The Pieces We Keep (12 page)

A
udra needed this job like the air in her lungs. She needed this change for her son.

After yesterday’s session with Dr. Shaw, Jack’s nightmare gained new ferocity, spanning almost an hour. The proof lay in Audra’s eyes, still bloodshot despite half a bottle of eyedrops. She just hoped her interviewer’s computer was set low on the brightness scale.

Why did their call have to be on video? At least she still had an hour until noon, giving her ample time to practice.

“Please tell me my last answer didn’t sound overly rehearsed.”

On Audra’s laptop, set on the kitchen table, Tess responded from her office. “It didn’t.”

“But how about the one regarding splenectomies? And dental radiographs?”

“Nope and nope.”

“Did you think—”

“It was perfect. All of it. Personally, I’d hire you,” Tess muttered, “back.”

Audra pressed down a smile. “Thanks.”

They both knew it was unfair to keep staff at the clinic short-handed, given her full intention to move. By resigning, she now had no choice but to focus on the goal.

“I’ll call you tonight and let you know how it went,” Audra said, but Tess wasn’t yet done.

“You do know Boston gets about a hundred inches of snow, right?”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve mentioned it.”

“And the cost of living there is almost as high as San Francisco? Then there’s also the crime rate—”

“Tess,” she said. “You were the one who hooked me up with this contact in the first place.”

“Yeah, well. Moment of weakness.”

“Wish me luck.”

A pause. “Can you imagine what a city known as ‘Beantown’ must smell like in the summer?”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Whatever.”

Audra ended the video call and softly laughed.

She double-checked her computer settings and confirmed they were in order. Then she reviewed her outfit, a royal-blue sweater and charcoal slacks, a step up from her usual. She’d even flatironed her hair, wearing it long over her shoulders, and applied lipstick and mascara. Though no curling of the lashes. She had to draw the line somewhere.

Now, with Jack at school, there was nothing to do but wait.

And think.

About Jack.

After leaving the therapist’s office, she had asked him what he meant by saying he’d been there during the war. He hadn’t answered, and it seemed best not to push him. Maybe his nightmares were blurring the line between what was real and not. But how to stop it?

This was the question that gnawed at her.

Audra needed a diversion. She despised deep cleaning, but tidying—with its distinct before and after states—always gave her satisfaction.

In Jack’s room, she tossed his pajamas into the hamper. She threw away tiny paper scraps and cracker crumbs from his desk, put his kid scissors and glue stick back in a drawer. As she made up his bed, she thought of the book hidden beneath.

His journal.

What would a kid his age write inside? About his feelings, more pictures? What if he did recall his dreams but, when told to draw “happier things,” had lost the courage to share? The key to his night terrors could lie in something he was suppressing, and that discovery would be worth a minor infringement.

Before she could change her mind, Audra grabbed the book. She sat on the bed and flipped open the cover.

On the first page was a drawing. Again smoke plumed, but only from a chimney. The house was two stories high, like the home they used to own. A grassy yard, billowy clouds, and a ball of sun comprised the scene. No planes or signs of death.

Relieved though still searching, Audra continued on. The doodling and handwriting developed with his age. And then he shifted to collages. Ticket stubs and candy wrappers overlapped various strips from the Sunday comics. Newspaper photos and magazine ads had been trimmed to fit the pages: an amusement park ride, a baseball stadium, a picnic in the park. Together, they formed a compilation of Jack’s favorite things.

The Eiffel Tower, though, surprised her. As did the cruise.

She studied them closer, until the connection became achingly clear: He wasn’t featuring the places in the scenes; it was the people. All were families, smiling and laughing, hugging, holding hands. They were the unbreakable units that had once created the security of Jack’s world.

The doorbell rang. Audra flinched, and a tear broke free, catching the journal’s edge. She dried it with her sleeve and tucked the book away.

A rapping on the door followed. The maintenance guy from the building wasn’t due until two. He must have squeezed her in early to keep her leaky fridge from forming another lake. Either that or he wanted a head start on his weekend.

Regrouping, she made her way to the door and swung it open.

The man wasn’t one she recognized. He had no coveralls or box of tools.

“You’re here,” he said, sounding relieved. “I wasn’t sure if . . . that is, well, I hate to bother you, but I was hoping you could help me.”

At the pause, she said, “I can try.”

An unreadable smile formed on his lips. “The questions I’ve got will probably seem unusual....”

The remark tipped her off, and she bristled. He had to be a journalist, likely the same one who had aggravated her situation at work. His unassuming attire—a rust-hued button-down shirt and jeans—was clearly a strategic move.

“If you’re the reporter who came to the clinic, I can tell you right now, you’ve caused me more trouble than I needed. Now, I’m asking you nicely, please leave us alone.” She reached for the doorknob.

“No, wait.” He stepped forward. “That’s not me. I’m not a reporter.” His mix of sincerity and urgency prevented her from closing the door. Still, she remained cautious.

“Then who are you?”

“I’m Sean Malloy. At the festival, I heard the security guard say your name on his radio. I apologize if I’m intruding, coming here like this, but you took off so fast.”

The soldier. From the stage.

In the chaos of finding Jack, she had barely given him a glance.

“The thing is,” he explained, “we hit a roadside bomb, over in Afghanistan. My team was on patrol. Part of my memory was wiped out. I’ve been trying everything I can to get it back. Visiting old places and people I knew. When your son came and talked to me, I figured somehow we must’ve known each other.”

Audra tried to keep up, the conversation so unexpected. She had assumed his uniform alone had reeled in her son.

She studied the man’s face, hoping to solve the mystery, not just for his sake, but Jack’s. In the soft natural light, Sean’s eyes were the color of topaz. His hair was sandy-brown, worn short on the sides, longer on top. Around his late thirties, he had a strong jaw and his complexion promised a tan from the smallest rays of sun.

All were nice traits but none of them familiar.

“I’m afraid we’d never met before.” She hid her disappointment that felt selfish given his situation.

“But your son,” he said, “how else could he have known?”

“I ... don’t know what you mean.”

With a quizzical look, Sean pulled a necklace from beneath the collar of his shirt. He dangled the round golden charm for her to see. An inscription of tiny letters appeared on the aged trinket.

“Viel Feind, viel Ehr,”
he read aloud. “An old German saying. It’s what your son said to me that day.”

An icy shiver rippled through her. Was that the phrase Jack had recited after she’d questioned him in the car? It sounded similar enough, but that didn’t make sense. Even if he knew the adage, the coincidence of repeating it to a stranger who owned the same engraving ...

Of course. The engraving.

It was so simple, so obvious.

“He read your necklace,” she realized. “He must have, when he saw you wearing it.”

Sean shook his head. “I was in Class A’s, ma’am. I wasn’t wearing any jewelry.”

His certainty struck her as a challenge. “Well ... maybe you forgot to take it off.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then, you must’ve misheard him.”

Sean’s expression mirrored the doubt she felt, yet she refused to let hers show. With every passing day, her logical reasoning and understanding of Jack drifted further from her grasp.

Just then, a trill sounded from behind.

Her laptop.

The video call. She had forgotten the interview!

“I have to go get that.”

He responded with a nod, but the plea in his face halted her. In that frozen moment, with her future plans at risk, she had to make a choice.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve helped.” She infused her voice with all the kindness she could, then closed the door and rushed inside.

O
nce on base, Vivian hurried into the building that housed the switchboard room. She smoothed her hair and dress and punched her time card in the hall.

Fourteen minutes late.

Perspiration on her scalp threatened to streak her face. No time for blotting. Through the pane of the door she spotted her chair at the end, waiting vacant beside her roommate. Luanne snatched up a cord as fast as she’d dropped it, connected the call, and moved on to the next. The two other operators were working at the same swift pace.

Vivian opened the door to an immediate greeting.

“Miss James.” The surname was spoken with the sharpness of a sneeze.

Vivian slowly rotated to the right, where her supervisor scowled from her desk. Her appearance was meticulous as always. She wore her light silvering hair in a tight French twist and a suit jacket with shiny brass buttons. When Vivian had first learned she would be overseen by a woman, she was pleasantly surprised-until they became acquainted.

“Good morning, Mrs. Langtree.”

“Afternoon-wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, ma’am. I do apologize. I missed the company bus and had to catch a streetcar-”

“In other words,” Mrs. Langtree said, “it wasn’t a dire emergency that caused your tardiness.” The woman could sniff out a lie like a bear hunting sweets.

“No-well, not exactly.” Just then, Vivian remembered that the woman, widowed from the Great War, was rumored to have one particular soft spot: her son, an airman stationed in Georgia. “You see, I’d encountered a rather young soldier. And he was telling me about how his family lives in”—she racked her memory–“ Michigan, all of whom he surely misses a great deal. Particularly as he adjusts to life in such a large city. So I’m sure you can understand why I found it difficult to leave.”

Creases in Mrs. Langtree’s forehead relaxed a fraction, in turn relaxing Vivian. But after a moment, those lines snapped back deeper than before. “In that case, Miss James, you had no excuse to forget your duties here. Need I remind you, our country is at war. The work we do is vital to keeping our troops safe, and therefore requires operators who respect that fact.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Furthermore, if I recall correctly, I have already given you a final warning.” Mrs. Langtree rose from her chair. Evidently she wished to be at a superior height for her next statement, which could only mean one thing. She raised a crooked finger just as an Army officer entered the room, authoritative in stature.

“Pardon me,” the man said.

Mrs. Langtree dropped her finger, shifting her tone. “Colonel, how lovely to see you.”

“May I speak with you?”

“Why, yes. Certainly.” As the man turned for the hall, Mrs. Langtree gave Vivian a pointed look. “We shall continue this shortly.” She then swiveled on her heels and shut the door behind her.

“Psst,” Luanne said, twisting in her chair. Strawberry-blonde curls framed her round face. She was Shirley Temple aged by a decade with a personality to match. Her lips pursed into a question:
What’s the scoop?

Vivian dreaded to supply the prediction. It was through Luanne she had been hired at all-well, through the girl’s brother at any rate. Gene Sullivan was a first lieutenant assigned to Army Intelligence, spending much of his time at Fort Hamilton. He tended not to say much, same as in high school, but had spared enough praise in a recommendation to secure Vivian her job.

Today, after her firing, he might regret he had said a word.

She glanced through the window at the back of Mrs. Langtree. If the discussion took a good while, perhaps the woman would lose interest in resuming the previous one. She might even decide training a new girl wouldn’t be worth the trouble. War dealings, after all, took priority. With American troops battling fiercely in the Pacific, it would not be long before they invaded Europe. This would require support of every kind, including skilled operators.

Vivian hustled to her chair to exhibit her worth. She adjusted her headset and mouthpiece, its horn-like receiver curving up from her chest plate. She inserted a rear cord into an illuminated jack and threw the front key forward.

“Number, please,” she said, and connected the line.

“I hope that went better than it looked.” Luanne’s natural lilt always projected the warm, patient tone the rest of the operators had been trained to learn. “What happened to you? I thought you were only going for coffee.”

“I just lost track of time.”

There was no reason to elaborate. Luanne would undoubtedly call her batty for turning down a perfectly enticing date, given that her own beaus came and went. Besides, all Luanne knew was that an old steady in London had left Vivian reluctant to court. Nothing else. Preserving the details seemed a way to keep Isaak alive, if not in reality, at least in Vivian’s mind. She snagged another call to avoid saying more.

“Number, please ... Thank you.” She plugged in the front cord as a scream belted from the hall.

“I told you, there’s been a mistake!”

All four operators snapped their attention toward the door. On the other side of the glass, their supervisor raged. The colonel’s mouth moved around his words. He reached forward, but Mrs. Langtree pulled away.

“It’s not him, it’s not!” She covered her ears and frantically shook her head. Her meticulous hairdo sprouted loose.

Luanne touched Vivian’s arm. “Her son,” she said.

The lights of the switchboards receded into the background. Mrs. Langtree yelled again, not in words but a howl. The sound was so mournful it echoed off the walls of Vivian’s heart. Then, without warning, the woman collapsed into the colonel’s arms. His forlorn expression implied he had been a friend-of her son or late husband or both-and, as such, would not have allowed a piece of paper to present the news.

The personalized delivery, however, did not improve the result. For Mrs. Langtree now sobbed as though the last fibers of her world had unraveled, leaving barely a memory to grasp.

Vivian covered her mouth in an effort to withhold her tears. She managed to succeed, save a few strays, until later that night.

 

In the still of darkness, as Luanne slept deeply in the next bed, there was no escaping reality. Not every loss was confirmed by an officer at the door. Nor a telegram with the power to sink a fleet.

Loss, often the worst kind, also arrived through the deafening quiet of an absence.

Vivian sat down on the cold tiled floor with her back against a wall. From the lower compartment of her jewelry box she retrieved Isaak’s letter. Along with the wrinkled page came a season-old clipping from the
Brooklyn Eagle.
It drifted, light as a feather, onto her lap. The article reported that a year had passed since a little girl had vanished; an FBI agent sought out clues long after police ruled it a dead-end case and now every lead had been exhausted.

Vivian wasn’t entirely sure why she had saved the piece. Maybe she was drawn to the father’s quote, testament to his unrelenting faith: “We’ll never stop searching. No matter what, we’ll never stop.” A grainy photo captured weary determination in the faces of both parents.

Vivian touched the picture that typically embodied hope. Tonight, she saw only fervent denial. Denial of a truth that to everyone else was glaringly evident.

She pulled the golden chain out from the top edge of her nightgown. Moonlight through the window glimmered off the charm. She thought of the strolls, the kisses, the day in the cellar. Images she once recalled with the vividness of a feature film had become gray-toned snapshots of a previous life. How long before they faded to nothing?

Though difficult to imagine, at one time her parents, too, could have shared such a passion, gradually leeched by time and duty. Perhaps only in picture shows did that type of love survive. Everything else, she was learning, came to an end.

Slowly Vivian unclasped the necklace, accepting what she had been dreading since the day she left London. She bowed her head to meet her knees and soundlessly wept until her tears ran dry.