Free The Grave of God's Daughter by Brett Ellen Block Page A

and the waiting, that constant waiting, was worse than any beating I could endure. The feeling that overtook me that day as I ran with all my might down the alleyway, the weeds quivering in my wake, was like nothing I’d ever known. My fear had turned inside out. It wasn’t gone, but I almost didn’t recognize it.
     
    T HE ALLEYWAY ENDED NEAR THE STEEL MILL , and my first stop, Mrs. Zahorchak’s house, was only a half block over on Oak Lane. The homes there were sizable, but Oak Lane didn’t carry quite the prestige of River Road because the houses faced the mill, which was hardly picturesque, and after each shift change, the road was flooded with a mass of men marching back to their homes in sooty coveralls. The street had once been lined with tall rows of oaks on either side of the block, hence its name, but once the mill went up, all of the trees were felled to widen the street. Each oak was lopped off at the trunk and leveled rather than dug up. The thick stumps were left in the ground like tombstones.
    I tried to pick the nettles from my coat before I reached Mrs. Zahorchak’s house. There were so many of them that I finally gave up. I doubted the nettles would make much of a difference given my already curious appearance. I was about to knock on Mrs. Zahorchak’s door when I realized there was a doorbell. I knew what doorbells were and had seen them on other houses, but we certainly didn’t have one and I’d never rung one before. The prospect of doing so was strangely exciting. I lightly laid my finger on the button, testing its feel, the smoothness and size, then pushed it and quickly withdrew. The high, clear chime of the bell floated through the door.
    Footsteps resounded from inside the house and I pulled the parcel marked with Mrs. Zahorchak’s name from the back of my waistband. Just as I had arranged my sweater to cover the rest of the packets, the front door swung open. Mrs. Zahorchak looked down at me with an imperious glare.
    “You’re late,” she said, her English clipped by her accent.
    She stood rigidly in the doorway. She was wearing a pale green cotton dress that seemed to have too much starch in it. It hung stiffly off her body and the collar pointed out at a harsh angle. The dress looked like it would hurt to wear it.
    “You’re not the regular boy,” Mrs. Zahorchak proclaimed. “Where’s the regular boy?”
    “He broke his arm.” As I spoke, I realized my voice sounded nothing like a boy’s, but it was too late. Mrs. Zahorchak squinted at me, examining my face and clothes.
    “What’s your name?” she asked, her tone distrustful.
    It was a question I wasn’t prepared for. I scrambled to come up with an answer. I flicked back through my memory and plucked out the first name that came to mind.
    “Nowczyk,” I said. “I’m one of Stash Nowczyk’s boys.”
    It was another lie, an echo of what my father had told Martin and me about the catfish, and it rolled off my tongue with credible ease. Mrs. Zahorchak appeared to be turning the name over in her head, then she promptly dismissed it as one that had no importance or bearing. She took her package of sausages and kielbasa from me with a quick jerk and said, “Since you’re new, I’ll make an exception about you being late. But I’m a very important customer. I expect to get what I pay for on time. So don’t be late again.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Mrs. Zahorchak shut the door on me, nearly clipping my toes. I stood on her porch for a minute collecting myself, but when I saw her peering at me through the curtains, I hurried off.
    The next few deliveries were nearby, however after the scolding I’d taken from Mrs. Zahorchak, I ran all the way to each of the stops. When I knocked on the door at the following house, I was greeted by a teenage girl wearing wire-rimmed glasses and an irritated scowl. Inside, a baby was crying. As the baby began to wail even harder, the girl snatched the parcel of meat from my hands with a huff,