Beatrice's mother used to have a saying: that strings of bad luck always occurred in threes. So far, Beatrice herself hadn't seen any reason to doubt Elena. Her prediction was turning out to be eerily correct, from Ivan and Henry's abrupt departure to Pryce's gruesome death. Both events had happened within quick succession of each other; Beatrice feared that the third incident would be the worst of all.
True to George's word, a bored-looking policeman showed up at the Barnes's house not long after Beatrice had woken up. She'd answered his questions about what she had witnessed the previous night truthfully, and he'd seemed to believe her. The next day a short article was written up in the newspaper about a "likely mafia-related shooting in Bushwick" and no more had been said about the matter. Like Beatrice, George and Winifred hadn't wished for Pryce to die in such a horrible way, but while Bucky and his parents were content to write it off as one of Pryce's enemies exacting revenge, Beatrice wasn't so sure. If that was the case, wouldn't his killer want to stay around to make sure he was really dead? But Beatrice could think of no other possible motive for Pryce's death, and so accepted the official explanation.
After the policeman left and Winifred insisted on making sure she had a good breakfast and wasn't too shaken, Beatrice headed out to Queens and the address Erskine had given her. The scientist had eventually answered the door, looking disheveled and as if he had been in the middle of some sort of experiment, and Beatrice told him about missing her chance to say goodbye to Henry. Erskine had invited her inside for coffee, and explained that there was no way he could contact Ivan until their ship reached Europe, but that he would send her uncle a message with Beatrice's explanation as soon as he received word of their safe arrival.
She had left Erskine's house feeling slightly better than before, though regret for not waking earlier still ate at her. She had gone to the harbor and stared glumly out at sea for a very long time, watching the ships come in and out of port until her heart hurt too much to continue. It wouldn't be any less painful if she had gotten to say goodbye to them, she knew, but at least she would have had a chance to see Henry one last time.
The week dragged on at its usual sluggish pace, and Beatrice couldn't find it in her to tell Angie about what she'd seen and why she hadn't gone to work on Monday. For one thing, she wasn't sure if she wanted to relive the memory. She also didn't want to make the other girl feel uncomfortable, since Angie was so optimistic and light-hearted, and Beatrice didn't want to risk having another fit where Mrs. Ramsay could see. Bucky and Steve, she noticed, were being more cautious around her; both of them careful not to mention Pryce when she was in earshot, but she knew they were having long discussions when she wasn't present. Steve, especially, couldn't hide his guilty expression when she asked him about it, although he had half-heartedly tried to lie.
But Beatrice couldn't be upset that the boys were talking behind her back. She tried to keep Pryce out of her conscious mind, as whenever she recalled her last sight of him her hands began to tremble and she had to take a moment to compose herself. The smallest things would trigger the memory, like a dark stain upon the sidewalk or even walking past a park, and she wouldn't be able to get the stark images out of her head for the rest of the day. She dreamed, too, of blood and lifeless eyes—not just of Pryce but of her father sprawled upon the couch, a bottle lying on its side inches from his limp hands and liquor spilling out onto the floor; of her mother as she had presumably looked lying on a narrow hospital bed in a pool of blood. Something about seeing death again had triggered the nightmares she hadn't experienced for months, not since shortly after she'd moved into Steve's apartment, and she felt as if she was on a boat that had been cast adrift in stormy waters. And now that Henry was gone…well, Beatrice had no idea where she would be if she didn't have Steve and Bucky. Steve was an indescribable comfort even when he didn't intend to be. When she woke up gasping after a nightmare, drenched in sweat, the realization that she wasn't alone calmed her down. Sometimes he would even still be awake, hunched over his sketchbook in the parlor with a candle still flickering. Beatrice would gently settle a blanket around his shoulders and curl up into the chair opposite him, listening to his deep, if rattling, breaths and allowing herself to fall asleep again. Neither of them would ever mention it in the morning.
He had tried to awkwardly broach the topic with her a few times—asking her how she was feeling or if she was all right—and always seemed relieved when she told him she was fine, as if he himself wasn't equipped to offer any sort of helpful advice. And she was fine, mostly. She felt better when she was talking about anything other than what had happened on the weekend.
During the times she'd encountered him briefly throughout the week, Bucky had thankfully never mentioned her climbing through his bedroom window, her nervous breakdown, or carrying her up to his room. Beatrice had burst out, once, unable to contain herself, "I just feel so guilty! If I'd gotten there sooner—"
He hadn't needed any clarification as to what she was talking about. He had glanced up from where he was setting up a chess game (Steve was in the kitchen) and looked her squarely in the eyes, his own expression as serious as Beatrice had ever seen it. "There was nothing you could have done, Rosie."
She'd opened her mouth and closed it uselessly several times like a fish, floundering for a response, but she knew that protesting the opposite would get her nowhere. Surely there had to have been something she could have done. She'd gone through nursing school, for heaven's sake. Even without proper equipment, she could have at least kept Pryce alive. If she had gone straight back to Mrs. Banner when she'd first seen him instead of staring uselessly at the body, help could have arrived sooner. But instead she'd gone to Bucky.
Beatrice often found herself thinking about his reaction when she had dropped in on him—literally—in the middle of the night. He hadn't seemed angry or upset in the least, aside from being startled when he'd woken up. He hadn't complained about being dragged all the way to Bushwick, and he had obviously cared enough to carry her when she was uncertain that she would be able to walk. Beatrice wanted to cringe at her behavior that night—he must think of her as a child, unable to deal with problems on her own. He hadn't asked her why she had gone to him, of all people, and Beatrice hoped he never would: she didn't think she would ever be able to tell him the truth. And the truth was that she thought she was falling in love with him—if she hadn't done so already—and it terrified her more than anything else ever had.
She couldn't even daydream about him reciprocating her feelings. Boys like Bucky Barnes—intelligent, attractive, popular boys who had the world at their feet—didn't fall in love with poor, mousy, uninteresting girls like her. No, he would in all likelihood end up with Connie, if not someone like her. Beatrice didn't begrudge Bucky his happiness, but the intensity of the feelings overwhelmed her. She wasn't prepared to deal with them at all, so she pushed them aside—or at least tried to. For her own sanity, she forced herself to believe that it had actually been Bucky's knee she'd accidentally brushed up against in his bed. Or perhaps in the haze that existed between dreaming and awakening, he had thought that she was Connie and his body had reacted accordingly. The notion always gave Beatrice a nauseous tightening in the pit of her stomach, but she lacked the courage to confront it head-on. Still, whenever her control slipped—usually when she was falling asleep and her defenses were weakened—she replayed the moment over and over in her head.
On the dark, foggy Sunday one week after Pryce's death, Beatrice woke with a shudder, unable for a moment to recognize where she was: in the dream, she had been in her old flat, in her old bedroom, where her mother had been scolding her for not taking care of Henry, for giving him right into the hands of her estranged brother. For how did Beatrice know that Ivan was telling the truth about his relationship with Elena? Could everything he told her have been a lie?
She sat up, the blankets sliding down her legs, and wiped away the sweat from her forehead. She swore she could still see a phantom image of Elena standing at the foot of the bed, covered from head to toe in blood. Where her eyes should have been there were only two empty, black sockets. Not only could Beatrice have saved Pryce's life, she could have saved her mother's. She should have saved her.
Still trembling, Beatrice shied away from the gruesome vision and reached for the glass of water on the bedside table, draining it in one gulp. There had to be something she could do about the nightmares. She could guard her mind well enough when she was awake, but sleep was a different story.
There would be no more of it for her that day, Beatrice knew. It was just after six o'clock and the sky outside was still dark. Her ears perked up when she heard Steve's footsteps outside; he was an early riser too, but some days he was more talkative than others.
Trying to shove the dream out of her head, Beatrice climbed out of bed and changed into a white button-down blouse and pleated skirt, her usual outfit on her days off. She had never been embarrassed about only owning two or three sets of good clothing until she saw how well-dressed Bucky always was. Steve had told her that she could wear Sarah's clothes if she wanted, but not only did Beatrice not want to wear the outfits of a dead woman, she felt as if she was intruding even more on his already unrepayable hospitality toward her.
To her surprise, Steve was already pulling on his jacket when she emerged from her room. He turned around almost sheepishly at her approach. "Beatrice," he said by way of greeting. "I didn't mean to wake you up."
"No, I was already awake," Beatrice replied shortly. "Nightmare."
Steve paused in the act of rolling up his sleeves, his blue eyes suddenly uncertain. "I'm sorry," he said after a moment.
"Don't be," Beatrice said with a lopsided grin. "It's not your fault." She eyed his guilty form. "Where are you going?"
"To the place I always go on Sunday mornings," he admitted.
Beatrice blinked. "I…I didn't know you went anywhere," she said, hoping she didn't sound accusing. She didn't know why she felt so betrayed. It wasn't any of her business where Steve went, anyway.
She saw the ghost of a smile on his face. It was rare that Steve truly smiled, but her heart swelled at even the promise of it. "You've always been asleep," he told her. "I like to go early. You can come along if you want—it's not far."
"Are you sure?" Beatrice asked. "I—I mean, I would love to, but if you're not comfortable…"
"I don't mind," Steve reassured her. He paused. "Actually, I think you'd understand."
That sparked her curiosity more than anything he'd said yet, and Steve must have seen the eagerness in his eyes, for he nodded his head toward the door. "Come on," he said, and slipped outside.
Beatrice barely had time to slip her feet into black Oxfords as she went out the door. Usually she would curl her hair and apply lipstick before leaving the flat, but she didn't want to hold Steve up. Somehow, though, she found that she didn't really care what she looked like.
Steve was waiting for her on the balcony; Beatrice followed him down the steps and onto the street below. The fog was so thick that she couldn't see cars or pedestrians until they loomed up in front of them before being just as quickly swallowed up again. Beatrice tilted her head up and tried to see past the gray cloud that enveloped the entire neighborhood; likely the entire borough and maybe even the entire city as well. She wondered what New York looked like from above.
"If it helps, I get those too," Steve said abruptly. Beatrice slowly lowered her head and looked questioningly over at him. Unlike her, he was staring fixedly down at the ground. "Nightmares."
"About what?" she asked before she fully considered the implications of the question.
Steve shrugged, the movement barely discernible in his oversized jacket. "A lot of things. My mom. Being kicked out because I can't pay the rent. Bucky going off to fight when I can't go with him. My health." He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "They—the doctors—say it'll be a miracle if I live past thirty." He spoke evenly, but now his entire head was turned away from her.
All the breath felt like it had been knocked out of Beatrice. It was clear that Steve was not at all in optimal health, but thirty? "That can't be true," she said, stupidly, as if her opinion was worth more than that of multiple doctors. "I mean, there are medications you can take..."
Steve let out a short bark of laughter. His voice was more self-deprecating than she had ever heard it. "Can't afford any of it. Besides, I have so many problems they're taking bets on what'll kill me first."
Beatrice was unable to speak. Luckily, she didn't need to, as Steve, who was usually wound up tighter than a clock, continued talking as if he had needed to say the words for a while. "When I was born, they said I wasn't gonna live more than a week. But my ma said that I was as stubborn as a mule."
"She wasn't wrong," Beatrice said, finally finding her voice again.
Steve glanced over at her, some layer of amusement in his eyes before it flickered away. "You sound like Bucky," he muttered. "Listen, I want to marry a nice gal someday. I want a couple of kids, a nice house, the whole bit. Prove them wrong. But that's not gonna happen. So I figured I could enlist and at least then I'd be able to fight. But I can't even do that."
"But you're still young—what are you, twenty-four? I mean…you still have time…doctors aren't infallible, believe me." Beatrice finally began to understand why he was so keen to fight, to make his life count for something even if it ended earlier, because it was going to end early anyway.
"Yeah, I guess. Well, my luck's gotta run out sometime, right?" he said darkly, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. The gesture was as obvious as if he had closed a door: he had said all he wanted to say. He didn't want pity—hers or anyone's. And really, what could Beatrice say? That the doctors were wrong? That he would miraculously be cured of all his ailments in the blink of an eye? She swallowed and looked away, hating his matter-of-fact manner. It was only then that she took proper notice of their surroundings: they were crossing Church Avenue; Beatrice could see the orphanage and the boarding-house on the opposite side of the street. Further up ahead, she could see the alleyway where he had found her on that snowy morning. Some nasty part of her wondered if he wouldn't have been better off just leaving her there.
"Is this…wherever you're taking me, is it where you were going when you found me?" she asked to keep her mind off the suddenly vicious thoughts.
Steve nodded, turning back to her again: there was nothing in his posture or his voice to indicate that he was in any way bothered by their previous conversation. "Yes," he replied. "Actually, it's farther away than I made it sound. I just wanted you to come with me." The tips of his ears turned pink; Beatrice wanted to tell him just how endearing he was.
They walked in companionable silence for another ten minutes, by Beatrice's estimation, before she noticed Steve's steps begin to quicken. Thankfully he wasn't that much taller than her, so she was able to match him stride for stride. Her curiosity only grew as he beckoned her down a side street and through a small but pleasant park where several children were happily running about—Beatrice couldn't help but remember being five years old again and the wide, earnest look on Steve's face as he shyly offered her his candy, two of his front teeth missing; little did they know their paths would cross again for good decades later—and up a grassy hill. "Here it is," Steve said, and Beatrice was admittedly not as shocked as she should have been when she realized they were standing at the magnificent arched entrance gate to Green-Wood Cemetery. Stone angels carved from ancient brownstone stared blindly down at them, frozen in time for eternity. Beatrice felt her heart constrict painfully; the last time she had been here, she was burying her father. She had used her savings from working at Lloyd's Dental to pay for Elena and John's gravestones, but had since avoided the place like the plague. Now she suddenly felt cowardly, especially in front of Steve, who clearly visited the place as often as he could.
Shifting from side to side nervously, hoping that Steve couldn't read her guilt, she quickly changed the subject. "Does Bucky know about this?" she ventured.
Steve nodded. "Yeah. He…he comes along with me sometimes. I don't think he enjoys it, but he still does." He gave a tiny shrug, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a small smile. "I don't know what I'd do without Bucky."
For her part, Beatrice didn't know, either.
The twisting, labyrinthine roads that crossed the cemetery were completely deserted, and the fog shrouded the gravestones in an eerie haze. But as they wound deeper and deeper into the heart of the cemetery, Beatrice noticed the fog begin to lift. She no longer felt as if she was completely surrounded by mist, the only inhabitant of a dark world, and when they reached the crest of another hill she could even see the Statue of Liberty, a tiny green dot in the distance. A cargo ship drifted slowly down the East River; they weren't so far from the Navy Yard now.
Walking next to Steve, her feet crunching on the gravel and the pleasant sound of church bells pealing from somewhere close by, it was difficult not to feel at peace. The war, which had been an omnipresent shadow hanging like a dark cloud over the city for the past two years, now seemed like a distant dream. In fact, Beatrice found it difficult to believe there was a war being fought at all, not when birds chirped and flew around her, not when New York felt as quiet as she would ever be.
"It's a beautiful view," Beatrice murmured, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear as a gentle breeze ruffled the grass. Her words were punctuated by the ship's horn blaring loudly as it entered the harbor.
Steve grinned dryly at her. "Too bad nobody here can enjoy it," he remarked, completely deadpan. Beatrice burst out laughing at his completely serious expression, clapping a hand over her mouth as an old couple standing in front of a nearby grave glared at them.
Looking pleased that he'd made her laugh, Steve beckoned her down a row of headstones. At first Beatrice thought that he was trying to avoid the annoyed couple, but he stopped at the end of the row, trepidation suddenly written all over his face.
Beatrice followed him more slowly, suddenly wary in case he changed his mind and wanted to be alone after all. Neither of them spoke as she stopped beside him and followed his gaze to the two gravestones in front of them. Two white crosses, both slightly tarnished from the elements—one more so than the other—bore the names of Joseph and Sarah Rogers, who had apparently been first-generation Irish Catholic immigrants coming to New York for a better life. Like her own mother's family, Beatrice thought, only the Romanovs had been Russian.
They stood in solemn silence for a long moment, and then Beatrice knelt down and brushed the worn grass away from Joseph's grave, which had clearly been there for a good two decades longer than Sarah's. She wondered if Joseph had even known his wife was pregnant before he died, and felt a heavy sadness at the probability that he hadn't. She felt Steve's curious gaze on her as she plucked a handful of wildflowers from where they grew freely between the stones and gently placed them in the space between the two graves.
Steve looked at her, surprise on his face, and there was that smile again. The full force of it temporarily stunned her. "Thank you, Beatrice," he said.
"Anytime," she said quietly, and, wanting to give him a moment of privacy, retreated back onto the main path, her heart in her throat. Her parents' graves were closer to the entrance, but she hadn't wanted to hold Steve up—although she was sure he wouldn't have begrudged her for it.
A towering oak tree spread out its branches over the two most familiar tombstones, still bare from the winter. Beatrice kept her eyes fixed on the back of Steve's blond head for a heartbeat, taking a deep inhalation, before looking down at the inscriptions:
John Hartley, 1895-1942 and beside it, Elena Hartley, 1901-1942. There were three smaller slabs of rock Beatrice had found while by the river one day, each representing one of her stillborn siblings. All younger than her; Elena had never told her what their genders would have been.
Beatrice let out a slow, shaky breath as she heard Steve come up beside her, almost grateful to turn her gaze away. She couldn't look at the tombstones for too long—they were almost physically painful to look at, as if she was staring directly into the sun.
Steve took a step forward and placed a handful of his own wildflowers on the graves, echoing Beatrice's earlier gesture. Beatrice felt hot tears prick at her eyes, and she bit her lip, scared to thank him in case everything came rushing out. He bowed his head and carefully avoided her eyes, giving her her own moment of privacy. In the muted light, his hair was the color of the sun. And Steve was like a sun in his own way—radiating out steadiness and warmth and light without asking for anything in return.
When she was reasonably sure her voice wouldn't waver, she whispered, "Thank you."
Somehow the simple visit drained Beatrice more than she'd expected, and as soon as they returned home she made herself a cup of tea and sat down heavily on the armchair, staring blankly into space. She was equal parts ashamed of herself for not visiting the cemetery sooner and relieved that she hadn't broken down in front of Steve. Not that that would be as mortifying as breaking down in front of Bucky, but she wanted to save Steve the awkwardness of trying to comfort her and her trying to assure him that there was nothing he could do. Neither of them were very good at emotions.
She saw Steve looking sideways at her as he passed through into the kitchen, and he paused, hovering awkwardly as if unsure what to say. "Hey," he said quietly. "You all right?"
Luckily, the shrill ring of the telephone sounded before Beatrice could muster up a convincing lie, and they both jumped—the party line was rarely used, and their specific apartment even less so, but Beatrice recognized the cadence of the ring. It was unmistakably for Steve.
Her mind immediately snapped to Erskine—what if something had happened to Ivan and Henry? Setting her tea down on the coaster next to the telephone's cradle, she watched Steve pick it up gingerly.
"Hello?" he asked carefully. Beatrice couldn't hear the person on the other end, but she saw Steve's posture straighten and his eyebrows drew together in a frown. "Ernest," he greeted, and Beatrice raised her own eyebrows. She couldn't think of any conceivable reason why Rebecca's sweetheart would want to call Steve; they hadn't exchanged more than ten words in the months they'd each other.
There was a long pause while Steve listened, his bewilderment only growing more pronounced with each second—and then he suddenly turned absolutely bone-white, his jaw going slack. "What?" he gasped, his voice strangled. Beatrice had never heard a sound like that come from him before, and her thoughts jumped to the worst-case scenario. Her tea forgotten, she was on her feet before Ernest had the chance to answer.
Steve glanced over at her, and she saw that he was gripping the telephone so tightly she was afraid it would shatter, even in his fragile grip. His eyes were wide with shock, and he was staring right through her. He tugged at his collar as if it was physically choking him. "When?" he asked, his voice low and urgent. "Are they sure?" He closed his eyes for a second and then opened them again, as if he thought he was dreaming. Beatrice's heart was now pounding hard with adrenaline. All she could think about was Bucky. Stupidly, she wondered if the police had somehow gotten word of his involvement with Pryce's death. But she had told them everything—
Whatever answer Ernest gave seemed to calm Steve somewhat, since he loosened his grip on the telephone and replied, "Yes, of course—we'll be there right away." A moment later he let it clatter back onto the table, his mouth parted open in disbelief.
Beatrice couldn't take it anymore. "Steve?" she asked, her voice high-pitched with worry. "What happened?"
In a hollow voice, he said, "Bucky's parents are dead."
It had happened early that morning, Steve told her, when George and Winifred were on their way home from visiting a family friend. The brakes had failed during a red light, and the car had gone straight into the intersection where the driver's side had been struck by another car unable to see clearly in the heavy fog—there had been no time for it to brake. The force of the collision sent both cars careening onto the sidewalk, where the Barnes's car had crashed into the side of a building, killing both George and Winifred instantly. The driver of the other car had been taken to hospital with severe injuries but was expected to live. At least that was what the eyewitnesses said. According to Ernest, the police were still clearing the scene.
Beatrice was sure that any moment she would wake up to find it had all been a horrible dream. She kept waiting for the telltale unexplainable occurrence that would suggest to her that she was actually asleep, but she and Steve caught the next streetcar without incident, and she stayed firmly in reality. "They can't be dead," she said to Steve, as if saying it would somehow make it true.
Steve, for his part, looked more shaken than she had ever seen him. "The brakes," he murmured, almost to himself. As if on cue, the trolley squealed to an abrupt halt and Beatrice stumbled sideways into Steve, who automatically caught her by the waist. It was a credit to their current situation that neither of them blushed or even found it in them to be embarrassed. "Bucky mentioned they needed to be repaired."
With a jolt, Beatrice remembered hearing a snippet of conversation between Bucky and George the previous week—Bucky had been telling his father that the brakes were failing. If she thought hard enough, she could remember Bucky swearing when the brakes had nearly jammed the night he was driving her back from Bushwick, but he'd slammed on them hard enough that the car had shuddered to a reluctant stop. She had been too busy trying to calm down after watching Pryce die to pay attention to what was happening around her. How many times had she been in that car with Bucky and Steve? It could just as easily have been her.
"Are the police certain?" she asked, aware that it was probably the stupidest question she'd ever voiced aloud. "That it's…that it's them."
"Yes," Steve said quietly, the simple word looking as if it caused him physical pain. "According to Ernest, the rest of the family is on their way from Indiana. They should be here by tomorrow morning."
"Indiana?"
"Yeah, George and Winifred are—were both from there," Steve said, looking slightly lost. "They moved to New York just before Bucky was born. He used to spend the summers there. I started going with them after Ma died."
Beatrice imagined a younger Bucky and Steve far away from the smoke and pollution of the city, spending the summer on a secluded farm with the rest of the Barneses, and found that she couldn't picture it. Both Steve and Bucky had become so entwined with the idea of the city in her mind, as if they had always been a constant presence there.
She was still struggling to process the tragedy when they got off at the Brooklyn Heights stop and walked the few blocks to Bucky's house. Several uniformed policemen were just leaving as Beatrice and Steve walked up the front path—her stomach turned over—and Ernest's car was the only one on the street. Beatrice wondered if she was just imagining the aura of grief that hung over the house—grief and shock. It had all happened so quickly. If Winifred and George had died instantly, at least they hadn't felt any pain. Somehow the notion didn't make Beatrice feel any better.
The front door was unlocked, and Steve gently pushed it open, like he was trying to draw the least amount of attention to himself. "Bucky? Rebecca?" he called, but the entryway stayed silent. Casting a worried glance back at Beatrice, who kept expecting Winifred to appear any moment with her warm smile, Steve crossed the foyer and poked his head into the drawing-room. Beatrice heard him say Rebecca's name and she hurried to his side in an instant.
The air in the parlor was heavy and still, the curtains drawn over the windows so that only a chink of light from the hallway escaped into the room. Beatrice recognized Ernest's tall, slim figure seated on the divan, his arms around a slight brunette who was shaking with muffled sobs. Rebecca slowly lifted her head to look up at them, her pretty face tearstained, and Beatrice's heart dropped like a stone. So this wasn't a dream, then.
"Steve," Rebecca said thickly. "H—have you heard?"
"I rang him, darling," Ernest whispered to her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. This seemed to please Rebecca, who managed to give him a watery smile. She held on tightly to his arm as he handed her a handkerchief.
"Good," she said, blowing her nose loudly. "Bucky'll be glad. He's being an idiot right now—I was hoping you could talk some sense into him."
"As usual," Steve said, trying to inject some levity into the situation, but Ernest was the only one who looked faintly amused. He gently untangled himself from Rebecca's grasp and walked over to Steve, his expression solemn.
"They want to have the funeral tomorrow," he said in a low voice so Rebecca couldn't hear. "There's no point dressing up the bodies, as the coroner says there can't be a viewing. The rest of the family is taking the first train here from Indianapolis."
"Good," Steve replied. "At least they have family to support them…"
Beatrice pretended she didn't hear the unhappiness in his voice as she went over to Rebecca, feeling as if she had to comfort the younger girl somehow. They had been friendly with each other, but not particularly close—Beatrice supposed it was the same way with all siblings of friends. Still, she sat down gingerly next to Rebecca and handed her another tissue, unsure what to say. When she'd been grieving for her mother, there were no words in the world that could have made it better. She felt as if she was intruding on the family's private sorrow.
Rebecca turned to look at her, blue eyes wet. They were a shade darker than Bucky's, but from this angle Beatrice felt as if she was staring at the female version of him. "B—Bucky told me that your parents are dead," she sniffled, crumpling up the tissue in her hand.
Beatrice nodded slowly. Rebecca suddenly glanced down, her hair falling over her face. "Does it—does it—" she gulped. "Does it get better?" she whispered brokenly. "I feel like—I feel like I'm going to—"
"Fall apart?" Beatrice offered quietly.
"Yes." Rebecca's breathing was coming fast and shallow again, and Beatrice guessed she was trying not to break out into fresh sobs.
She took a moment to gather her thoughts before carefully speaking. "It does," Beatrice said cautiously. "But it doesn't. The pain goes away, but not the emptiness. That stays. I'm sorry, Becca. I wish I could tell you that it did."
"No, I—I would rather know the truth," Rebecca told her. She lifted her head to give Beatrice a hesitant smile, but it turned out looking more like a grimace. "He's outside," she said thickly. "Bucky. Can you bring him in here? He won't listen to me or Ernest."
"What makes you think he'll listen to me, then?" Beatrice asked, but reluctantly stood up. She was suddenly nervous at the prospect of facing Bucky if he clearly wanted to be alone.
"He will," Rebecca said, wiping her eyes and reaching for another handkerchief. Beatrice jumped as Smokey the cat wound around her feet and leapt up onto the divan, purring softly as he went over to Rebecca. While the other girl buried her face in Smokey's fur, Beatrice slipped past Steve and Ernest, who were still discussing funeral arrangements, and through the front hallway to the kitchen. The back door was ajar, and Beatrice paused in front of it when she spotted Bucky.
Their backyard was a small rectangular patch of land that was bordered on three sides by tall hedges, most of the grass covered by a flower garden that Winifred often tended to. The steps from the house led down to an even tinier patio that held several Adirondack chairs facing the garden. Bucky was leaning against one of them, his head bowed and his back to her. Beatrice could see a curling trail of smoke rising up from between his fingers as he took a long drag from a cigarette.
She wasn't sure why she felt like she was about to face a firing squad; before she could lose her nerve, she stepped out onto the patio. She was certain he could hear the door close, but he didn't turn around.
"Bucky," she said, very quietly. She wanted to point out that he'd once said to her he'd sworn off smoking, but thought better of it.
At her voice, he moved his head to the side but still didn't make eye contact. "What are you doing here?" he asked. Unlike Rebecca, his voice didn't waver but was perfectly flat. Too flat.
Beatrice wanted to take a step closer to him but found herself rooted to the spot. "Ernest called Steve," she explained. "He…he told us what happened." She sucked in a deep breath. "And then Rebecca asked me to find you."
Bucky turned around completely now, the cigarette in his fingers still trailing smoke, and finally met her gaze. His eyes were red-rimmed but clear, and his normally neat hair was sticking out in all directions, as if he had been raking his fingers through it. Despite the lack of tears—although Beatrice was sure there had been some earlier—he didn't look any more poised than Rebecca had. "It could have been me, Rosie," he said, and now his voice held thinly disguised anger. "It should have been me. I knew the brakes needed fixing but I didn't do anything about it."
"Bucky," Beatrice said again, but this time her voice was firm. "It's not your fault. You had no way of knowing what was going to happen. It could have been months before anything happened, if it did at all." His expression showed that he didn't believe a word of what she was saying, so Beatrice walked toward him until they were inches apart and stared up at his face, trying not to inhale the smoke. "It's nobody's fault," she told him. "Least of all yours. There's no use feeling guilty about it. Believe me, I know. Besides, Becca needs you," she repeated.
At his sister's name she knew she had his full attention. Up close Beatrice could see that his eyes weren't as dry as she had thought; they were now noticeably shining and he kept blinking rapidly, as if trying to hold the tears back. His cheeks were flushed. Beatrice knew she ought to look away, but she couldn't tear her gaze from him. Instead she looked down, to the hand that was loosely holding the cigarette, and gently plucked it from his fingers.
Bucky's eyelids were heavy; he followed her gaze and his hand closed over hers to gently knock the cigarette to the ground. He dug into it with the heel of his shoe, his hand never leaving hers. Beatrice stopped breathing as he wound his fingers between her own. She could see his shoulders rising and falling as he took several shuddering gasps, and knew that he was trying to pull himself together.
"Buck?"
The moment snapped, and Beatrice let go of Bucky's hand, taking a step back from him. He straightened up, still looking slightly dazed. Steve was standing at the top of the steps, worry written all over his face.
Beatrice glanced back over at Bucky, but now his face was completely blank. "Sorry, pal," he said, his voice back to normal, and strode over to Steve, squeezing his shoulder as he passed. Beatrice wondered if that was his way of deriving some comfort from his best friend.
"Bucky, listen…" Steve began, but Bucky had already disappeared inside the house without another word to either of them. As soon as the door closed behind him, Steve turned to her helplessly.
"He blames himself," Beatrice explained.
Steve sighed heavily. "Of course he does." His eyes fell on the discarded cigarette next to Beatrice, but he didn't comment. He rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache. "He'll snap out of it. This is what I was like after my mom died."
Men, Beatrice thought with a tinge of bitterness. They were all the same. They would rather self-destruct than talk about their emotions in any way, shape or form.
"What were you saying to him?" Steve asked curiously.
Beatrice shrugged, crossing her arms. "Just that it wasn't his fault. He didn't believe me, though."
"Oh," Steve said. He sounded surprised, as if he had been expecting another answer. Beatrice tried to catch his eye, but he only looked at the ground instead and shuffled his feet awkwardly.
Neither Beatrice nor Steve got a chance to speak to Bucky again until the next day. The Buchanan and Barnes families arrived from Indiana not long afterward, and Rebecca and Bucky were constantly surrounded by a swarm of relatives. Many of them also knew Steve, and Beatrice found herself feeling left out. She hovered on the periphery, never quite knowing what to do or say. Death was by now familiar territory to her, but large families weren't: she wasn't sure she knew how to grieve if she wasn't on her own. Rebecca, at least, seemed to lap up the attention: she could never get a proper hold on Bucky. He was either stoically bearing tearful aunts and uncles fussing over him or in the kitchen with the liquor cabinet. There was always at least one other person with him, and Beatrice didn't feel comfortable talking to him with an inebriated cousin around. She and Steve didn't return home until midnight, and they both went to bed with few words to each other, emotionally exhausted from the day's events.
The funeral was hastily scheduled for the next afternoon to fit around the family's varying timetables, and so, for the second time in as many days, Beatrice found herself at Green-Wood Cemetery. She hadn't cleared her absence with Mrs. Ramsay, but she found it difficult to care if her supervisor would be angry or not. With a distinct lack of both funeral clothes and time to buy them, Beatrice had no choice but to wear another one of Sarah's old outfits, a matronly black peplum dress with an ankle-length hemline and a matching pillbox hat with a veil that looked taken straight from Victorian England. It wasn't exactly proper funeral attire, but there was little else to wear.
Ernest picked them up in his convertible shortly after noon, and while Beatrice might have been excited to ride in such an expensive car under any other circumstances, the novelty was lost on her now. Steve wore a gray tweed jacket with a striped tie, and had at least attempted to comb his hair. A tiny part of it had escaped from the rest, and somehow it made him look oddly vulnerable. Beatrice hadn't realized she was staring at him until he looked curiously over at her and she quickly glanced away, her cheeks warming for no discernible reason.
The funeral service was held in the chapel, a magnificent Gothic-style building with walls made of limestone and beautiful stained-glass windows. As Ernest had said, the bodies of George and Winifred, or what was left of them, were tightly sealed away in oak caskets that overflowed with flowers. As Beatrice and Steve climbed the steps into the chapel, she watched a gravedigger sling a shovel over his shoulder as he walked in the direction of a pile of freshly dug earth. Beatrice shuddered.
The rest of the guests slowly trickled in one by one and took their seats in the pews. Steve and Beatrice sat on either side of Bucky in a silent show of support. Somewhat to Beatrice's surprise, Rebecca sat down on her other side. The two girls exchanged small smiles—Beatrice was relieved to see that Rebecca looked much stronger than she had the day before. Perhaps that was due to Ernest putting an arm around her shoulders and every so often whispering soothing words in her ear.
Whenever she looked back on it, Beatrice found that she wasn't able to remember a single word of what the priest said during the service, beyond a vague description of how generous and thoughtful George and Winifred were, and how they were taken far too soon. She was thinking of the couple she had known; of George telling her about her own father's bravery in the trenches and his generosity in recommending her for a job. She thought of Winifred's kind smile and how she had treated Steve as another son, and her readiness to accept Beatrice into the fold.
The finality of it all hit her harder than she expected, and Beatrice had to bow her head so that nobody could see the hot tears that were building up in her eyes. Bucky's hand was clenching his knee, and she wanted so badly to put her own hand over his, but her own cowardice stopped her.
The moment the priest finished his speech, Bucky stood up and nearly bolted from the chapel hall, slipping out through one of the side doors. Beatrice heard concerned murmurs coming from the other guests at his sudden disappearance, and she was standing up before she knew it, inching her way through the pew to follow him.
When she emerged out into the corridor she glanced from left to right hopelessly, looking for any signs that would point to where he had gone, before she heard footsteps in the reception room where the family had gathered before the funeral. She crossed the hall and found herself in a small but well-furnished room with overstuffed chairs, wide windows, and even a piano in the corner. It was clearly meant to offer grieving families comfort, but somehow the entire atmosphere felt stiflingly artificial.
Bucky was standing at the drinks table, pouring himself a glass of scotch. His hand shook as he raised it to his lips.
Beatrice hurried over to him. "Bucky, don't," she said. "Please."
He allowed her to take the glass away from him, but his eyes were curiously dead. Beatrice felt as if they were in the exact same position they had been in the day before—their surroundings were the only thing that had changed.
"You understand, Rosie," he said. The desperation in his voice terrified her. "What this is like."
Beatrice finally gave into the impulse to lightly reach down and squeeze his wrist. She felt him shaking under her fingers. "I do," she said softly. "But you don't have to be alone, Bucky. Just because Steve refused your help when—when things got tough for him doesn't mean you also have to refuse his." She shook her head, a wry grin crossing her face. "Both of you are too stubborn for your own good."
Bucky's answering grin was completely humorless. Beatrice had never seen him like this before—so self-destructive and void of all reason—and she found herself wishing this time for Steve to interrupt them. But the doorway stayed frustratingly empty. When she next dared to look at his face, she saw that his eyes were very bright, and he reached up with his other arm to wipe his face with his sleeve. She watched his blank expression morph into something entirely raw and vulnerable. "Rosie, I—" he began to say, but his voice cracked, and he turned away from her.
In the only other comfort she could give, Beatrice leaned forward and rested her head against his shoulder, hoping to silently convey to him all of the things she couldn't put into words. Bucky's arm slowly wrapped around her waist until he was pulling her into his side as he had done in the car after they had found Pryce, only now the roles were reversed. She fit perfectly in his arms, as if she had been created just for him, but she couldn't take any pleasure in their achingly close proximity. Bucky's breathing was ragged, his hands still shaking slightly, but his grip was tight on her as if he was holding onto her for support.
They stayed like that until Steve found them again.
