All for a Sister (4 page)

Ostermann let out a short, bitter laugh. “So dramatic. Perhaps you are the one to be the actress in the film?”

He was joking with her, of course. Something she was still training her ear to detect.

“What do you want to know? They say I killed a child. They put me in prison. And then they let me out, and I came here. All that time between—twenty years, Mr. Ostermann; more than half my life—nothing happened. I went nowhere, saw no one, did nothing. Who would come to the theater to see an empty screen?”

“There is no such thing as
nothing
. You tell me, all of this nothingness. Surely I am not the first to ask?”

Far from the first. There’d been a journalist in Chicago, and
even two on the train, pestering her with questions. How did it feel to be free after all this time? What did she want to do? Where did she want to go? What was the connection between herself and the lovely Celeste DuFrane? Their queries pelted her like stones, chipping away at the wall she’d built around her—far higher and stronger than those of Bridewell, though nobody called it that anymore. It was the Chicago House of Corrections, officially. Bridewell, nothing but an old, sentimental term of affection. A nickname carried from those who knew her before the fire. A safer name for a place to put children.

These questions, however, felt different. Ostermann’s office was close and plain and gray, lit only by a small window high up on the opposite wall. Under his scrutiny, she felt the space closing in, and the odd comfort of the confinement frightened her.

“Will you leave the door open? So I can leave if I want?”

“Of course.” His expression lacked any hint of triumph as he stood, walked out from behind his desk, and spoke curtly through the opened door. Within seconds, the capable, sturdy woman who had greeted Dana in the outer office came in, carrying a small notebook and a sharpened pencil. “This is Miss Lynch. She will be taking notes as you speak. Is that all right with you?”

“Of course,” Dana said, purposefully repeating his words, trying to match his tone. She turned to acknowledge Miss Lynch, who sat in a chair to the left and slightly behind her. In the meantime, Werner Ostermann settled himself back behind his messy piles and lit a fresh cigarette.

“Do you mind?” Dana said, emboldened. “I’m not used to the smell, and the smoke burns my eyes.”

He said nothing but stubbed out the offensive thing.

“Thank you.”

“Proceed.” He opened his hands toward her, inviting.

Again the clock ticked silence, the only other sound being the soft clearing of Miss Lynch’s throat.

“Where should I begin?” Dana’s voice was little more than a whisper, so soft she could feel Miss Lynch craning closer.

“I believe it was Oliver Twist who began with his birth, but I don’t think we need to go back that far. Perhaps the night you were arrested?”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember much about that.” It was a truth that had not served her well at the time of her arrest, and after all these years, it wasn’t a truth at all.

“Perhaps, then, a memory from before?”

Before she went to prison, he meant, but those memories were equally shrouded. Still, she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, seeing a small, pale hand pushing aside a curtain.

“My mother and I lived in a small apartment on the third floor above a grocer. . . .”

EXTERIOR:
A narrow, dark street in an impoverished neighborhood. A woman, young but moving with a stooped gait of fatigue, makes her way, carrying a shopping bag. She stops for a moment, observing a father buying a bag of toasted chestnuts for his daughter. It is a touching scene, and the woman appears wistful before summoning new courage and beginning a tedious climb up a set of narrow steps attached to the alley side of a dark brick building.

INTERIOR:
The apartment is shabby and plain but clean. A small table, two chairs, a stove, and a single narrow bed in the corner. A girl, almost a young woman, bustles about, setting the table with two simple plates and two glasses. She pours milk into the glasses, but only until each is less than half-full. She looks with longing, obviously wishing for more, but when the door opens, she puts on a mask of contentment and says, “Mother!” before rushing to embrace the woman from the street scene.

1904

“DARLING!” MAMA CALLED
from the doorway. Her voice had the ring of enthusiasm, but one of obvious effort. Her eyes, the same pale blue as Dana’s own, appeared mismatched with the cheerful greeting and the smile. She glanced at the bed in the corner with a touch of wistfulness; then her eyes darted back to Dana and grew a little brighter. Immediately Dana wished she’d poured all of the milk into one glass to give to her.

“How was the party?” Dana asked as she pulled out a chair, eager to see Mama off her feet.

“Too much. So lavish for a boy just seven years old.” Mama still spoke with a trace of her Swedish heritage, though she’d been born right here in America, not ten blocks from this very room. “Toys and toys and toys, and a table twice the size of this room filled with every kind of sweet.”

“You look so tired. They should have let you go home. I could have come and taken care of the baby.”

“You know how particular Mrs. DuFrane is,” Mama said, running an absent finger along the edge of the empty plate.

“And how is the baby?” Dana had only caught the quickest glimpse of her—a pink-faced thing—as Mrs. DuFrane carried her in a brief tour around the festivities.

“Sweet.” But it took her a while to say it, only after closing her eyes and opening them to focus on the plate in front of her. The sight of it proved to be invigorating, as a new cheerfulness took hold. “And speaking of
sweet
, I’ve brought home several little things left over from the party. Chocolate-filled crepes and fruit tarts and a dozen cinnamon-dusted cookies.”

“For supper?”

“Why not? Even paupers ought to be able to eat like kings every now and again.”

Dana eyed the shopping bag, imagining the treats within, and unrolled the top, extracting three paper-wrapped packages. “Which are the crepes?”

“That long, flat one, I think.” But she was hardly paying attention.

“Which would you like then, m’lady? Crepe or tart or—?”

“You know, I am not very hungry.”

Though it might have been a trick of the rapidly fading light, Dana noticed that her mother was not only pale, but slightly green.

“Can I get you something else, then? There’s bread left, and a little butter.”

“No. I think I need to just lie down for a while.”

“You don’t have to go back to the house?” Though not a regular occurrence, Mama was often required to sleep in the small room off the baby’s nursery, mostly on nights when one of the DuFranes’ social engagements would render Mrs. DuFrane incapable of rising in the night to care for the child’s needs. Dana hated those nights, when she was left alone in the apartment, no matter how safe and cozy a home Mama had created. It would be so much easier if they could simply live in one of the rooms in the vast, sprawling house. But Mama promised, always:
“Not much longer. Just until the baby isn’t a baby. And then I’ll find us something better.”

Now Mama shook her head, her lips held especially tight. “No going back tonight. It’s a staff holiday in honor of the boy’s birthday.”

“How nice.” Dana grasped her growling stomach in anticipation of the treat, and her mother almost laughed.

“Here.” Mama poured her milk into the other glass. “We will get another bottle tomorrow morning.”

After finally removing her hat, Mama made a slow trek to the bed in the corner of the room and curled up on it. Her eyes almost immediately fluttered closed.

Meanwhile, Dana happily, hungrily indulged in the treats—one of each—before reluctantly wrapping the rest in the paper bag to be put away until later. By now the room was growing dim, and she took a match from the matchbox, prepared to light the lamp, but took one look across the room to where her mother rested so
peacefully. Reconsidering, she replaced the match, set the lamp down, and retrieved a thick but worn quilt from a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. This she spread out on the floor alongside the bed, then lay herself down upon it, flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling. After a few moments, her mother’s hand came into her frame of view, beckoning, and Dana rose first to her elbows, then straight up. She moved to the foot of the bed and gently removed her mother’s shoes before curling up beside her, spreading the quilt over both of them, and waiting for the room to grow dark.

“Are you even listening to me?”

Ostermann’s eyes had closed soon into her narrative, but Dana had continued to speak. She’d all but blocked memories of her mother. Useless things, serving only to mire her in the competing agony of resentment and guilt.

“
Crêpes au chocolat
, apple tarts, and some sort of cookie.” He counted them off on his fingers as he spoke, pausing on the third. He opened one eye to look past Dana to Miss Lynch. “What kind of cookie, exactly?”

Miss Lynch flipped back a page in her notebook, brow furrowed. “Cinnamon-dusted,” she said with all the authority of having been in the little apartment that evening.

Both eyes were open now, so dark and brown as to make Dana wish he’d close them again.

“It is Miss Lynch’s job to listen. It is my job to see. When you speak, do you not see everything laid out as if on a stage before you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, wondering for the first time whatever had happened to all those modest furnishings, those few possessions that had made their apartment a home. Perhaps even today
strangers ate supper on those very dishes, sat at that table so long ago abandoned.

“You have the benefit of memory. I have the gift of vision. You remember; I create.”

“Should I be writing this down?” Miss Lynch interjected from the corner.

Ostermann arched an eyebrow in response, prompting Miss Lynch to quietly tuck the pencil behind her ear.

“There’s a lot I don’t remember. And I’m afraid—”

He held up a finger, interrupting her, and ordered Miss Lynch back out to her desk.

“What is this? You are afraid? Are you not safe now, with a home?”

She was, though she didn’t know what she was meant to do here in this bright, sun-filled place when she’d known little more than shadows for the better part of her life. What she feared most was the phenomenon of mere minutes ago, when she spoke aloud of things she’d long denied herself permission to remember. How real it all was—the softness of the quilt, the heaviness of her mother’s eyes, the sweet burst of sugar. If she continued to tell her story, other memories would take on such dimension, none so pleasant. She would be once again cold and damp, helpless and hungry. Thin with illness and bent with fatigue. All those things they’d said to put behind her would spring to life in this little office, her fidgeting releasing the creaks in the chair.

Ostermann must have grown impatient for an answer, because he’d walked out from behind his desk and now crouched next to her, folding his tall frame until his dark eyes looked up into hers.

“Were there times,” he said, “ever, when you wanted to scream?”

She nodded, muted by the same timidity and fear that had always plagued her.

“Well then—” he took her hand within both of his, a touch she couldn’t have anticipated, and so unfamiliar she couldn’t think to pull away—“we will shout together.”