How could that be?
There had been times, in those first terrible years, when June had doubled over with the fear that her daughter was not alive. In the middle of the night, strung out, it was possible to imagine that Del had done something insane. And June could not stop the thought from slipping in then, as she stood in Del’s office hours after he had died, the long-watched key in her hand, and all those files, all that paper, with nothing, nothing. But it was unimaginable. This Del could not have done. He was capable of dismaying acts; his life was not simple, and she knew it. But she had heard him singing to that baby; she had known who he was with Marshall. He had promised that her baby was alive and that she was safe. He had promised over and over. But never, in the great cruelness that was somehow also possible for Del, had he told her where she was.
Of course, she had written to Eddie despite Del’s ultimatum.
She had mailed the letter at the post office herself.
He had not replied.
She had written again, several times, in the years when it was still possible to send mail to Cuba. She had asked about his brother in Alabama, she had begged him to send her word. And Eddie had never replied.
He was gone now too.
Died in a fight or in an alley—the stories were not clear. One newspaper had said it was a love affair gone bad. Another mentioned a husband. A third said gambling debts. She had showed the articles to Del, and he had said he knew about it. He also said that Eddie never could get past his own history; never could take the success the world wanted so much to give him.
“I’m sorry, June.”
“I’m sorry.”
And they had held each other then, and she had cried, and he had cried, and later they had even played some of Eddie’s records: the song he had made famous at the El Capitan, and the album that must have made him very rich after. Eddie’s music played all the time in Vegas, and mostly it had lost its power to bring June and Del back to any other moment. But that night, curled up on the sofa, listening to his debut album—with its scratch on the third track that made the word cheer repeat, repeat, repeat—his voice took them back to how it had been when they were newly married, when they first heard him sing at the Town Tavern, when they used to eat dinner and share drinks in the private lounge behind the Midnight Room.
Months after Del died, after she’d signed the magicians from Minsk and after Marshall returned to college, June had traveled to Alabama on her own. She had not told anyone where she was going or why. She flew to Mobile, and rented a car, and drove to the tiny town where Eddie Knox, the singer, had been born. There was a hardware store, two bars, a record store, kept in business, she supposed, by tourists; there were three intersections but no stop signs.
She asked at the hardware store first, but the greasy-haired kid sorting nails said he didn’t know anything about Eddie Knox’s family, and she stepped away from the record store when she heard one of Eddie’s songs on the loudspeaker. That left the bars, so she chose the closest one: a dilapidated shed that looked like it might have been standing there a long time.
“I’m looking for information about Eddie Knox.”
“Yeah? You buying a drink?” The bartender wasn’t much past fifty, but he looked older, lined and sallow with ropey veins on the backs of his hands.
“I’ll buy that bottle. The scotch.”
“A whole bottle? You got a lot of questions?”
“A few. But I don’t drink. You can share it with the house.”
He nodded. Looked around the almost empty room, at the one customer seated in the corner, apparently asleep. Then he set the bottle aside and leaned on the counter, looking at her.
“I’m looking for his family,” June said.
“Yeah. Not much left. Around here anyway.”
“Who is here?”
“Well, his brother. Jacob.”
“Jacob?”
“Yeah, that’s Eddie’s brother. I think he had a sister too, but she’s long gone.”
“I thought he had four brothers?”
“Eddie? Yeah. He told that story sometimes. But Jacob’s his only brother. I lived here my whole life. I knew the Knox family. The sister was a lot older. But Eddie and Jacob, they were pretty close in age. About the same as me.”
“Did you go to school with them?”
He looked at her without speaking.
Of course: he was white. They would not have gone to school together.
“So where’s Jacob? Do you know his kids?”
“Jacob’s kids? Jacob hasn’t got any kids. Not that he knows of anyway.”
“He doesn’t have kids?”
“No. He’s a drunk. Always has been. He lives in a shack pretty close to the old property. Course they lost it. They say Eddie tried to give him money, tried to buy him a house, but Jacob can’t hang on to money.”
June felt dizzy. She was going to be sick. She bolted up suddenly, left a fifty on the counter for the bottle—three times what it was worth—and got outside before she started to heave.
She made it back to the rental car, sat there stunned and dismayed and thinking about a drink for a few hours at least. But she did not take a drink. She did not go back to the bar. When it started to get dark, she turned the key in the ignition and drove all the way back to Mobile.
There wasn’t anyone she could tell about what she had learned. There wasn’t anyone to ask. Del was dead. Eddie was dead. Marshall had never known. Whomever Del had told, whoever had helped Del, was probably alive. But who was it? Leo? Mack? If they knew, and as much as they loved her, they wouldn’t let on. Not if Del had told them no. Not even now. How would she ever know? She had never felt more alone.
June flew to Vegas that night. Went straight to the El Capitan from the airport. She had always thought she would know someday. But Del had taken care of that. Why? Would he ever have told her?
Somewhere a sixteen-year-old girl did not know how long her mother had been looking for her, how much she wanted to find her, how hard she had tried. Somewhere, a sixteen-year-old girl could not know that her mother’s heart was still broken.
That trip to Alabama was a long time ago now—a dozen years at least—and mostly June did not let herself think about it. She had learned how to let go, she had learned what she could not control. It had been that or die, and in the end, she had loved Marshall enough to live.
17
It was the second house on the cul-de-sac. Coral chose it because it was on the east side of town, not far from Augusta and near Rowe Elementary. Out back was a pool, which she hadn’t wanted, but Althea brought her kids over to swim the first day.
“Auntie Coral, I’m going to the basketball game!”
“You are?”
“Yeah. Rob got me a ticket. It’s been sold out since last summer, but I get to go.”
“That’s so cool.” Coral high-fived her nephew, who then raced to join his sister at the pool. She looked at Althea. “Rob?”
“Don’t say anything. He’s just a friend from work.”