While We're Far Apart (2 page)

“Don’t do it, Eddie. Please,” Grandma begged. “Think of your children. Go down there tomorrow and tell the army you changed your mind.”

“I can’t. It’s too late.” He spoke so softly that Esther thought she might have imagined it. For sure Grandma hadn’t heard him. But then he cleared his throat and said in a louder voice, “I already resigned from my job. I leave for basic training in two weeks.”

His words gave Esther the same empty, floating feeling she’d had after Mama died, as if she were a fluff of dandelion, no longer tethered to the earth. What was going to happen to her? How would she keep from sailing away on the slightest breath of wind?

“Saints above, Eddie! Two weeks? How could you do such a stupid thing?”

Peter must have heard Grandma yelling because he stopped running around the backyard with Woofer and hurried over to the porch. He was three years younger than Esther and as thin as a stick figure – not at all like most rough-and-tumble boys his age. His hair was the same shiny auburn color that Mama’s had been. Esther could always look at Peter when she needed to remember. He stumbled up the porch steps, his cheeks flushed, his hair sweaty, and looked from one of them to the next. “What happened?”

Daddy didn’t seem to hear him. “I have to do this, Ma. Don’t you see?”

“No. I most certainly do not. How can you do this to your children? After everything they’ve been through? Are you crazy?”

“No . . . but I might go crazy if I stay here much longer.”

“I have nothing more to say to you.” Grandma struggled out of her rocking chair and stormed into the house, slamming the screen door – something she yelled at Esther and Peter for doing. The chair continued to rock after she abandoned it, and Esther reached across Daddy’s lap to make it stop. Mrs. Mendel from the apartment downstairs used to say it was bad luck for a chair to rock with nobody in it – and they didn’t need any more bad luck, that’s for sure. Again, an eerie silence settled over the backyard. Then Penny Goodrich, Grandma’s next-door neighbor, broke the silence.

“Eddie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll watch them for you.”

Esther had forgotten that Penny was even there. Everyone had forgotten her. But that’s the way Penny was – so quiet and unimportant that you could look right at her and never see her. Esther had no idea why Penny always showed up at Grandma’s house on Sunday afternoons when they came to visit. She was just one of those nosy neighbors with no life of her own, who watched other people’s lives as if watching a movie.

Penny was younger than Daddy but looked like she was old enough to get married. Daddy said that she had lived with her parents on the other half of Grandma’s duplex since he was a boy and Penny was a baby. Mr. and Mrs. Goodrich must have been very old when Penny was born – like Sarah and Abraham in the Bible – because they were ancient now, even older than Grandma was. They hardly ever came outside to sit on their back porch, and they never used their half of the tiny backyard. Daddy said he used to tease Penny a lot when they were kids because she was such a little pest. Now he turned to look at her as if he, too, had forgotten she was there.

“What did you say, Penny?”

“I’ll take care of your kids for you. I mean, I wish you weren’t going off to war because it’s so dangerous and everything, but I could move into your apartment with them so they wouldn’t have to change schools.” Daddy stared at her in surprise, but he didn’t reply. “I know I’ve never been a real mother or anything,” Penny continued, “but I can cook and take care of a house and everything.”

“What about your job? Where do you work again?”

“I sell tickets over at the bus station.” She gestured over her shoulder with her thumb. “But you could help me figure out how to get there from your apartment every day, couldn’t you? Which bus to take?”

“Don’t your parents need you here?”

“Oh, they can manage without me,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Mother always says how much I get on her nerves. Besides, I could check on them after work and on the weekends. They’d be okay.” Esther saw the direction this conversation was going, and she didn’t like it at all. She had to speak up and put a stop to the idea before she ended up with Daddy far away and Penny Goodrich living in their apartment. Penny was nice enough, always bringing candy and gum and things for her and Peter, but something about her annoyed Esther. She felt in her pocket for the red- and white-striped peppermint that Penny had given her today. Esther had told her, “No, thank you,” but Penny had pushed the candy into her hand anyway, saying, “Oh, go on and have one. Your father won’t mind.”

Grandma said that whenever she tried to give something back to Penny in order to even the score, Penny would do twice as much for her the next time.
“If you told her you liked her shoes,”
Grandma once said,
“Penny would take them right off, then and there, and shove them into your hands and not take no for an answer.”
Esther would never want Penny’s clothes. She dressed like an old woman in baggy housedresses and patterned aprons and thick-soled shoes.

“I could still pick up groceries for my folks every week,” Penny was saying, “and do their washing and everything while I’m here – and your kids could visit their grandma.”

“That sounds like a lot of work for you,” Daddy said.

“Oh, it’s okay, I don’t mind. I get real lonely sometimes, you know? It would be nice to do something different for a change.”

“I just don’t understand why Ma won’t help me.”

“Maybe it’s because your brothers are already fighting and you’re all she has left. She’s probably afraid of losing all three of you, and I don’t blame her, do you?”

“I probably won’t even get to fight. The army needs mechanics to keep their jeeps running. They might teach me how to fix tanks, they said. I’d like to try airplane engines, too.”

“That would be nice. And you’d be safe, right?”

“It’s just that I need to get away, Penny. There are too many reminders around here and . . . and I just can’t take it anymore. Why can’t Ma understand that?”

“Poor Eddie. I understand. It must be so hard for you.” Penny laid her hand on top of his. He looked down at it in surprise, then up at her. She reminded Esther of Grandma’s cocker spaniel with her wide, sad eyes and her head tilted to one side.

“You would really do it?” Daddy asked. “You’d move in and take care of the kids for me while I’m away?”

“Of course I would. I’d love to help you.”

Esther watched him consider the idea. She wanted to elbow Daddy in the ribs and say,
Hey! What about me? Why aren’t you asking what I think?
But something heavy pushed down on her chest again, making it hard to breathe. “Daddy?” she said softly.

“You probably wouldn’t need to live there for very long,” he continued. “I’m sure Ma will change her mind and let the kids move in with her once she gets used to the idea.”

“Daddy?” Esther spoke louder this time.

“And I know you’d still help Ma out anytime she needed it, wouldn’t you? Like if she needed a break?”

“Of course. We’ll manage just fine. You’ll see.”

Panic squeezed Esther’s ribs. This arrangement was really going to happen, and she didn’t know how to stop it. She didn’t want Daddy to go away – and she certainly didn’t want boring Penny Goodrich to move in with them and take Mama’s place. “Daddy!”

“Yes, doll?” He answered absently, gazing out at the tiny yard, not at her. He took her hand in his and gently caressed it with his thumb, but she knew he wasn’t really listening to her. It was as if he were already on board a ship with Uncle Joe or Uncle Steve, sailing miles and miles away.

Esther hesitated to speak her mind, afraid that if she said what she really wanted to say, Daddy would get mad and let go of her hand. And she didn’t want to do anything to make him let go.

“Never mind,” she mumbled.

Because that was the mistake she had made with Mama. Esther had let go of her hand, thinking she was much too grown-up to hold hands. And now she would never hold Mama’s hand again.

C
HAPTER 2

P
ENNY
G
OODRICH KNEW
she had just been given a second chance. Eddie Shaffer’s wife had died more than a year ago, and that was a terrible tragedy. But now he needed another wife and a mother for his two children, and Penny wanted the job. Eddie would fall in love with
her
this time. She would make sure of it.

Penny couldn’t remember a time in her life when she hadn’t been in love with the tall, golden-haired boy next door. Even as a little girl, she had watched him playing baseball in the street with his brothers, and she had loved him. She had wished she could join in those games and hit home runs for him so he would love her in return, but her mother wouldn’t allow it.
“You’re too clumsy, Penny. You can’t play with those big kids. You’ll get hurt. Besides, they don’t want someone like you on their team.”

On warm summer evenings, Eddie and the other kids would play hide-and-seek or kick the can, and Penny would watch from her front stoop. His blond hair would look yellowish-green beneath the streetlight and he would shout, “Here I come, ready or not,” before dashing off to search for the others. She longed to hide in the bushes like the other kids and squeal with excitement when Eddie finally found her. But Mother said it was too dangerous for someone like her to run around after dark.
“You never know who could be hiding in the bushes, waiting to grab you. The world is filled with bad people, whether you have sense enough to realize it or not.”

When she was finally old enough to go to school, Penny wanted to tag along behind Eddie and his brothers as they shuffled through the autumn leaves or tromped through the mounds of snow that the plows left behind, but Penny’s mother always walked to school with her instead.
“You wouldn’t know enough to pay attention to the traffic. You have no sense at all. You would get run over by a car the first time you tried to cross the street.”

Penny wasn’t allowed to go to Eddie’s ball games in high school and watch him play, because she wasn’t like the other girls. Penny’s parents were older than everyone else’s parents, and her sister, Hazel, who was seventeen years older, had left home before Penny was old enough to remember her. Penny would sometimes watch Eddie from a distance, and if he dropped a piece of paper or a gum wrapper she would pick it up and put it in the shoebox she kept in her closet. She used to write his name in her notebook while daydreaming in class, filling page after page with
I love Eddie
and
Eddie and Penny
with little hearts drawn around their names.

Penny remembered crying her eyes out when Mrs. Shaffer told her that Eddie was getting married. She and her parents had been invited to his wedding luncheon in the backyard, but Penny had been too heartsick to eat any cake. Instead, she had tucked her piece of cake beneath her pillow that night because it was supposed to make you dream of the man you would marry. And she had dreamed of Eddie, just as she had on so many other nights. But she had thrown the smashed cake into the garbage the next morning, convinced that her dream could never come true.

And now it might.

Eddie needed her help. Penny would be the new Mrs. Edward Shaffer. Of course, she would have to wait until the war ended and he came home again. But she would write long letters to him every single day while he was away, telling him news from home, and by the time the war was over, his apartment would be her home and she already would be like a mother to his two children.

Excitement made her cheeks feel warm as she sat beside him on the back porch, watching him consider her plan. If he agreed, she just might run around the yard for joy the way Woofer did when she chased her ball.

“It’s very nice of you to offer,” Eddie said. “I’ll go inside and talk to Ma about it.”

Penny’s hand slid off his as he rose to his feet. “Tell your mother that it’s really okay if she can’t take the kids. Tell her I’ll be happy to watch them.”

He nodded and disappeared inside where his mother had gone after storming off. To be honest, Penny didn’t know how those two kids would ever fit into Mrs. Shaffer’s house unless she got rid of the stuff piled everywhere. Penny had never looked inside the two bedrooms, but if they were anything like the front rooms, there wouldn’t even be a place for those two kids to sit down, much less go to sleep. Every square inch of space in the living room and kitchen and eating area was jam-packed with towering stacks of newspapers and old magazines and cardboard boxes full of worn-out clothing, leaving only a narrow pathway to walk between. Penny worried sometimes that Mrs. –Shaffer’s half of the duplex would catch on fire and she and her parents would burn to death, too, living on the other side the way they did. Good thing her parents didn’t know what Mrs. Shaffer’s half looked like. They worried enough as it was.

The screen door slapped shut as Eddie went inside, leaving Penny alone with the two kids. They were a lot quieter than most kids were, and she wasn’t very good at conversation.

“Hey, do you guys like ice cream?” she finally said. “Sometimes the truck comes around on Sunday afternoon. If your father says it’s okay, I’ll buy you some. Or maybe we could walk to the corner store and get some. I’ll treat. Would you like that?”

The girl shook her head and said, “No, thank you.” She had hair just like Eddie’s, all thick and blond and curly. The boy didn’t seem to hear Penny as he continued to stare at the back door, where his grandmother and now his father had disappeared. The kid stood so still that he could have been sleeping with his eyes open.

“What’s your very favorite kind of treat?” Penny asked. “I’ll bet it’s chocolate ice cream, right? Most people say that’s their favorite, but I just love a grape Popsicle, don’t you? But I’ll let you get whatever kind you want – ”

“No, thank you,” Esther said again.

Penny could have kicked herself for getting off on the wrong foot with Eddie’s kids. Sometimes she tried too hard and ended up ruining things for herself. Her mother always said she didn’t have the good sense that God gave a green bean. Thankfully, the back door opened again and Eddie came out, his face creased in a frown.