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.
At the church, the ladies have had all day to realize that Julia folds a sloppy linen and dishes out servings that are too large. By day’s end, they are weary of cleaning up after her and so put her in charge of the coffee. The search will soon end for the night, and when the men return, they’ll want something hot and fresh. The job is really quite important, the ladies say. You are the best cook among us, no question about that, and you brought so much food. More than your share. Let us take care of the serving. So while Julia sees to the coffee by readying two percolators, fetching the cream, and scrounging up silver tongs to accompany the box of sugar cubes, the rest of the ladies tend to a table crowded with covered casserole dishes and foil-wrapped trays. Mr. Symanski is the only man among them. He sits on a wooden chair near the kitchen, his back rigid, his feet resting on the ground.
At the bottom of the narrow stairwell leading into the basement, the first of the men appears. They were instructed to quit by ten o’clock. The police insisted. No one wants those men roaming the streets any later and giving the police more to contend with. After last night’s search, everyone agreed there was no sense looking on Alder anymore. The men, at least two to a car, were to roll through the nearby streets and call out for Elizabeth. She doesn’t like to be left alone and she doesn’t like the dark so she’ll stay near the houses with brightly lit porches. Call out that Ewa wants her to come home. She’ll believe it even though Ewa is dead.
After the first man appears, another follows and then another. Under the white lights, their skin looks gray. The ladies hurry toward the men, arms extended, and usher them to the food. The first night of the search, which went on until morning, the men had looked tired, their eyes red from squinting in the darkness, but they had all agreed daylight would bring more success. Tonight, as more men duck under the low-hanging threshold and congregate at the food table, the overhead lights throwing heavy shadows on their faces, their backs are rounded and they shake their heads from side to side. Their hope has faded.