In Between

By the time St. James Elementary rang out the midday Angelus, three things were evident: The pothole at the corner of Rose and 2nd still hadn’t been filled, Richie Baumgartner needed a haircut, and Evelyn Cimino’s patience was wearing thin. At five feet two inches tall, she could just see over the counter to where Richie waited, glowering. A jar of red licorice whips was the only thing standing between her and the young man— sullen attitude, shaggy hair hanging down to his collarbone. “We’re out. Sorry,” she added, because that seemed like the kind of thing someone ought to say.

“Ah c’mon, you were out last week too,” Richie complained. 

 It was unseemly to Evelyn that a grown man should be so heavily invested in his ice cream. Indecent, really, when there were boys his age coming home in body bags from the war that wasn’t a war. “Well, I don’t know what to tell ya. What about Chocolate Chip Swirl? That one’s pretty popular.”

Richie hesitated, perusing the list of flavors. He made a disgusted sound. “It says Chocolate Marshmallow right up there on your board!” he pointed angrily. “If you don’t have Chocolate Marshmallow, why’s it say so right there?” 

Evelyn turned to look up at the board, wiping her hands on her apron. The line of customers was stretching to the door. Goddamn you, Bill, she thought. This should be you elbow-deep in Rocky Road, not me. This was your cockamamie idea.

With Richie and everyone else watching, Evelyn left her place at the counter and shuffled past the green vinyl booths to the back of the shop. The radio station was tuned to WIZM, the one the kids liked, the one that played All the Hits, All the Time! She found the small ladder in the one bathroom she shared with customers and dragged it back behind the counter, clanging and scraping the whole way. It took some effort to get the thing open. The cold of the freezer wasn’t helping her arthritis. She positioned the ladder just underneath the magnetic signboard that was hanging high above the malt mixers. Evelyn then placed her left foot, the good one, on the bottom rung. She hitched up her dress a fair six inches so as not to trip. Everyone was probably getting a good look at her varicose veins. A customer muttered under their breath, “Christ, is someone gonna help her, or what?” 

Screw you, Bill.

Mrs. Carroll near the back of the line called out, “Hey, Ev? You need a hand?” 

Evelyn waved her off and began to climb. “Now which one was it? Chocolate Marshmallow you said?” 

The other customers glared at Richie. “Look, you don’t—I’ll just take the Swirl thing you said,” he trailed off. 

Evelyn reached up and began plucking magnetic letters off the board, tossing them onto the floor below. C—slap H—slap O—slap C—slap, one by one until all evidence of the offending Chocolate Marshmallow had been stricken from the record. She paused. Then removed Orange Sherbet, Peanut Butter Brickle, and Banana Fudge. By the time she was done, a pile of plastic letters lay at the bottom of the ladder and the line of customers had been reduced by two-thirds. Evelyn Cimino, reluctant purveyor of sweets, was satisfied. 

---

Even from the other room, Bill’s noisy breaths were keeping her awake. Evelyn lay in the dark listening to his lungs whistling, sounding the alarm. It was getting bad. Most nights she slept with her bedroom door open, keeping vigil as a new mother does. Not that she’d know anything about that. Her own foray into motherhood was quietly taken care of two months after a furtive night with a man she barely knew. His eyes were full of so much need she was moved to pitying acquiescence. When she told him of their mishap the man left and never came back. It was just as well.

So, no. For Evelyn there’d been no anxious visits to the doctor with a feverish baby on her hip. But she’d heard stories of the fretting and fussing that gripped new mothers, every sound a telltale sign of need or discomfort. God knew Evelyn was familiar with those by now. There was to be no peace, it seemed. Peace had left her and Bill some time ago, along with the ability to be surprised. It was 1971. No one was surprised at anything anymore. When you’ve seen brains splashed across the evening news, surprise seems terribly old-fashioned.

While Evelyn was washing her hands of the whole unfortunate business with what’s-his-name, Bill was already off fighting in the war. Not this war, of course, a different war. Bill’s war was the one with all the rain and the pouty French names that twisted his mouth into a permanent state of bemusement. His war was supposed to end all wars, but naturally it didn’t. They kept springing up every so often, each time some man with a little time on his hands looked around and decided he’d like a bit more of what someone else had. 

As children, Evelyn and Bill had shared a bedroom; he on one side of the room, she on the other. The center was a kind of no man’s land, a DMZ that neither dare cross for fear of being ratted out to their harried parents who’d just as likely wallop the both of them for complaining. Still, Evelyn couldn’t resist occasionally tormenting her big brother. She’d edge her toes closer and closer to his side of the room until he was red-faced, daring him to open his mouth. 

They were the most improbable roommates. Where Bill was exacting and tidy, Evelyn was not. Oh, did that drive him insane, the persistent disorder on Evelyn’s part. Cheap muslin and dress patterns that she never seemed to get to were piled at the foot of her bed, on top of her small desk. Anywhere there was a square inch she could claim as her own. Bill considered her inattentiveness to domestic pursuits a grievous character flaw. “Someday you’ll lose your own husband, Ev. The authorities will find him three months later, buried under six feet of dirty laundry and thumbtacks.”

She hid a dish of sour cream under his bed after that crack.

Evelyn was just 16 years old the day Bill left home to go do his part in 1914. He was a bit older and full of patriotic ideals. She watched him pack his few personal belongings— razor, shoe laces, bible and so on— carefully wrapping them in a square of corduroy she’d insisted on giving him. Corduroy would be more resilient than cotton, she said, and Bill agreed. He teased her about what she’d do with all that space she’d have to herself once he’d gone. 

The truth was, she couldn’t imagine him not being there. She thought how Bill still slept like a child, tightly curled on his side with the covers tucked under his chin. How he wouldn’t be able to get her a drink of water in the night if she asked in just the right way. How she’d say, “Oh William, m’boy,” in a singsongy voice, and he’d respond, “Yes, your highness?” and they’d stifle giggles so as not to wake their parents. She might miss that most of all. 

Evelyn couldn’t bear to see him off at the train station. She let him go without her. Mother and Father each took an elbow as they walked their only son toward an uncertain outcome. After he was gone, Evelyn crossed the DMZ and sat on Bill’s neatly made bed, looking at her side of the room. The bed was unmade as usual, the lace coverlet in a ball at the foot. Her dressing gown had fallen from its hanger and was lying on the floor. She whispered his name to the four corners of the room and the yawning silence was a cannonball to her chest.

 Bill did come home; one of the lucky ones. He’d left their small river town on the banks of the Mississippi a gangly, taciturn fellow. Tight-lipped on the best of occasions. He’d been assigned as an Army radio operator and spent his days deciphering the chatter coming across the wireless. He was perfectly suited to this kind of work, preferring the clinical precision of Morse code to idle chitchat. He conveyed only what was required and not a syllable more. His fingers flew as he dashed off coordinates and positions, the frequent warnings to get that gas mask on right quick everybody or else.  

The Bill who returned was changed, as so many of the boys coming home were. The new Bill was filled with grand notions, scheming and planning for a future that would be far away from the ashen fields of France. “They’ve got these little candies over there, Ev. You should see them. They’re like glass, you understand, like colored glass, but made of sugar, you see? They bend them—well, fold them really—into the most remarkable ribbons. You’d want to hang them on a Christmas tree, I’m telling you!” He laughed. 

Evelyn only nodded, bewildered, as Bill prattled away with stories from the war, his eyes overly bright. He had an idea, he told her, something their town apparently lacked and he meant to do something about it. Had she seen the vacant property on the corner of Caledonia and Larch? It was perfect, right down to the curved sash windows. “I’ll call it The Corner Suite Shoppe. S-U-I-T-E!” He spelled it out. “Get it?”

She wasn’t sure she did. Evelyn didn’t think anyone around La Crosse would understand the pun. Folks in town would just as likely think it was a men’s haberdashery. “Suite?” she asked, “Like…a hotel suite? Are you sure?” 

Bill made a face at her, thinking she was poking fun. “No, not like a hotel, Ev. It’s French, don’t you see?” She still didn’t see completely, but she was reluctant to dampen his cheerful mood. “There has to be loads of candy,” he said, “and ice cream, especially, because who doesn’t like ice cream?”

He never stopped talking now, it seemed. It was as though all the words he’d been privately rehearsing for his twenty-two years on earth had been building to a crescendo and demanded an audience. Then it dawned on Evelyn that he had to keep talking to drown out the other voices in his head. The ones that called to him through the smoke and the dark, crying out his name. A terrible weight would sometimes creep up and compel him to silence, and she finally understood that he needed to build new memories for himself. One scoop at a time, if necessary.

The husband Bill had predicted for her never did materialize. Nor did a wife for Bill. And now look at the two of them. Unlikely roommates once again. Bill’s orderly world had succumbed to table tops covered with so many pills of various colors and sizes they could’ve played Chinese checkers with them. Evelyn joked about it one time and Bill’s laughter caused such a fit of coughing that she stopped trying to make him smile. Now she was single-handedly keeping the medical supply store in business, chasing down aspirators and a second-hand wheelchair. The household trappings of the dying. A motherhood she’d never wanted had come knocking at last. It was Evelyn’s turn at playing the meticulous one, keeping detailed logs of medications, carefully registering timings and feedings. She swore to God if it came to diapers she just might scream. 

She couldn’t sleep. Evelyn got out of bed and put on her housecoat, quietly making her way past her brother’s room. He was in there, rattling away, and she didn’t want to wake him. Tiptoeing into the kitchen, Evelyn dug through her purse and found the cigarettes she’d buried in the bottom. Bill would kill her if he knew. She sometimes smoked, but only very late at night and only when she couldn’t sleep. She lit her cigarette off the stove and sat in the dark, blowing smoke out the window. The moon was bright, shining over the roof of the Lemke’s house next door and landing in a small pool right in the middle of the kitchen floor. Mrs. Lemke had forgotten to bring her clothes in off the line again. They’d be damp in the morning.      Evelyn relished these solitary moments in the dead of night, neither morning nor evening, but something in between. It was dreamlike. Ephemeral. In that hour, the universe was filled with limitless possibility. She might learn Japanese, or book a cruise to Buenos Aires and never return.   

There was a game she liked to play when the nights were long and Bill was having a particularly rough time of it. Evelyn had been playing this game for almost as long as she could remember, back when Bill first went off to war and the bedroom still smelled of his ball bearings and copper wire. 

She played it now. Evelyn closed her eyes and pictured a crystal clear river, swiftly flowing and icy cold. In her game, the river held all she needed, and it was bountiful. Every opportunity was hers for the taking; every secret adventure, every fanciful desire. It was all swimming there a mere three feet below the surface, just waiting to be scooped up like so many silvery trout. Nothing could be easier. The life she envisioned for herself was already there— all she had to do was reach into the water and fish it out. 

But in her reverie, as in her waking hours, everything escaped Evelyn’s grasp. The net she’d imagined in her dream state was full of holes and wouldn’t hold anything. Then, with a sudden chill, Evelyn remembered there were things she had to do. There was paperwork to be filed, decisions to be made. She opened her eyes and the river disappeared.

She and Bill were sitting at this very table nine months ago when he casually told her about the cancer. He dropped that tidbit into her lap right between the pot roast and the apple crumble as they were finishing their weekly Sunday supper together. “Hey, here’s one you’ll like, Ev. Guess who’s finally decided to give up smoking.” He smiled with one side of his mouth and shrugged his shoulders. 

She wasn’t surprised then either. She’d noticed the telltale clearing of the throat, the persistent cough that was dismissed as allergies. Against Bill’s wishes, she gave up the lease on her rental apartment that week and moved into his guest room. 

And now what. Bill wanted to turn the The Corner Suite Shoppe over to her, but the responsibility was too enormous to comprehend. His germ of an idea after the war had taken root and wound up becoming an institution in their small town. The notion of someone else taking the reins was unthinkable. For over 50 years the man had been standing at that counter serving up malteds and chocolate-covered cherries. The Chamber of Commerce wanted to recognize him at the annual Legacy Awards in June, for God’s sake. They planned to honor his years of service to the community with a dinner and speeches, the whole overwrought shebang. She should probably let them know they should rearrange the seating chart. The guest of honor would likely be six feet under by then. 

Evelyn exhaled a ragged breath and stamped out her cigarette. What did she know about running a business? She’d gone to work at St. James right out of high school. Father Katzhaven was in need of a secretary and Evelyn Cimino was just the gal for the job according to all her teachers. Top of her class in short hand, bright as a new penny, and most importantly, discreet. That would come in handy on more than one occasion where Father K was concerned. 

The first time he confessed his sins to Evelyn was in the rectory late one evening. They’d been going over the weekly announcements and had probably shared one too many glasses of port. The fire was dying—she remembered that—and the clerical collar had long since been removed. Father K knelt before her and took her hands in his. The naked longing in his eyes made Evelyn weak. He was an ungodly man, he told her, a wretch. Wicked in the worst sorts of ways. Evelyn was scandalized. Then he grazed her breast with his warm palm, softly breathing out his transgressions against her neck, again and again, and Evelyn forgave him. 

She continued to forgive him for the next five years until he was struck and killed by a streetcar in broad daylight, right there on Caledonia Street. A senseless tragedy, everyone said, shaking their heads. The whole town came out for his funeral and Evelyn watched in numb grief from the back of the cathedral, devastated and alone. She was careful to shed an appropriate number of tears; not so many as to arouse suspicion among the parishioners, but not so few as to appear cold and unfeeling. And then, for Father K’s sake and her own, she swallowed the rest.

The diocese brought in Father Rossi from out of state as his replacement. He requested Evelyn stay on as parish secretary. She was indispensable, he’d been told, and she said yes, because what else could she do? When he asked Evelyn if she’d like to make her confession, she thought of the man who’d once skipped town and never came back. She thought of the baby, unfinished. She thought of the lingering afternoons behind locked doors with Father Katzhaven, the murmured if onlys, the aching solace. She politely declined. Whose business was any of that, but hers? 

Evelyn was tired and her eyes were gritty. She thought maybe she’d be able to sleep now. The night was so still and quiet. It took several seconds to register that she couldn’t hear Bill’s breathing anymore. She banged her hip on the corner of the table rushing to his room, fear gripping her throat, choking her. Evelyn stood in the doorway and softly called Bill’s name into the darkness. Her voice was that of a child’s. There would be no more jokes about Chinese checkers or anything else. Her brother was gone. 

---

“And there you are, Mrs. Cimino- ”

“It’s Miss.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s Miss Cimino, not Mrs. I’m not married.”

“Oh—of course. My apologies.” 

The young man behind the front desk blushed as he handed over her cabin key. He can’t be more than 17, Evelyn thought, one of the kids they hired to work the resort each summer. From Rhinelander, no doubt, with that quasi-Canadian accent. “And what’s your name?” she asked. “Since we’re getting to know each other.”

“Me? Well, I’m Johnny, ma’am.”

“I have a son about your age, Johnny. Except we call him John. Mind if I call you John?”

“I guess I like John just fine.” He grinned broadly. “John it is!” They both laughed. 

“Let me help you with that bag, Miss Cimino,” he offered. “The path’s still a little muddy. Wouldn’t want you to lose a shoe.”

“No need, John. I’m sturdier than I look,” she winked at him. The boy reddened again. Evelyn turned and self-consciously smoothed the seat of her trousers across her backside as she walked away. At 35, she knew she could still turn heads without much effort. But Johnny had suddenly made her feel awfully old with his suntanned arms and eagerness to please. Only the very young had that kind of exuberance. They hadn’t been disappointed yet.

Evelyn looked forward to these jaunts to the north woods of Wisconsin each summer. She’d take the train, first from La Crosse to Milwaukee, then all the way up. She’d spend the entire week staring at the green water, just listening to the waves and watching the tourists head to shore with their lines full of muskies. Sometimes she rented a canoe for an hour, but it was difficult to paddle on her own. She’d take to the surrounding trails for long stretches, allowing herself to get lost, then always find her way back to the lodge in time for supper.    

Bill didn’t approve of her desire to “run off”, as he called it. “Why don’t you bring along a friend?” he asked. “You know how people talk. A woman traveling alone, it just looks bad, Ev.”  Bill could never understand. He’d seen a bit of the world. Flown in an airplane, tasted olives on foreign soil. Besides, she didn’t have any friends. Not really. Bill was right in one sense, though: People were talking. An unmarried woman of her age was suspect on many levels. She was either frigid or a woman of loose character. There was nothing in between. 

Evelyn brushed away Bill’s admonishments. “Thanks for the tip, William m’boy,” she’d say to him. And then book a trip that let her live squarely in the in between.

Evelyn was watching a small girl playing in the sand at the lake’s edge. Her light brown hair was cut short and the freckles on her face and shoulders were visible from several feet away. She appeared to be around four. The girl was intent on collecting stones and seemed very particular about her task, examining each pebble and either letting it fall to the ground or dropping it into the metal bait bucket she carried. Her head was bent to the sand, the sun on her back. She chattered away, utterly content in her own company, occasionally taking the time to brush the sand from her knees. Evelyn watched her for a long time. When the girl eventually looked up, Evelyn waved at her and the girl shyly waved back. 

“Margaret!” A robust-looking blonde woman yelled sharply from just behind Evelyn’s chair. “Margaret, what did Mommy tell you? Not so close to the water, darling.” Margaret scowled at her mother and reluctantly took a step or two closer to the beach. Evelyn shielded her eyes from the sun and peered up at the woman standing next to her. The tops of her round thighs were pink with sunburn. She had the benign face of a Dutch peasant girl, open and uncomplicated. The woman sensed Evelyn staring at her.

“I’m sorry. I hope she wasn’t bothering you,” she said.  

“Not at all. She’s sweet,” Evelyn replied. She was a young mother, early twenties, solidly built and carrying a picnic basket with a book balanced on top of it. Evelyn stuck out her hand. “Maude Ballard. What brings you to Teal Lake?” 

“Oh—!” The woman put the basket down and shook Evelyn’s hand. “Patti Norquist, nice to meet you!” She said this with the same enthusiasm Front Desk Johnny had. Before Evelyn could offer a towel, Patti plopped herself right down in the sand, legs stuck out in front of her. “Gosh, I’m always here!” She laughed uninhibitedly, a school girl’s laugh. “Feels like it anyways. Dick—that’s my husband—he runs the fishing excursions out in the deeper water. You know about those?” Evelyn shook her head. “Not the three-hour runs, the all-day ones.” Patti gave a short sigh. Then, “Hey, maybe your husband wants in? They’re pretty well booked up, but I can talk to Dick.” 

Evelyn reached into her bag to retrieve her cigarette case. “Unfortunately, my husband was called away at the last minute. Here alone, I’m afraid.” She offered a cigarette to Patti who glanced up to the shore to see that little Margaret hadn’t wandered too far. She selected a 

cigarette tentatively. It was evident she didn’t smoke. 

“Gee, I hope it’s nothing serious, Mrs. Ballard,” Patti said with genuine concern. 

“Maude. Oh no, nothing like that. Gregory specializes in internal medicine at Mayo 

Clinic. I can’t say much about it, you understand, but a very high-profile patient asked that my husband be assigned to his case.” Patti’s eyes were wide. Evelyn lowered her voice and looked over her shoulder conspiratorially. “It’s a government matter,” she whispered. 

“Gosh,” Patti breathed. Evelyn lit her own cigarette then leaned over to light Patti’s. Patti was hesitant. “Dick doesn’t like me to smoke.”

“And where is Dick? 

“Well, out on the boat, I suppose.”

Evelyn smiled. “Then it’ll be our little secret.” She watched as Patti placed the cigarette between her lips and inhaled cautiously. She blew out the tiniest puff and giggled, fanning the smoke away from her face. Evelyn was surprised to find herself giggling right along with Patti.   The young mother suddenly rose to her knees and struck a coy pose, lowering her chin and looking up demurely at Evelyn, the cigarette held just below her eyes. She pouted playfully. “Do I look like one of those bad girls in the picture shows?” She seemed delighted at her own brazenness.

“Like Garbo, but better,” Evelyn said. And she meant it. There was an alluring quality about Patti, one that Patti herself was clearly unaware of which made her all the more beguiling. 

“Greta Garbo—oh, I like that!” Patti said. “Did you know, Mrs. Ballard, that I once danced with Fred Astaire at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago?” 

Evelyn played along. “I bet you were smashing.” 

“I really was,” Patti laughed and Evelyn joined her. 

“And what did you wear for your big debut?”

Patti rose from the sand dramatically and turned in a slow circle, looking back over her shoulder. “Oh, you should’ve seen it! Pale yellow organza with little lavender rosebuds. Ten thousand lights. And I had diamond combs in my hair.”

“All eyes on you,” Evelyn smiled. 

“All eyes on me,” Patti echoed, her eyes shining.

There was something so free in her. A wildness, barely contained, that hinted anything might be possible if only she were asked. Why, Patti just might be the kind of girl to steal away on the next train to Montreal. But only if you’d let her first pop back to the cabin for an umbrella. She wouldn’t like to get her hair wet.

Patti took another drag of her cigarette, deeper this time, and sat back down in the sand. “Gosh, wouldn’t that be something,” she said quietly to herself. Evelyn nodded, thinking for half a second that Patti was referring to the train to Montreal, but of course that couldn’t be it. 

A crazy idea suddenly came to Evelyn. She sat up straight in her chair and felt her heartbeat quicken. And why not, she thought. Why not. There were trains departing to Toronto every day. First Toronto, then on to Montreal. Bowls of mussels in white wine. Jazz music and boulevards lined with geraniums. Evelyn opened her mouth to speak, but something in Patti’s demeanor seemed to have changed. She’d gone silent. The careless schoolgirl had been replaced by a gloominess that threatened to spoil the afternoon. A faraway mist clouded Patti’s eyes now as she sat, digging her toes into the sand, over and over again. Evelyn recognized the look. The little madness on her own part began to dissipate—she could feel it slipping away. The moment passed as quickly as it had arrived. Evelyn lit another cigarette to fill the awkward silence that had arisen between them. 

There was something itching at the back of Evelyn’s mind. Something about Patti. The name…something. What was it? Ah. Her mother had once said to her—this was just after Evelyn had broken off her engagement to the music teacher—she said, “There are two kinds of women in this world, Evelyn. You can be a “Patti” or you can be a “Vera”, but you can’t be both. A man’ll have a good time with a Vera, if you know what I mean. But he marries the Patti.” Evelyn thought, And who am I supposed to be in this little scenario? Some of us are neither Pattis nor Veras. Some of us are Maudes. 

Her mother may have been on to something, though. It was clear that Patti Norquist was no Vera. She wasn’t even a Maude, for that matter. At least Maudes didn’t mind getting wet—Evelyn never carried an umbrella. Maudes took off their shoes and walked right down the street in their stocking feet. 

The two women sat in silence for a while, looking out to the water and smoking. Margaret eventually tired of her game and came to her mother to see about lunch. Patti hastily buried her cigarette in the sand and Evelyn did the same, resenting the intrusion. Patti began fussing over Margaret, scolding her for not wearing a hat. There was talk of bath time and naps, and Evelyn knew it was time to go. She said how nice it had been to meet them both, then left mother and daughter to their own stretch of beach.

Evelyn saw Patti once more, very early on her final morning at Teal Lake. Patti was seated in the main lodge, sipping coffee across from an unremarkable-looking man in a gray flannel shirt and hip waders. Dick. Evelyn watched the two of them, unnoticed, from several feet away. There was no trace of the careless schoolgirl at this hour of the morning. Patti looked pale and tired as she dropped a sugar cube into her coffee and stirred methodically, watching it dissolve. For a brief moment, Evelyn thought of saying hello, but she didn’t want to be late for the train. Johnny carried her suitcase outside to meet the waiting taxi, and Evelyn followed, leaving the lake and Patti behind. 

---

Richie settled for the Chocolate Chip Swirl. By the time Evelyn locked the door five minutes early at 9:55, her bunion was howling. Saturday nights were going to be the toughest, she could already tell. She was daunted to think what the crowds would be like come summertime. 

There had been an offer to purchase The Corner Suite Shoppe—a good one—and she knew she should probably take it. But Evelyn had no will to make any decisions. More than anything she wanted someone to come along and tell her which blouse to put on, how much cream to put in her coffee. All of it. It had only been three weeks since Bill’s death.

Evelyn grabbed a spoon and stuck it into the tub of French Vanilla. Who doesn’t like ice cream, Ev? Turns out Bill was bang on the money about that one. She savored the creamy richness then tossed her spoon into the sink of dirty dishes, misjudging the distance. The spoon bounced off the porcelain edge and hit the floor with a clatter. Evelyn sighed and bent down to retrieve it from where it had slipped under the cabinet. She felt around blindly until her fingers touched something. An envelope. It had obviously been there a long time. She brought the envelope to one of the booths in the back of the shop and opened it. 

Just a handful of old photos, most of Bill and his fellow soldiers during the war. Faces she didn’t know. There was Bill, still young and thin, standing nearly a full head taller than the man next to him. They were in uniform, their arms around each other’s shoulders, slouching in the same direction. They seemed to be in front of a church, but it may have been a public house. The photo was badly faded. She turned it over and saw Bill’s neat handwriting: November 8, 1916Cumières-le-Mort-Homme. Evelyn translated the name from her high school French and had to laugh. Le Mort-Homme: the dead man. Bill would’ve gotten a kick out of that one. 

 She picked up another photo, also of Bill and what appeared to be the same young man. This time they were in civilian clothing, posing in front of a carousel. Bill was smiling at the camera, one foot up on the running board, his hand resting on the hump of a camel. The other man was looking up at Bill. The back of the photo merely said: B and V, Paris 1917. Who was V? Evelyn didn’t remember Bill ever mentioning anyone whose name began with that letter— and she’d heard a lot of stories over the years. 

She scanned five or six other photographs. In each one, whatever the location or grouping of servicemen, V was always right next to Bill. They must have been quite close at one time. The last photo in the envelope was of V alone, sporting the beginnings of a mustache. Rather dashing, actually. He was seated on a bench, the collar of his jacket turned up, an ice cream cone in his hand. Summer. Evelyn looked at the back of the photo and saw handwriting that wasn’t her brother’s. She squinted to make it out. “For B- La vie est un sommeil, l’amour en est le rêve.-V.” “Life is a long sleep, and love is its dream.” 

Evelyn studied the face of the young man in the photo for several minutes. It made her sad to think he may not have survived the war. Then again, maybe he did. 

She hoped so. 

Evelyn thought about Bill. She thought about Father K, and the latest war that wasn’t a war. She thought someone should really tell Richie Baumgartner to cut his hair. 

Evelyn carefully put the photos back into the envelope, making sure they were all upright and facing the same direction. The way Bill would’ve liked them. She put the envelope in the pocket of her apron. The dishes could wait until morning. Tomorrow she needed to call Bill’s attorney, and arrange to have his clothes donated to the Goodwill. 

Evelyn closed her eyes, imagining a river, quick and crisp. 

Life is a long sleep, and love is its dream. She replayed the words in her head. She found the notion strangely comforting. There was a beginning and there was an end. And in between, while one dreamed of love and wild places and limitless possibility, nothing was ever precisely what it seemed. Sometimes priests stepped in front of streetcars. Sometimes Greta Garbo showed up on the shores of a northern Wisconsin lake. And sometimes a scoop of ice cream filled more than just the cone. 

The sidewalk outside had grown quiet. Evelyn sat alone in the shop, her brother’s photographs resting against her thigh. She listened to the hum of the fluorescent lights above her head until they became the sound of summer cicadas, a chorus on the banks of some Alpine stream. Did they even have cicadas in the Alps? She’d like to know. 

With a deep breath, Evelyn plunged into the glacial river up to her shoulders and hoped the frigid waters didn’t wake her too soon.