“Oh. Yes. They go in the cabinet under the hi-fi. The magazines on the floor there go in that basket in the corner. The newspapers can be thrown out.”
Eva knelt down and began pulling the record albums together. The Blankenships liked classical tunes. And jazz and big bands. Liszt. Bach. Benny Goodman. Thelonious Monk. Glenn Miller. The Andrews Sisters.
June spoke into the silence. “So do you like it here in California?”
“Yes, thank you.” This is what Americans expected her to say in answer to this question so she always said it.
“It must be very different from Poland.”
“Yes.”
“Do you miss it? I’m sorry if that’s none of my business. I just…We were mostly sheltered from the war here. We were never pushed out of anywhere. Do you mind my asking if you miss it terribly?”
Eva looked up. She’d been asked this question before but those other times the askers had been simply curious. The tone of June’s voice was different. Eva couldn’t quite name the sentiment behindthe question. It was almost as if June needed to know if one could lose everything and still be happy.
“I do miss my home. And my family. But I know I cannot return to what is not there. I have them in my heart, though.”
June was silent for only a few seconds. “It must have been awful. What you went through. You must have been very brave.”
Despite the sound of admiration in June’s voice, Eva shrugged. She had never thought of what she had done or endured as having anything to do with bravery. “I was whatever I had to be.”
June nodded thoughtfully. “Hmmm.”
Eva opened the hi-fi cabinet doors. A long row of albums greeted her, all in alphabetical order. She replaced the records in like fashion and then reached for the feather duster as she stood. She began to dust the top of the hi-fi, picking up the framed photographs as she did so. One was of a much younger June in a light-colored suit and veiled hat. A corsage of orchids was pinned to her lapel. She stood in between two men of smallish stature who looked very much alike and who were also several years older than June. Both were dressed in dark suits and ties, and both wore boutonnieres. The three of them had their arms around each other’s waists and everyone was smiling.
“That’s me and Frank on our wedding day. With Elwood,” June offered from the couch. “Elwood gave me away. Frank is the one on the right. He and Elwood are twins. Not identical but everyone could tell they were brothers back in the day. Their looks were the only way they were alike, actually. Frank was outgoing, spontaneous, lots of fun to be around, a bit reckless sometimes. And Elwood? The exact opposite. Quiet, careful, and happy to be at home by himself, even before the accident. But that doesn’t mean people don’t matter to him. Or that he doesn’t care about them.”
This last sentence June said rather wistfully.
“You look very happy in this picture,” Eva said.
June smiled. “I was. That was 1939. The world still seemed like a wonderful place back then, like all our troubles were behind us. At least here in the States it did.”
“But you are a widow now?”
“For the last five years. Frank had a heart attack on the studio backlot where he was working. He was a set builder at Warner Brothers. That’s where we met. I worked with the cutters.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“The film editors. They take the day’s footage and cut out all the bad takes and loop together the nice ones. The director comes in at the end of the day and views just the good parts. I was the cutters’ secretary and girl Friday. Their go-to girl. Anyway, Frank was only fifty-three when he died. His father had a heart attack in his fifties, also. Frank and I were already living here with Elwood, and I…I just stayed on to continue to care for him. I was happy to do it. Relieved, actually. Frank and I didn’t have our own place anymore. And by then this house felt like home.”
“Elwood never married?”
June didn’t answer right away. “He dated a number of women way back when,” she finally said. “But no. Frank always said Elwood was awkward around ladies. A bit of an odd bird. I don’t know that I would say that. He was never awkward around me. In any case, when Frank died, all Elwood and I had were each other. I wanted to stay; he needed me to stay. So I stayed.”
Eva could see so easily that grief cloaked June’s words. She was still mourning a great loss. And the loss still seemed fresh, as though it had only just happened.
“I am sorry your husband died,” Eva said.
“Thank you. Were you…married over there?”
“No. But I loved someone. Lost someone.”
They were quiet as Eva looked at the other photos. One was of the two brothers in army uniforms from the Great War. They were both smiling—Elwood slightly but Frank was beaming.
“They served together,” June said, now in a somewhat brighter tone. “In France and in the same regiment. They were only twenty. So young. Frank took a bullet during an advance and it was Elwood who dragged him to safety all the while getting shot at himself. Frank would have died if he hadn’t. At least that’s how Frank would tell it.”
The last photo was of Elwood in shorts and sunglasses, standing in a desert landscape with a camera around his neck.
