The Unknown Beloved(17)

A woman joined them in their car soon after. Her eyes were hollow and her mouth pinched, and she stared at Dani as if she didn’t like the look of her. Or maybe it was just the cat. She sneezed several times and asked the attendant if she could be seated somewhere else. When she rose to leave, her shawl fell from her shoulders and Dani shifted to pick it up.

“Ma’am?” Malone said, calling the woman’s attention to her wrap.

The woman turned back around and yanked it from Dani’s outstretched hand.

“I’m sorry about your Jimmy,” Dani said, her voice ringing with sweet sincerity. The woman blanched and her knees buckled. Malone reached for her arm, fearing she would fall, but she straightened almost immediately.

“What did you say, girl?” the woman cried.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Dani said, amending her words slightly.

“She’s got the devil in her,” the woman hissed at Malone, like he was to blame, but tears were streaming down her cheeks. She couldn’t get away fast enough.

He looked down at the girl, incredulous. “Why did you say that, Dani? Who’s Jimmy? Do you know that woman?”

“No. I don’t know her.” Dani wouldn’t look at him.

He waited for her to expound, but she pulled out the last bite of her sandwich and pinched a piece off for Charlie, offering it to him through the bars.

“Dani, who’s Jimmy?” he pressed.

She sighed heavily. “I don’t know. Someone she lost. Someone she loved. He died. She’s angry. And sad.”

“I see. But how do you know that?”

“Her shawl told me.”

“Her . . . shawl . . . told you,” he repeated, his voice flat.

“Yes,” she said.

He sat in stunned silence.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Malone. Mother said it’s better if I don’t tell my stories. But that lady was so sad . . . and the words just came out.”

“Your stories.” He felt like a babbling idiot, repeating everything she said, but he couldn’t catch up. “They’re just stories?”

“I suppose. But they’re true stories, I think.”

“Tell me another one.”

“I can’t think of them by myself.”

“How do you think of them?”

“I have to touch something.”

“Like what?”

“Cloth. Sometimes other things. But usually cloth. Cloth talks to me because I’m a Kos.” She pronounced the word “Kosh” and said it like it was a grand thing to be.

“A Kos?” There he went again.

“My great-great-grandfather Kos made garments for the emperor.”

“The emperor of where?”

“I don’t know. A place not in America.”

“Huh.” He thought about that for a moment but circled back around to Dani. “So the woman’s shawl told you that she lost someone named Jimmy.”

“It’s kind of hard to explain.” She looked at him, eyes pleading. “I didn’t mean to say anything. I know better. My brain is tired. Sometimes when my brain is tired, my words come loose.”

“And you say things you don’t mean?” he asked, hopeful.

“No. Not things I don’t mean. Things I shouldn’t say.”

“Why shouldn’t you say them?”

“Because people don’t understand. And they are afraid of me.”

“When I gave you Bunny—the little cloth rabbit—you said it was Mary’s,” he prodded softly. It had haunted him.

She nodded. “That’s why I gave it back to you when you left.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled it out. Then he held it out to her. She seemed hesitant to take it.

“Go on,” he urged, and she obeyed, closing her hands around the little toy.

“Are you mad at me, Malone?” she asked.

“No. Why would I be mad?”

“Mother said people sometimes get mad when they’re scared.”

“I’m not mad. And I’m not scared.”

She looked at him doubtfully and chewed on her lip, considering, as if she knew full well that he was scared.

“Mary was my little girl,” he whispered. “You were right. That was her bunny.”

“She got sick,” Dani said. It wasn’t a question, and he wondered how many stories the rabbit had to tell.

“Yeah. She did. And she died. About six months ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Dani said. And he could see that she was.

“Me too.”

“You sang her to sleep. But I only hear one song,” she murmured, still squeezing the little rabbit.

“I only ever sang one song.”

She began to hum his lullaby. “I’ve never heard it before.”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. He’d lied. He was scared. Ice skittered down his back and heat pooled in his belly. He took the rabbit from Dani’s hand, but he replaced it with the hanky from his pocket. It was the one Irene had given him before he went to France. Her initials were neatly intertwined with his.

“Tell me another story,” he insisted.

Dani took it and spread it out over her skinny knees. She stroked it a few times and traced the letters.