Until She Comes Home Read Online Free Page A

advice. No one makes better pierogi than Mrs. Nowack.
    “You shouldn’t trouble yourself, Mother,” Grace says, running her fingers over the crisp card that Mother wrote out when she arrived shortly after the last lady left. Mother sighed to have to write it down yet again. “I’m sure you’ll want to get home soon.”
    On the floor near Grace’s feet, Mother, on hands and knees, is scrubbing the tile. Her apron slips off one slender shoulder and her thinning silver hair glitters in the late afternoon sun. “You keep a clean house and tend to your husband,” Mother says, “or some other woman will.”
    It must be all the talk about the prostitutes and the dead woman that has Grace feeling out of sorts. Mother heard it too, though from where Grace isn’t sure, but when she arrived to help tidy up after the luncheon, Mother knew.
    Outside the kitchen window, the back alley is quiet. From a few doors down comes the whirl of a reel mower, the hiss of someone hosing off his driveway, a neighbor’s clothesline creaking as the lady of the house takes in her sheets and towels. The children in the neighborhood are teenagers or altogether grown and off on their own, so there are no sounds of laughing or running, no children leaping the hedges between houses or throwing rocks in the alley. The late-afternoon air has finally cooled and a breeze blows through the kitchen, in through the open window, out through the screen in the back door. The sweet smell of fireworks blows through every so often. The sharp, cool air should make Grace feel better, and yet something in the house isn’t quite right. She tries not to watch the clock. No need to worry about James today. It’s not payday.
    At the sound of tires rolling over loose gravel, Grace checks the clock over the stove—5:30. The car slows as it nears the garage in back of the house. The engine idles and goes silent. James, home from work. Right on time. Always right on time. Again, Grace promises herself to stop watching the clock. James has given her no cause to worry, and she doesn’t, not really. A car door opens and closes, but there is no sign of James at the back stairs. Grace glances down at Mother, who raises a brow as if James has gotten himself into no good in the distance between the garage and the house. James has given Mother no cause to worry either, other than his being a man. When the back door finally swings open, James steps inside, drawing in a gust of the cool air that, for a moment, makes Grace set aside her worries over something forgotten.
    With his eyes only on Grace, James crosses the kitchen in three long strides. The smell of grease and oil, the smell of a day at the factory, fills the small room and masks the rich scent of fried onions and the tuna casserole baking in the oven. Taking no notice of the wet floor or Mother, who is still crouched near the sink, James stretches one arm out to the side, his hand cupped as if holding something, and wraps the other around Grace. He pulls her close and kisses the top of her head. His empty hand slides over her shoulder, down her arm, and rests on the baby.
    During the day, the oil and steam of the factory dampen James’s clothes and body, and dust sticks to the thick, black hair on his arms, making his skin like gritty sandpaper. He will sometimes apologize for being so rough and coarse, and Grace will touch the hair on his chest or run a hand over his wrist and up his forearm so he’ll know she likes the feel of him. He’s the man she always hoped for, broad enough to fill a doorway, tall enough to look down on most around him, bristly enough that her skin, by contrast, will always feel smooth and young to him. What surprises her still is that he’s also a playful man. He’ll tease her over a ruined roast, chase her with the hose when she is trying to pull weeds from her flowerbeds, or press an ear to her growing stomach as if he can hear the baby inside. Touching the shadow on his lower jaw that