Speak Low (Speak Easy 2)

“Ha, ha. No. I have a question for you.” I stood and began folding another little shirt. “If you had some information that you knew a friend had been searching for, that in fact this friend had been obsessed with finding for years, but that might cause that friend to commit violence, would you tell him?”

Bridget parked her hands on her hips and stared at me. “What is this about?”

“Just answer me. Would you?”

“I don’t know. I’m not much for violence, that’s certain.”

“Let’s say the violence would harm only bad people.”

A look of understanding flashed on Bridget’s face. “But would there be potential consequences for my friend?”

I nodded glumly.

“Then no, I wouldn’t.”

“Thanks. That’s what I thought.”

#

I ate supper with the girls and did the dishes myself, since Molly had done the cooking. As expected, Daddy didn’t show. At seven o’clock there was a knock on the door, and Molly flew down the stairs to answer it. She introduced me to a tall boy with wavy blond hair and a friendly smile whose name was Chet, and asked permission to ride in his car to the movies. He looked like a safe enough kid, so I gave it, and she rewarded me with a grateful hug before they left. I wanted to remind her about her curfew, but I bit my tongue, tired of acting like a mother.

Mary Grace and I played tiddlywinks and snacked on a box of Cracker Jack she’d bought earlier in the day, and later she asked to look at my scrapbook. We were upstairs lying on my bed with it when I heard the first roll of thunder in the distance. A moment later, a gust of wind blew in through my open window, ruffling the white curtains.

“We’d better shut the windows.” Rolling off the bed and onto my feet, I pulled both my bedroom windows closed and instructed Mary Grace to shut those in the room she shared with Molly, Daddy’s room and the bath. I went downstairs and shut them in the kitchen, where rain was already beginning to slant through the screen. Another clap of thunder echoed from the west, and I heard Mary Grace’s fast footfalls on the stairs.

“Tiny? Are you down here?” Her voice shook a little.

“Yes, I’m here.” Mary Grace got anxious during thunderstorms, and I tried to think of something that would comfort her until this one passed. “Do you want to play another game? Checkers, maybe? Or a card game?”

“Maybe.” Rain began to rattle the windowpanes and a few gusts of heavy wind made the house creak. “Do you think the storm will be over soon?”

“Sure it will, these summer storms never last too long.” I put my arm around her and walked toward the stairs. “Tell you what. How about we go upstairs and I read a little Ruth Fielding aloud to you and let you sleep in my bed. Does that sound good?”

“Can we put rag curlers in our hair?”

“Absolutely.”

Upstairs, we put on our nightgowns and I tied up Mary Grace’s hair in rags. Then I sat on my bed while she stood behind me and did her best to tie mine up too. We giggled at our reflections in the mirror, brushed our teeth in the bathroom, and slipped beneath the covers in my bed. The steady, drumming rain on the roof was soothing in a way, but I’d read only a few pages when the lights began to flicker. Mary Grace tensed beside me. I patted her arm and kept reading, and the electricity winked a few more times before it went out altogether.

“Oh no!” She grabbed my arm.

“Don’t worry so much, poppet, it’s all right. This happens all the time when the wind is rough.” I patted her arm again and got off the bed. “I’ll go down and find a candle and we’ll read by candle-light, like in the old days.”

“No, don’t go!” She scrambled to her feet and grabbed onto the back of my nightgown. “I’ll come with you.”

It was hard to move with her tugging on me, but I managed to feel my way down the stairs in the dark, moving along the wall in the front hallway into the kitchen, and from there into the dining room, without stumbling. In the built-in corner cabinet, I located two candles in small silver holders that had probably been a wedding present, and from a kitchen drawer I dug a box of matches. Striking one against the side of the box, I lit both candles and saw the worry in Mary Grace’s expression.

“Honey, it’s all right,” I assured her. “Come on, you want to carry one? I’ll carry the other and we’ll go back upstairs and finish the chapter, OK?”

“OK.” She was trying hard to be brave, but her hand shook so much that I felt better holding on to both candles and letting her hang on to my arm. As we ascended the stairs, guilt over leaving home pounded my heart as hard as the rain against the windowpanes. If I left, who would be left to comfort her? Molly? I swallowed hard. Would she take the job of mothering a ten-year-old girl seriously? Could I ask her to? Granted, both Bridget and I had done it at her age, but Molly was a different sort of person, and I wasn’t convinced she would handle the resp

onsibility well. Maybe leaving home was a bad idea.

We made it up to my room, set the candles on my night table, and crawled back under the covers. The thunder and wind let up a little, and though the lights didn’t come on, I was able to read by the glow of the candles, and we even laughed a little that this was probably how our mother had read at night as a child. When Mary Grace’s eyelids began to droop, I lowered my voice to a hush. When I was certain she’d fallen asleep, I closed the book and checked the clock. It was just after ten. I was exhausted, but I blew out one candle, and took the other one downstairs to wait for Molly to get home. I set the candlestick on the coffee table and curled up on the sofa, chin on my knees, but I kept dozing, so I blew out the flame and waited in the dark. Soon the drizzle on the roof lulled me into a deeper sleep.

The sound of the front door opening and closing woke me with a start, and I picked up my head. The electricity must have been restored, because a lamp in the corner was on. Wiping a bit of drool from my lips, I held my breath until my eyes adjusted and I saw it was Molly, back from her date.

And trying to sneak up the stairs.