The Silent Gift Page 4

  “In all of Chicago, I’ll bet there’s not one other mother with a son like you and not one other boy who has a mother like me. That makes us unique, little man. It makes us special.”

  She poured the chocolate into a mug she’d already filled with milk and stirred it together. “Now we just have to get someone else to see that we’re special. We have to get someone to figure out that Mary Godwin and son will be a help to their business.” She’d already decided that anything she signed, any time she had to write her name—or Jack’s—that she’d use her maiden name. No more Mary Sinclair. She was gone—and good riddance. She carried the mug over to a small, low table, then went to Jack and held his shoulder to turn him from the wall. Bending so she could see right into his eyes, she smiled as she touched the tip of his nose, ran her gloved finger up the bridge, and formed a heart around his face.

  “I . . . love . . . you . . . little man.”

  She waited for that spark of recognition that she practically lived for. And there it is. The clouds in Jack’s eyes cleared long enough for him to return his mother’s smile. Her own widened in response.

  “Hey, buddy, there you are,” she said softly. All too soon Jack’s smile receded, and she led him to the only chair in their rented room at Etta Cassidy’s Rooming House and gently pushed until he was sitting down in front of his favorite treat.

  “Of course another best part of today is that we’ve got heat,” she said lightly, reveling in the fact that she didn’t need to wear a sweater. “Warmth is good.”

  She crossed back to the bureau to turn off the hot plate she’d also rented from Etta Cassidy. Just the thought of the landlady made Mary smile. She looked like a sweet old woman—but Mary had quickly learned that Etta had more than her share of business sense and knew how to turn a profit when half the country was barely surviving. It had only been five days since she and Jack had climbed the front steps of number twelve and a half on Shady Oak Drive—a blue two-story clapboard house with a shingled roof and enough birdhouses around the yard to start an aviary. It was Etta Cassidy herself who had answered the ring of the bell—and she’d done so with a scowl on her face.

  “I don’t buy from traveling salesmen—or women,” Etta had said curtly.

  “I’m not selling anything,” Mary told her.

  “You got a suitcase in your hand,” Etta observed. “No books or periodicals or kitchen utensils I don’t want in there?”

  Mary shook her head. “No. Just our clothes. I’m supposed to say that Melly sent me.”

  Etta’s nearly white eyebrows lifted. “You friends of Melly’s?”

  “More like customers,” Mary admitted. “We met her in Hank’s Diner this morning.”

  “That’s how I know her.” Etta nodded. “Good little waitress. Always brings my coffee hot and my club sandwich sliced without the crust.”

  “She told me you might have a room to rent. . . .” Mary tried to keep her voice steady.

  Etta’s eyes narrowed. “You in any kind of trouble?”

  Mary shook her head. “No. We really just need a place to stay right now.”

  “You got a job?”

  “Not yet, but I plan to start looking immediately.”

  “You might still be looking six months from now. How do you plan to pay for a room?”

  “I have a nest egg to see me through several months.”

  Etta digested that information, then cut her eyes to Jack. “Well, I’d take you on in a minute, but I don’t rent to anyone with kids. Too much mess and too much noise.”

  “Jack isn’t like that, ma’am. He can’t—he isn’t able to hear. And he’s never said a word. Not even a peep—didn’t even cry as a baby. I promise he won’t make any kind of noise or mess. He’s a very good—”

  “Huh. Never met a deaf-mute before. He looks normal.” She was staring at Jack, who was staring at something behind the woman.

  Mary let the comment go. “How much is the room?”

  Etta took a minute to answer, her eyes still on Jack. Finally she gave her attention back to Mary. “Two dollars a week—payable in advance,” she said. “You got any linens?”

  “No, I wasn’t—”

  “Sheets, blankets, and pillows are fifty cents extra a week,” Etta added, “but for that price you get them laundered on Saturdays.”

  “Fine.”

  “I don’t allow hot plates in the room—unless they belong to me,”

  Etta went on.

  “How much to rent the hot plate?”

  Etta actually smiled. “You’re a smart girl. It’s another quarter on top of the two-fifty. Still interested?”

  “I am if you’ll throw in the hot plate.”

  “I’m already having to change my policy on account of the kid.”

  “Maybe so, but you’ll only have to change it to ‘no kids allowed unless he or she happens to be a deaf-mute.’ ”

  “Got me there.” Etta grinned a little as she eyed Jack once more. “You want a piece of candy, boy?”

  Jack merely stared at her.

  “Just checking.” Etta’s smile widened. “You’re a pretty good salesman, young lady. Especially selling to someone who isn’t usually buying.”

  Etta took them up to their room. Simple and clean, it held a brass bed, an oversized braided rug on the hardwood floor, and a bureau with a pitcher and basin for washing. Etta allowed limited use of her icebox in the kitchen on the first floor, she told Mary. “No charge to store your perishables.”

  The room was small but had a window with a view of an oak tree. The brass poles on the bed were tarnished, and the chenille bedspread was threadbare along the edges—but everything was spotless. And all theirs. A door with a lock, and an address Jerry didn’t know.

  “I’ve got three other boarders,” Etta had explained. “I know them ’bout as well as I know you, so I wouldn’t be leaving anything valuable lying around in your room. No sense tempting anyone in these hard times, if you get my drift. You’ll rotate days for the bathtub—sign-up sheet is outside the door. Besides the no-kid rule—which I’ve already broken for you—the one rule I’ll never break is that you always have to pay for the room a week in advance. No rent money—no room— no exceptions.”

  Mary couldn’t believe she’d been lucky enough to meet Melly that first morning they’d arrived in Chicago. Melly, a chatty waitress at the first diner they’d seen, who just happened to know a woman who happened to rent rooms within walking distance of the downtown area. While she’d been lucky to meet Melly and Etta, she still hadn’t had any luck finding work.

  While Jack sipped at his chocolate, Mary spread the classified ad section of the newspaper out over the bedspread and perused the job postings. In the past four days she’d been to sixteen different businesses—four calls a day had proven to be her limit. And Jack’s. She had applied for various kinds of employment—waitressing, housekeeping, clerking. . . . She couldn’t remember them all. But every place she went she heard the same thing. Sometimes the rejection was blunt; sometimes it was couched in sympathy.

  “Look, miss. I just can’t hire you because I can’t have you bringing your kid to work. It’s not a place for children.”

  “Have you considered finding someplace to . . . to take your son? Just for a while. Just until you get on your feet? ’Cause if he wasn’t in the picture, I’ d hire you in a second.”

  “I need someone with experience . . .” And no son, Mary had finished in her mind.

  She also heard, “Someone with at least a year of college . . .”

  “Can you type sixty words a minute?”

  Mary smoothed the paper and ran her finger down the column. She couldn’t help but be concerned that she hadn’t found a job yet, but she was not desperate. The budget she’d made for herself was detailed—right down to the nine-cent loaf of bread she planned to buy once a week and the nickel every other week for a roll of Lifesavers for Jack. If she followed her plan, she would be able to last five months and twenty-seven d
ays at Etta’s rooming house. She’d escaped with more money than she’d ever had at one time. Three hundred and fifty dollars. A windfall. A boon. A reason for Jerry to hunt me down and take it back if he could find me. She frowned, then deliberately forced the thought from her mind. She was on a lucky streak, and today was the day she would find a job. She circled four different job listings that she thought were accessible by bus or on foot, then looked up at Jack. He had a thin ribbon of chocolate froth riding his upper lip. As it always did, the sight of Jack having a normal little boy moment lifted her heart just a bit.

  “You know what I wish, Jack? I wish there was a hot chocolate factory in Chicago. I’d make it, and you could test it. We’d be a great team!”

  Mary and Jack stepped out of the Chicago Laundry and into the crisp winter air. It was the fourth business she’d been to that day—and the fourth rejection she’d had to endure. The fourth time someone had said no while looking at Jack.

  It doesn’t matter—I’ll find something. Something better—something that pays more and doesn’t involve inhaling pieces of wet lint all day long.

  She snuggled the collar of Jack’s coat around his neck and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “I didn’t want that job anyway—did you? Who wants to iron clothes that you or I won’t ever get to wear?”

  She opened her pocketbook, moved aside a clean pair of white gloves, and dug for the roll of Lifesavers. “End of the search for today, buddy.” She grabbed the candy and peeled a red circle from the end. “You want a piece?”

  She looked down at Jack, but he was completely focused on something else—neck craned back as far as it would go, eyes on the top of a tall building across the street. She waved the red Lifesaver in front of his eyes, but he didn’t blink—didn’t move—didn’t show any interest at all. She followed his sight line and thought she could tell what was captivating him; on the roof of the building she could see people—small figures looking down on the world. The way his mind worked fascinated her. What captured his attention, made him do something different, something she thought of as inspired.

  “Let’s go see,” she said aloud, then folded her hand over his and gently tugged. He went along docilely, as he always did—but he kept his head tipped back and his eyes on the roof until they were inside the Babcock Towers.

  The observatory was on the roof—right above the thirtieth floor.

  “It’s ten cents for you to go out onto the observatory floor,” the elevator operator told them, “and kids are free.”

  Mary opened the silver clasp of her pocketbook and withdrew a dime from her coin purse. A splurge to be sure—but worth it if it makes Jack happy, she thought as she carefully snapped the clasp shut and looped the pocketbook back over her arm. When they stepped off the elevator, they walked right out to the island in the sky. It was the highest she’d ever been in her life, and she felt a little queasy as she led Jack to the middle of the rooftop, then waited to regain her sea legs before venturing farther. A four-foot-tall barrier ran along the edge of the roof. The intricate pattern of iron latticework hung about a foot in the air between steel posts and looked as if someone had put one pretty garden gate after another on the edge of the world. Jack stepped closer to the latticework until the tips of his shoes stuck out under the steel. Mary was right behind him and peered down at the spectacular view: cars, people—she could even see a park in the distance.

  “Oh, Jack! Look how beautiful it is up here—no wonder you wanted to do this!”

  The wind had picked up, and Jack turned his face right into it and smiled—he loved the wind, but Mary felt a little unnerved. She could have sworn the building swayed just a bit as they stood there. Jack reached out to grab the top of the barrier and rose up on his toes to look over. “All right, buddy, that’s high enough,” she cautioned.

  “It is a long ways down, isn’t it?” But as she said it, she realized Jack wasn’t looking at the ground—rather he was staring at a flagpole jutting out below them perpendicular to the building. It was filled with pigeons, and Jack was actually smiling at them. She watched him for a moment, saw the animation in his eyes as he watched the birds. The moment lasted long enough to fill her with gratitude that they could share it. Finally, he glanced away, his eyes caught by something else. She grinned down at the birds.

  “Crazy birds. Don’t you know you’re supposed to fly south, where it’s warm?” she said.

  And then a child’s voice, “Mommy! Mommy! Look at me!”

  Mary dropped her hands from Jack’s shoulder to turn a half circle toward a little girl running full speed toward the barrier on the adjoining side of the roof. Even though she knew the ironwork would stop her, Mary’s heart clutched as the mother of the little girl ran right after her. “Stop right now, Carol Ann!” she shouted. “You stop right now!”

  Imagine being able to call to your child when there’s danger and know she hears you, Mary thought as the little girl suddenly stopped just inches from the edge.

  Her mom by now had caught up to the girl and grabbed her, shaking a finger in her face. “Don’t ever do that again!” Several people had stopped to watch, and Mary saw their relieved smiles when the little girl apologized contritely to her anxious mother.

  Her own smile in place, Mary turned back to Jack, and her heart lurched to a stop. He stood with the toes of his shoes wedged into the latticework of the barrier and was now waist-high over the iron.

  “Jack! Get down!” She thrust both arms out to wrap them around his waist—and remembered too late that her pocketbook had been hanging on her forearm. It slipped off—and out into space. She snatched Jack off the barrier and, with her arms still wrapped around him, looked over the side just as the small dot that was her pocketbook crashed to the sidewalk below. All our money! No, no, no . . .

  She grabbed Jack’s hand and dashed for the elevator—but it was between runs.

  “Hurry, hurry, hurry . . .” she mouthed—maybe even said the words out loud. She didn’t care. The doors to the elevator finally opened after what seemed like hours of waiting, and she rushed inside.

  “Down—please, we need to get down. Hurry!”

  “There’s just one speed, ma’am. Can’t do any better than that,” the elevator operator said patiently. He stepped outside the elevator and looked around. “Anybody else going down?”

  “Please, can you just get it started down,” Mary pleaded. “I dropped my pocketbook over the side of the building. . . .”

  He stepped back inside, hit the button for the lobby, and glanced at her with a sympathetic expression. “You got any money inside?”

  She nodded, feeling sick to her stomach. “Quite a lot.”

  “Hmmm, not good.”

  “Maybe it’ll still be there,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Desperate times—you know?”

  She did know, even as she prayed to someone, anyone, that her times weren’t about to get a lot more desperate. Let it be there. Just let it still be there. . . .

  She shoved her way between the elevator doors before they even opened all the way and dragged Jack with her, sprinting through the lobby and out onto the street. She wound her way through the foot traffic on the sidewalk and then couldn’t believe her eyes when she spotted her black pocketbook lying in the gutter next to the sidewalk.

  In seconds she had scooped it up. The silver clasp had come undone, the old leather was scuffed and dirty, but otherwise it was intact. With shaking hands she opened the bag and looked inside— gloves, Lifesavers, photo of Jack, bus pass for the rest of the week. She bit her lip and tried to stop the tears welling in her eyes when she realized the envelope with the money was gone.

  “Desperate times—you know?”

  Chapter Six

  MARY AND JACK STOOD at the bottom of the steps of the blue house, their small suitcase between them. The day was cold and gray and the sky looked like snow. She tried to smile at Etta Cassidy, who stood in the open doorway shaking her head in frustration.

 
“I wish I didn’t have to do this, Mary,” she said sincerely.

  “You’ve already let us stay three days longer than I’ve paid for, Etta.”

  “I wish I woulda told you to keep your money in the bank,” Etta grumped to herself.

  “Probably wouldn’t have listened.” Mary forced another smile. “Jerry—well, I was always told not to trust banks.”

  Etta sighed. “You know I’d let you stay if I could. But I just can’t afford to let you have the room for free—my brother needs round-the-clock nursing, and that costs a heck of a lot of money. And since I got another boarder who can move in right away . . .”

  Mary felt her chin start to tremble, but she didn’t want to cry. “I know, Etta. It’s okay.”

  “If you find yourself employed, and if I’ve got an extra room again . . .”

  Mary nodded. “I’ll check back with you.”

  “Don’t forget what I told you about getting Sally Ann benefits,” Etta added. “I’m pretty sure the place is over on Eighth.”

  “Thanks. I’ll try there.”

  Etta hesitated. “This world stinks, don’t it?”

  Mary swallowed hard, nodding silent agreement. Another wobbly smile and she picked up the suitcase, took Jack’s hand, and never went back to number twelve and a half Shady Oak Drive.

  A tattered-looking line of people stood in front of a door that proclaimed The Salvation Army—Soldiers of Christ. Mary didn’t know where the term “Sally Ann benefits” came from—and right now she didn’t care. She had sold her wedding ring for two dollars the day she lost her money, but that was already gone. Now what she needed was a warm place to spend the night and some food for Jack. They took their place in line behind a shivering older man wearing nothing but a thin cotton shirt and pants. Mary could hear his teeth chattering, and she couldn’t help but shrink back from the sound.

  As the sun slipped toward the horizon, the door opened and a woman in a long navy skirt and high-necked tunic smiled at the line of people so clearly in need. Her hair was tucked under a plain navy blue bonnet, and the white-edged collar of her tunic was offset by shoulder epaulettes adorned with double silver bars.