The Pieces We Keep (36 page)

“I didn’t say–,” she started, but finished with a groan. She looked at Judith and laughed to herself. “And here I was thinking you got your stubbornness from me. Good grief. Tell your incorrigible daddy good-bye.”

“Bye-bye, Daddy!” Judith waved her sticky fingers.

He turned to wink and disappeared around the corner.

“All right,” Vivian said, “let’s go finish breakfast.” She adjusted the girl’s weight to prevent her from sliding down, and headed for the apartment. “How about we bake some muffins today? And we could write letters to Grandma and Grandpa. You remember they’re coming to see you in a few weeks.” It could have been Vivian’s imagination, or just hopeful thinking, but the couple actually seemed more compatible than ever.

“I wanna chocolate!”

“Oh, you do, now? That sounded a lot like a royal order. How about we rephrase that into ...”

A man at the end of the block stood beside a parked black Ford, staring in her direction. Something about him withered her words. She used her free hand to shade her eyes from the sun, and her heart stalled mid-beat. The embodiment of her past peered back from the eyes of a suited fellow with a head of blond curls. A face she had once known. Features stored deep in the well of her memory. It was a reflection of the impossible.

“Mommy?” Judith tugged the chest of her apron. But Vivian could not move. Her legs were ancient redwoods rooted to the earth.

A minute passed, maybe an hour, a century. There was no sound, no motion, until the driver stepped out of the car. He tapped a shoulder of the blond man and, after a pause, guided him into the backseat. The door closed and engine revved. And as the car started away, what appeared to be slate-gray eyes gazed out from the rear window.

A
udra could still see the shocked expression in her mind. The way the girl’s face had hardened when Audra, in a desperate free fall, had denied Isabella affirmation of heaven. More than a month had passed since then, yet the little girl’s reaction neglected to fade from Audra’s memory. In fact, it had gained clarity in the last two days, following Luanne’s confession.

Maybe it was the woman’s talk of “unfinished business” that revived thoughts of Isabella. Maybe the whispers from Audra’s conscience were easier to hear, or harder to silence, when surrounded by the quiet of night.

Either way, she heard them now, sitting on the side of Jack’s bed. Light from the hall slanted a soft beam into the room as she caressed her son’s hair. The air contained a sleepy scent that Audra wished she could bottle.

Jack appeared so serene curled up with his pillow, calm after the fright of his nightmare. His stillness reminded her of a glassy lake at dawn. Its surface offered a different view for each person who stole a peek. She wasn’t necessarily convinced about the link between Jack and Gene, but then, there was no reason she had to agree. As promised, regardless, she would bring her son to visit Luanne before the move to Boston.

Boxes around the bedroom, packed with half of Jack’s belongings, reminded her how soon that would come. Of course they would be back, to visit friends and family. But in a matter of weeks they would call a new place home.

Tomorrow, then. Sunday was as good as any day to reach out to Isabella—if the family would allow it. Audra had no script planned aside from an apology. She imagined Luanne had approached Judith with similar preparation. There were aspects of life, no matter your efforts, that appeared set on a particular course.

That wasn’t to say Audra saw everything as predestined or orchestrated in detail by an almighty power. Upon review of her life, however, neither could she claim that everything happened by chance. That much she knew merely by the sight before her. For as she gazed at Jack’s face while listening to the gentle rhythm of his breaths, her love for him went far beyond science. Or logic. Or provable theories in any book.

Overflowing.
That’s what Devon had called the type of love he felt the minute Jack was born. It was the feeling of your heart expanding, brimming to such fullness that the seams could split in your chest.

“You were right,” she whispered, savoring the stretch of that emotion now.
“Overflowing
is exactly the word.” She spoke this into the darkness, and though she might never know for sure, she sensed that somewhere, somehow, Devon heard her and smiled.

 

A sprinkling fell through the morning, but by noon more than half the sky shone blue. It seemed to be a good omen, as Isabella’s mother had been warm and forgiving on the phone and agreed to let Audra stop by. Such welcoming acceptance made more sense toward the end of the conversation, when the woman mentioned that Tess had long ago explained the gist of Audra’s loss.

At the family’s house, the mother ushered Audra and Jack inside. “Come in, come in,” she said with the gentle lilt of her accent. She wiped her hands on her apron and yelled up the stairs, “Mija, the doctor is here now!”

The pair of matching Shih Tzus pounced around Jack’s feet, little pink tongues hanging out. In the living room, Isabella’s two younger brothers, maybe six and eight years old, were playing a race-car game on the TV. A waft of hot spices traveled from the kitchen.

When Isabella didn’t appear, the mother shook her head. “I’m sorry. She knows you are coming. I will bring her down.”

Under the circumstances, Audra hated the idea of ejecting the girl from her comfort zone. “Would it be better if I went up to see her?”

The woman considered this and smiled. “
Jes
. I think so. It is the room on the left.” She turned to Jack. “Would you like to play with the boys?”

Jack’s gaze was already locked on the game, which made the activity an easy sell.

“I’ll just be a few minutes, buddy,” Audra said. “Then we’ll grab some lunch.”

“Can we get a treat?” he asked her.

“We’ll see.”

He nodded and followed the mother toward her sons, who were giggling over deliberately crashing their vehicles.

Audra ventured up the carpeted stairs. She stopped at the partially open door, where a handmade poster spelled out
Isabella
in glitter glue.

“Isabella?” She gave a knock before poking her head inside. “May I come in?”

Propped against her ruffled pillows, the girl sat on her bed with a sketch pad. She shrugged her indifference without looking up from the picture she was drawing.

Audra perched on the side of the mattress and glimpsed the artwork. It featured a young girl, with a black bob like Isabella’s, on the back of a stallion in a green pasture. “Wow, that’s really pretty.”

Isabella didn’t reply, her eyes on the paper.

“Do you like to ride horses?”

The girl shrugged again, pressing harder with her brown colored pencil. “I can’t till I’m twelve. My mom thinks they’re too big.”

“Yeah, I can understand that.” The same thing had concerned Audra when Tess invited Jack to ride her sister-in-law’s thoroughbred.

Audra considered mentioning the animal now, as a means of conversation, but foresaw a dead end. She would get to the point.

“Isabella, I came here today to tell you that, well ... what I said to you about heaven ...”

Annoyance rolled over Isabella’s face. She had no interest in the stock apology that was surely forthcoming, or a feigned reversal in religious stance.

Audra couldn’t blame her.

“The fact is,” Audra finished, “I meant it.”

Isabella snapped her head up, her attention undivided.

“At least, I did at the time. You see, a few years ago, someone I loved very much died, and it made me doubt a lot of things I used to believe in. I was angry and sad that it happened because it didn’t seem fair. But, after a while, I had to look closely at those beliefs again and decide, for me, what had been true all along.”

Isabella lowered her sketch pad while gnawing on her lip. “So ... you really do think there’s a heaven?”

Audra debated on how to respond. If referring to a holy place in the sky with pearly gates and cherubs and angels soaring on feathery wings, she couldn’t in all honesty say yes. On the other hand, she had learned there was more to our world than what any of us could see or fully comprehend.

That’s when it hit her: Maybe heaven was much like a lake at dawn, offering a different view depending on the person. Maybe heaven entailed more than a soul residing in a single place but instead having pieces of yourself spread among the hearts and memories of people you’ve touched.

With this in mind, Audra reexamined her personal beliefs, and indeed she found her answer.

“To be perfectly honest,” she said, looking Isabella in the eye,

“I really do.”

A slow smile spread across the girl’s lips. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Me too.”

 

As Audra drove away, an internal radiance filled her from recapturing a sense of certainty. This in itself seemed cause for celebration.

On a whim, skipping a sensible lunch, she steered the car into a parking lot and pulled into an empty spot. The neon sign of the donut shop glowed vibrant red in the window.

“Mom?” Jack said from the backseat. “Are we going here?” The suppression of hope rang clear in his voice. She twisted around to face him.

“You and I,” she declared, “are having dessert first.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Jack’s face beamed, though with a touch of disbelief that kept him in his seat.

“The donuts here don’t come to the car, buddy. Better get in there before they run out.”

That was all it took to send Jack clambering out of the vehicle. At the counter inside, they ordered an apple fritter for her, a sprinkled donut for him, and a maple bar to share. To wash it down, they drank from squatty milk bottles, but not before Audra challenged him to a bubble-blowing contest with their straws. When he giggled over his win, Audra could swear she heard an echo of Devon’s laugh, and it only broadened her smile.

Once they finished and were wiping their hands with napkins, Audra thought of Judith and how much, as a young girl, she must have craved knowledge about her parents. Audra decided right then; she would never again rob Jack of that gift.

“Baby, I want you to know,” she said, “if you ever want to ask about your dad, or hear stories about him, or anything like that ... I want you to say so. Okay?”

After a pause, he nodded and his eyes regained the faintest trace of an old, sweet glimmer.

Together they disposed of their garbage and exited through the glass doors. Outside, a couple of kids were fawning over a woman’s Maltese, its hair trimmed in a puppy cut. Audra caught Jack watching with a smile—though how could he not, with a dog so cute it appeared to require batteries?

A canine companion might be good for Jack one day. Not a rush. Just something to consider.

They had just reached the car when Audra heard a buzzing in her purse. She retrieved her phone and recognized the number.

It belonged to Taylor Shuman.

Though with reservations, Audra answered the call.

“Audra, I’m so glad I reached you,” Taylor replied. “I have some news about Jakob Hemel.”

“Actually, Taylor, I’m not sure we need any more information.”

Due to either the cell connection or the woman’s enthusiasm, Taylor continued as if she hadn’t heard. “We did some more searching, me and my friend at the museum. We were trying to figure out why Jakob disappeared. Audra,” she said, “I know what happened to him.”

T
his time around, Vivian didn’t bother with trying to reach Agent Gerard on the telephone. She went straight to Foley Square to confront him face-to-face.

“Ah, this must be your little one,” he said in greeting after opening his office door. He wore suspenders over his white shirt, his tie loosened and sleeves rolled up. His hair had receded a tad more over the past three years.

This was the first that Vivian had seen him since their meeting on Binnen Bridge, but just like then, she had no interest in pleasantries.

“Judith, honey, go over and sit down for Mommy.”

As Agent Gerard closed the door, the girl bypassed the chair to investigate items on the desk. She knocked a cup of paper clips onto the floor, turning him around.

“Was it him?” Vivian asked.

The agent shifted his attention, perplexed.

“I saw a man this morning. A man who looked like Isaak was outside our apartment.” She clenched her purse handle. “I need you to tell me I’m wrong. That he hasn’t been alive all this time.”

Agent Gerard dropped his shoulders. His skin paled, though surely not to the degree Vivian’s had that morning. He muttered to himself, “Those bastards had no business . . .” He shot a glare toward his door, as if meant to reach agents in another office.

The confirmation weakened Vivian’s knees, but only slightly. She already knew what she had seen. What she did not know was the reason for the lies. “For heaven’s sakes, just tell me the truth.”

He hitched his hands on the hips of his pin-striped trousers and glanced at Judith, who was now on her knees, playing with the shiny mound of paper clips. Finally he answered in the begrudging tone of having hoped to never have this conversation.

“When we brought Isaak in, he spilled it all. The details of their plans, the agents’ locations, their training and strategies. Everything we needed to shut down the ring.”

Vivian narrowed her eyes. “You told me he changed his mind. You said George Dasch was the one-”

“Dasch collaborated too. That’s the God’s honest truth. And Isaak
was
found guilty by a tribunal, in spite of me doing everything I could to help. His family was taken care of, like I promised. But in the end, they still slapped him with fifteen years in the pen.”

Prison time. That’s what they had given him, not a death sentence.

Vivian strained to keep listening through her jumbled thoughts.

“Nobody was willing to risk letting Hitler find out that the reason we caught the spies was because they surrendered. And Hoover was more than happy to let the Bureau look top-notch. Not to mention himself. Now that the war’s over, though, Isaak is no longer considered a threat. So I helped push for an appeal and finally Truman granted him a pardon. I suspect Dasch and Burger will get the same before long.”

The details burned through Vivian like a flame on a wick, quickened by the potential ramifications. In front of Judith, she fought to keep from exploding. “Does Isaak know what you told me? All this time, did he think I just cast him off? Left him alone in a cell to rot? How dare you-”

“The idea,” he cut in, “was Isaak’s.”

With that, the flame was snuffed out.

“He didn’t want you waiting around for him, wasting more than a decade of your life. He pleaded for the favor. He was so desperate when he asked me ...” Agent Gerard broke from her gaze. He paused before continuing in a near murmur. “Doesn’t mean I haven’t wondered if it was a mistake. I came close to telling you months afterward, but I gave the guy my word.”

The motive behind Agent Gerard’s last invitation to meet, that day at Prospect Park, suddenly gained clarity. As did his inability to look her in the eye when he’d delivered news of Isaak’s death.

“Normally I wouldn’t have gotten so involved,” he went on.

“But I figured it was the decent thing to do.”

Decent?
Allowing her to believe the father of her child had been sent to the electric chair, that he had been a traitor rather than an unrecognized hero, conjured many a word, none of which included
decent.

She wanted to lash back, to seek vengeance for the tears and sorrow based on falsehoods. She wanted Agent Gerard-and Isaak even more-to feel the impact of the injustice they had inflicted. But before she could utter a word, metallic rustlings and a sharp giggle diverted her attention.

On the floor Judith was sprinkling paper clips like drops of rain. Her round cheeks glowed with purity and joy. In a flash, like a story told on the silver screen, Vivian saw an averted path-of prison visits with she and Judith in their Sunday best, of reproachful glares at a convict’s child, of a life without Gene Sullivan. And through the thicket of this vision, a burst of gratitude filled her chest.

“Where is he now?” she asked, still focusing on her daughter.

“Headed back to Germany. To an American-occupied zone. All three of them will be watched there. But kept safe.”

Judith, deep in concentration, crumpled her chin. The echo of a dimple, in its timing, shouted a message of a mother’s duty.

“In that case,” Vivian said, “I need the address.”

There was no sense to be made of the discovery. Then again, perhaps it all made perfect sense. Whatever the case, Vivian spent the day vacillating between two types of betrayal, one the product of speaking up, the other of staying silent.

Vivian raised her pen from the page. Seated at her vanity, she scoured her brain for an end to the sentence:
the child I was carrying in my arms is
...

What, in fact, was Judith’s relation to him? A daughter. A blessing. An accident. A mistake?

Once more, Vivian wadded the stationery and flung it toward a scattering of other failed attempts. Every letter bore a variation of the same inept opening, each one blocked by a wall of consequence.

She yearned to purge her bottled screams but managed to refrain, unwilling to disturb Judith’s afternoon nap. Security and peace would fade from the child’s world soon enough.

Vivian placed the tip of her pen on the next blank sheet and forced herself to start again. What outcome was she hoping for with Isaak an ocean away? Whether she would ever mail the letter she couldn’t say. Certainly not without Gene’s blessing. Until then, she would set the words to paper, if solely to discern her thoughts.

From behind came the soft crackling of paper.

She glanced in the mirror, expecting to see Judith stepping on a discarded page; the girl had conquered the skill of climbing out of her crib. Instead, it was Gene, home from work early. He stood near the dresser, reading a wrinkled letter.

Vivian shot to her feet, dropping her pen. She pushed down a swallow. “Before you jump to a conclusion,” she began, but a look in his eyes eliminated the rest.

More aptly, the absence of a look. There was no anger or accusation. No bewilderment or betrayal. Strikingly, not even mild surprise.

In that instant she realized: “You already knew.”

He voiced no reply. But seconds later, he edged out a nod.

The shock of this caused her an intake of breath. She folded her arms over her middle.

Had every man in her life conspired to deceive her? If Gene had kept a secret of this magnitude, what else was he withholding?

Not to say she herself had always been a model of honesty.

“How long?” she asked, a near whisper.

“Just a few weeks,” he contended. “All these years I made a point of not seeking out information. I wanted to put it fully behind us.”

Her throat loosened a fraction, though not her arms, still snugly wrapped. “How did you hear?”

He sat on the foot of the bed, facing her. “When I was in DC, I was sifting through some documents for the Nuremberg Trials. I came across a file about the case. Did some digging around. That’s how I found out he’d been imprisoned all this time. That what you’d told me about him, about giving up the other saboteurs, it was all true.”

Now she understood Gene’s recent behavior. As she had guessed, the burden he’d been carrying did involve children of the war, but in a more personal way than she had imagined. She thought back to their discussion the night before, about his reluctance regarding the house, an investment in the permanence of their future together.

“So you also know Isaak was released,” she ventured.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

In the quiet stretch that followed, she imagined how she would feel if the roles were reversed. She could scarcely blame him for being cautious.

“I’m sure it would’ve been better,” he said, “if you’d heard it from me first. But I just . . .” He looked down at the letter in his hand, then to the floor, at the other strewn pages. “I was afraid of losing you. And Judith. She’s always thought of me like a father.”

“No,” Vivian interjected, causing him to look up. “Not like a father. You are her father.”

This wasn’t a generous placation but an irrefutable truth. Given his care for Judith since the day of her birth-taking shifts on long colicky nights, his solid discipline formed of compassion, his prideful praise for every significant milestone-no child, nor mother, could want for more.

Vivian walked toward him, longing to reinforce her assertion with physical contact. But just as she reached for his shoulder, he said, “Vivian, I have to ask you something, and I need you to be honest.”

She drew back, unclear where this was headed. “All right.”

Gene hesitated, as if needing to gear up for the question. “Look, it’s clear how much Isaak loved you-”

She shook her head. “Gene, he lied about everything, even his death.”

“–and I know this,” he finished, “because if I’d been in his shoes, I would’ve done the exact same thing.”

The sincerity and resolve of his words resonated inside her.

Though she had moved on with her life years ago, it would be false to say she didn’t wonder at times if Isaak’s feelings for her were real, or if the risks she had taken had been for a virtual stranger.

“What I don’t know,” Gene continued, “is if deep down you still love
him.
And I’ve got to know that, Vivi. Because I’d rather hear the answer is yes than carry around doubt for the rest of my life.”

She considered the issue carefully. He deserved a genuine response, no matter how difficult to craft. Consequences aside, she owed it to him, and herself, to examine what lay in her heart.

What she immediately discovered, however, was it required no more effort than determining if ice was cold or fire was hot. Some things in life bore such certainty, love being among them, they rendered opinions inconsequential.

Vivian took the crumpled paper from Gene. Letting it fall, she knelt before him and looked up into his eyes. “It’s true that on some level I’ll always care for Isaak. And in a way, he’ll always be connected to Judith. But that doesn’t mean what I feel for him is love. Love,” she said, “is what you and I have built together.”

She grasped both of his hands, the very hands that had held her and protected her and supported her in every way possible. “Gene, on the day we exchanged our vows, goodness knows the circumstances weren’t ideal. But I can tell you this. I would relive that day a hundred times over to become your wife.”

His eyes gained a sheen matching hers, and the relief in his face was unmistakable. He kissed her hand before leaning in to do the same to her lips. The gesture was as tender and warm as their very first kiss, from the night they stood on those brownstone stairs, but now with a fulfillment only history could bring.

When their mouths parted, his gaze slid back to their hands. There was something more he needed to say.

“Gene, what is it?”

After a moment thick with thoughts, he raised his eyes. “Isaak should know about Judith.” He said this as though accepting his own conclusion. Not the type to rejoice over, but a statement of fact.

Vivian tilted her head at him. “Honey ... are you sure?”

“If I were him, I’d want to know. More than that, I don’t ever want secrets to hurt our family again.”

Isaak’s ban from the States, very likely, played a factor in Gene’s decision-to feel more threatened by proximity would only be human. Yet his courage and principles were no less worthy.

She just wished she could borrow his bravery. The papers on the floor still loomed from the practicality of the task.

As if reading her mind, he said, “It’s not really fit for a letter, is it?”