While He Was Away (5 page)

And there, lying in the glow of the flashlight and another tangle of cobwebs, is a thin, dusty envelope.

“Look at that,” Linda says.

I lean over, pick up the envelope, shake it free of all but the stickiest webs, then leverage the floorboard back into place.

“I can’t believe Dad hid something up here,” Linda says. “Must have taken some effort on his part. Effort was not his MO.”

I look up at her. Her face is strange to me in the flashlight’s glow. “I’ve never heard you call him ‘Dad’ before. Only ‘your grandpa.’”

Linda shrugs. “I didn’t just spring from the head of Zeus, you know.”

Me either
, I think.

Linda’s eyes have gone wary now, evaluating me. “Leave it.”

My fingers tighten around the envelope. “Why?”

“It’s just some stupid old thing that he should have thrown away. But like everything else, he left it for someone else to deal with.”

“I
want
to deal with it.”

Something in my voice makes Linda draw back. Now she shrugs. “Whatever. Let’s just get out of here, okay? Tomorrow’s probably going to be a long day.”

I remember tomorrow, what it holds.

“Oh, honey.” Linda’s voice is the gentlest it’s been all night. “Here. Let me help you.” She pulls me to my feet.

“Thanks,” I manage to say.

What I don’t tell Linda is that when I took out this envelope, I saw another below.

I’ll come back up here and get the other envelope tomorrow. I’ll come back late in the day, when it’s really sunk in how alone I am. A diversion. I’ll need one. I’ll come back up here then.

I’ll write my first encouraging letter to David, telling him all about it. I’ll provide comic relief.
Crazy
bird! Tripped on a floorboard! Fell flat on my butt! And get this: I found another family skeleton rattling around in the attic!
I imagine David’s face, reading this. He might be dusty and sweaty. He might be putting on a tough-guy act to impress his unit. But reading my letter—all my letters—his face will soften. He’ll smile. He’ll remember all that’s waiting for him here. He’ll remember me.

Linda takes the lead. I limp behind. In a clumsy chaos of shadows and light, we stumble from the attic. Linda goes down the ladder first, but before she vanishes with the light, I take a look back, memorizing the exact location of the floorboard that can be lifted away.

•••

In her deep purple bedroom (“‘Smoke on the water,’” I sometimes sing, entering), Linda grabs the envelope from me before I can protest and rips it open. She takes out what’s inside: a postcard-sized black-and-white photograph with those old-fashioned scalloped edges.

“Of course.” Linda looks at the photograph then lets out a weary sigh. “I might have known.”

I press close to see.

A face looks back at me from the photograph—the smiling, heart-shaped face of a young woman. The woman is eerily familiar. I recognize her private smile. Her pert nose and small pointed chin. The widow’s peak that defines her forehead and the full sweep of her wavy hair. Of course she’s just a picture. But still, I know that I
know
her.

I pluck her from Linda’s hand. Linda doesn’t say anything as I look and look.

The woman sits at a dressing table before a big, round mirror. She is drawing a silver-backed brush through her hair. She is looking into the mirror at not just me. She is looking at the photographer who must be standing behind her. Her intense gaze holds love and other emotions I also recognize but can’t put a name to. Not yet.

I peer closer yet. “Who the heck?”

“Your grandmother.” Linda’s voice sounds suddenly mother. Justine.”

“Justine,” I say, amazed even at the unfamiliar sound of my grandmother’s name.

Linda’s mouth is a thin, tight line of anger. There’s not a hint of a smile on her face. But there, that same nose and chin, surrounded by a few more lines. That same widow’s peak and wavy hair, only Linda’s hair is going gray.

“She looks like you,” I say.

“And you.” Linda sounds like she’s giving a warning.

I catch my breath, realizing that this is true. I’ve got that wavy hair too. That’s
my
widow’s peak.

“And maybe I looked like her twenty years ago,” Linda continues. “But not so much anymore.” She rubs a tight muscle at the back of her neck.

“She’s—” I hesitate, considering. “She looks nice.”

Linda snorts. “What have I taught you about appearances?”

I stare at the photograph. I swallow hard, trying to loosen the sudden tightness in my throat. “She sure looks like she loves your dad, though. I mean, then.”

“What makes you think that?” With a sharp flick of her hand, Linda pushes back her hair.

“The way she’s looking at him. In the mirror, I mean.”

Linda’s mouth twists. “So you think you see your grandpa somewhere in that picture? My father?”

I nod. “I think so. I mean, I see the tip of a man’s shoulder. That’s his hand holding that old camera. I
think
. And isn’t that a flashbulb—that little pop of light there at the edge of the mirror?” I let out a sigh. “Man, I
love
old photos! So mysterious—I’ve got to show this to David.”

I go quiet then. I might not get to show this to David. I glance at the clock. Really, I’ve got to get to bed. I’ve got to grab a couple hours of sleep so I can be halfway coherent tomorrow when I see him again. Because I will see him again.

I feel Linda watching me. If I get worked up, she’ll drop this whole conversation. Or it’ll takes five times as long as it should take. So I swallow down tomorrow and ask, “What year would this be anyway? Way before you were born, right?”

“Way.” Linda forces out a laugh. “Look at her dress. So
not
nineteen sixty-seven.”

I study the fitted bodice, the row of pearly buttons. The neatly cuffed sleeves. The simple collar, secured by a little scrolling pin at the throat.

“Very mid-forties,” Linda says. “She’s probably about eighteen there.”

“Wow,” I say.

“Wow,” Linda mutters.

“Your parents were married a long time before they had you.”

Linda shrugs. “If ten years is a long time, then I guess they were. My mother was forty when she had me. She wasn’t planning on getting pregnant. I don’t think she wanted a child. I don’t really know. And guess what? I don’t really care.”

I’ve heard most of this before—or pieces of it. But there’s something else, something new she’s telling me now.

“Then—” I stare at Linda for a moment, open-mouthed. “Then who—”

Linda sighs heavily and plops down on the bed. “Like I said, I don’t know anything for sure. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about that woman. But…I think probably her first husband took that picture.”

I look back at the photograph. Justine seems sadder than ever. “You never told me she was married before!”

“You never asked.” Linda sits cross-legged on her bed now and strips off her socks, the better to rub the soles of her aching feet. She rubs and rubs. “Anyway, what’s there to say? The past is the past.”

“Who was he?” I drop down on the bed too, astonished. “Did they get back together?”

It’s terrible, cruel, and I’ll never admit it to Linda, but I want my grandmother and this guy to have gotten back together. I want a love that lasts for once. I want that in my family, no matter the cost.

Linda takes a deep breath like it’s all she can do to get the words out. “He was a soldier in World War Two.”

I gape at her. “A soldier?”

“Oh God. I should have known.” Linda presses her hand to her eyes. “He was killed, okay? He was some kind of hero. My mother left me for a
ghost
, Penelope. That’s what your grandpa always said.” Linda lowers her voice to a mannish, drunken slur and says, “‘Justine left us for a ghost.’”

“She must have really loved him.” My voice has turned husky with emotion.

“Oh, sure. That made it all worthwhile.”

Linda sounds about as sarcastic as I’ve ever heard her. I stare at her, too shaken up to speak. She goes back to rubbing her feet, playing for time. When she looks up at me again, she seems sad.

“I’m sorry.” She bites her lip. “Penelope, I’m just trying to take care of you. I’m just trying to keep you from getting hurt like I did—like my mother did, for that matter. Justine was eighteen when she married her childhood sweetheart. And one year later she was a widow. That’s not a happily-ever-after ending if you ask me.”

I hold Justine’s photo close to my chest. “You don’t really know her side of it, though, do you?”

Linda falls back on her bed, her coppery-gray hair fanning across the purple spread. “Let sleeping dogs lie, all right, honey? Just let sleeping dogs lie.”

I don’t know if Linda means Justine or the soldier or the past altogether. I don’t know if Linda means herself, lying there, eyes closed already, lips parted in utter exhaustion. I only know that it’s time to get the heck away from her.

So I do, taking the photograph with me. I’ll never tell Linda about the loose floorboard in the attic and, when I know, what’s beneath. Never ever.

In my room, I face the clock on my desk. David leaves at one in the afternoon. About ten hours from now.

I prop Justine’s picture against the clock. I had a grandmother who loved a soldier too. He died. But maybe she still exists?

I lie down on my bed, willing myself to rest up for the worst day of my life. So far.

When I look at the clock again, it’s nearly ten.

David isn’t outside waiting in the shade of the honey locust tree. He hasn’t left a voice mail or sent a text. No Facebook updates. He hasn’t said one last good-bye. I call his cell, but he doesn’t answer. His house. No one picks up there either.

On my desk, Justine seems to nod in the flickering sunlight.
Find
him
, her expression seems to say.
Now
.

I peek into Linda’s room. Still fully dressed in her black work garb, she is sprawled facedown and spread-eagled on her bed. This is the way Linda sleeps when she’s really wiped out from work or me, or both. There’s no danger that I’ll wake her.

I clean up fast. I get on my bike.

Usually I’d wave to the clockwork lady, who is picking her delicate way around the block. But this time I don’t think to raise my hand until after I’ve sailed past her. I don’t look back to see whether she hesitates the way she always does when she sees me, whether she unclasps her own hands to wave back—her gesture more question than answer.

Bonnie doesn’t know where David is. “He left about an hour ago, I think—about nine. He promised he’d be back for a late breakfast. I went out and got chocolate-chip bagels and cream cheese—his favorite. He was expecting you. And here you are!” Bonnie forces a smile and runs her fingers through her spiky blond hair.

When I pulled up on my bike a few minutes ago, she was standing in the driveway, looking down the street as if David might appear at any moment. She had her hand to her forehead, shielding her blue eyes. She said the sun was hurting them—that’s why they were so red and watery. But I could see at once that she’d been crying.

We stand in the O’Dells’ kitchen now. It’s still a mess from the dinner Bonnie made last night, which was not a culinary success. The lasagna and garlic bread burned. The Fresh Express salad wilted in the bowl. The soda frozen in the freezer. Bonnie, forced to copy umpteen files, had stayed too late at her real-estate office to pull off anything more gourmet. And she had so wanted to pull off something memorable—in a good way. So had Beau. David’s dad kept our conversation moving right along, peppering every other sentence with a silly joke or bad pun. Beau wasn’t about to let anyone break down. He wanted to remember everyone—especially his son—smiling.

Any assumptions I’d had about adoptive families went out the window the moment I met David, Bonnie, and Beau. They have their differences, sure. But they get over their differences—or if not over, exactly, then
past
. They see each other as individuals, not just extensions of themselves or their history. Like right now, if David is late for breakfast, Bonnie will probably say, “David will be David.” She’s right. David makes a habit of late. That’s one of the many reasons why he decided to enlist.

“I need the structure,” he’s told me more than once. “I gotta learn some organizational skills.”

I seize a suspicious-smelling, damp rag from the O’Dells’ notoriously clogged sink and start swiping at the counter.

“Do you think he needed to get something from the store? I mean, he went through his duffel again yesterday, right?” I scrub furiously. Did Justine do this? Did she clean when she got scared?

“I checked the list again this morning.” Bonnie is pacing the kitchen. “He’s got everything. I don’t know why he took off. But he promised he’d be right back, Penna. ‘Soon,’ he said. So why don’t you just wait for him? Sit down. I’ll make you a cup of coffee. I’d love to talk for a minute.” Her voice falters, and then she continues. “I think—I don’t know for sure, but I think…do you think David is having any last-minute regrets? I’m concerned.”