the alley. She’s knocking on the door. She knows just where to find me. We’re here for a room, she says. Of course. We just have to make the bed. Never mind your papers. How far have you come?
Epilogue
August 18, 1987
Dear niece,
I have made a discovery. Do you remember the story I once told you about your two great-aunts who disappeared? I believe the youngest may be alive.
Your Uncle Lee has found a letter intended for him in our late Aunt Esther’s belongings, though we don’t know why she would have hidden it. The letter is undated but looks very old. It was written by one Mrs. Mary Keyes of Chicago. Lee would read me only part of the letter, but it was clear that Mrs. Keyes was trying to make amends: “Lord knows how heavily this has sat in my heart and for how long. Now that I’m ill, I’ll never be able to forgive myself if I don’t write. This is the truth: Your sisters were indeed living at this address when you came for your visit some years ago, and Myrle is living here still. She goes by the name Norma Byrne.”
The letter troubled Lee, more than he seemed willing to explain. Still he thought it might prove that Aunt Myrle, your grandmother’s last remaining sister, hadn’t died, as was the family’s belief. I wrote down the name “Norma Byrne” and called the residence. The woman who answered hung up on me twice only to listen the third time. She told me she was Norma’s companion. I identified myself as Myrle’s great-niece, her sister Nan’s only daughter, and said I was interested in how my aunt fared. The woman sounded elderly and quite distracted. She said Norma was very ill, but she would give her the information at a later time. If she found what I told her to be true, Norma would call back. Then the woman hung up.
Lee said he couldn’t understand it. He was speaking of Esther’s hiding the letter, of course. When it came to Myrle, Lee said, Esther was sensitive. He thought it nearly killed her when Myrle had drowned. She only mentioned it once, the way Tom Elliot had “done Myrle such a wrong.” Lee said Esther never spoke of it again. I doubted I needed to tell him that the letter meant Esther had lied. Your uncle nursed Esther to the end in the old family house, though she’d grown irritable. When I last visited, she gripped my hand in the parlor where we sat near the fire and whispered something I never will forget. “I let her do what she wanted.” That’s what she said. When she repeated it, Lee hushed her. Back then, I thought it was Myrle and Tom she meant. Now I’m not so sure. I worry for Lee alone out there without his sister. Since the letter was found, his health has turned, and he won’t speak Esther’s name, even when asked. I don’t know what bothers him more, that Myrle might be living or that Esther hid the truth from him. Strangely enough, I think for him the latter might be worse. Aunt Pat said she’d send over one of Agnes’ girls to look in on him and see to it he has food in his stomach. I’ll check on him myself.
As for me, when I was young, I remember a woman stopping by the farm. I never thought much of it. But after she left, your uncle took to carrying around a white stone. Mother said she’d never seen him so pleased, not since the day his sister Esther had come home. He didn’t give his reasons, Mother said, almost as if he didn’t understand it himself. Still Mother seemed pleased when hearing of the woman’s visit as well, though she never said why.