White Picket Fences (14 page)

“No. We have to come back. We need to come back for the rest of their story. But we can’t expect them to tell us what their experience means to our generation. We’re going to have to
come up with that ourselves.” He laid his camera bag up against the spare tire, cushioning it with an old blanket.

“I guess.” Matt leaned against the car. “So…what does it mean?”

Chase shut the trunk and turned to Tally. “What do you think it means, Tally?” His tone was slightly sarcastic, but a quick look at Matt let her know he missed it completely.

A gust of wind skipped around them. “I don’t think you can stand around in a parking lot ten minutes after talking to survivors of the Holocaust and just decide what it means,” she said.

Matt looked at his watch and pulled his body away from the car. “Well, I’ve got to get to soccer practice. You two deep thinkers can meditate on this. Me, I think it means there’s a ton of people in the world who are full of crap. And a ton of people who think people full of crap are brilliant. How else did the Nazis get away with what they did? C’mon. I’ve got to go. Tally, you can have the front. I have to get out before you.”

Matt slipped into the backseat, and Chase and Tally took the front. The roar of the air conditioner on full and their contemplative thoughts kept the four-mile drive to the soccer field a quiet one.

“We can go again on Wednesday afternoon, but that’s the only day next week I can go.” Matt pulled himself out of the backseat and grabbed his gym bag when they arrived at the soccer field.

“Right. See ya,” Chase replied.

“Bye, Tally.”

“Bye.”

Matt jogged away from the car and Chase pulled away. In
the side mirror Tally watched Matt greet another player as they headed to the men’s restroom to change.

When they were back on the open road, Chase turned to her. “Why’d you ask Eliasz if they found other doctors in the ghetto willing to help them?”

Tally returned his gaze. “Don’t you know?”

Chase turned back to the road. “You wonder if our great-grandfather was one of them.”

“Why not? He could’ve been. He was a doctor. He was relocated to the ghetto.”

Chase tapped the steering wheel. “Yeah. So? Maybe he was.”

“I think it was incredibly brave what Josef and Eliasz did. I’d like to know if my great-grandfather was a part of that. Wouldn’t you? I saw how you reacted to the number of babies they smuggled out.”

Chase drew back as if she had misread him.

“You pulled away from the camera when they said how many children they had saved,” Tally continued. “I saw it on your face. You were moved by what they did. When Josef told us they had to stop when they were sent to the concentration camp, you asked what happened to the smuggling ring. You didn’t ask about them.”

“So?”

Tally stared at him. “So there’s nothing wrong with that. I thought it was cool that you wanted to know what happened to the rest of the babies in the ghetto. I don’t see why you don’t want to admit that.”

“Admit what?” His tone was dry, like the hot wind outside the car.

She stared at him. “What is with you?”

Her cousin looked at the road, wordless. Tally turned back in her seat and faced the passenger-side window.

“I don’t know why,” Chase mumbled a few seconds later.

“Why what?” Tally mumbled back.

“I don’t know why hearing how they saved those kids affected me that way.”

Tally swung her head back around. “You act like it’s silly to be impressed by what they did.”

Chase exhaled and shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean.”

“What, then?”

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes on the road but unfocused. “Something felt strange inside me when Josef was talking to us, when he started telling us how he saved that first baby girl. Something… fell away.” He was talking to her, but his voice and concentration were elsewhere.

“What do you mean?”

“Something became clearer. Something that’s been hard to see…”

Chase was making no sense. He stared at the road ahead, but he didn’t seem to be seeing anything but some distant revelation visible only to him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tally turned her head to look at the traffic ahead of them. “The light’s turning red.”

“What?”

“The light!”

Chase slammed on the brakes, and the car squealed to a stop just past the limit line. A turning car honked at them.

“Sorry,” Chase muttered.

Tally cocked her head. “What’s going on?”

Chase drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I think I’m starting to remember things.”

A tiny sliver of unease rippled through her. Chase’s voice sounded strange. “What things?”

Chase said nothing. A few seconds later the light turned green. “You want to get something to drink?”

“Now?”

“Yeah. There’s a smoothie place up ahead.”

“All right.”

A moment later they pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall. Chase parked in front of a smoothie shop with purple-and-white-striped awnings and table umbrellas.

“I’ll be right back. Get a table outside.” Chase got out of the car and disappeared inside the shop. Tally chose a table with a wide umbrella, its fringe wildly applauding the unseen wind.

A few minutes later Chase reappeared with two frosty crimson drinks. He handed one to her. “Cherry mango.”

“Thanks.” Tally guided the straw into her mouth and drank. The smoothie was sweet and tangy. “It’s good.”

Chase eased into the chair opposite hers. “Yeah.”

Above them the umbrella trembled as a gust lifted it. He took a sip of his drink and then toyed with the straw.

“You gonna tell me why we stopped here?” Tally asked.

Chase took another drink, swallowing slowly. “I want to tell you something I’ve never told anyone,” he said. “I’m expecting you to keep this a secret because you’ve got one yourself.”

Tally waited.

He looked up at her. “This stays between us.”

“Okay.”

Chase nodded once, as if to reassure himself she could be trusted. “When I was four, my baby-sitter’s house caught fire. I don’t remember everything about that day, but I do remember some things. Like the sound the fire made when it was burning the room I was in. It… it roared like an animal.” He looked away and was silent for several seconds.

“I remember other things too,” he continued. “They’re more like still images, like movie frames. I’ve never been able to remember everything about the fire, not even the fire itself. And that’s always bothered me. It’s like my brain has kept it all hidden away somewhere, just out of reach. And the fire, it’s like it’s still alive somehow and it still wants me. Like it knows I got away.”

Tally could think of no words in response. She said nothing.

Chase drew the drink close to him and sipped it, taking a long pull on the straw. He closed his eyes as he swallowed. Then he looked up at her. “I know that sounds a little crazy. That’s why I’ve never told anyone. My parents think I don’t remember the fire at all. They never talk about it.”

“How did it happen?”

“The baby-sitter’s son sneaked a cigarette into his room. I was upstairs in the room next to his, napping. At least that’s what I remember. And I think there was another little boy with me. When our room caught fire, I waited for someone to come for me, and when no one did, I crawled out on my hands and knees. The other kid followed me. I remember how the smoke burned my throat.”

“Why didn’t anyone come?”

“Oh, someone eventually did. I don’t remember who. Some lady whose face I can’t recall now. There’s so much I can’t remember.” He took another drink and then went on. “But lately, things are shaking up inside my head. I think I’m starting to remember. Like when I saw your dad’s lighter. The babysitter’s son had a lighter just like that. I hadn’t remembered that until I saw yours in the laundry room the day you got here. And when Josef described how he rescued those kids, something snapped inside me—or opened. I don’t know exactly. It’s like the memories are just an inch beyond my reach.”

Tally was thoughtful for a moment. “Well, maybe it’s because
you
were rescued,” she said. “Maybe that’s why hearing Josef talk about saving the babies affected you like that.”

“Maybe.” Chase pulled his straw up and down in his cup. It made a whiny sound. “I used to be so nervous around fire,” he continued, his eyes on the movement of the liquid in his cup. “I never said anything to anybody, but I used to hate being around any kind of fire, even candles. But lately, I feel like I want to take it on. It’s like it’s all coming to a head. After all these years. It’s like I’m ready to prove I’m the stronger one.”

Tally studied the drops of condensation on her cup. “How do you prove something like that?”

Chase shrugged.

“Are you afraid to remember it all?” she said.

Her cousin hesitated a moment. “Sometimes. And then sometimes I just want the release. I just want to open the closet and finally see what’s inside, you know?”

Several seconds of silence ticked by.

“What are you going to do?” Tally asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s like everything about that day is finally leaking out, but I’m just not in charge of how fast it comes.”

“Don’t you want to tell your parents?”

Chase lifted his head to look at her. “What would I tell them? Seriously. They think I don’t remember it.”

“You could tell them you do remember it.”

“What good would that do? They weren’t even there. I’m the only one who can tell me what happened that day.”

“That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t do any good to tell them.”

Chase pulled his straw out and watched a scarlet drop fall onto the lid of his cup. “I think they prefer to pretend it never happened.”

Tally crinkled her forehead in thought. She’d been watching Amanda and Neil the last week, studying the family dynamics of the visibly stable, two-parent home. It was her first experience living the life she knew most people thought of as wonderfully normal. The Janvier home felt… constant. Chase couldn’t possibly be right.

“I think you’re wrong,” she said. “I think your parents would want to know that you remember. They… they seem like good parents.”

Chase smiled and stood. He was ready to go. “That’s the thing, Tally. Good parents don’t like to be reminded of the times they couldn’t protect their children.”

eighteen

I
f she closed her eyes, Amanda could imagine she stood in a forest of conifers where a pristine mountain stream ribboned its way parallel to a woodland path. And the air all around her, thin and sweet, hung like delicate, unseen lace. A carpet of spent needles under her feet whispered that the forest was always renewing itself. Fingers of a saffron sun between the piney boughs reminded her that above the treetops, there is more.

She breathed in the heady aroma of wood and sap and leaned against the garage wall, imagining it to be a sturdy trunk and letting the fragrance of possibilities fill her lungs.

The wheeze of a cutting tool blurred the dream, and she opened her eyes. Neil leaned over his workable as he shaped the yielding wood into usefulness. The tool whined into silence, and Neil blew out his breath on the length of carved wood in his hands. A burst of tiny shavings settled onto the table. He smoothed the etched wood, stroked it tenderly, then brought the board close to his face and scrutinized the grain. He gave it another loving rub with his thumb and another gentle blow to dispel the last remnants of that which was not needed.

Neil didn’t seem to mind her watching him working in his woodshop, but it was hard to be sure. She didn’t do it often, and when she did, he seemed to stiffen just a bit, as if she’d overheard
one of his prayers. The only person Neil had ever officially invited to join him in the woodshop was Chase, and that was several years ago. Amanda still winced when she remembered how Neil pretended he was fine with Chase’s disinterest.

“He can’t help what he’s wired to enjoy, Amanda,” Neil said, after Chase declined for the third time in a year to take up woodworking. “He’s not into this.”

Chase, fifteen the last time Neil approached him about it, had just bought his first video-editing software program. Amanda knew how excited Chase was to get the software, and she also knew how Neil longed for his son to show interest in his love affair with wood. But the timing of Neil’s final invitation couldn’t have been more off. She ached for them both that day. It was obvious to her that Chase took no pleasure in telling his dad no. Her husband put away the set of woodworking tools he’d bought for Chase, and then commenced work on a new project—alone. Sometimes Amanda ran into that second set of tools when she looked for seasonal decorations or canning jars. They were still in their original packaging, price tags still affixed.

Neil looked over at her now with just an upward turn of his neck. He said nothing, but she could read him. If there was something she wanted to say, she should just say it.

“It smells sweet in here,” she said.

He lowered his head, eyes back on the length of wood in his hand. “Cedar.” A slight smile rested on his lips.

“Is that for a bookcase?” She nodded toward the carved board in his hands.

“A chest. The Loughlins want to give Hannah a cedar chest for her birthday.”

She knew in an instant Neil had offered to make Hannah the chest at no cost. The girl had leukemia. Their friends Dick and Julie Loughlin probably hadn’t even mentioned to Neil they wanted to give their terminally sick daughter a cedar chest—a place in which to put hopes. Neil found out about it somehow and asked if he could make it for her.

Most of the time she loved that about Neil. “That’s really sweet of you,” she said. “I’m sure it will be lovely.”

“Hope so.”

“The Loughlins have already been through so much. Kind of puts our little troubles in perspective, doesn’t it?” she murmured.

“What troubles are those?” He set the carved piece down and reached for a plain board about the same size.

Amanda frowned. “Well, wondering how long we’re going to have Tally with us, not knowing where my brother is, and this thing with Chase.”