The Pieces We Keep Read online

  Jack perked ever so slightly. After a moment, he gave a nod and inched onto the plane. The red lights on his sneakers flashed like a warning.

  Thank you, Audra mouthed.

  She followed Jack’s shuffling into First Class, through wafts of a Bloody Mary and champagne from mimosas. Business travelers flanked them in suits and polished shoes and perfect layers of makeup. Audra, with her cushioned sandals and faded khakis, winced from the heat of her neon sign: Coach Class Passenger.

  She tucked away stragglers of her bound black hair, a looped ponytail parading as a bun. For a moment she had the urge to overhaul her trademark look. But as she continued down the aisle, a smattering of baseball caps and windbreakers reinforced her practical nature.

  Their assigned row waited empty near the rear. It was the usual quarantined section for those with children, of which today there were few. She encouraged Jack to take the window, a coveted seat for any kid.

  He craned his neck to peer under the half-raised shade. Seeing where they were going would alleviate his worry.

  But Jack shook his head.

  The blond flight attendant announced over the intercom, “We’ll need all passengers to take their seats at this time.” By all passengers, she meant Audra and Jack. Pressure mounted around them from people anxious for departure.

  “All right, you take the middle,” Audra sighed. She slid into the row, stowed their carry-ons, and buckled their seat belts. Surely, before their layover in Chicago, Jack’s nerves would morph into a thrill over their adventure. And maybe, just maybe, the excitement would resuscitate even half the innocence he’d lost.

  Soon they were pulling away from the gate. Lights dinged, engines groaned, overhead compartments were clicked closed. A dark-haired flight attendant demonstrated the use of life vests and oxygen masks, the audience more interested in their conversations and magazines. Not long ago Audra, too, would have paid little mind. Now, solely responsible for the human beside her, she hung on every word, fending off doubts about a thin, aged seat cushion as a reliable floatation device.

  When the emergency charades ended, she realized she wasn’t the only one absorbing the worst-case scenarios. Jack had latched onto the armrests. His knuckles were white, the toy plane glued to his palm.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” she said, trying simultaneously to convince herself.

  His face had gone pale.

  “Jack, really, it’s okay.” She layered her hand on his. And then it hit her.

  This was how Devon had held Audra’s hand the day they met. They were strangers seated on a flight together, bound for various conferences, when a winter storm lashed out at their plane. Once back on the ground, passengers burst into prayers and applause, not a single complaint of connections being canceled. Supplied with vouchers for a meal and hotel, Audra and Devon shared a booth at a local diner, chatting nonstop until closing. She’d never been one to trust easily, but there was a kindness in his eyes, sincerity in his smile. Somehow everything about him made her feel safe. She had realized this in the hotel hallway as they lingered in a handshake before going their separate ways. Then a week later Devon tracked her down, and by the end of their date they joined in a kiss that ultimately led to an aisle lined with pews and candles and promises.

  This had been their story. A suburbanite fairy tale. Eight years ago, during a toast beside their wedding cake, Devon had regaled their guests with the turbulence, the fates, that had brought them together. Later he would repeat this to their son, soothing him at bedtime with a happily ever after—not foreseeing how quickly Jack would learn such an ending didn’t exist.

  No wonder the kid was frightened. The guarantee of safe flights would be lumped into a pile of Easter bunnies and Christmas elves. Deceptions, like kindling, worthy of a match.

  She squeezed his small hand, scouring her mind for a solution. A distraction. “Do you want me to get a notepad out? We could play Tic-Tac-Toe.”

  He shook his head stiffly.

  Strike one.

  “It’s kinda fun, missing school today, isn’t it? I bet all your friends are jealous.” The words, once out, cracked and withered. He rarely socialized with classmates anymore.

  A second strike.

  “Hey, how about some food? Are you hungry?”

  She reached into her bag. Amid her just-in-case travel supplies—Tylenol, Tums, and Pepto, all for Jack—she found a granola bar. She offered the snack, to no response, so put it away as the plane launched down the tarmac.

  The wheels bumped and rumbled as they picked up speed. Jack’s breaths shortened to choppy bursts, reflected in the pumping of his chest. Crinkles deepened on his brow. Tension condensed in their arched confinement.

  At the sensation of going airborne, a smooth release from the weathered runway, Audra glanced out the window. In the sky, on the ground, tragedies happened every minute of every day with no rhyme or reason. The thought closed in around her.

  She used both hands to lift the stubborn shade that ultimately yielded. They were at treetop level and climbing. Before long, the cars and buildings would all shrink to a size fit for an ant. This was something she could point out, to calm Jack down. Everything seemed safer, less real, when viewed from a distance.

  “Jack, look. It’s like they’re all toys down there.” She gestured to the window and turned for his reaction.

  Aside from his little gray plane, the seat was empty.

  “Jack?” A blade of panic whisked through her.

  Across the aisle, a plump woman gawked toward the front, where a din of yells erupted.

  “Let me outta here!” a voice screamed. “We’re gonna crash! We’re gonna crash!”

  Audra fumbled to release her buckle. She dashed down the aisle that stretched out for miles and struggled to comprehend the scene. The flight attendants were both on their feet, attempting to restrain Jack. He flung his arms fiercely, a wild beast battling captors.

  “We’re all gonna die!” He lunged for the handle of the cabin door. “We have to get out!”

  Almost there, Audra tripped on the strap of a purse. Her knees hammered the ground and her forehead rammed an armrest. Dazed, she grabbed the back of a chair to rise, just as three passengers sprang to help the crew. Their bodies created obstacles denying her passage.

  “I’m his mother. Let me through!” In spite of her trim build, she was no longer the athlete she once was, and she suddenly regretted this.

  “Nooo,” Jack shrieked in a muffled tone. A husky man had wrapped Jack’s mouth and chest from behind and wrenched him away from the door.

  “Stop it,” Audra roared. “You’re hurting him.” Logic told her they were doing the right thing for all aboard, including Jack, but primal instinct dictated she claw at this person who could be strangling her child.

  By the time she’d wrestled her way to the front, two male passengers had secured Jack to the floor, facedown, by his wrists and ankles.

  She folded onto her throbbing knees. Through the tangle of limbs, she placed a shaking hand on his back. “It’s okay, Jack. Everything’s okay.”

  His gaze met hers, and his squirming body went limp. Confusion swirled in his features. “Mama?”

  The endearing address, for the keeper of wisdom, the provider of all answers, delivered a punch to her gut. She replied with the single truth in her grasp. “I’m here now, baby. I’m right here.”

  The captain made an announcement that Audra barely registered.

  When they guided Jack to stand, he flew into her arms. He clung to her shirt, convulsing with sobs. She swooped him up, her adrenaline rendering him weightless.

  They were led down the aisle like prisoners to a cell. The silence was deafening, the stares nearly blinding. She wished her arms were wide as sails to fully blanket her son.

  The plane tilted and lowered in a U-turn for the airport.

  At the very last row Jack was directed to the window seat. This time he didn’t resist. Audra assumed the middle, the cushio
n warm from a shuffled passenger. She cradled Jack’s head to her chest, his trembling lessening with their steady descent.

  A flight attendant took up post nearby. Spectators stole glances through gaps between seats. What a story they would tell. The online posts, the e-mails and texts.

  Once parked at the gate, Audra waited for officials to help gather her and Jack’s belongings and escort them off.

  “Look outside,” she told Jack. “See that? We’re safe now. We’re safe.” She offered the assurance twice, hoping through repetition to believe her own lie.

  2

  Early August 1939

  London, England

  Light flickered over his face, a mask of shadows in the darkened room. Vivian James edged closer in the velvety seat beside him. Once more she exaggerated a sigh.

  Alas, Isaak’s gaze remained glued to the screen. In black-and-white glory, a squadron of Spitfires roared off the runway. British military had become a standard of these newsreels, a flexing of royal muscle, a pep talk for patriots. From Isaak’s rapt interest few would guess he was actually an American, the same as Vivian. Before each picture show the RAF propellers would appear, and on cue his spine would straighten, eyes wider than a full moon over the Thames.

  So easily she could see him as a child, even without the projector’s softening beam. Youthful curls defied hair tonic in his thick golden hair, and a light dimple marked his chin. His entire face had a striking boyishness, save for his gray-blue eyes that reminded Vivian of the locked file cabinet in her father’s den: prohibitive and full of mystery. A good reason, in fact, to have kept her distance from the start. After only three months of their clandestine courtship, her yearning to be with him, her fear of losing him, had grown to a point she despised.

  Was Isaak aware of the power he held? She wondered this now, studying the profile of his handsome lips. His unbuttoned collar pulled her focus to his medium-framed chest and down the series of buttons. She forbade her gaze from wandering on.

  Determined to balance the scales, she brushed aside finger waves of her long brown hair. The motion freed a waft of the perfume he had given her, Evening in Paris. Raising her chin, she exposed her neck, the slender, bare area he had declared irresistible.

  A claim now proven false.

  She recalled Jean Harlow, the elegance of her feline moves. Brazenly, Vivian arched her back as if stretching for comfort. Against constraints of a girdle, she showcased the curves of her trim, belted dress. She parted her full lips, painted deep cherry red, to complete the sensuous pose.

  Still, Isaak stared forward, where Nazi soldiers paraded in goosestep. They steeled their arms in angled salute. A narrator recycled the usual reports: Germany’s pact for alignment with Italy, an increase of rumored threats to Poland, the troubling ambitions of Adolf Hitler. It was hard to fathom how a pint-sized man with the looks of Charlie Chaplin could cause such a stir. Back in Washington, DC, her family’s home until two years ago, he was surely fodder for the Sunday funnies.

  “Isaak,” she whispered.

  He nodded absently, not turning.

  She said his name louder, with no distinct plans of conversation. A flash of his slanted smile would simply confirm knowledge of her presence.

  But her efforts produced a mere shush in the row behind them.

  On their last two dates he had been no less distracted. “Just have a lot on my mind, darling,” he’d explained, “with research for Professor Klein, and all the rumblings in Europe.”

  Politics. The ubiquitous topic.

  Her father, a veteran of the Great War, rarely detailed his work at the embassy. But that didn’t stop politics from maintaining a strangling grip on their home. That was not to say Vivian was uncaring, for Isaak’s family in particular. He had been born to Swiss emigrants in upstate New York, he’d explained, and was only fifteen when a factory accident ended his father’s life. Then Isaak and his mother had moved to Lucerne, where she now remained with family. Although Switzerland was famed for its armed neutrality, the expansion of Nazi power gave just cause for apprehension.

  Vivian just wished, for a slice of a moment, that global bulletins would take a backseat. Did this stance make her selfish? She pushed down the notion. There were times when a woman ought to put herself first.

  At a second shush from behind, Vivian became aware of her bouncing heel. She tended to fidget whenever her mind wandered. As she crossed her legs, a bold idea formed. Subtle options had failed. She inched her dangling foot over the border of Isaak’s space. With the toe of her slingback, she brushed against the calf area of his trousers.

  Oblivious, or so it seemed, he moved his knee away.

  Vivian retreated to her side.

  His summer holiday, free from his classes at the University of London, was supposed to afford them quality time. But demands of his campus job had kept them apart this entire week. The separation should have caused his affections to spill over-as exhibited by the couples sprinkled about, already necking, embracing, hands roaming. Was this not the reason he had chosen a matinee? For its offering of relative privacy, an element he favored?

  It had been Isaak’s suggestion, after all, to keep the relationship under their hats. His benefactor would be far from pleased, he had said, in light of Isaak’s studies; a romance was not to detract from his final academic year. Vivian had accepted this reasoning, admittedly enticed by the thrill of their secrecy.

  But that thrill had run dry, and suspicions were trickling in.

  While Isaak had asked plenty of questions about her life, her family-less a mark of interest, perhaps, than the habit of an aspiring journalist-he shared so little about his own. Did he view her as a passing fancy, a fling not worthy of investment? Maybe he was divulging a great deal, but to another girl.

  “Isaak.”

  He raised his pointer finger, a sharp signal to wait.

  Vivian clutched her pocketbook. She would be a fool not to see where she stood. “A grand idea. Why don’t I wait outside?”

  She rose and strode up the aisle.

  “Vivian?”

  In the span of her twenty years, she had rebuffed an abundance of other fellows. More than a few had likened her fair skin and fine features to a porcelain figurine, her copper eyes to a field of autumn leaves. Yet here she was, ashamedly willing and questioning her very worth.

  No more. She was reclaiming her independence, a possession she swore she would never concede.

  Sunrays blinded her as she burst from the theater and onto the sidewalk. The pain behind her eyes rivaled the squeeze on her heart.

  “Vivian ...” Isaak’s raw, natural rasp tempted her to turn, but she resisted.

  “How lovely. I have your attention.”

  Dots of light faded from her vision, clarifying a view of honking Hilmans and double-decker buses. Hats of every sort floated through the West End: fedoras, flat caps, bowlers, and wide brims. Off in the distance the bells of Westminster chimed.

  She raised her palm for a cab.

  “For Mercy’s sake, where are you going?” He sounded bewildered yet almost amused, fueling her frustration. If she was acting dramatic, he alone was the cause.

  He touched her elbow. “Darling.”

  Shrugging him off, she lifted her hand higher. How could a single taxi not be empty?

  “Miss, are you a‘right?” a man asked. He paused from pushing a cart of flowers for sale. “Is the gent ‘ere bothering you?”

  “Yes, he is,” she replied pointedly. “But I’m fine. Thank you.”

  Though reluctant, the man nodded. He disappeared behind a cluster of ladies, thick with pretension and talcum powder. Bags and boxes in their gloved hands denoted an afternoon spree at Marshall & Snelgrove.

  “I don’t understand.” Isaak suddenly grew serious, his brow in a knot. “Tell me what I’ve done.”

  For as long as she could recall, she had envisioned a future that broke the mold of convention. Yet because of Isaak, she had been tethered by emotion
, her goal kept out of reach. She simply hadn’t realized it until now.

  “I’ve meant to tell you,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes. “I think we need a break.”

  “A break?”

  “Really, at our age, there’s no reason to be tied down to one person.”

  A shocked, humorless laugh shot from his lips. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  She gripped her purse with both hands, firming her will. “It’s over, Isaak. Please let me be.”

  To hear an objection would be as damaging as his agreement. Not waiting for either, she bit out “good-bye” and headed for the Underground, longing to escape into the deepest levels of earth.

  3

  It was a striking visual of the entrapment Audra felt, yet a disconnect from her old self. In the gilded oval mirror, her reflection gazed back like a stranger stuck behind the glass. She leaned closer, hands gripping the pedestal sink. Could this person really be her? Maybe it was just the lighting, here in the home of Devon’s parents. But, more likely, the harshness of reality.

  Though just over thirty-five, she could easily pass for forty. Gone was her youthful glow born of skiing and hiking trips, now faded by duties and worries. Circles under her hazel eyes, like stains of grief, had darkened even more from the past four days. The airport interrogation, the media evasions, the lack of sleep. Every night since the in-flight disaster, Jack had wakened her with his chilling screams.

  Audra had never seen nightmares like these. Eyes wide open, he would flail around as if fighting for his life. Get out! Get out! We’re gonna crash! Over and over he would yell in desperation until exhaustion seized him fully.

  You’re not supposed to wake them. That’s what her husband had warned on the few occasions when Jack had sleepwalked. Devon even caught one on video. He thought it was adorable that their son, while asleep, tried to brush his teeth at midnight.

  But this wasn’t adorable. It was terrifying—for Jack and Audra both. These went far beyond his bad dreams at age five, when comprehending that Daddy was never coming home. Audra had been grateful, so grateful, those teary nights had waned. The stab of self-blame had been painful enough without a child’s cries twisting the blade.