Blackberry Winter

Chapter 9




VERA

It had been six days since he’d vanished, six days since the heavens had draped the city in a veil of white and changed my world forever. I searched the streets by day and held vigil in Caroline’s tiny apartment by night, praying, hoping.

“Eva!” Caroline barked as she walked through the door shortly before seven a.m. She looked tired, ashen. Twelve-hour night shifts in the factory without a single break. “Go get Mama a wedge of cheese from the icebox,” she said, setting her purse down before slumping onto the floor by the fireplace. I inched my legs up to make room for her on the sofa, but she didn’t notice, or maybe she was simply too fatigued to pick herself up again.

“But Mama.” Eva looked at me nervously, and then back at her mother.

“Eva, what did I say? Bring me the cheese.” Caroline turned to me and extended her right hand. It trembled so violently I shuddered. “Payday’s not till tomorrow. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.” She pointed to the window. “If that damn snow would just stop, already.”

“But Mama,” Eva squeaked. “Aunt Vera…ate the cheese.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said to Caroline before she could respond. “There wasn’t anything left. I gave Eva most of it. There was only a bite, and I…”

Caroline tucked her knees to her chest and buried her face in her hands. “It’s OK. It’s OK.” A dry, lonely sob seeped through the cracks in her fingers. “I don’t know how much longer we can go on like this. The rent. The food. I’ll have to go knocking on Mrs. Harris’s door again. You should have seen the way she looked at me last week when I asked to borrow a few slices of bread. I haven’t been able to get milk for months. Eva deserves milk.” She looked up suddenly, and wiped her tears with her sleeve. “Look at me, blubbering on like this when you’ve lost…”

I knelt down by my old friend. She was gaunt, with hollow cheeks and a distant gaze—such a contrast to the woman I’d known just four years prior, the woman who’d had the world in the palm of her hand. No, I couldn’t stay. Not any longer. The last thing Caroline needed was another mouth to feed.

“It’s time I go,” I said, reaching for my sweater hanging on a rusty nail in the wall.

“No!” Caroline cried, standing up quickly. She grabbed my arm, urging me back to the couch. “I won’t hear of it. You have nowhere else to go. You’re staying put.”

I shook my head. “Listen, you can barely feed Eva, let alone me. Besides, I need to go back.”

“What about your landlord?”

“I’ll figure something out,” I said vaguely. “I need to be there for Daniel when he comes home.” My heart lightened when I said the words. Of course he’ll come home. I imagined my little boy walking through the door, smiling in the way that revealed the tiny dimple on his chin. He’d run to me, and I’d press my nose against his forehead, his soft blond curls soaking up my tears. It was all a big mix-up, he’d explain. He’d seen the snow, he’d tell me, and gotten lost. A kind family had taken him in until the storm passed. They’d been good to him, given him a warm bed. And hot chocolate. I smiled to myself.

“Oh, honey,” Caroline cried. “I want to believe that Daniel is coming home; Lord knows I do. But at some point you’re going to have to—”

“No!” I snapped, closing my eyes tightly. I took a deep, calming breath. “He will come home. I know it.”

I walked to the door and grasped the doorknob. Just before I stepped outside, I felt a soft tug at my dress.

“Aunt Vera?” Eva whispered, her eyes big and cautious.

I knelt down to her. “Yes, honey?”

She handed me a piece of paper. “I made this for you.”

A bold tear rolled down my cheek and nestled into the crease of my mouth, salty and bitter. “Why, it’s just…beautiful, dear,” I said, looking over the drawing she’d made for me.

“That’s Daniel, there,” she said, pointing to a stick figure holding a stuffed bear. “And that’s me,” she added.

A third figure hovered over the crudely drawn children. A woman, perhaps? The elaborate hat she wore resembled a peacock. “Who’s that, Eva?”

The girl scrunched her nose. “No one.”

“She must be someone,” I said. “You drew her here behind you and Daniel. Who is she, honey?”

“Just a lady, that’s all.”

I nodded. “Well,” I said, standing up again, “I love it. Thank you. I shall treasure it, always.”

“You know you can come back,” Caroline said before I turned to leave. “You’re always welcome here.”

I answered with an air of finality I could no longer repress. “Thank you, dear friend, for everything.”



I walked the familiar route back to the apartment, but I didn’t feel my feet touch the ground. I merely floated. Like a ghost, invisible in my grief. People passed, but no one looked at me. Do they see me?

I pushed past a crowd of angry men lingering near the saloon. The air reeked of ale, skunky tobacco, and sweaty skin from the night before. “Excuse me,” I said to a reasonable-looking man near the doorway. “Have you seen Mr. Ivanoff?” He’d been working in the saloon the morning of the storm. Maybe he’d seen something, someone.

The man’s smile morphed into a sneer, and I regretted the question immediately. “Ivanoff, the mason?”

“Yes,” I said, inching toward the stairs.

The man rubbed the stubble on his chin and took a step closer. “What do you want with him?”

“I want to speak to him,” I said.

“Well, then you’ll need to go down to the jail,” he said with an amused look on his face. “He was arrested last night.”

“Arrested?”

“That’s right,” he said. “Slapped around his missus. Hurt her pretty bad. Doc had to stitch her up.”

My heart raced. I remembered how gentle Mr. Ivanoff had been with Daniel, how softly he’d spoken to him. Like a father. I shivered. How did I not see that he had a violent streak?

The man edged closer. “If you’re looking for someone else to show you a good time, I—”

“Good day,” I said, pushing past him.

I picked up my skirt and ran to the stairs, nearly tripping on an old bearded man passed out on the landing as I made my way up to the second floor. I pulled the key from my pocket, and a vein in my hand pulsed as I jammed it into the lock.

My heart swelled. Maybe Daniel is here. Maybe he climbed the cherry tree and pushed through the little window. Maybe he’s waiting inside.

I turned the key, but it stuck. I tried again, turning it right and left, with no luck. My God. Mr. Garrison. He must have changed the lock.

“No!” I cried, pressing my cheek against the door. I heard footsteps inside. “Hello?” I pounded on the door. “Hello? Who’s in there?”

I jumped back when the doorknob began to turn. The confused face of a girl, no older than eleven, appeared in the doorway. “Can I help you?” she asked.

I pushed past her. “What are you doing here, in my home? Where is Daniel?” I ran to the stairs. “Daniel! It’s Mama. Mama is home.”

A man in a wrinkled white shirt, yellowed and stained around the collar, walked out of the kitchen, suspenders dangling from his pants. “Jane, who is this?”

The girl shrugged. “I don’t know, Papa. She says it’s her apartment.”

“It—it is my apartment,” I stammered. “Why are you here? Where is my son? Daniel!”

“There must be some mistake,” the man said. “We moved in three days ago. The landlord said the previous owner died. Told us she had no kin, so he sold us the furniture for five dollars.”

“Died?”

The man shrugged.

“Do I appear dead to you?”

I looked at the remnants of my home, my life—the little coffee table with its carved oak flowers at the edges. My father had made it, before he died. The two chairs, threadbare but comfortable. The white vase on the table where I’d display the wildflowers Daniel picked for me on walks along Fourth Avenue. My things. My life. Taken.

Disinterested, the girl reached for her doll on the sofa and climbed the stairs. “Wait right there,” the man said to me, clearly annoyed. “Dinner’s boiling over on the stove.”

As soon as he left, I walked a few steps to the base of the stairs. A small chest of drawers had been wedged up against the wall, and I strained, attempting to move it forward until I found the secret compartment. I opened it and sighed. Daniel’s feather, shells. Memories wafted into the room and I wanted to linger in them, but I knew there wasn’t time. I reached into my bag and pulled out Max. I straightened the little bear’s blue bow and tucked him inside the space behind the wall. He belonged here. And Daniel would find him again. My heart told me that.

I heard footsteps behind me, and I closed the little door quickly, dropping my purse. I picked it up swiftly.

“What do you think you’re doing, miss?” the man said suspiciously.

“I was just—”

He frowned. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.”

“Please,” I said, “if you see a little boy—”

“If I see you again, I’m going to report you to the police.”

The girl appeared in the room again and looked at me with sympathetic eyes before her father pushed me out into the hallway and closed the door with a loud thud.

Outside on the street, I surveyed my purse, grateful that my pocketbook, meager as it was, remained inside. Eva’s little drawing, however, hadn’t met such a fortunate fate. It must have fallen out.

I walked numbly out to the sidewalk. Children bundled in warm coats played hopscotch on the street as mothers looked on. “Daniel!” I called out in vain. Seagulls flew overhead, swooping and squawking in a mocking manner. The world, and every creature in it, seemed cruel and uncaring.

“Vera, is that you?” a familiar voice called out from the sidewalk up ahead.

“Gwen?”

“Oh, honey,” she said. “I’ve been so worried about you. I just saw Caroline. She told me what happened. I’m so sorry.”

“He’s gone,” I said. The words sounded foreign as they crossed my lips, as if someone else had uttered them.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“When I came home from work, he wasn’t there,” I said, feeling the tears sting my eyes. “The police won’t do anything because they think he ran away, but Gwen, he would have never run away.”

She put her arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. “Look at you,” she said. “You’re a skeleton. Have you eaten?”

I shook my head.

She patted my arm. “There’s no sense crying out here in the cold. And you look like you haven’t eaten in days. Let me buy you a hot meal.”

My stomach growled. I hated that I had to stop to deal with hunger during a time like this, but I knew I’d be useless to Daniel passed out from weakness, so I obliged. “All right,” I said meekly.

Gwen and I walked to Lindgren’s, a little café in the Market where we used to dine, in happier times. “Two ham-and-gravy sandwiches,” she said to the waitress behind the counter.

When our food arrived, I ate absently, without tasting the flavors in my mouth. Experiencing pleasure felt wrong, somehow. Instead I took comfort in the numbness.

“Are you coming back to work?” Gwen asked cautiously.

I sighed. “I guess I’ll have to. That is, if I have a job waiting for me. I must have missed a half dozen shifts since…”

“Estella will understand.”

I shook my head. “Do you really think so?”

“I’ll talk to her for you,” she said, doling out an assortment of change from her pocketbook and setting it atop the bill. “Come down to the hotel with me. I’ll do the explaining.”

The radiator crackled and hissed in its usual fashion inside the servants’ quarters of the hotel. Linen rested in huge piles, waiting to be pressed. Estella sat at her old desk, just as she always did. And yet, everything seemed different. The axis of the world had shifted since Daniel’s disappearance, changing everything forever.

“Well, there you are,” Estella greeted me sarcastically.

Gwen jumped to my defense. “You won’t believe what she’s gone through, Estella,” she said. “Her son has been abducted. She’s been out searching for him day and night.”

Estella’s eyes narrowed, and I detected a flash of pity on her face. “Well,” she said, eyeing a piece of paper in front of her distractedly, “that is very sad.”

“So you’ll let her come back to work?” Gwen continued.

Estella sighed, folding the paper and tucking it into an envelope. “I wish I could,” she said. “But I’ve already hired another girl.”

“You what?” Gwen raged. “How could you? Look, this poor woman needs a job more than ever. She’s here to work even despite her missing son. Surely you have a place for her.”

Estella shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t. She didn’t show up for work, so I was forced to hire a replacement. No hard feelings.” She straightened the spectacles on her nose. “This discussion has ended. Gwen, the sixth-floor suite needs cleaning. Look smart about it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gwen grunted.

Together we walked out to the hallway. My head felt heavy. “Gwen, you did your best. I’ll be all right.”

“I’ll give you all my tip money,” she said, “until you can get back on your feet again.”

“You most certainly will not,” I said. “But that’s very kind of you anyway.”

She followed me out to the lobby. “How will you get by, then?”

“I’ll find a way,” I replied. “I always have. Now, you’d better get up to the sixth floor before Estella finds you.”

Gwen nodded. “All right. Take care of yourself, Vera.”

“I will.”

She disappeared into the corridor that led to the servants’ elevator, and I stood for a moment, stunned, unsure of where to go or what to do. I walked a few paces and then sat down in an overstuffed chair in the lobby, teal with white satin stripes. It felt good to rest in a seat designated for wealthy patrons of the hotel. My feet ached, and a large blister had formed near the hole in my shoe. I closed my eyes.

“Excuse me.” A voice interrupted my reverie. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

I opened my eyes to find the front desk manager, an aging woman named Martha, standing before me. “You know as well as anyone that the lobby is only a place for guests of the Olympic.”

I nodded, rising to my feet. “I’m sorry,” I said, limping toward the door.

“She’s a guest,” a deep, male voice said from behind me.

I turned around to see Lon Edwards, the man I’d met in the penthouse suite last week. Today he was fully clothed.

“She’s my guest,” he said to Martha with authority.

Martha lowered her eyes in submission, ignoring the look of confusion on my face. “Why, yes, Mr. Edwards,” she said with a saccharine smile. “Of course.”

After Martha scurried back to the front desk, Lon smiled at me. “It’s Vera, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “It was awfully nice of you to do that for me, but I really didn’t need any help, Mr. Edwards.”

“Just the same,” he said, “I’d like to take you to dinner.”

I shook my head adamantly. “I can’t.”

“Oh, come now, Miss Ray, it’s only dinner,” he said playfully. “Surely I can find a way to talk you into it?” He snapped his fingers and a man about half his age and height approached.

“Yes, sir?” he said.

“Andrew, this is Miss Ray. Take her to the salon, and to Frederick and Nelson. See to it that she gets anything she wants.”

The man nodded. “Miss, when you’re ready, the car’s just outside.”

“No,” I said suddenly. “No. I can’t. I mean, it’s kind of you to take an interest in me, Lon—I mean, Mr. Edwards—but you don’t understand. It’s my son. My son has vanished. He’s been taken. I can’t have dinner with you because I have to find him.” Sympathy appeared in Lon’s eyes, and when I saw it, I felt hungry for it. Starved. My knees weakened.

“You poor thing,” he said. “Have you gone to the police?”

“Yes,” I replied. “But they aren’t doing anything. They think he ran away.”

“I’ll make some phone calls. I know the chief of police.”

My heart lightened. “You do?”

His face looked authoritative and sure. “Certainly,” he said. “We went to school together. You just leave it to me.” He paused and winked. “Maybe we can discuss the details over dinner?”

I took a deep breath. For a moment, I felt new hope. Lon knew what to do. He was a powerful man. He could help bring Daniel back to me.

“Are you ready now, Miss Ray?” Lon’s assistant said.

Where else am I going to go, without a job, without a home, without my son? Why shouldn’t I step inside Lon Edwards’s town car, especially if he might help me find Daniel?

“Yes,” I said quietly, with a defeated sigh. “I’m ready.”