Cracks in the Sidewalk(97)

“Unh-huh,” she nodded, shuffling the bag of groceries from one hip to the other. “His boy, David, went to school with my Chad.”

“Oh.” Charlie’s shoulders slumped. “Got any idea where they went?”

“Afraid not. David’s not in Chad’s class anymore, so I’m assuming it’s somewhere outside of this school district.”

“Do you know of anybody else I might ask? Did they have friends in the neighborhood?”

“Friends?” she replied, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think they had any.”

“Oh. Didn’t socialize much?”

“Not at all. Probably because of the wife; she was always screaming about something. Even with the windows closed you could hear her. Most people in this neighborhood have kids and don’t get involved in situations such as that.”

Hearing his grandchildren belonged to a family of outcasts made Charlie’s heart heavy. He wanted to say it wasn’t always like that. When Liz was alive they were a family filled with love, a family people wanted as friends. Charlie could have said so much, but he didn’t. What good would it do?

“Thanks anyway,” he said, then walked away.

Charlie knocked on several doors asking the same question, but the answer was always the same—the noisy family in the gray house had moved, but no one knew where they had gone. One man claimed he didn’t realize they’d moved.

“But,” he said, “I have enjoyed the peace and quiet of the past week.”



~

After he left Breezeway Gardens, Charlie went to Max and Martha’s Waterfront Café. No, they said, Jeffrey wasn’t there and he wasn’t expected to come back. He had collected his pay and quit two weeks ago. One of the waiters seemed to think he might be moving to Wisconsin, but he wasn’t sure.

“Thanks anyway,” Charlie replied; then he paid for his dinner and left.

It was almost ten o’clock when he checked in at the airport motel. He felt defeated and wished he’d surprised Jeffrey with his visit instead of calling first. Now he knew his options had run out. The next morning he boarded a plane back to New Jersey.



Later that evening, after the dinner dishes had been cleared away and after he’d planned what to say, Charlie joined Claire on the sofa. He sat down and moved close enough to drape his arm across her shoulder so that it hampered her movements as she crocheted a sweater for Christian.

“Charlie,” she said, laughing, “you can see I’m—”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

Sensing the weight of the words he spoke, Claire set the sweater aside and turned to him. “Is it about the children?”

He gave an almost imperceptible nod, but Claire got her real answer from the sorrow in his eyes, in the lines etched across his forehead.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, a tear already glistening in the corner of his right eye. “I tried, I swear to God I tried.”

Claire listened as he told about Frank Walsh’s report, about his telephone call to Jeffrey, and finally about his trip to Minnesota.

“I was prepared to go along with whatever Jeffrey wanted,” he said in a trembling voice, “but they were gone when I got there.”

Her heartbeat quickened into furious movements that thundered against her chest like the wings of a trapped bird. “But surely you can find them again. You found them once—”

“I’d hire an army of investigators if I thought that was the answer, but it’s not. Even if we find them, Jeffrey is not going to allow us into his life. He’s not going to let us see the children. He’s made that perfectly clear.”

“But how can he do such a thing?” Claire moaned. “They’re our grandchildren. They’re all we have left of Elizabeth.”

“They’re not all we have,” Charlie replied solemnly. “We have our memories.”

“Memories.” Her tone held a mocking bitterness. “Can you take a memory to the park? Can you watch it laugh? Or play? Can a memory call you grandma and tell you it loves you?” A torrent of sorrowful sobs drowned her words, and she hid her face in her hands.

“We’re not going to give up.” Charlie eased Claire’s hands from her face and pulled her into a protective embrace. “We’ll just wait a while, give Jeffrey some time to cool down, lose some of the anger he’s got, then perhaps—”

“If we wait Jeffrey will disappear completely, and we’ll never find them.”

“No,” Charlie said softly. “I’ll have Frank Walsh keep tabs on him. I promise you, we’ll know every time Jeffrey makes a move. He won’t realize it, but we’ll always know where Liz’s children are. Maybe in time we’ll see them again.”

After that they said little, but for a long time they remained on the sofa, their bodies fitted together like the two halves of a broken urn. The clock struck twelve when they rose to go to bed.

The next morning Charlie noticed that a lopsided ball of yarn had replaced the sweater Claire had worked on for Christian.

“Please, Lord,” Charlie prayed. “Don’t let her give up hope.”





Over Time


As days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years Claire continued teaching the Sunday school class. She also continued as Chloe’s “temporary” babysitter. Halfway through the second year, Chloe was joined by Jack, a toddler whose mother had been incarcerated for stealing. Jack’s father came to Claire pleading for help.