Until She Comes Home by Lori Roy Page B

allow and gathers the front of her blouse. Mother’s lace hangs in shredded pieces. Grace places her other hand on her baby. The doctor said she would drop in another month or so and begin to position herself for birth.
    Piecing her blouse together, Grace pushes herself off the ground. The kitchen trash can lies on its side. The dry muffins are scattered across the dirt floor. A few have rolled under James’s car. A few more have been trampled, mashed into the ground. Clutching Mother’s ruined lace in one hand, Grace uses the other to pick up the muffins, even the few that are no more than crumbs, and empties the trash in the second silver garbage can.
    Outside the garage, the alley is empty and dark as if the men were never there. Beyond the house, the lights from the street make her blink. She closes her eyes, breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth. Sulfur hangs in the air. She heard them earlier in the evening, fireworks crackling a few blocks over. They start earlier every year, kids and their firecrackers. Every July 4, she and James board the
Ste. Claire
at the foot of Woodward and travel down the Detroit River. It’s where they first met. This summer, because of the baby, James says they might need to skip a year.
    She was ten that Fourth of July; James, eighteen. He says he remembers her, even as a child. That’s romance, and not reason, talking. Grace had stood among the adults and other fidgeting children, the wooden gangplank underfoot, and for a time, thought only of the cold river water below. Those are her first memories of the
Ste. Claire
—the tingle in her stomach when her feet hit the hollow wooden planks, the fear of plunging into the cold water below, and the sharp, sweet smell of sulfur. The ship’s horn soon followed, a deep blast. Mother said, because she said the same every year, that it was a sorrowful sound and this was no time for sorrow.
    Because she was ten, Grace was too old to run ahead of her parents. In years past, she would leave Mother’s side and weave in and out of the other passengers to reach the front of the line. Being one of the first on the ship meant the brass railing leading to the upper deck would be untouched, unblemished, and the mahogany woodwork would shine. But it was high time Grace behave like a lady, and being a lady meant she wouldn’t be one of the first aboard. All the hands of the passengers who came before her would ruin that perfect shine. The year she was ten, she stood in line, hopping from one foot to the other, one gloved hand tucked inside Mother’s, already sorry for what she would see when she stepped aboard.
    The ladies, all ages, who waited alongside Grace stood a little taller that year, as if preparing for something. Mother said the whole country was bracing itself and had good reason to shore up its footing. Grace didn’t know what that meant or why the country needed a sound foothold, but the spirit of those ladies with their full sleeves and cinched waists and hair that hung loosely over one eye and down their backs lifted her up. She walked with her shoulders back and her head high and wished her dress weren’t one sewn for a child.
    The men who boarded the
Ste. Claire
, that year and every other year, wore suits because when the sun set, a band would play on the upper deck. As the engines churned and the music throbbed, the gentlemen would wrap their arms around the ladies’ tiny bound waists and spin them across a dance floor polished with cornmeal. This was where Grace first saw James, his right hand cradling the small of a young woman’s back and his left hand wrapped around hers. Their feet floated across the glossy floor, and with each spin, he pulled her closer. He was tall, taller than every girl wearing her best heels, and his shoulders were broad and full and one dark curl fell across his forehead, tossed out of place by the spinning and twirling.
    As he danced, James had laughed easily with the girl he held in