Ruby - Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All (9780062317667)

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The first time they took Frankie to the orphanage, she couldnt speak English. Only Italian. Voglio mio padre! Voglio mio padre! Thats what she said, over and over and over.

At least, thats what the nuns told her she said. She couldnt remember any of it.

The second time they took her to the orphanage, the last time, she didnt say anything at all. Not one word. For months.

She didnt remember that either.

What she did remember: her fathers shoe shop on Irving Park Road. The scent of calfskin and polish. The cramped apartment behind the shop. The metal tub sitting in the middle of the kitchen. Cold bathwater wrinkling her little toes. The rough scrape of Aunt Marions brush on her back.

And then the shot from her parents bedroomso sharp, so loud, so wrong. The thud of Aunt Marions footsteps as she ran from the kitchen. The screams. So much screaming.

Frankie remembered climbing from the tub, falling to the floor, hitting her elbow so hard the bones sang all the way up to her skull. Crawling, hot tears on her face. Pushing at the bedroom door to see the body slumped on the bed, smoke and copper in the air. Crossing the threshold from one world to another.

Most of all, she remembered the door itself. The rusted hinges. The gouges and nicks. The pencil smell of the wood, and then all the other smells that had seeped into itleather, garlic, salt, blood. How Aunt Marion turned, scooped her up, and slammed that door behind them.

Frankie wouldnt always let herself remember these things. Most of the time, she didnt think about them at all. Yet she had her quiet days, her pensive ones, those days when she dug through her memories, trying to find the truth at the bottom of them. As if the truth were a jewel you could unearth and hold in your hand, as if the truth wasnt more like something youd find under a rock, gray and faceless and squirming away from the light.

But Frankie hadnt done any kind of digging on this particular night in the spring of 1946, unless you counted picking through a garbage pail to find a dime tip shed accidentally tossed away with a customers half-eaten sandwich. After working a double shift, shed gotten home at midnight and collapsed fully clothed onto her bed, not even bothering to take off a mustard-stained apron that stank of onions. And though the air wafting through the cracked window held the sweet promise of spring, though all her wars were over, though she should have felt safe, finally safe, after all this time, Frankie woke up hours later in a prickling sweat, tangled and feverish, certain her mother had been whispering in her ear.

She sat up, clutching at her throat. Mama? she said. But her room was still and silent, the moon cutting a wide silver swath out of the dark. Her mother wasnt there. Would never be there. It was impossible. Frankie remembered that now, just when she didnt want to.

Then she called again. Not to her mother, but to someone else. Someone shed only glimpsed once, another person she wouldnt allow herself to think about.

Hello? Is that... you?

No answer.

Frankie smiled a grim little smile at her own foolishness, rubbed her eyes to get the sting out. With the moonlight slicing through the room, she could see everything inside it, though there wasnt much to see. A chair with a pile of dresses draped over the back, a bureau with a hot plate and a dusty trumpet, two twin beds and a nightstand between, a seashell the size and shape of a childs ear resting in an ashtray on top. Frankies younger sister, Toni, was a motionless lump in the other bed; Toni hadnt heard Frankie come in or cry out, which wasnt surprising. The nuns used to say that she and Toni both slept like the dead. Once, Frankie had believed that only people whose hearts were true could sleep so soundly, but that was a long time ago.

The wind stiffened outside, whistling through the leaky window, blasting Frankie out of bed. She stood just long enough to strip off her apron and uniform. She was being silly and sappy and she couldnt afford it. Didnt she have more than sixteen dollars to add to the wad tucked under her mattress? Hadnt she made the rent for seven months straight, all on her own? She was just nineteen, but shed weathered worse nights, far more pained and feverish than this. The silver swath of moonlight was beautiful, beautiful, she told herself, as she yanked a nightgown over her head. The whole damned room was beautiful because it was her room, hers and her sisters. That was something she could hold on to, even when so much else had been lost.

The moonlight caught in the cup of abalone on the nightstand, winking pink and blue, drawing her attention. Frankie traced the pearlescent edge of the shell with her finger. This delicate shell had come so far, had come through so much, and still wasnt broken.

Neither was she.

Frankie punched the pillow as if her restlessness were all its fault and fell back onto the bed, fell asleep. The shadows lengthened, shifted, creeping over the floors, the furniture. Mice scratched in the walls. A fox cried in the distance, or maybe it was a wolf. In and out, the sisters breathed in unison, agreeing for once. And yet the papery whispers wafted through Frankies dreams. Sono qui. Io sono qui per te, Francesca. I am here. I am here for you.

Of course, it wasnt her mothers voice she heard. It was mine. Because the dead never sleep, you see.

We have so many other things to do.