Jack went next, and then Dewey, who handed her cigar box through first so she could use both hands to scoot.
“It's only a few minutes, ” Jack said, pointing ahead and to the right. He started walking eagerly in that direction.
Dewey saw it before they said anything. A huge red oak had fallen across the thick branches of two others, about fifteen feet above the forest floor, and the boys had built up, over, and around the natural crossbar. The tree house was a patchwork of lumber in shades of natural wood, white lead, and army green. An eight-paned window, set on its side, formed most of one wall, and a wooden housepainter's ladder was nailed securely to the trunk of the largest oak.
Jack nimbly scrambled up.
Charlie glanced at Dewey's foot, just once. “Do you need help getting up?” he asked.
“No, ” said Dewey. “I can climb pretty okay. But I'll need both hands, I think. ” She looked at the cigar box.
“No problem. There's room on top of the magazines. ” He slid the box under the top flap of the knapsack.
Dewey climbed up the ladder, not as fast as Jack, but without any hesitation. Charlie appeared a few seconds later, the knapsack on his back. He took it off and dropped it with a thump, raising a spray of dust motes that sparkled for a few seconds in the afternoon sun. He sat down with his back to the wall and opened the knapsack, pulling out three Coke bottles by their necks.
In the warmth of the little wooden house, the sides of the green glass bottles speckled with tiny round dots of moisture, like a toad's skin. Charlie pulled a pocketknife out of his jeans, unfolded it to a stubby opener blade, and deftly popped off the three bottle caps. He handed the drinks around. “So, whad'ya think?”
Dewey took a long swallow of Coke, pleasantly cool, and looked around as the bubbles stung the underside of her tongue.
The tree house was a rough cube, about six feet on a side, the plywood floor almost covered with a square of confetti-flecked dark linoleum. The walls were plastered with posters and cut-out magazine pages:
LIFE
, all army and planes and soldiers, no movie stars; WHEN YOU RIDE ALONE, YOU RIDE WITH HITLER!; WIPE THE JAP OFF THE MAP; and color pictures of half a dozen Boston Red Sox baseball players.
The only furniture was a bookcase made from two orange crates, with a pile of comic books, two
Smilin' Jack
Big Little Books, a flashlight, and a tall Premium Saltines tin. On the floor was a big Zenith radio, its pebbly beige case closed. A wooden shelf over the orange crates held two folded army blankets and a flat, metal-capped glass refrigerator bottle filled with water.
“Do you ever sleep here?” Dewey pointed at the blankets.
“Nah, ” said Jack in a disgusted tone. “Ma won't let us. But sometimes it gets kind of cold, on rainy days and stuff. You know. ”
“Yeah, ” said Dewey. She looked around again. The afternoon light, dappled by the forest canopy, slanted in through the window, all gold and shadows, making the little room warm and cozy. “It's great, ” she said after a moment. “Really great. You guys did a lot of work. How'd you get the big stuff here on your bikes?”
“Our brother JoeyâJoeâhelped. He did most of the heavy stuff for us, ” Jack said. “He's a senior. Gonna graduate next month. ”
“Oh. ” Dewey hadn't known there was another Reilly brother. “Is he going to go to college, or into the army? After, I mean. ”
“College, ” said Charlie. “He won't be eighteen until October, and Pops won't sign the papers to let him enlist early. Ma hopes the war will be over by then. But Joe's having a hard time getting any schools to accept him. ”
“Not because he's stupid or anything, ” said Jack quickly. He took another swallow of Coke and belched dramatically.
“Then what's theâ?” Dewey asked.
Charlie shrugged. “He's graduating from a high school that doesn't officially exist. No name, no address. Just'P. O. Box 1663, ' like everything else. I guess it makes colleges suspicious. ”
“Yeah, I guess so, ” Dewey said. “The army probably should've thought of that. ”
“The army should've thought about a lot of stuff, if you ask me, ” said Charlie. “Want a cookie?” He pulled the saltines tin off the shelf and pried off the blue metal lid. “Ma baked 'em last week, but with the rain, we haven't been up here, so it's still pretty full. ” He took two cookies and tilted the container toward Dewey.
She took a fat cookie bursting with raisins and nuts and bit into it. “Your mom's good, ” she said.
“The best, ” Jack said. “Let's look at those magazines.”
“Sure. ” Charlie handed Dewey her cigar box, then upended the knapsack onto the middle of the floor. A dozen magazines with loud, garish covers slid out in a fan across the linoleum.
“See, ” Jack said. “What'd we tell you? Great pictures, huh?”
Dewey picked up one that had slid near her feet. A streamlined yellow-and-red boat that looked like a rocket ship was firing a silver torpedo into impossibly blue water. “Wow, ” she said. “
Popular Mechanics
fromâ” she looked at the spine “â1941. You found these in the trash?” She put her Coke bottle on the floor, within easy reach, and began to read.
For a long time the only sounds in the tree house were cookies crunching, pages turning, and the occasional creak of a tree branch outside. Dewey felt happy for the first time in weeks.
Every few minutes one of them would interrupt with a “Hey, would you look at this!” Charlie liked building projects, and Jack was drawn to exciting predictions for the future, like personal zeppelins, which Dewey had to admit would be pretty nifty, although not as practical as her “Microtubes, the Future of Radio. ”
Dewey was on her third magazine and fourth cookie when Charlie looked at his watch and whistled in surprise. “Oh, jeez. It's almost six. I guess we didn't hear the siren. ” He put down his magazineâ“Averting Death from the Skies. ” “We gotta go. ” He stuffed the empty Coke bottles into the knapsack. “We eat in half an hour, and if we're late, Jack and me get stuck with K. P. , ” he explained. He stacked the magazines into an uneven pile and scooted it over next to the bookcase.
“You can take that one with you, if you want, ” he said. “You just started it. ”
Dewey looked down at the magazine in her lap. She was reading about a new kind of record player called a HiFi, and she did want to finish. “Okay, ” she said. “Thanks. ” The magazine was not much bigger than the top of her cigar box, so she slipped it under the rubber band and tucked the whole package into the waistband at the back of her pants, leaving both hands free for the ladder.
They retraced their steps through the woods to the hole in the fence and beyond. When they reached a fork in the path heading back toward the buildings, the boys stopped. “See ya, Dewey, ” Charlie said, gesturing to the right. “We gotta go this way. ”
“Me too, ” said Dewey.
Jack wrinkled his forehead in confusion. “I thought you lived in Morganville. ”
“I do. But Papa's in Washington for a couple of weeks, so I'm staying with a family in the Sundts. ”
“The Schultes?”
“No. ” Dewey hesitated for a moment. She looked down at the yellow robot on the cover of her magazine, then back at Charlie. “The Gordons. ”
“You're staying with
Truck
?” Jack said, his mouth open in surprise.
“Who?”
Charlie gave his brother a shove on the arm. “Be nice, ” he said. He turned to Dewey. “That's what some of the guys call Suze Gordon. 'Cause she's kind of big and likes to push people around. ”
“Truck. ” Jack nodded.
Dewey tried not to smile, but it was hard. Truck. She kind of liked the idea that, in some circles, Suze was the one they called names.
“Yep, ” she said. “That family. Her mom's great, though. She's a stinker. A real one, not just a secretary. Sheâ” Dewey stopped and bit her lip, hoping she hadn't said the wrong thing. She didn't know what Mrs. Reilly did on the Hill.
“Nice, ” said Jack. “More help with homework than
our
Ma. ” Both the boys chuckled.
They walked through the darkening forest, Dewey happily humming to herself. She spotted a fallen log with a line of pale conical mushrooms that looked like Key-stone Kops hats, and a few yards later, a patch of flat ones that were bright cartoon orange, as vivid in the setting sunlight as if they were flames.
Ten minutes later they were at the edge of the dirt road that ran behind the Sundts. No one was out on the stoops, but then the road was still pretty muddy, and it was dinnertime. The boys stopped at a building with two bikes leaning against the wooden railing.
“This is us, ” Jack said, putting one foot on the stairs. “Up there. ”
“Okay, ” Dewey said. “Well, thanks for letting me come up andâ” She paused, feeling awkward. She'd had more fun than she'd had in weeks, but wasn't sure how to be polite to other kids. The grown-up line
I had a very nice time
seemed really lame.
“It was good, ” Charlie said, nodding. “You can come back. But next time, ” he pointed a stern finger at her, “next time
you
bring the Cokes. ” He grinned and Dewey grinned back.
“Deal, ” she said. “See ya. ”
“Later, alligator, ” said Charlie, and ran up the stairs, two at a time.
A few minutes later, Dewey climbed the green wooden steps to the Gordons' apartment, her cigar box under one arm, and opened the screen door to the kitchen. She stopped, stock-still, her good mood vanishing in a instant.
Mrs. Gordon was sitting with her arms around Suze. Both of them were crying.
Dewey had never seen Mrs. Gordon cry. She wouldn't have thought Suze could.
Mrs. Gordon looked up at her over Suze's shaking blonde head. “There you are, ” she said, sniffling. “Come over here and sit down. ” She moved her arm and patted the chair next to her.
Dewey stared at her for a moment, then sat down woodenly, as if her legs had never bent that way before. She gripped the edge of the table and waited.
“President Roosevelt died a few hours ago, ” said Mrs. Gordon. “I came as soon as I heard. ” She patted Dewey's hand. “None of us wants to be alone right now. ”
For the rest of her life, Dewey would recall that moment as a series of disconnected memoriesâthe taste of oatmeal-raisin cookies in the back of her throat, a square of yellow-checked oilcloth, the slow, deep voice of Edward R. Murrow, and the almost-painful sensation of Mrs. Gordon's wedding ring pressing into the skin on the back of her hand. Dewey was aware of nothing else.
Her eyes stung, but she was too stunned to cry. She couldn't make the news seem real. Roosevelt had always been president. He was president before she was born, had been president her whole life. Everything else in the world had changed, over and over, but not that. FDR and his Fireside Chats and his dog, Fala. And his legs. Dewey had always felt close to him because of his legs. How could he be dead?
“Was it the Nazis?” she asked finally. “Did they shoot him?”
“No, nothing like that. ” Mrs. Gordon shook her head. “He . . . he wasn't well, you know. And the stress of the war . . . He had a stroke. ”
“Like my Nana. ”
“Like your Nana. But much worse. ” Mrs. Gordon sat very still for a minute, then kissed the top of Suze's head and eased her arm away. She rolled her neck to get the kinks out, wiped her eyes, and reached for her pack of Chesterfields.
Suze sniffled and laid her head down on her arms as if she might take a nap. A few minutes later she got up and walked slowly out of the kitchen.
Dewey listened to the uncharacteristically soft padding of Suze's feet on their way back to the bedroom.
“I think she needs to sleep, ” said Mrs. Gordon.
Dewey nodded. “Who's president now?” she asked after a minute.
Mrs. Gordon lit another cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. “The vice president. ” She thought for a moment. “Christ, I should know the man's name. I work for him now. But Roosevelt's had so many. ” She tapped a tiny circle of ash off the end of her cigarette in frustration. “Oh, what
is
his name? Henry Wallace? No, that was the last one. Henry something. ” She shook her head again. “I guess it'll be in the papers. ”
They sat at the table for almost an hour, watching the stars appear outside the window, and listened to the radio, reporting the same news, over and over. When she'd stubbed out her last Chesterfield, Mrs. Gordon stood up. “Nothing's going to change, ” she said, turning off the radio. “We might as well have supper. ”
She pulled the frying pan out of the cupboard and scrambled some eggs, but neither of them was hungry.
April 13
MAXWELL AND ELEANOR
WHEN DEWEY GOT
up the next morning, all the flags on the Hill were flying at half-mast. Nothing else looked any different, but everything had changed.
Women sat on the stoops of the apartment buildings, talking softly, hugging each other, weeping. Most of the people Dewey saw had been crying, even the soldiers. The sight of an army MP with a rifle in his hands and tears in his eyes was both unsettling and reassuring. They were all in this together.
It was Friday, but there was no school. It felt wrong to run around, laughing and playing tag or Red Rover, so kids sat in small groups with board games or jigsaw puzzles. Even Suze was quiet. She cut out a photograph of Roosevelt from
LIFE
magazine and pasted it to a piece of black construction paper. She propped it up against the teapot in the kitchen and spent most of the day looking at it while the radio droned on from the counter. From every open window on the Hill, the sonorous voices of news-men describing the progress of the northbound funeral train filled the spring air.