I could barely concentrate on my work the next morning at the hospital. It was my first day back since the fire, and I’m sure my coworkers thought my distraction had to do with grief. They had no idea what was really going through my mind: where was my husband and what did he have up his sleeve?
I was also exhausted. I’d called Grace Wilding when I got home from Ridgeview the night before to ask if I could stay with her for a while.
“Of course,” she’d said. She’d asked no prying questions and I was grateful, both for a place to stay and for her kindness. I moved my things to her apartment in the middle of the night, leaving a curt note for Ruth about where I’d gone. It was a relief to be out of that house.
People were so kind to me at the hospital that morning. “You should have taken more time off,” they all said. “It’s so soon, and you must still be so upset about Mr. Kraft.”
I gave each of them my stock answer. “Thank you, but it’s best for me to keep busy.”
Grace had taken over most of Amy Pryor’s care in my absence, but we had many new patients and they kept me occupied. While I bathed them and fed them and wrapped their limbs in hot wool, I was constantly looking through the screened windows for Zeke. I needed to talk to him. I was sure he knew the truth, in spite of his bravura performance at the house the other night when we were anxiously waiting for news about Henry’s fate. They were as close as brothers, those two.
Late that morning, I finally spotted Zeke walking from the stone building toward his truck, and I knew I needed to catch up with him quickly before he drove off. I was in the middle of feeding a two-year-old girl, but I called to one of the volunteers and asked if she could take over for me.
“Of course, Mrs. Kraft,” she said, and she took the spoon from my hand and gave me a little push toward the door. She probably thought my grief had suddenly gotten the better of me and I needed a break. I thanked her and nearly flew out of the building. I caught up with Zeke as he was opening the door to his truck.
“I need to talk to you,” I said as I neared him.
“What about?” he asked, his hand on the door handle.
“Where is he?” I asked quietly. “Where’s Henry?”
“I reckon he’s with his maker,” he said, and for a fleeting moment, I was afraid I’d guessed wrong and Henry really hadn’t told him his plan. But then I saw a flicker of light in his long-lashed eyes. “Why would you think anything else?” he asked.
“I know he’s alive,” I said. “And I know he wanted me to figure it out.”
He looked away from me and I saw his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. He wasn’t sure he could trust me.
“You don’t need to worry,” I added. “I understand this was his way of setting me free.”
He nodded then, and I saw relief in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly right.”
“What I don’t understand,” I said, “is how this sets him free.”
He glanced behind me as though trying to see if anyone was around to overhear us. “Get in the truck,” he said.
I walked around to the other side of the truck and climbed in. He started the truck and we drove along the dirt road until we came to the clearing where the National Guard had cut down trees to use in building one of the wards. The expanse of stumps had an eerie feel to it, a sea of light and shadow, and I shivered. Zeke turned off the engine.
“He’s goin’ out west,” he said, facing me. “Right now he’s on a bus somewhere in the middle of the country on his way to Washington State.”
“Oh my God,” I said. “Washington? Where his friend Gaston is?”
He nodded. “He’ll stay with Gaston and Loretta.”
“But what about Honor?” I asked. “What about Jilly? Does Honor think he’s … does she know he’s alive?”
“Yes, she knows,” he said. “The plan is for her and Jilly to follow him, soon as I can figure a safe way to get them there.”
“Could she take the train?” I asked. “Or a bus?
He smirked at my ignorance. “Those trains are full to the gills and there ain’t no room for a colored gal and her child,” he said. “Even if there was, she’d be in the Negro car with the colored soldiers drinkin’ it up and talkin’ about how they got lucky on leave.” He shook his head. “I know all about that ’cause I used to be one of them. I wouldn’t let her do it. And the bus? That’d be worse.” He looked at me, raising his eyebrows. “You have any idea what that’s like?” he asked. “Sitting in the back, if there’s any seats at all. Having to get out every time you come to a new state line ’cause you’re colored. Fight for a seat on the next bus if you can get on at all, because all the seats are already filled with white folks. No place willing to feed you when you stop in a town. They can’t make that trip out there alone.”
“Could you possibly drive them?” I asked, although I knew it would take forever with gasoline rationed.
He shook his head. “Negro man driving ’cross the country?” he asked. “It wouldn’t be safe for me to try.” He looked past me, scratching his cheek, and I thought he was imagining something I couldn’t possibly comprehend. “Colored folk have a way of disappearing on the road,” he said. Then he looked squarely at me, the slightest smile on his face. “He left you that C gas sticker for a reason,” he said.
“Me?” I was shocked. “I can’t possibly!”
“Can’t you?” he asked. “He left you his car too.”
“What if we had a flat or…”
“I’ll get you another spare,” he said. “And a copy of the Green Book.”
“The green book?”
“It tells you safe places you … Honor and Jilly … can get food and a room for the night. The sundown towns to steer clear of.”
“What’s a ‘sundown town’?”
“Places where she and Jilly wouldn’t be safe after sundown.”
“Oh,” I said. “Once we were out of the South, though, they’d be okay, right?” I couldn’t believe I was actually considering this.
He shook his head. “You read the Green Book, you’ll see. You’ll do it?”
“I’m needed here right now, Zeke,” I said. The trip would take weeks. I thought of Vincent. He was here and I was now free. I didn’t want to leave.
“Hank had faith in you,” he said.
“What about Adora? How can Honor leave her?”
“I’ll take care of Mama,” he said. “Right now she thinks Hank is dead, but she’s good at keeping secrets. She’d like knowing Honor and Jilly are safe with him, wherever they are.” He looked toward the tree stumps, rubbing his jaw with his hand, thoughtful. “Maybe in time me and Mama can go out there too,” he said. Then he shook his head, letting out his breath as though he knew he was getting ahead of himself. “We got to just take things one step at a time,” he said.
I thought of the money Hank had been socking away in the armoire. Had he been saving for his escape long before I came on the scene? “He hid money in our room,” I said. “Was this his plan all along?”
“He was savin’ up, but he didn’t rightly know what he was savin’ for except to have money for Butchie and Jilly. He couldn’t use factory money. Miss Ruth kept a tight grip on that, goin’ over the books with a fine-tooth comb. He had to find another way to get money.” He clamped his mouth shut, and I knew he thought he’d said too much.
“The money has something to do with the gasoline rationing coupons, doesn’t it.”
He hesitated. “Everything to do with it,” he said finally. “But you don’t need to know. It’s better you don’t.”
“Yes, I do need to know,” I said. “He owes me that. He owes me the truth.”
He ran his hands over the steering wheel and a few seconds passed before he spoke again. “They were counterfeit, those coupons and stickers,” he said finally. “He printed them at the factory, then he’d sell them to some local people, and Lucy would take them to … I guess you’d call them middlemen. The middlemen would buy a slew of ’em, raise the price and resell them.”
“Lucy!” I thought of the manila envelope she’d wanted to deliver to someone across the river the day of the accident. Then there was that cryptic note Teddy Wright had left for Henry. “Was Teddy Wright involved?” I asked.
Zeke gnawed his lower lip as he decided how much to tell me. “Teddy was the eyes and ears in the police department,” he said finally. “He let Hank know if the police were gettin’ suspicious, which didn’t happen for a long time. Lately, with those agents comin’ ’round, Hank knew it was time to get out.”
“What about you, Zeke?” I asked. “How did you fit in?”
“I had nothin’ to do with it,” he said sharply. “Nothin’, ’cept that I knew too much. But he was making the money for Honor and the kids. I kept that in mind.”
I stared at the field of tree stumps in front of us. I thought of the many thousands of dollars I would have to live on for the rest of my life. I thought of how much Henry loved Honor. How he’d spent most of his life having to love her in secret. I thought of how he had freed us both.
I looked at Zeke. “All right,” I said, a shiver of both excitement and fear running up my spine. “I’ll do it.”