Wynn in Doubt (19 page)

Poor Cece. She looked so frightened when he got to his feet and set his eyes on her. He knows he can’t beat Michael in a fight. His wife is another matter.

I’ve got to find a way to protect her and the girls. I can’t do anything for Elizabeth right now, but I can sure as hell step between a drunk and his innocent children.

29th July 1931

A gangster from Chicago propositioned Michael for the largest sale of whiskey we’ve ever had. Over twenty barrels!

I suppose there are still people in the world who have money and nothing good to spend it on. I should be grateful if I want us to keep living as we do. But it worries me. This man is notorious for his connections to crime in Chicago and Detroit, and it’s a tremendous amount of alcohol for us to move. Michael says we can do it.

It’ll clean us out, but we’d have enough money to build the hardware shop and get the family out of this business for good.

The boys are all at the stills now, prepping the mash and checking the stock to make sure everything will be ready.

A courier came by an hour ago to drop off the final paperwork for my divorce. A week ago I could think of nothing else. Now I find myself wanting to hide it. If we’re going to get through the next couple of weeks, Michael needs to be focused. He can’t worry about me and take care of the family at the same time. I’ve placed it in a drawer for now. I’ve waited so long already; I can wait a little longer.

8th August 1931

I ran into Agent Murphy in town. He took my hand and kissed the back of it. I wanted to wipe it on my dress. He said I should leave Michael while there’s still time, that he’s going to drag me down.

I turned to walk away, but he grabbed my arm. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such hate in a man’s eyes. He called me by my real name, and I gasped. No one but Michael and Cece know my name from my old life.

I shook his hand off me and ran for the car. Jimmy was waiting, and I was shaking so badly I had to tell him what happened.

One other thing Agent Murphy said that’s had me on edge: “Be careful out there. These woods are full of snakes.”

What did he mean by that?

16th August 1931

Michael’s leaving in a few hours to deliver the order to his man in Chicago. They’re supposed to be meeting somewhere in the middle, but he won’t tell me when or where. I’m terrified. He’s tried reassuring me everything will be alright, that he’s got a plan, but I have this horrible feeling.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of our commitment to one another. He’s promised to be home in time to celebrate with me under our tree. I wish I could believe him. Agent Murphy’s words keep playing in my mind. I told Michael what he said, but he just shook his head and said not to worry.

I think I’ll ask Cece if I can sleep in her bed tonight. Daniell’s been back a month now. Though he hasn’t been exactly kind, he’s at least been in agreement with Michael. He wants his cut of the money. Not that he’ll save any. It’ll go straight to alcohol and women. He’s a lowdown boozehound if there ever was one.

I wish I knew what Michael’s plan is. He must have one, he always does, but I feel like there’s a piece missing.

I begged him to let me come along. The police are less likely to pull over a woman driving at night than a man, but he won’t even discuss it. I love him so much. What will I do if something awful happens?

17th August 1931

Cece, if you’re reading this, thank you. Daniell and Patrick have been brought in for questioning. I only hope you’ll have enough time to get yourself and the girls out. I don’t know what’s happened to Jimmy, only that Michael says he’ll need to stay away for a while.

They turned me loose early this morning but Michael is with his brothers at the Bardstown County jail. Please don’t worry about us. Everything is going to be alright. Michael set it up. I still can’t believe it. I won’t be around for a little while. I’m going to hide until all of this has blown over.

I’m burying some money under “our” tree for you. Take it and the girls and run as far away as you can. You have been better to me than I deserved. However I can repay you, I will. Send word through Kate when you’re settled.

I’m leaving this diary behind in case they ever question your role in any of this. You alone have been innocent, and I hope my faithful notes on life here over the years will help you, should you ever need it. I know you’ll keep it safe until we’re together again.

I love you so very much.

X,

Lola

seventeen

I close the book carefully, as though it’s a precious thing. And it is. Lola’s last entry wasn’t written in the same neat hand used in the rest of the diary. It’s slanted and rushed. I think she was scared about being on her own again. I knew from the article and from Eby’s story how that night was going to end. Still, as I read her words, I was hoping he and the article had been wrong. I wanted Michael to get away and them to be together. Not knowing what happened next—where she went to hide and what happened after—upsets me.

Oliver takes my hand. “You okay?”

I play with his fingers in my lap. “Yeah. I think I was sort of hoping that they’d make it out together, somehow.”

“I know. Me, too.”

The car hums, nearly silent, as we pass a series of small towns. We’ll be near the tip of Lake Michigan soon, and then home.

“You said Lola never divorced her husband, didn’t you?”

I think back to the conversation we had during the drive to Kentucky. I told Oliver about the argument between me and my mom and the little she knew about Lola. “No, she didn’t.”

He makes a thoughtful noise and rubs a hand over his hair. “But in the diary, she talks about the paperwork being almost finished. So if they never got divorced, what happened?”

I turn the pages, looking for Lola’s entries on the subject. My mother had made it very clear that Lola left my great-grandfather alone to raise Grams. What happened to Dutch and Lola between August of 1931 and the midsixties when Grams’s father died? Why
had
they never divorced? And why was Lola’s diary still at the Craig house if she’d entrusted it to Cece? Had it made its way back there, or did Cece never take it in the first place? I let the questions stew. But another bothers me more.

“What I’m more interested in is what happened to her and Michael after he went to prison. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to look. She said she went into hiding.”

“Now that”—Oliver pulls the envelope holding my “surprise” from the side of his seat—“I may be able to help you with.”

I take it from him. It’s light.

He answers my question before I ask it. “Michael Craig’s death certificate.”

“Oh.” I don’t know why it shocks me. It’s not like I was expecting him to be alive. But having been introduced to him through the article only a couple of weeks ago, the news feels sudden. I pinch the brass closure together and open the top of the envelope, then remove a single sheet of paper. The certificate shows Georgia as the state of death. His name has been written in neat handwriting, along with his place of birth—Lawrenceburg, Kentucky—birthdate—January 2, 1899—and then his residence when he died.

I gasp and feel the car swerve as Oliver looks from the road to me. “What?”

I cover my mouth with my hand, reading more. “Did you look at this?”

“No, I wanted it to be a surprise for you.”

He must be able to read the expression on my face because he curses under his breath. “What is it? What does it say?”

I place a hand over my heart, which hurts. “It says he died in 1932 at the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta. The cause of death is listed as acute pneumonia.”

All hope I had for Lola’s story ending happily flees with the paper in my hand. Michael Craig never made it home again.

“We’re here.” Oliver parks along the curb in front of the thrift store that takes up the lower level of my building. We step from the car into the bright early evening sun. My shirt rises as I stretch. The old building looks shabbier than when I left. Maybe I’m just seeing things through new eyes. We were gone only a few nights, but it seems much longer.

He lifts my bag from the trunk and sets it on the sidewalk by my feet.

“Hey.” He stops a foot away from me. “I’m sorry about my truly terrible surprise.”

I try to smile, to reassure him I’m fine, but I know it falls flat. “It’s okay. It’s better than not knowing.”

“I promise,” he says, moving some hair away from my face, “I’ll never surprise you like that again.”

His joke breaks the ice, and I reach to wrap my arms around his neck.

He tightens his arms around my waist and lifts me, bringing me up to match his height. Kissing him has become easy, natural. It’s hard to open my eyes once he pulls away. When I do his lips are rosy from our good-bye. He looks happy.

“Thanks for the lift.” I wiggle my shoes in the air behind me.

“Wow. We need to work on your joke-telling skills.” He sets me back on solid ground and I find it overrated by comparison. “What’re your plans for tomorrow evening? I’m thinking dinner, maybe a movie?”

A little part of me was afraid that, once we’d crossed the Illinois state line, he’d come to his senses and wonder what he’s been doing with me. I’m glad to be proven wrong.

“I don’t know. I’ve got to check in with the family and tell Lucky I’m back. I wouldn’t put it past him to schedule us both for work the minute he knows we’re in town. That is, if we both still have jobs. Which reminds me. How long are you planning to stay?”

“Not sure. But”—he leans over and places a hand on the brick wall behind me—“there’s a girl here I’d like to see more of.” He kisses the side of my mouth, then backs away and rubs his hands together. “Alright. Call the parents, put off the boss, then meet me at the school at eight tomorrow night.”

“The school?”

“Yeah.” He grins. “It’s kind of our place, I think.”

“You don’t have another surprise, do you?”

“I’ll be honest. I’m sort of looking to redeem myself now. I can’t have you walking around being afraid of surprises. That’s no way to live.”

I watch him over my shoulder and just as I’m about to place my key in the lock, it occurs to me he doesn’t have a car. “Wait, how’re you getting home?”

“I’ll walk.”

“But it’s at least two miles from here.”

“Where was your concern Saturday morning?” He winks. Walking back, he takes my hand. “I like to walk. It gives me time to think. And you’ve given me plenty to think about.” He kisses the skin below my knuckles. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me come along.”

“I should be the one thanking you. I never would’ve gone if you hadn’t made me step into your time machine.” I try to say things I know will make him smile just to see the chip in his tooth.

“Anytime,” he says. “And don’t worry. We’ll find out what happened to Lola.”

I lower my eyes to the ground. “I wish I could believe that.”

“What? You don’t believe in our amazing investigative skills?”

“Oliver . . .” I raise my head. I don’t want to seem argumentative, but after reading those last entries in her diary and discovering Michael never made it out of prison, I’m afraid of what else we’ll find. Knowing that all those things she wanted for their life together never came true feels like a fresh wound. “Maybe it’s better not knowing.”

“Come on, Wynn.” His voice is tinted with frustration. “Don’t give up now.”

I raise my shoulders and lift my arms from my sides. “I’m not giving up. I just have no idea how we’re going to find her. We’ve already been through pages of census records and social security information. And we don’t know where she went. For all we know, she changed her name again.”

“We’ll dig deeper.”

I release a frustrated sigh. “Oliver, I’m so grateful you came with me and that we found her diary. Getting to read part of her story in her own words was amazing, but—”

He takes my chin and forces me to meet his eyes. They’re light today. “What’re you afraid of? Why is it so difficult for you to believe anything is possible?”

“She’s gone. She never wanted to be found in the first place. Maybe her story should end with the diary.”

“Wynn—”

“I know what you want to hear.” I pull on his wrists until he lets go of me. “And I have so much more faith in what
could be
, now. Because of you.” I touch a spot on his chest. “I really am grateful. But I’m also more certain than ever that chasing dreams instead of real life is dangerous. I mean, my God. After everything she gave up, everything she put herself through, to end up losing Michael . . . Look at the consequences she had to live with. Wouldn’t it have been better if she’d just stayed with her daughter? At least she wouldn’t have ended up alone.”

He turns away, running his hand down his face. “I thought you understood her.”

My head jerks back a little, recoiling from the sting of his statement.

“I know you’re afraid, Wynn. You’re getting a picture of the way Lola’s life turned out, and it isn’t what you imagined it to be. But look at what’s happened between
us
. Did you think
that
was a possibility? Because the odds of us getting together after all this time weren’t great.”

“What’s happening between us is totally different from finding out what happened to her.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Of course it is!” My voice is more high-pitched and accusatory than I intend. “Lola has probably been dead for decades. She ran away. She vanished. Maybe it was to survive; maybe my mom is right and it was because she really was just a selfish person. Whatever the reason, she’s gone. We”—I move my finger between us—“are here together. Now.”

He grips my upper arms. “You’ve read the words. You know there’s more to her than what she did. And I’ve spent the last ten years regretting the chance we never took.
Ten years.
You could’ve been gone by now. You could’ve been married, had children. You could’ve been a missionary in Timbuktu, for all I knew. But I came home and you were still here. It was like time stopped where you were concerned.”

His words hit a dark place inside me. A familiar place. Suddenly it’s like the last five days never happened. “Time didn’t stop. I just didn’t move along with it.” I break away from him and grab the handle of my suitcase.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

I turn the lock to my building with my key, and it clicks audibly. “I know.”

“Wynn.”

I look over my shoulder. I hate that he sees the doubt in me. “It’s fine. I’ll be okay. I’m just tired.”

“Will you meet me tomorrow night?”

I drag my bag across the threshold and remove the key from the door. “I don’t know. I need to check in with everyone, see what’s going on. I’ll call you.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

I close myself in the dim stairwell. I want to smile at the irony. It’s always been me waiting for him.

A cardboard box sits on the kitchen table when I step into the apartment. A sheet of paper lies faceup on the closed top.

We finished cleaning out the house while you were away. I thought you might like these. Call me when you get in.

Love, Mom

I pull the flaps and open the box. There’s a bundle of cards, both handmade and store-bought, resting near the top. They’re cards I gave Grams over the years. I didn’t know she saved them. A sharp pain pierces my chest. I place the cards on the table and root through the box, looking to see what else my mom saved for me. Pictures of my sisters and me as kids, a badly constructed pillow in the shape of a pair of lips from ninth-grade home ec, a folded-up map, and a vase made of blue glass.

I remove the vase and turn it over in my hands. I can’t believe—because of all those years of resentment and bitterness—that my grandmother chose to surround herself with something so clearly inspired by her mother. I wonder if Grams knew why Lola loved blue glass? Grams met Michael. Did she see the resemblance to his eyes?

I take the cards and photographs to my bed and spread them out. Mom must’ve made my bed. She can’t help but clean up after us, even in our own homes. I pick up a card made of red construction paper. There’s a pink heart glued to the front with the word “Love” spelled crookedly in childish handwriting.

Dear Grams,

You our the best granmuther in the hole world.

Love, Wynn

Really, Mom? Trying to guilt me into giving up the ghost of Lola, literally? I push the cards into a pile and walk to the bags I left by the door. Lola’s diary sits on top of my wallet inside my purse. I bring it back to bed with me.