Chapter XXIX
DAYS HAD PASSED since their return to New York.
Mae had tried to keep abreast of Winona’s situation while trying to right the chaos that had ensued in the aftermath.
Winona had found a job as a seamstress from one of the local women in her neighborhood.
She had been able to keep Lily at home with her while she worked through the endless seams and patchwork.
For Mae's part, she had focused on the small tasks that she could handle—getting Simon back to school and contacting the landlord of Henry's law office building regarding her payment. She had put in the notice to vacate as well.
Meanwhile, she had let the overwhelming tasks sit on the back burner.
The bill for Henry’s funeral lay untouched on the table.
The newspaper had sat open to the classifieds, with large circles around possible job opportunities.
Each night she had sat recalculating the same amount of money left to her to get her through this seemingly unending chasm of worlds.
She knew she needed to find a job, but her interest flagged every time she considered the upbeat and smiling persona she would have to adopt in the interview.
She had Simon—true. But she still didn’t have Henry.
She would never have Henry again. And that knowledge lodged in her gut each morning as she stretched her arm out to his side of the empty bed.
“Mama,” Simon called, “I’m leaving for school.”
“Okay sweetheart. I love you,” she responded. Her verbal attestation of love was a new addition that she had promised to speak every chance she got.
“Love you too,” he threw over his shoulder as he barged out the door. The words were so simple, but hearing them reinforced the justification of her actions in Kansas.
After eating the last of her toast and washing it down with the remnants of her tea, her eyes perused the circled options in the wanted ads.
As she scanned each circled description, her eyes drifted to the glaringly uncircled jobs of law clerk, stenographer, and law office assistant.
She drew in a deep breath and forced her lethargic body from the seat.
She glanced once more at the empty seat pushed in tidily at the head of the table.
Part of her resented its emptiness; part of her chided herself for feeling so selfish.
She forced herself back to the present moment.
Having promised Winona that she would meet her this morning at Thompson’s Dairy Lunch, just a few blocks from her old law office, she rinsed the remaining breakfast dishes before heading to her room to finish getting ready.
After primping herself as best she could, she reached over and tucked the newspaper section into her bag just in case, and followed in Simon's footsteps out the front door.
Maybe she would be up to making the rounds today after seeing Winona.
She should be inquiring about openings and landing some sort of work that would give her life meaning.
She needed a new chapter. A new calling.
A calling that she could claim in her own right.
When she reached the Dairy Lunch, she spied Winona walking from the other direction toward their shared destination and paused outside the entrance.
Winona’s face broke into a smile as she approached.
She threw her arms around Mae and wrapped her in a warm hug.
The woman’s natural movement comforted Mae, and she immediately returned the embrace.
“It’s so wonderful to see ye!” Winona leaned back and feigned an appraisal. “You look good!”
Mae smiled back at her as she opened the door to the Dairy Lunch for Winona to precede her. “You do too! How’s Lily?”
“Oh, she’s a gem. Hasn’t left me side too much though since we got back home.” Winona cast a glance over her shoulder as she looked for open seats. Deciding to take the two empty stools at the long marble bar, she plopped down and turned her full attention back to Mae. “And how’s yer Simon?”
“He’s doing all right. Back to school, of course. I swear he’s turning into a man overnight.” Mae’s eyes shone as she spoke.
“What can I get you, ladies?” a waiter asked from behind the counter.
“Coffee and a slice of strawberry-rhubarb pie, please.” Mae looked over at Winona. “Do you want to split it?”
Winona nodded to Mae and added, “A coffee for me as well, thanks.”
The waiter nodded, moving to fill two mugs with coffee. He set them in front of Mae and Winona and fetched a piece of pie, bringing two forks.
Winona took a sip of coffee while Mae broke a piece of the pie off with her fork. “I’m so ‘appy to see ye, Mae.” Winona set her cup down and turned fully to Mae. “I been meanin’ to ask ye,” she lowered her voice and tipped her head toward Mae, “have ye heard anythin’ from that man, Foster, yet?”
Mae’s hand froze halfway as she brought the cup to her mouth. Her eyes darted around the lunchroom as she shook her head. “No, not yet. Have you heard anything?”
“No.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Mae kept her voice low. “He said he would contact me, but it’s been over a week and I haven’t heard a thing.”
“I ‘ave to tell ye the truth…” Winona’s hand came to rest on Mae’s. “The thought of that man gettin’ ahold of me Lily again scares me half to death.”
The last bite of pie turned sour in Mae’s stomach at the thought. “Maybe he will leave you alone.” Mae’s eyes rested on their joined hands.
“I’m not gonna wait to give ‘im the chance, Mae.” Mae’s eyes flew up to meet Winona’s. “I’m takin’ ‘er and leavin’. I’ll make do somewhere else.”
Mae’s chest constricted as she searched the green eyes that had become so familiar to her in the last few weeks. “Where will you go?” Mae couldn’t keep the crack in her voice on the last word.
“Maybe out to Vancouver. My cousin’s there and she said we could stay wit ‘em until I found work.” Winona averted her eyes. “It’ll take some savin’ and a long train ride… but I’ll get there.”
Mae thought again of moving away, and Simon’s reaction to moving to New Jersey blazed in her memory.
“Ye been the best of friends to me, Mae. You done more fer me than any law ever did. But I just can’t risk me Lily again.” She removed her hand from Mae’s and picked up the coffee cup. As she brought it to her lips, Mae could see her hand shaking as the coffee swayed softly inside the rim.
Mae forced the smile that had moments ago come so easily. “If you can leave, you should. You deserve a new start.”
“You should get out too.” Her eyes locked on Mae. “Don’t let that man make you do things that ain’t right.”
“I won’t.” The words sounded hollow. “I just need to find a way to fight back, Winona. I can’t let them do this to other people like us.” Mae’s eyes filled with unshed tears, and she blinked them back.
She felt Winona’s arm come around her shoulder, and Mae eased into her warmth. As the women finished the piece of pie and their coffee, they parted with a firm hug and a promise for Winona to write.
Mae stood watching her friend stride down the sidewalk, knowing that it might be the last time she set eyes on her. Her hope of feeling better after their meeting evaporated as she realized that the intent had been a goodbye.
Her feet took her through the maze of trains and streetcars across town toward the area where the work was supposedly awaiting her. As she watched the people going about their business unaffected by her upturned world, she felt numb.
Before she knew it, she was there. At the cemetery, going down to section 4, row 6.
There sat the freshly upturned earth, mottled with patches of brown snow.
Simon and she had brought flowers days ago.
They were now wilted and blanched with the cold air of late February, and their color stood out against the harsh landscape.
Her eyes roamed over the small granite headstone.
This was all that was left to see of Henry.
A rush of anger flooded through her at the futility of it all.
Every smile, every breakthrough for a client, every chess game—they all were faint memories.
All that was left of him was a cold gray stone bearing his last name. Her last name.
She clutched her bag, and despite the frigid wind blowing her hair into her face, every inch of her body felt like it was on fire.
Her pulse coursed through the veins at her temples as her lashes froze with unshed tears.
She wouldn’t let his last name stand for nothing.
She would find a way to see through his last mission.
Recollections of her last conversation with Mr. Foster drifted into her mind.
A tiny kernel of defiance at his control took hold as she breathed in the metallic smell of the stones surrounding her.
Mae thought back to the moment when Foster had paid for her ticket home.
She’d been so stunned by his arrival and the subsequent ease of getting home that she’d not thought it through.
Would it have been better to fight him off back then?
Should she have fled in that moment with Simon and just found another life altogether?
She looked down at Henry’s stone. If she had, she would never have had the closure needed to move on.
She needed this moment, this solitary time with Henry, to mull over her choices. His voice sounded in her mind, but would not form any particular direction for her to follow. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed him to tell her what to do.
Of all the hundreds of cases that she’d reviewed in the last decade, she found that she’d never truly understood what was at stake until she saw the train leaving with her own son aboard.
That moment, that deep-seated fear transformed into reality, had been her breaking point.
Her fingertips began to tingle at the distinct memory of reaching out to his disappearing hand as the train chugged away.