clerk eyed me over the lenses that sat on the end of his nose. “What’s the name?”
Ever since running from Lincoln School, I’d been careful not to give my real name, in case word of my infamous deeds spread.
“Well, son?”
But this was for Maybeth, so I said, “O’Banion. Odysseus O’Banion.”
“Odysseus? Let me check.”
He was gone for a bit, came back, and shook his head. “Nothing, son.”
“How about Buck Jones?”
“Like the cowboy star?” He smiled. “You go by a couple of pretty famous monikers. Let me see.”
I had no better luck with that name. I was just about to leave when another thought occurred to me. “I’m trying to find my aunt. She lives on a street with a Greek name and there’s a fudge store on the corner.”
The clerk looked up at the ceiling and thought, but I could tell I was ringing no bells. The man behind me in line, however, a fellow who, judging from his girth, hadn’t been hit too hard by the Depression, spoke up, saying, “I know that one. Candy store, corner of Ithaca and Broadway, in Dutchtown, but it closed last year. Another victim of these hard times.”
The clerk wrote directions on a slip of paper, and when I left the post office, I walked with renewed energy in my step. I had a destination again. I was almost home.
* * *
THE WHITE LETTERING on the glass read EMERSON’S FUDGE HOUSE. There was nothing behind the big window but empty shelves and an empty counter. I walked up Ithaca half a block, and there it was. Straight out of my memory. A three-story brick home set behind a tall, wrought-iron fence, and painted pink, just as I remembered. But it was much smaller than I recalled, and long overdue for a fresh coat of paint. The lot next to the house was vacant, a sea of weeds, and the weeds had begun to creep through the fence and infest the grass of the lawn, which needed cutting. The shades on all the windows were drawn, and the feeling the whole picture gave me was not welcoming. I opened the gate, and the hinges cried out for oil. I went slowly up the walk and mounted the stairs and knocked at the front door. It was eventually opened by a slender Negro woman in a silky red dressing gown. She was pretty but looked desperately in need of sleep and more than a little unhappy to see a kid standing on her doorstep.
“What?” she said even before I could speak.
“I’m looking for someone,” I said.
She put a fist on her hip in a challenging way. “Yeah? Who?”
“My aunt Julia.”
Her eyebrows, which were penciled on, rose and the tired look vanished. “Julia?”
“Yes, ma’am. My aunt. She used to live here.”
She eyed me up and down and gave her head the faintest of shakes, as if having trouble believing I was real. “You wait right here, sweetheart.”
I couldn’t tell if her sudden sugary tone was sincere or if she was mocking me. She closed the door, and I stood on the small stoop and studied the sky, which was no longer gray, but had taken on a sickly green cast, the kind I recalled only too well from the day the Tornado God had torn through Fremont County and killed Emmy’s mother. Around every corner of my journey, the Tornado God had seemed to be waiting, and I was afraid that its ultimate purpose all along had been to deny me a happy ending.
The door opened again, and I didn’t recognize the woman who stood there. But her eyes were blooms of wonder and her words were a hush as they escaped her rubied lips: “Oh, my God. It is you.” She reached out, touched my cheek with her hand, and whispered in amazement, “Odysseus.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
WE SAT IN a room at the back of the house that reminded me of the cozy parlor in Cora Frost’s farmhouse. There was a little fireplace with a mantel above it, on which stood an antique-looking clock. A filled bookshelf ran along one wall. Vases with colorful flowers were set about the room to brighten it. Aunt Julia had asked the woman in the silky red dressing gown to bring us sandwiches and lemonade. The sandwiches were ham and cheese and the lemonade had ice chips in it. I hadn’t eaten at all that day and was tempted to gulp my food. But Aunt Julia was refined in her manners, and