Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse. Faith Sullivan

were sobbing,” Nell told her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Elvira whipped the light blanket around herself and lay down, face to the wall. “Just a nightmare.”

      Two days later, Hilly asked, “What’s wrong with Elvira? She got mad when I asked if we could go to the park with Mrs. Lundeen and Laurence.” He sat at a desk in Nell’s third-grade room while she corrected spelling tests. “And now they’ve got a push-go-round at the park. Laurence would love that.”

      “Well, maybe Elvira doesn’t have time right now.”

      “And she’s never home.”

      “She’s a grown-up, Hilly, and she’s not responsible for you now that you’re in school.”

      “Doesn’t she like me any more?”

      “She loves you. But she’s got other things to think about.”

      “What things?”

      “She’s got to decide about college. Or maybe she’s thinking about getting married.”

      “Married? But what about us?”

      “I don’t think Elvira ever intended to live with us all her life. Someday you’ll get married and have your own house and probably a baby like little Laurence.”

      “Don’t worry, Mama. I’ll never leave you.”

      “Elvira, we need to talk,” Nell said one Sunday when they’d returned from Mass. “Hilly, would you go outside, please?”

      Elvira looked balky. Seated on the daybed facing her, Nell clasped her hands tightly together, nervous, but beyond caring if the girl resented a call to account.

“I feel responsible for you while you’re living with me,” she said. “In the past two or three weeks you’ve lost weight. You’re edgy and secretive. Something’s wrong. You’re a different girl from the one who came to live here.”

      “That’s right. I’m a grown woman now. And I don’t want to talk about it.”

      “Well, we have to. Or I’ll have to go to your parents.”

      “No!”

      “Then tell me what’s wrong. Is it a young man? Did someone bother you at work? Do I need to talk to the Lundeens?”

      “For God’s sake, no!” Eyes skittering, panicked, the girl looked about to break down.

      Then, Elvira went calm. The terror disappeared and her body relaxed. She smiled. She’s found a lie, Nell realized.

      “Oh, all right,” Elvira said, “I didn’t want to talk about it but you won’t be satisfied until I do.”

      Nell wanted to cry. Elvira was feeling her way through the story.

      “If you must know, I’m thinking about taking a little trip. I never had a vacation.” Nell waited. “I deserve a vacation.”

      “Of course you deserve it, but why would you lose weight over that?”

      “Well, it’s scary, isn’t it? I’ve always wanted to see Chicago, and that’s a big adventure.”

      This is her story and she’ll stick to it, Nell thought.

      At work, Elvira gave notice that she would be away for a week beginning June 17. She was going to Chicago.

Something wasn’t right, Nell knew. In desperation she called on Cora after school one day. “Elvira is miserable—moody and quarrelsome—and she won’t explain. Has she said anything to you?”

      “I haven’t seen Elvira since the Christmas party.” Cora studied her pale, desiccated hands, locked together on her lap.

      “She says she’s taking a vacation. Going to Chicago for a week.”

      Cora looked up. “I didn’t know.”

      “It’s come up all of a sudden.” Nell rose. “I’m sorry to bother you. I had hoped Elvira might have said something.” Nell left, unsettled and dissatisfied. Was Cora lying? And why would I think that?

chapter seventeenchapter seventeen

      AFTER SEEING NELL OUT, Cora wheeled herself from room to room, pausing several times to beat her fists on the arms of the chair.

      “Lizzie, I’m going to the park. Can you help me?” Once Cora had been positioned in the sunshine, she told the girl, “Take Laurence down to the hotel and buy yourselves tea and doughnuts. Don’t hurry.”

      For an hour Cora sat, by turns agitated and mournful. God forgive me, she prayed. I meant no harm.

      Walking home from Cora’s, Nell met Anna Braun leaving Lundeen’s, a store money bag in hand. “Running an errand to the bank,” Anna said.

      “I’ll walk with you as far as the post office,” Nell told her. “You’ve heard that Elvira’s going to Chicago.”

      “Yes.”

      “You and she see each other outside the store, don’t you? Is anything troubling her?”

      Anna shot her a speculative glance. “I don’t see much of her outside the store. Lately, she keeps to herself.”

      “Lately?”

      “Since Christmas, I’d say.”

“You don’t go to the dances at the Harvester Arms?”

      Anna shook her head. “I haven’t been to a dance in two years.”

      “I must be mistaken. I thought the two of you went together.”

      “Must have been someone else.”

      A week later, Cora Lundeen removed five hundred dollars from an evening bag in the bottom drawer of her dressing table, slipped the money into an envelope without an accompanying note, and mailed it.