MAY 1944
PENNY BOARDED THE BUS for work on a beautiful spring morning and saw her friend Roy Fuller saving a seat for her. It struck her all of a sudden that he was a very nice-looking man, clean-cut and wholesome-looking. He was the kind of all-American guy that every mother wanted her daughter to marry.
“Hey, stranger,” she said as she sat down beside him. “I haven’t seen you around in more than a week. I was wondering what happened to you.”
“I know. I’ve missed talking with you. I’ve been working odd hours and longer shifts because we’re training our replacements at the Navy Yard. I’m finally being shipped out.”
“Oh, Roy. That’s what you’ve been hoping for, isn’t it?” She could see that he was thrilled, but Penny hated to think about losing her friend. “I’m sure going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too, Penny. And Sally is going to miss all the romantic things I’ve been writing to her – or that you’ve been writing to her, I should say.”
Penny laughed. She still gave Roy a sentence or two every now and then to help him express his love, and he was always grateful. “No, you don’t need me anymore, Roy. I think you’re getting the hang of it. When are you leaving Brooklyn?”
“In about ten days.”
“Ten days!” The news devastated her.
“I’ll be going home to say good-bye to Sally and my family first, then it’s off to war at last.”
“Oh, Roy.” Tears filled Penny’s eyes. “I want to be happy for you because this is what you’ve wanted for so long, but . . . but I’m going to miss you so much.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it.
“Yeah. I’ll miss you, too. You’ve been a great friend.” He cleared his throat. He might be a tough marine, but she could see him swallowing hard. She remembered the first time she ever talked to him on this very same bus, how cheerful and generous he’d been as he’d given up his seat for her. Roy had been a good friend to her all these months, encouraging her, cheering for her, giving her advice with Eddie, helping her with the children last Christmas. She hated to see him go overseas, yet she knew he had wanted this deployment ever since he’d enlisted.
“They won’t tell us exactly where we’re going,” he continued. “But they said we’ll be taking a train to San Diego, then getting shipped out from there.”
“Will you have to start fighting right away? Just like that?”
“No, not right away. First they’ll take us somewhere to train for amphibious landings. We have to finish winning back all those little Pacific islands from the Japanese. We’re working our way closer and closer to Japan every day.”
“But the Japs aren’t giving up without a fight. It says in the news that most Japanese soldiers would rather die fighting than surrender alive.”
“That’s true. They’re putting up a terrible fight. But once we land on the island of Okinawa, we’ll have a foothold on real Japanese territory for the first time. From there, we can establish an air base for bombing runs on Tokyo.”
He talked bravely, but Penny felt afraid for him. His job would be much more dangerous than Eddie’s was, and she worried about Eddie constantly. “The Marines always do the hardest fighting,” she said.
“Seems that way. But we get a lot of help. First come the air strikes from carrier-based planes. Then the navy bombards the enemy with all they’ve got. Once they’ve softened up the place, the Marines can go ashore and do the land-based fighting. That’s how we’re taking back the Solomon Islands and Tarawa and all those other places.”
Penny shuddered, remembering the fearsome casualties from all those battles. “I would be so worried about you if I were Sally. You’re her fiancé!”
“She doesn’t know yet that I’m being deployed. I want to tell her in person. Maybe she’ll finally be proud of me for what I’m doing.”
“It’s not fair to talk like that, Roy. Everybody has a part to play in fighting this war, whether it’s making sure the jeeps and ambulances keep running like Eddie does, or fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, or guarding an important shipyard so the navy will have new boats to use. You should be proud of what you’ve done.”
“Thanks.” But Penny could see that he wasn’t convinced.
She said good-bye and got off at the bus station to begin her day. It had become a smooth routine – punching the time clock, climbing behind the wheel, driving her daily bus route. She could hardly remember what her life had been like before she’d started driving. Penny enjoyed her work and liked getting to know some of the regular passengers on her route. But all day long she couldn’t stop thinking about Roy and how he would head off to fight soon. He was a good man. He had become a good friend, all because she had put aside her fear and talked to a stranger. Now she wondered if she would ever see him again. This war had disrupted everyone’s life, in good ways and in sad ways. Would it ever end?
At the end of her shift, Penny steered the bus around the last corner and into the parking lot behind the bus station. “End of the line, folks,” she announced. “Have a nice evening.” Friday at last. She had the weekend off from work.
She saw Sheila inside the station and felt a little sad that her friend had acted cool ever since the night of the USO dance, not saying much more than hello and good-bye as they passed each other at the time clock. It had been nice having a girlfriend, even if they didn’t have much in common. And now her friend Roy was going away, too.
Penny had just punched the time clock and was heading toward the door when she saw her father. He sat in the hallway between the public part of the station and the employees’ back rooms, perched on a chair that wasn’t usually there. His cane lay across his lap as he stared out toward the ticket booth where she used to work. Both he and the chair looked so out of place that she had to walk a little closer to make sure it was really him. In all the years that she had worked for the bus company, he had never come to the station before. What was he doing here?
Suddenly it hit her – Eddie! Something terrible must have happened to Eddie. Her body went limp with fear.
“Dad!” she yelled. He turned and saw her for the first time. She stumbled toward him, her legs as shaky as a newborn calf’s. “Dad, what’s wrong? What are you doing here?”
“Penny?” He tried to stand and sank onto the chair again. He looked her up and down, and she saw his shock as he stared at her uniform pants. His mouth opened and closed but he couldn’t speak. Penny gripped his shoulders, wanting to shake him.
“Dad, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” He found his voice as anger took control. “I came to the bus station where my daughter sells tickets because I needed to talk to her – but the man tells me that she no longer works here. She hasn’t worked here since last fall, he says. She’s a bus driver, of all things. A bus driver! I argued with him. He must be thinking of a different person. My daughter doesn’t know how to drive a bus. . . . But here you are. And look at you! In men’s clothes!”
Penny’s stomach churned with dread and guilt. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner, but – ”
“How could you lie to us all this time?”
“I’m sorry but – ” She stopped. Why should she feel guilty for not mentioning her new job when her father had been lying her entire life? She wanted to accuse him in return and shout, How could you lie to me all this time? And she realized that the real reason why she hadn’t told her parents about her job was because of her outrage at learning she’d been adopted. She was furious with them for never telling her. She nearly blurted out the truth, but stopped in time.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” she said instead. “I knew you would worry.”
“I have to learn what my daughter does for a living from a perfect stranger?”
Penny listened to him rant on and on as he aired his grievances for everyone in the bus station to hear, and again she felt the urge to shake him. She needed to know why he was here.
“Did something happen, Dad? Tell me why you came here.”
“Mrs. Shaffer from next door needs you.”
Penny pressed her fist to her mouth to keep from crying out. For a moment she thought she might be sick. Eddie had told her that if anything happened to him, the army would contact his mother. And Mrs. Shaffer would go next door to tell Penny’s parents.
“Why does she need me?”
Her father didn’t offer any more information, probably to punish her. He was furious with her. She took his arm and pulled him to his feet. They needed to go home right now. She was desperate to start walking. Her father hobbled so slowly with his cane that Penny longed to leave him behind and run all the way home. She gripped his arm to steady him, wishing she could carry him piggyback the way Roy had carried Peter.
She needed to know what had happened, but she feared finding out. Eddie would remain alive in her mind until the moment someone spoke the terrible words aloud. With every slow, agonizing step Penny prayed, Oh, God, no. Please, no. Not Eddie, until she couldn’t stand waiting any longer.
“Why does Mrs. Shaffer need me?” she asked again, trying to keep her voice steady. “Tell me what happened, Dad.”
“I looked out the front window for the mailman, and I saw the boy coming with a telegram. I know what that means. Everybody knows what it means. So I went to the kitchen and got your mother, and we both went next door.”
Penny couldn’t breathe. “Who was it, Dad? Who got killed?”
“The youngest son, Joe.”
Penny nearly sank to the sidewalk with relief. She knew she shouldn’t feel relieved when Joey Shaffer lay dead on a battlefield somewhere, but she couldn’t help it. God forgive her, but Eddie was still alive.
Joe, the youngest of the three Shaffer boys, was dead. He had always been so lively, tearing up and down the street on his bicycle, hitting a baseball through the Pattersons’ front window, shooting pebbles at stop signs with his slingshot.
“That poor woman,” Penny finally managed to say. “Mrs. Shaffer has been so worried about all three of her sons, and now this.”
“Your mother stayed with her for a while. She helped her call everyone and tell them the news. There is a sister in Queens who is coming to stay with her. . . . But she wants you to tell the children the news.”
“Me?”
He nodded, too winded to speak. He had to stop every few yards and catch his breath. It seemed as though they waited forever for the traffic light to change, then it took another eternity to limp across the street.
How could she tell the children? They worried constantly about their father. To learn that their uncle had been killed would only deepen their fear.
When Penny and her father finally reached the duplex, she went inside Mrs. Shaffer’s house alone. Penny’s mother had gone home to start supper, leaving Penny to talk to Mrs. Shaffer. The poor woman looked devastated, sitting in her cramped living room in a daze. She was no longer crying, but she looked as though she had been. Penny knelt down in front of her and took her hands.
“I’m so, so sorry, Mrs. Shaffer . . . so sorry.”
“I keep thinking that it must be a mistake,” she said. “Maybe they’ll come back with another telegram and say that it was somebody else’s son who died, not mine.”
“I can’t imagine how you must feel.” Penny felt at a loss. She had never been through anything like this before. “What can I do? How can I help?”
“I’ll have to get another banner for the window. I’ll have to hang a gold star . . .” She covered her face with her hands and started weeping. Did she really want Penny to go out and purchase a gold star? Grief caused the mind to think of the strangest things.
“Can I call someone to stay with you until your family gets here, Mrs. Shaffer?”
“I should tell the people at my church.”
“Your church? Which one is that?” She had never known Mrs. Shaffer to go anywhere on Sunday, not even at Christmastime.
“The church where Eddie and the kids go. I used to belong before my rheumatism got so bad that I couldn’t manage it anymore. I still have friends there from years ago.”
Penny looked up the number and called the pastor. He would know what to do and what to say to comfort her. Sadly, there had been other young men from the congregation who had died before Joey Shaffer. “I’ll come right over,” he said when Penny told him the news.
“He’s on his way, Mrs. Shaffer.”
She stared vacantly into space, gripping the arms of her chair as if the room spun like a carnival ride. “I want you to tell the children for me,” she said. “Esther and Peter need to be told.”
“Of course.” But Penny had no idea how she was going to do it.
After the pastor and one of the church deacons arrived, Penny said good-bye and walked to the bus stop, worrying all the way about how the children would react. When the bus she was waiting for pulled up, she was relieved to see Roy on board. Running into him twice in one day seemed like a miracle.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as she sank down beside him. “Have you been crying?”
“Something awful has happened. We just found out that Eddie’s youngest brother, Joe, has been killed in action over in Italy.”
“That’s terrible.” He put his arm around her to comfort her, gently squeezing her shoulder.
“I’m on my way home to tell the kids that their uncle died, and I have no idea what to say. They had a terrible scare two months ago when Mr. Mendel was rushed to the hospital – and now this, on top of all the other sorrows they’ve faced. Peter already shuts himself off from everybody. Esther worries all the time about her father, obsessing about every news report, and I’m afraid that this will make her worry more than ever. I don’t want to tell them, but they have to know. How do you tell children something like this?”
“There’s no easy way. It’s going to be hard on them no matter what you say.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “How did you find out that he’d been killed?”
“My parents live next door to Eddie’s mother – and to make everything worse, my father is mad at me now. I never told him that I drive a bus. He thought I still sold tickets. He found out today when he came to the station to tell me the news, and he’s furious with me. My mother will have a conniption fit when he tells her.”
“Why would they be angry? They should be proud of you.”
“You don’t know what they’re like, Roy. They’ve worried about every little thing I’ve done, all my life. They never wanted me to go out into the big bad world with so many strangers. And to make matters worse, my father saw me wearing slacks today. He’s barely speaking to me.”
“Talk about a rotten day.”
“It’s going to get worse. I still have to tell Esther and Peter about their uncle.”
“Do you want me to come with you to tell the kids?”
“I couldn’t ask that of you. You’ve worked hard all day.”
“I don’t mind. I like Esther and Peter. And you’re my friend. I’d be happy to help you out. This will be a tough job to do alone.”
“Well . . . I could really use your help . . . if you don’t mind.”
He got off the bus with Penny and they headed toward the apartment. “I’ve known Eddie’s family all of my life,” she said as they walked. “I lived next door to them, grew up with them. Joey Shaffer is only a few years older than I am. It’s such a tragedy. How do you get through something like this?”
“One day at a time. And make no mistake, it’s going to be really hard at first. Each time you celebrate a holiday or a birthday, there’s an empty place at the table. For the first year or so, you think you’ll never be happy again, that you shouldn’t be happy. But little by little, the grief starts to ease and you can remember all the good times you had together and not feel quite so sad. You have to take it day by day. That’s all you can do.”
“You sound like you know firsthand.”
“My mother died when I was fifteen.”
“Oh, Roy. No wonder you’re so good with Peter and Esther. Do they know?”
“I told Peter about my mother. I told him that I understood how he felt. And I do.”
“We’ve been friends all this time, and I’ve never asked you about your family or what you did for a living before the war. Where did you work?”
“I taught history at the high school in Moosic. Sally was a senior the first year I taught there. I could see that she had a crush on me, but I never let on that I noticed, never treated her any differently. Even after she graduated I probably never would have gotten up the nerve to ask her out if we hadn’t met at a picnic at a friend’s house and hit it off.”
“Wow. So do you think you’ll teach again after the war?”
“I would like to. I enjoyed my job. My parents were both teachers. My dad is the principal of the elementary school now.”
They reached the front porch of the apartment building. Penny took a deep breath. “You’re so good at distracting me from my fears. Thanks for doing this, Roy.”
“No problem. You know it might be best if you just tell them the news right away. Don’t drag it out. They’ll know from your expression that something is different.”
“I knew as soon as I saw my father in the bus station that something was wrong. It took him forever to tell me. I was terrified that it was Eddie who had died.” She took another breath and exhaled. “They’re probably in Mr. Mendel’s apartment.”
“Why don’t you tell them while they’re with him, so he can help out? I know they think the world of him.”
“You’re right. Maybe he can help answer their questions. He’s a very wise man.” She knocked on his door and waited for him to open it.
“Good evening, Penny.”
“Hi, Mr. Mendel. This is a friend of mine, Roy Fuller. Are the kids here?”
“Yes. They are doing homework in the kitchen. Would you like to come in?”
“Thank you.” He led the way to his kitchen, and Penny saw Esther’s surprise when she looked up and saw that Roy was with her.
“Hey, it’s Roy! What are you doing here?”
“There’s something we need to tell you,” he said, “and it isn’t about your father, so don’t worry. He’s fine.” But the look of dread in the children’s eyes nearly broke Penny’s heart.
“Your grandmother received a telegram today,” she said. “Your Uncle Joe has been killed over in Italy.”
Peter folded his arms on the table and lowered his head onto them. Roy went to his side to comfort him.
Esther sprang to her feet. “See?” she shouted. “I told you that praying didn’t do any good! I told you! We’ve prayed and prayed and asked God to keep everyone safe and He didn’t listen! He didn’t do it!” Her hands balled into fists, and she looked as if she wanted to punch someone. She pushed past Penny as she tried to run from the kitchen, but Mr. Mendel stopped her before she could get very far.
“Just a minute, Esther. Slow down and listen to me. How can Hashem answer such a prayer in the middle of a war? We are the ones who started this war, not Him. People are not puppets that Hashem controls, making us do whatever He wants. Nor can He be manipulated to do whatever we ask of Him. Human beings chose to start this war, and that means we are responsible for putting the people we love in danger, not Him. But Hashem can bring good from this, even if we cannot see it.”
“How? How can there be any good from this? Uncle Joe is dead!”
“Your uncle was in Italy, right?” Roy asked. “Think of the people in that country who had no freedom, living under the thumb of that crazy man, Mussolini. Thanks to your uncle, they’re free again.”
Penny listened to Roy and Mr. Mendel as they offered comfort and was grateful for their help. Both men had been strangers a few months ago, but now she realized how rich she was for knowing them. She thought of how much she would have missed if she had stayed sheltered in her parents’ duplex, living with the same fears and prejudices that they did. Penny knew she could no longer go back and live there with them again when the war ended.
An hour later, the conversation ended. Roy sighed. “I have to go, Penny.” She walked out to the front porch with him. “Listen, I’d hoped I would have a chance to say good-bye to Esther and Peter before I went overseas,” he said, “but under the circumstances, I don’t think it’s a good idea to tell them I’m leaving. At least not today.”
“You’re right. They would be as sad to see you go as I am.”
She gazed at the synagogue across the street, remembering how it had looked the first time she saw it the morning after the fire. Now the tan brick building was almost fully restored. She saw signs of life all around her on this balmy spring evening: emerging leaves and new green grass and dandelions the color of school buses. Yet all Penny could think about were death and change. She wondered if the police still thought Mr. Mendel had started the fire. F ive months had passed since he’d last mentioned it, and he’d been so worried at the time. What in the world would the kids do – what would she do – if they lost their friend Mr. Mendel, too?
“The trouble with getting close to people,” she told Roy, “is that it makes it so much harder when you have to say good-bye to them.”
“Can I ask you something, Penny? You can say no if you want to and I won’t feel bad – but would you mind sending me a letter every now and then when I’m overseas? I know I made a fuss when Sally told me she was writing to other soldiers, but I understand it now. So if you want to . . . and if your boyfriend doesn’t mind . . . I’d really like to hear how you and the kids are doing. I would hate to lose touch with you after all this time.”
“I would be happy to write to you. I’ll be thinking about you all the time, anyway. I hope you’ll write back once in a while when you’re not too busy fighting the Japanese, and let me know that you’re okay.”
“You bet I will.”
“And I hope I get an invitation to your wedding when you marry Sally after the war.”
“I guarantee it. And I want to be there when you marry Eddie, too.”
“We’re a long way from getting married, Roy. At least you and Sally are engaged.” Penny wrote her address on a scrap of paper from her purse and handed it to him. “Here’s my address. Make sure you send me yours as soon as you know it so I can write back.”
“I will. Thanks, Penny.” He folded it and placed it in his shirt pocket. “You’ve been a great friend. I hope I see you again before I leave, but who knows?”
Tears filled Penny’s eyes. They moved toward each other at the same time, clinging to each other as they hugged. She was tired of saying good-bye to people she cared about, tired of watching them leave. Would this war never end?
“Take care of yourself, soldier.”
“You too.”
He released her, and she watched him
until he was out of sight. Penny didn’t think that her heart could
contain any more grief, but here was another load of it. On top of
Joey Shaffer’s death, losing her friend Roy was a hard blow. She
would worry about him.
When she took the children to their grandmother’s house the next day, it seemed as though she should see Roy sitting in his usual seat behind the driver. But the spot where he always sat was empty.
An assortment of cars was parked in front of the duplex when they arrived. Penny could see through the front window that the house was filled with people. How did they fit inside with all that clutter? “You two kids go on in,” she told them. “I’ll come back for you in an hour or so.”
Esther gripped Penny’s sleeve in panic. “Wait! Aren’t you coming in?”
“I don’t think there’s room inside for one more person. Besides, I don’t want to intrude. I’m just a neighbor, not part of your family.” She felt embarrassed when she remembered how she used to hang around uninvited, making a nuisance of herself as Mother used to say, just to get a glimpse of Eddie.
“But Peter and I don’t know what to do or what to say.”
“Just give your grandmother a big hug. Sit beside her. That will be comfort enough. You don’t have to say anything. And maybe this will give you a chance to meet some of your other relatives, right? Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“But everyone will be so sad. Like they were when Mama died.”
“I know. It’s hard. But you’ll both be fine. Make your daddy proud.” Penny squeezed Esther’s shoulder and stroked Peter’s hair. Then she left and went next door to see her parents.
“Hi, it’s me. I’m home,” she called as she came in through the back door.
She had dreaded this moment ever since she had walked her father home yesterday. She knew they would still be furious with her. Her parents held on to grudges as if they were nuggets of gold. She felt the strength of their anger the moment she walked into the living room. Neither of them greeted her or even looked up at her. Father’s raised newspaper shielded his face. Mother never took her eyes off the hat she was knitting to send to the soldiers overseas, her needles poking and stabbing furiously at the yarn. Penny walked over to the blaring radio and turned it down so they could talk.
“You have a lot of nerve coming in here as if you’ve done nothing wrong,” her father said from behind his newspaper.
Penny couldn’t reply. Didn’t he understand that there was genuine hardship in this world? That families were being torn apart by greater tragedies than this? How could their hurt and anger compare with the terrible grief of their neighbors next door?
“The children are with their grandmother,” Penny said quietly. “Are you going to talk to me or do you want me to leave?”
“I want to know why you’ve been sneaking around behind our backs,” Mother said, needles clacking. “Why did you try to hide what you’re doing from us?”
“Because you always worry about me. I didn’t want you to have even more to worry about.”
“Why shouldn’t we be worried?” Her father’s newspaper rustled as he lowered it and folded it. “Driving a public bus through the streets of Brooklyn? Are you out of your mind?”
“It turns out I’m a very good driver. The instructor said I was the best driver in my class.”
“Don’t take that tone of voice with me! I know a thing or two about how dangerous those streets are!”
Mother gave up trying to knit and stuffed the balled-up project into her knitting bag. “Why would you expose yourself to so many strangers that way?”
“I’m getting to know some of the people on my route. I ask how they’re doing, tell them I hope they have a nice day . . . It’s so much better than sitting in a cramped ticket booth all day.” Or sitting in this dreary house, she wanted to add, cut off from people, from life. “Besides, I make more money now than I did with the other job.”
Her father shook his head. She could tell he wasn’t listening. “You’re so naive. You never did have a lick of common sense. You don’t know the dangers in this world and what could happen to a girl like you.”
“Nothing is going to happen.” But as soon as Penny spoke the words she knew they weren’t true. Things did happen, whether you were careful or not. Rachel Shaffer and Miriam Mendel had been killed by a runaway car. Joey Shaffer lay dead on a battlefield in Italy. But living captive to worry and fear meant not living at all.
“I should have known you were up to no good when you started dressing like a floozy,” Mother said. “I should have made you come back home right then and there.”
“Mother, listen – ”
“We’ve been so careful with you all your life, trying to keep you safe – and then you go and do something like this behind our back. Lying to us!”
“I didn’t lie. Tell me how I lied?”
“You’re going to go straight to your boss on Monday morning,” Father said, “and tell him that you’re quitting. And then you’re going to pack your belongings and move out of that Jewish man’s apartment. It’s time you came back home where you belong.”
“I can’t leave the children now. How can Mrs. Shaffer possibly take care of them? You saw how much grief she’s suffering, didn’t you?”
“I also saw that she has other relatives – sisters and brothers and cousins,” Mother said. “I called some of them for her, remember? We’re ordering you to quit, Penny – the apartment and the job.”
Penny’s own anger swelled dangerously out of control. Her parents treated her like an ignorant child who needed to be protected. Until Eddie had enlisted and had needed her help, she had believed them. Now she had proven them wrong. She had learned how to drive a bus. She was the best driver in the class. She knew how to run a household on her own and take care of two children. She had made a life for herself with new friends, like Roy and Mr. Mendel.
“I’m not quitting and I’m not coming home,” she said. Her voice shook as she stood up to them for the first time. “I’m not a child anymore. You can’t tell me what to do.”
Her mother couldn’t speak, as if shocked that Penny would defy her this way. Her father wagged his finger at her. “Someone has had a very bad influence on you, and I want to know who it is. We didn’t raise you to lie to us and deceive us.”
His accusation was the last straw. “No?” Penny shouted. “No? Then why have you been lying to me all my life?”
“What are you talking about?” her father said. “How dare you speak to us that way?”
“I know that I’m adopted.”
It was as though a bomb had gone off in the apartment, leaving her parents stunned. They stared at Penny, eyes wide with shock.
“I needed my birth certificate to apply for my new job, remember? And when you wouldn’t give it to me I went out and ordered a new one.” Her father’s face turned so red she feared he might have a stroke, but Penny was too angry to stop. “I found out that you aren’t my parents at all. You adopted me. You’ve been lying to me all this time. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
“We did it for your own good,” her mother said.
“My own good? I don’t understand why you ever adopted me in the first place. All my life, you’ve acted as if I’m a huge inconvenience to you, like I have no common sense. You’re always telling me that I’m dumber than everyone else is. Why did you adopt me if you didn’t want me?”
“You want to know why?” her father asked. His face resembled simmering coals that were about to burst into flames. “I’ll tell you why.”
“Albert, no! Be quiet!”
“She needs to know, Gwendolyn. She needs to hear the truth before she turns out to be just like her. This is how it all started with Penny’s mother, too. Remember?”
“Albert! Shut up!”
“First, Hazel started lying to us, telling us she was going one place when she was really going someplace else. And that’s exactly what Penny is doing – telling us she works at the bus station when she doesn’t work there at all. Running all over Brooklyn with no thought to the danger she’s in. You want the same thing to happen to Penny that happened to Hazel? You want to go through this all over again?”
“Stop it, Albert!”
“Like mother like daughter! That’s just how she’s turning out!”
Penny groped for a chair as she realized what her father was saying. She had been standing all this time, but now she had to sit down, too stunned to remain on her feet. “Hazel is my mother, isn’t she?” she murmured. Her sister was really her mother. Everything made sense now. Why hadn’t she seen the truth before?
Mother began to weep. “See what you’ve done, Albert?”
“How else was I supposed to keep her safe at home where she belongs? You want her to end up getting raped like your other daughter?”
Penny stopped breathing. Raped? Her sister had been raped ? No wonder Hazel hadn’t wanted her. Penny was a reminder of an unthinkable act. No wonder her parents had always been so protective of her, so fearful of strangers.
Penny couldn’t take it in – didn’t want to take it in. Her real father was a rapist ? Mother had always said that she wasn’t like other girls and now she knew why. Her father was a criminal. A rapist.
“You’ve had a good life here with us up until now,” her father said. “Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone?”
Penny wished that she had. Everything that she had believed about herself had been wrong. She had been conceived from an act of violence. Even if Eddie did fall in love with her, she didn’t deserve a good man like him. She couldn’t be a good mother to his children. Not with a criminal’s blood flowing through her veins. Not with a rapist for a father.
Without saying another word, Penny stood and walked out of the house.