Blue Skies Tomorrow (43 page)

Ray lifted his face to a cool breeze and a flock of cumulus sheep. This was the first time he’d been outside in weeks, and his last time ever.

What irony. An American pilot who had flown over thirty combat missions and committed acts of sabotage behind enemy lines was about to be executed as a spy.

And no one would ever know.

At least he’d die knowing what he was made of and at peace with the Lord.

When they reached an Army truck, Major Siegel tied a blindfold over Ray’s eyes, and Ray said good-bye to the blue.

Antioch

Past midnight, in pallid gray moonlight, with the obsidian thought before her, Helen lurched into action.

She untucked the top sheet and laid it flat on her bed. Then she piled in necessities—work outfits, undergarments, nightgown, shoes, gloves, and a beret that wouldn’t be squashed.

The blackness of her plan oppressed her. She was abandoning her child. What crippling pain and smothering guilt she’d bear the rest of her life. But what a horrific choice she faced—stay until Mr. Carlisle killed her, or leave and lose everyone she loved.

She wanted to live.

Her window looked down on the overhang above the back porch. She could toss her bundle onto the lawn, climb onto the overhang, and ease herself down. What were a few more injuries?

The rest of her plan floated in a nebulous haze. Walk to Pittsburg, use her little bit of cash for a train ticket to San Francisco, stay at the YWCA until she found a job and a room. She could get lost in the city.

Her throat tightened, but she blinked away the haze of doubt. She had to regain control.

From the dresser, she grabbed her manicure kit, cosmetics case, and hairbrush. Then she opened the top drawer.

Ray’s stack of letters, tied with a ribbon. Fresh pain jabbed her.

She clutched the letters to her chest and sank to her knees. What would he think of her plan? He always understood, but who could understand this?

She gripped the letters in one hand and her aching side with the other. She’d lost him, killed him, and now she’d leave everyone else she loved. But it was for the best. A cripple girl who injured herself and killed the men she loved. She’d destroy Jay-Jay too. He’d be better off without her.

She had failed as a wife, a mother, a woman. She deserved the beating. She deserved to lose her son. She deserved pain and shame for the rest of her life.

One envelope slipped from the stack.

Helen groped for it. The envelope felt thick and uneven, and she removed the leaf Ray had sent, silvery gray in the moonlight.

Waves of grief buffeted her. Ray had courage. He hadn’t cared about his life, only about doing the right thing. He had slain his dragons.

Helen was fleeing hers.

A sob bobbed to the surface. “Oh, Lord. What can I do?”

She cradled the leaf in her hand, as fragile as her son. If she closed her hand, the leaf would crumble to pieces. What would happen to Jay-Jay if she left him?

A new thought formed, soft and white and lustrous as a pearl. What if she had it backward? What if leaving Jay-Jay would destroy him? Had she ever hurt him? No, not once. She took good care of her son.

What harm would come to him if she left? He’d be raised by the Carlisles, taught that a man should be cruel to his wife, taught that his mother didn’t love him, and never taught to control his temper. He’d turn out like his father. Maybe worse.

Hadn’t God given Jay-Jay to her? Yes, to Helen. Would he do that if he thought she would destroy him? Perhaps if God trusted her, she should trust herself.

The pearl of truth expanded, glowed, and shattered the obsidian lie.

She struggled to her feet. “I won’t—I won’t leave without my son.”

That overhang ran under Jay-Jay’s window as well as Helen’s. And while her door was locked, his wasn’t.

She stashed Ray’s letters in her purse and tied the corners of the bed sheet together. Her window slid open without a sound. Helen took off her espadrilles, tied the ribbons together, and hung them around her neck.

Wincing from the pain in her side, she climbed onto the overhang, the shingles rough under her bare feet. She sidled over to Jay-Jay’s window, gripped the frame, and pushed upward. It didn’t budge.

She groaned. If his window didn’t open, she’d have to drop to the ground and come through the front door, increasing the chance she’d be caught.

“Please, Lord.” Another push, and it wiggled, squeaked in protest, and banged open.

Helen ducked below the windowsill, but no sound rose other than the blood whooshing in her ears.

She retrieved her bundle, pushed it through her son’s window, and climbed through.

Jay-Jay lay on his stomach, his rump in the air, his middle two fingers in his mouth, a baby habit he’d outgrown. A dark circle fanned around his face on the pillow. It was damp.

The poor thing had cried himself to sleep. For her. She had to rescue him before his compassion turned to callousness.

After she added his belongings to the bundle, she unbuckled the leather belt around the waist of her dress, looped it under the knot of her bundle, and strapped it to her back, passing the belt over her uninjured right side.

With more care than usual, Helen lifted her son and his blanket, cooing as she had when he was a baby. His limp weight molded to her body.

She rested her cheek on his damp hair. How could she even think of abandoning him? He was part of her, and she could no more leave him than she could leave her own heart.

Helen stepped toward the door. The extra weight of boy and bundle made the floorboard creak.

Her heart wild, she paused and strained to listen through the stillness. She made her way to the door, testing each board underneath and walking the firmest ones like balance beams.

She turned the glass doorknob, hating each click, and opened the door.

The Carlisles’ bedroom lay across the hall. Mild snores issued from the other side of the door. If those snores stopped, Helen would take off running.

She probed each board until she found a quiet one, walked its length, and used her ballet training to keep her steps light and long.

Down the stairs, working through her feet—toe, ball, heel to lessen the impact.

Silence upstairs. Was she too far away to hear the snores, or had Mr. Carlisle woken up? The front door stood before her, and Helen picked up her pace, her steps muffled by the hall rug. At the coatrack, she grabbed Jay-Jay’s jacket and her own.

The front door made a nasty clunk when she opened it and a nastier one when she shut it behind her, but she stepped outside into free air. She dashed down the walk, down the sidewalk. Pebbles pricked her bare feet, and she stubbed her toe. Her legs threatened to buckle, she stumbled, she kept going.

At the corner of Sixth Street, her legs gave way, and she fell hard onto her knees. She couldn’t go on. Too much weight, too much pain, and she was too weak from the beating.

Jay-Jay lifted his head and whimpered. He brought his eyes to focus on Helen. “Mama?”

“Shh, sweetie.” Helen glanced behind her, breathing hard. Was that a light in the Carlisles’ window or the reflection of the moon? The angle was bad and trees stood in the way.

“Where are we?”

Helen clapped her hand over her son’s mouth. “Quiet, sweetie,” she whispered. “Can you walk?”

“Wanna sleep,” he mumbled under her hand, and he laid his head back on her shoulder.

The air pressed on her, cold and clammy and stifling. She couldn’t carry both him and the bundle. Training her gaze on the Carlisle home, she fumbled with the belt buckle. Her fingers shook and wouldn’t cooperate. At last she unfastened it, and the bundle thumped to the sidewalk.

Helen struggled to her feet and down Sixth Street. One house, two, three, no sign of Mr. Carlisle, and she pounded on the Anellos’ door until the light flipped on.

George opened the door in his bathrobe, his hair mussed up. “What—Helen? What are you doing here? What happened to you?”

She hadn’t seen herself in the mirror, but the taut pain in her left cheek meant an angry welt and drying blood.

“Please let me in.” Her knees buckled, and George caught her by the elbow and guided her inside.

“Helen? Oh goodness! What happened?” Betty rushed to her side, her bathrobe no longer closing over her pregnant belly.

“Take Jay-Jay, please.” He’d fallen asleep again.

Betty did so, and Helen slumped to the sofa.

George took her chin and frowned at her. “What happened? Who did this to you?”

In the warmth of the Anello home, fear evaporated and resolve took its place. For years, she had concealed the Carlisle shame. No longer. She’d kept it secret to protect Jay-Jay, but her protection had backfired. “Mr. Carlisle beat me. He found out I was leaving with Jay-Jay.”

“Oh my goodness!” Betty sat next to her with Jay-Jay in her arms. “How could—how could he do such a thing?”

George strode into the front hall. “I’ll call the police, a doctor.”

“No, don’t. The police won’t help. They know about the custody case. Mr. Carlisle will say I fell down the stairs, threw myself down in a fit of madness, staged it to get custody. I know how this works. And don’t wake the doctor. It can wait till morning. Believe me, I have experience.”

“Poor thing,” Betty said. “You’ve had so many accidents.”

“So many beatings.”

“What?” George marched back to the living room. “He’s beaten you before?”

“No. Jim did. All the time.” The truth at last, and freedom lifted her.

“Jim?” Betty said in a tiny voice, and she held the sleeping boy tighter with one hand over his head as if to shield him. “But he—he loved you.”

“Jim’s idea of love was nothing but power and control.” Helen traced a scar on the back of her hand. “These aren’t from cooking accidents. Jim liked to burn me. He kicked me and threw me around and punched me and smashed furniture over me. He caused two miscarriages. Then he blamed my injuries on my clumsiness.”

“Dear Lord, no.” George lowered himself into the armchair and ran his fingers into his hair. “No. I knew Jim all my life. We were friends. Sure, he had a mean streak but . . . I had no idea.”

“All this was going on and you never—you didn’t tell me?” Betty’s eyes filled with tears.

Helen sighed. Why had she expected condemnation instead of sympathy? She’d been blinded by the lies—that she needed to be perfect to be loved, that she had failed, that she deserved what she’d gotten. “I didn’t want to admit I’d made a mistake. Everyone told me to wait to get married, but I didn’t listen because I was afraid I’d lose Jim. And I hated to admit I was stupid enough to fall for such a man. I thought you’d think less of me.”

Betty choked on a sob. “Oh, darling, I never would have thought that.”

No tears remained, but her sister’s compassion made her chin quiver. “I know now, but back then . . .”

“You should have told us. We could have helped.”

“How? I had no grounds to divorce him. He never cheated on me.”

“But after he died . . . why didn’t you tell me then?”

Helen reached over and stroked her son’s hair. “A boy should look up to his father. I didn’t want him to know what Jim was like. But it backfired. He saw firsthand what his grandfather’s like.”

George sat up straight. “He’ll come after you. If he finds out you left. And he’ll look here first.”

A chill rippled through her. “Oh no.”

“You can’t stay here. It isn’t safe.” He strode to the front hall and slipped his coat over his bathrobe.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you in danger.”

“Nonsense.” Betty pointed to Helen’s shoes around her neck. “Get your shoes on, darling. George will take care of you.”

He took Jay-Jay from his wife. “Lock the door behind us and don’t open it for anyone but me. Call the police if you need to.”

“Of course, darling. Be careful.” Betty folded Helen in a hug, damp with tears. “I’ll pray for you.”

“Thank you.” Helen extracted herself from the painful embrace and noticed bloodstains on her dress. Her jaw tightened. She was sick of removing bloodstains.

Helen and George headed down Sixth Street. “Where can we go?” she whispered.

“The Novaks.”

“Oh no. We can’t wake them. It’s past midnight.”

“We need to take you to someone with standing in the community. Pastor Novak is on your side. He’ll protect you and stand up for you. No matter where we go, we’ll wake someone, and I’d rather wake someone I know.”

Helen sighed in resigned agreement.

They walked at a brisk pace. Mr. Carlisle must not have come searching because her bundle remained at the corner of C and Sixth. When George picked it up, Helen held her breath, but no movement came from the direction of the Carlisle home.

George pounded on the Novaks’ front door. Dizziness swept through Helen. The walk had taken the last of her strength, and she sagged against the wall.

“Coming.” Pastor Novak opened the front door. “How may I—George? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Helen. Mr. Carlisle beat her up. She needs someplace safe to stay the night.”

Pastor Novak leaned outside. His face stretched long. “Oh no. I never thought . . . why didn’t I say anything?”