Read Online Every Time We Say Goodbye by Jamie Zeppa - Free Book Online

her roommate. They were going to Niagara Falls for a holiday, and they had on the cutest hats.”
    “Did she know how to do that work before she got there?”
    “Oh that,” Vera said. “No. They trained her.”
    The potatoes were finished, but Vera and Grace sat at the table, the silence between them lengthening until Vera said, “If you wanted to do something like that, Grace, I’d be behind it.”
    Grace didn’t look up, but her heart jerked and began to race. She could see them, Danny and her, in a little apartment, sitting together in the window seat, looking out onto the tops of trees. In her mind, she kissed the top of Danny’s head and drank in the smell of his hair.
    “I could talk to Mrs. May,” Vera said. “Find out where Bridget is working. Maybe Bridget could introduce you at the factory. Would you like to do something like that?”
    Grace said, “Yes.”
    “Well!” Vera looked surprised. Then she beamed. “Well, good! It might be just the thing for you.”
    “But I don’t know how … I mean, how would I …”
    “Oh, they just want decent, able-bodied people. They’ll show you how to do the work.”
    “I mean, I don’t know what I’d do with Danny while I was at work.”
    Vera blinked. “What you would do with Danny.”
    “Yes. If I found someone who could watch him—”
    Vera’s face snapped shut and she snatched the colander off the table. “And here I thought you’d finally gotten your headout of the clouds! You can’t take Danny down there! A woman with a baby and no husband—they won’t even look at you. And even if you did get a job, which you wouldn’t, you’d have to pay some stranger to look after Danny while you were at work.” She slammed the colander into the sink. “What you would do with Danny! Honest to goodness, Grace. I don’t know what goes on in your head sometimes.”
    Grace went into the living room and squeezed in beside Danny on the sofa. He was asleep, his fists tucked under his chin, surrounded by pillows so he wouldn’t fall. She studied the shadow his lashes made against his cheek, the arc of his mouth. Did Vera really think she could go live hundreds of miles away from Danny?
I don’t know what goes on in
her
head sometimes
, Grace thought.
    At supper, Vera and Frank talked about the war and which men were seeing action and whether anything good could come out of the alliance with Stalin. Grace cut her potatoes into smaller and smaller pieces. “Frank, do they hire women at the plant?”
    “Sure, there are plenty of women working in the offices,” he said.
    Vera scowled at her. “They’re educated women,” she said. “They went to secretarial school.”
    “But in the plant part?” Grace persisted.
    “There are some now,” Frank said. “Why?”
    Vera answered for her. “We were talking about Mrs. May’s daughter this morning. She’s got a job down south, and Grace said she wouldn’t mind doing something like that. If you aren’t going to eat, Grace, take your plate to the kitchen.” Grace took her plate to the kitchen and stood behind the door, listening.
    Frank said he didn’t like the idea of Grace going away. He didn’t see why she shouldn’t try to find work here in Sault Ste. Marie. Not at the plant—that probably wasn’t the place for her—but ifshe wanted to work, she could probably find something, and Vera could look after the baby in the day.
    In the kitchen, Grace shook her head. Vera was already looking after Danny in the day; that was not the solution.
    Vera said, “But she can’t get a fresh start here, Frank. You know how people talk. If she goes down there, she can build a new life for herself. Look at Bridget May. She has her whole life ahead of her now.”
    Frank sighed and said he didn’t know. He just didn’t know what to think anymore.
    Later, washing the dishes, Vera said, “Grace, you need to go away where nobody knows you. And you can’t take the baby because you have to work.”
    “I could