Every Time We Say Goodbye by Jamie Zeppa Page A

face and heard him breathe, and then she could fall asleep. Sometimes she woke up crying from nightmares. Danny was lost down by the creek; he was crying for her. She was on her way home to Danny, but she was on the wrong bus. She found the right bus, but when she got home, the doors were all locked. They had taken Danny and gone.
    Danny
, she thought, squeezing the hard picture frame to her chest. She was a tiny figure, standing below a towering wave of grief. Any moment it would come thundering down on her. Again. She was living in dread of drowning while drowning.
Danny
, she thought,
I’m coming
.
    But how would he know that?
    Frank wrote, just as he promised. Danny was walking now. He fed himself carrots and apples and chicken cut up into cubes. He was playing with his toys, his wooden blocks, the woolly lamb and the bear, but he really loved that dog in the shoe. When the dog popped up, he laughed and laughed. Dr. McCabe said he was the healthiest baby he’d ever seen, and Mrs. McCabe told Vera she had never seen such a good-natured baby.
We’re taking very good care of him, Gracie, don’t you worry
, Frank wrote.
He doesn’t want for anything, I can promise you that
.
    Every word of the letter cut her and healed her and cut her again. Danny could walk! He loved the toy she’d bought for him! He laughed and laughed! She carried the letter with herand couldn’t stand to read it, couldn’t stand not to read it, read it and wept.
    Sometimes Frank’s letters went on about nothing: April was coming in like a lion, Vera had gone for an x-ray for possible female troubles, Mrs. May’s daughter had gotten married in Niagara Falls. Grace’s eyes skittered over the paper until they landed on Danny’s name.
    The best time was while she worked, because there was only work. Then there were no letters to wait for. There was no envelope under the mattress, waiting to be filled. There was no needling Mrs. Barr, no sneering Connie and Noreen. There was not even a Vera, a Frank, a Danny, a Grace. There were only pieces of a clock, and then a clock. Pieces, clock. Pieces, clock. There was no time to think, because time was not yet assembled.
    They were paid in the courtyard on the second Friday after work. Grace stood near the brick wall, listening to the others talk about the dance out at White Pines, the sale at Kinny’s. Theresa appeared in the yard, her coat unbuttoned, her copper curls free of their kerchief. Grace had only seen her a few times in passing; she supervised another section. When she saw Grace, she worked her way through the crowd.
    “Grace, right? How are you settling in?”
    “Fine. I’m fine.”
    “You know, you’re the first person who put the clock together the first time. Usually we have to do it twice to get one person. Were you good at making things as a kid?”
    Grace shook her head ruefully. “I think I was better at breaking things.”
    Theresa laughed. “Where are you staying, Grace?”
    “At Mrs. Barr’s.”
    “I’m at Ruth Ellis’s. Listen, you want to go to Mike’s Lunch after and get something to eat?”
    Grace was startled. “No, no, thank you,” she said. “I mean, I can’t.”
    “Are you sure? My treat.”
    Grace didn’t know what “my treat” meant. “No, thank you,” she said. She heard her name, and Theresa pointed with her chin at Mrs. Thurman. “That’s you,” she said.
    Grace hurried over, and Mrs. Thurman handed her a clipboard and said, “Sign, please.”
    Grace found her name,
G. Turner
, and signed beside the number. Thirty-five dollars. When Mrs. Thurman handed her the envelope, Grace felt her face stretch strangely and realized she was smiling, perhaps crazily. “Thank you,” she gasped, and she thought Mrs. Thurman smiled back, but it was so brief it was hard to tell.
    Someone tapped her on the shoulder. It was Theresa. “Try not to let Mrs. Barr get all of it,” she said.
    In the end, Mrs. Barr got every cent of it and more. “I don’t