Herb and all his old neighbors had gone elsewhere.
Herb had conducted a love affair with useless paper, but apparently not with anything important. By the time she reached the bottom of the box, she didn’t know one more thing that could help.
“He ate a lot of tuna fish,” she said, kicking that box to the side. “Maybe he held stock. Maybe he’s related to the Starkists.”
“He kept a record of every chess game he played over at Grambling or the rec center,” Wanda said. “Every single move he could remember. And he must have gone to a lot of movies when he lived in town, because he kept notes on those, too. What he liked and what he didn’t. Maybe he was afraid he’d forget and pay for a movie he’d already seen.”
“If he was anything…like me, it wouldn’t matter.” Alice looked up and smiled a little. “I always forget….”
“She forgets how they end,” Olivia said, when Alice didn’t continue. “She says it doesn’t matter if she’s seen them, because the end is always a surprise.”
Everybody laughed. “Don’t worry, Alice,” Wanda said. “That happens to me, too. Ever since the change.”
“What did you change into?” Olivia asked.
“A badass, mean-spirited, middle-aged woman.”
“Like a witch?”
“You got it.”
Olivia giggled.
They worked in silence for a little longer, until Janya held up a small box. “This was at the very bottom. Look inside.” She displayed it on her lap. Tracy couldn’t see well enough to be sure what was there, so she moved closer.
“Medals? War medals?”
“It seems so, yes.”
Tracy took them and held the medals up to the light. The first was heart-shaped, with what looked like the profile of George Washington on it. She flipped it over and read out loud, “For military merit.”
Wanda joined her and took the medal from her hands. “I know what this is. This is a Purple Heart. See the purple stripe in the ribbon, even though it’s faded? My uncle had one. A soldier gets one if he’s killed or wounded.”
“Interesting. Would you know what this one is?” Tracy handed her the second, which had a figure like some kind of Greek god with a broken sword.
Wanda turned it over. “1941 through 1945. I guess it’s some kind of commemorative medal. If you served in the war, you got one. My uncle had one of these, too. He let us play with all his medals. Said that a man does what he does ’cause he has to, not for some shiny hunks of metal.”
Wanda handed them back to Tracy. “This all seems familiar, and not because of Uncle Willie. Maybe Herb told me he got these in the war, only I’m as bad as Alice and can only remember I heard about them somewhere.”
Alice smiled, not offended. “That’s not likely. He never, well, talked about…the war. Said the whole thing was not something…”
“He wanted to remember,” Wanda finished for her, after a long pause. “I can understand that. My uncle wouldn’t talk about it much, either.” She nodded as if that sealed it. “But there’s something nagging at me here.”
Medals sounded familiar to Tracy, as well. But she was tired, and her brain was refusing to make connections. She had gotten further on the floor than expected, spreading the adhesive, then combing it with the ridged side of the trowel, placing the tile exactly on the line, placing spacers so the tiles would be straight, setting them in with her new mallet. She had expected to hate the whole process. Instead, she had turned on the radio and sung along, and time had gone quickly, particularly when she began to make real progress. There was still a lot to do, and every muscle in her body ached. But seeing this through to completion might not be as bad as she’d feared.
“We need a break,” Wanda said, when no answers were forthcoming. “A pie break. I brought plastic plates and forks. Herb’s supplies are pretty lame.”
“I think there’s coffee and a coffeemaker,” Tracy said. “Herb certainly won’t mind.”
Together they got the coffee brewing, and found powdered creamer and artificial sweetener, which Wanda said was as bad as using canned apples in a homemade pie. There was one small can of ginger ale for Olivia.
“I follow a vegetarian diet,” Janya said, as Wanda was cutting the pie. “I will be fine if this is something I can’t eat.”
“Not a vegetable in sight in this pie, but not one bit of meat, either. We can leave the whipped cream off your