The Baker's Daughter (27 page)

“Do you think Momma knew what she was getting into with Daddy?” she asked.

Deedee blinked once. Twice. The right side of her mouth twitched. It was a subject that smarted them both.

“Daddy had too tender a heart. The war tore it up and nobody, not us or Momma, could put him back together.” She sighed. “I guess you have to be ready even for that—for the person you love to leave you, in spirit or in body. Death comes in all kinds of disguises.”

“A hungry wolf,” whispered Reba.

Deedee ran a hand through her bangs, then continued, “I never doubted for a minute that Momma loved him. Whatever else might've been going on, they weren't faking that.”

Reba wasn't debating the relationship between her momma and daddy. She remembered what they'd had. She remembered her daddy's good days. Him and Momma strolling through the woods behind their house: Momma fanning herself with a maple leaf as big as a bear claw; Daddy's arm around her waist. The way Momma looked at him across the dinner table like his laughter was music. Momma's smile when he brought home bright bouquets of sunflowers. When Reba first moved to El Paso, it struck her as ironic that sunflowers grew wild, clinging to the edges of alfalfa fields. Weeds. It made her wonder if in other parts of the world, roses might live the same double life.

“Maybe not, but there was a hell of a lot of other acting going on. Momma deserved an Oscar.” Reba bit her bottom lip to keep it steady.
“I think about us as kids, and I don't know what's real and what's not. It makes a person feel like her mind's warped. Makes me understand how Daddy must've felt.”

Deedee readjusted in her chair. “Daddy … had a rough time of it.”

“A rough time?” Reba laughed. “God, Deedee, you make it sound like it was a bad day!” All the years of resentment piled inside her like kindling, and Deedee had just lit a match. “You always did that. When you left for boarding school, you pretended everything was peachy keen at home—well, it wasn't. Far from it. Daddy was seriously depressed. I found his medical files. He had ECT treatments. Do you know what those are?” She put a sharp finger to her temple. “Bolts of electricity to the brain. I don't know what you classify as a rough time, but I'd say that's
more
than a rough time. And he did things in Vietnam, Deedee. Horrible things. I read one of his therapy notes. There was a whole other person in there we never knew.” Her mind raced faster than her lips could form words. “Remember—remember when I told you about him hitting momma. You told me it was a
dream
. A dream! You were the one dreaming! Pretending our house was fine when Daddy was clearly in need of help that didn't come from a whiskey bottle. But no, everybody was content to either pretend it away or leave. I'm happy for you. Happy you got out of there—got to live the Miss Prissy Perfect life at school, but things weren't going well at home, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. You knew. I know you did!” Her face was hot. “He killed himself, Deedee!” She choked down her sobs. “Momma'd already cut down the rope when I came home from school. She was on the phone with the police. You weren't there. You didn't see it. And the worst part was, he didn't even look dead. He looked like he'd just passed out after a spell.” She'd never spoken of that night. It made her feel like a bonfire out of control, flaming to the sky. “When the ambulance came, and they said he was dead”—she covered her eyes with her hand—“I was
relieved
. Relieved, Deedee! I loved him so much, but I was afraid of him too. How can that be—you can't love what you're afraid of, right?”

Tears coursed down Deedee's cheeks, but Reba couldn't cry. The burning inside was too great.

“We never talked about any of it,” Reba went on. “It scares me still because I feel so much of Daddy inside me.”

“Oh, Reba.” Deedee took both of Reba's hands in hers. “I'm sorry.”

Sister to sister, their gazes met. Reba's pulse steadied from a boil to a simmer.

“I didn't want to leave you.” Deedee bit her bottom lip. “But I
had
to
get out of there. I wanted to be free of all that sadness. I was so scared and hopeless.”

Comprehension fluttered in Reba's chest. “Why didn't you talk to me?”

“You were a little girl.” Deedee sniffed. “I thought I was helping by keeping it from you. Whenever Daddy went on and on about his fears, his demons, it upset you so. I didn't want you to worry any more than you already did. I wanted you to think everything was okay, but then, it all got to be too much. I had to get away—for my own sanity. I wanted to protect you from my pain, too.”

“What about Momma? He was hurting her.”

“Momma understood Daddy far better than either of us.” Deedee cleaned away her runny mascara, smudging it between her fingers. “The law has taught me that despite all the facts we think we know, the truth can be an awfully hard thing to get a hold on. It's muddled by time and humanity and how each of us experiences those.”

“Truth is truth,” Reba whispered.

“It is and it isn't,” said Deedee. “Every day, I walk into the courtroom with my truth in hand and it never ceases to amaze me that the other attorney is doing the same. Who's right?” She shrugged. “I'm thankful I'm not a judge.”

“So are you saying we accept anarchy? We throw up our hands and live in delusions, never facing reality? Look how much good that did Daddy.”

“No,” said Deedee. “It means we let God be the judge. It's too big a job for you or me. We have to stop being afraid of the shadows and realize that the world is made up of shades of gray, light
and
darkness. Can't have one without the other.” She squeezed Reba's hands. “Daddy went wrong by judging his own past with an iron fist and allowing those judgments to condemn his present. There was nothing any of us could've done for him except love him as best we knew how. You can't make someone else believe your truth, nor can you force forgiveness. We can only be responsible for ourselves.” Deedee pulled Reba against her shoulder. “I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me. I'm sorry it's taken us so long to talk about Daddy's death.”

Reba leaned into her. “I'm sorry too.” And for the first time in what seemed like forever, there were no pretenses between them. With that came a peace Reba had longed for all her life.

“Deedee.” She let the weight of her head rest wholly against her sister. “I don't want to be like Daddy.”

Deedee leaned her own heavy head atop Reba's. “His biggest mistake was he couldn't see how big our love was for him.”

Reba thought of Riki, and the center of her chest began to ache. “Riki's the most genuine man I've ever met … and I do love cheesecake.”

“Ah,” Deedee whispered. “Cheesecake.” She nodded. “Well, maybe he's not cheesecake. Maybe he's the milkman.”

They quietly giggled in each other's embrace.

“I never understood your whole dairy-free phase. It just didn't fit you.” Deedee kissed Reba's forehead.

“I was trying to be what I wasn't,” said Reba, and she smiled, feeling the lie lift. The truth as buoyant as air.

T
he sunlight was as weak as the dandelion tea Mutti made from the premature blooms she picked that morning. A storm at dawn had left their heads limp and bowed over like dejected schoolchildren. Now, the breeze was raw and wet and carried with it the scent of earthworms writhing beneath the hibernating strawberry vines. The mineral chill stuck to the back of Elsie's neck no matter how many scarves she wore or how quickly she worked. The usual crowd had already formed a line, their stomachs and voices grumbling at the workday ahead, the smell of bread, and the whispers of German defeat.

Elsie tossed stale rolls and loaves into cloth sacks and paper wraps, trading trinkets, coins, and promissory words alike. They were already running low. The brötchen bin was near empty, and Frau Rattelmüller hadn't come for her customary purchase.

“I paid for three,” said a man in a stiff fedora. “You gave me two.” He pointed a hard finger at the rolls in brown paper.

“I'm sorry.” Elsie handed him another, and he left in a huff, mumbling under his breath and wrapping his scarf tight around his throat.

The next customer ordered, but Elsie failed to hear. Frau Rattelmüller's absence had unsettled her routine. She was uneasy; her mind drifted past
the carousel of morning customers and down the lane to the frau's door. She wondered what had kept her.

A shifting of seasons was in the air, and it was more than spring. The Gestapo patrolled the streets night and day with rifles slung over their shoulders; news trickled in that Allied forces were at the Rhine and certain to cross over any day; the Volksempfänger said the Americans, Brits, and Russians were coming to rape and murder them, but Elsie wondered how much worse they could be than their own soldiers. Since Achim Thalberg's murder many more people had been quarantined, arrested, or simply shot. Having Tobias under her roof was grounds for immediate termination, for herself and her family; and with Julius constantly underfoot, keeping Tobias's presence a secret had become a daily labor.

Initially, Mutti proposed that Julius share a room with Elsie. The mere suggestion had precipitated the first of Julius's fits, which they soon learned were habitual. He refused to sleep anywhere near the opposite sex and bristled at all displays of affection between Mutti and Papa, be it a held hand or a kiss to the cheek. It was baffling considering Hazel's loving nature. Mutti made excuses, saying, “He's been raised with the highest morals of the Reich. Perhaps we all need a lesson in propriety.” Papa had nodded but frowned.

In an attempt to appease Julius, Mutti fashioned a mattress out of old tablecloths and straw and cleared the kitchen pantry closet of its few remaining items. This was to be his bedroom. He wasn't thrilled but accepted it as the only extra space available. Sullen and ill-tempered in his new surroundings, he spent a majority of his days therein lining his toy soldiers in the grooves and divots of the wooden floorboards. Like curdled milk, he seemed soured with a great sadness no one could alleviate.

Elsie didn't blame him entirely. He didn't know them. Hazel moved to Steinhöring while still pregnant, and they'd only visited him as a newborn. His family was the Program. He talked incessantly of his instructors, of Nazi customs, and how much he hated foreigners. All of which no one dared debate, but such harsh words from a seven-year-old made them uncomfortable. Julius knew everything about authority and discipline and nothing of family and compassion.

Though they were of similar age and shared a fairness of eye, Julius and Tobias were as different as night and day. Julius remained stony and emotionless, even when Mutti showed him photographs of his mother, Hazel, and smoothed his cheek with the back of her hand. It produced not
a flicker of reciprocated affection or appreciation. He refused to wear the sweaters Mutti knitted, declaring the wool smelled of sheep's dung as did the mattress on which he slept. It seemed the only pleasure he gleaned was in food, though he had a word of criticism for all they offered, balking at the vegetables and griping that the spaetzle tasted like shoestrings—a product of his own beloved SS flour and powdered eggs. Nothing was right. Nothing was good enough.

Mutti doted on him regardless, but Papa was reserved. Elsie knew him well. He didn't approve of the boy thinking himself so far above their station as bakers. After all, this was his daughter's son, his blood. So in the first week, he put the boy to work. Julius whined and complained through each batch of brötchen and pastries. He brought a bitterness to the kitchen that they all feared would bake into the bread. After a week, Mutti asked Papa to let him be, and he spent the rest of his days playing war games in the kitchen pantry.

Before daybreak, while Papa heated the oven and Mutti catered to Julius, Elsie often had the whole upstairs to herself, allowing her time to tend to Tobias before joining Papa in the kitchen.

After all her earlier descriptions of Julius, Tobias was curious about her nephew's arrival. Still, it came as a surprise when he whispered one morning, “I've been listening for his music.”

Elsie was in a rush to give him the wool socks Mutti had knitted for Julius, and Julius had subsequently thrown to the floor for their itchiness. He would never wear them, and Mutti would be wounded once again for a gift rejected. Elsie figured it worked out well to put the items to Tobias's good use.

“I put my ear to the floor, but all I heard was the pots and pans and customers,” Tobias continued as Elsie pulled the socks up to his knees. “What songs does he sing for you?”