part 4
"Thank you Ma'am, but please don't go to any trouble."
"Nonsense! I have to feed Josef before he goes to work, so the food is already here, all you have to do is eat it." The table was set with dishes and glasses and she began filling up the center with platters and bowls from the ice box. "He has to work the second shift this week so we eat early�. I hope you don't mind leftovers."
"No Ma'am."
Casino's father spoke up for the first time, "It's a good thing, because she'll feed this to you again tonight, when the boys come from school." He ducked the slap she directed at the back of his head as she moved behind him to the counter to pick up a plate of bread and cheese smiled, and turned to watch her with obvious affection.
They'd spent their time over the meal exchanging small talk, leaning about each other, feeling their way towards friendship by the questions they asked and the answers they gave.
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"Aw man! Now you've done it!" Casino laughed at the Warden's puzzled expression. "You've just given her some very powerful ammo there."
Pouring coffee in the cup she'd set in front of him as soon as they'd finished eating she looked up at her son with a smile, "Be quiet! Lieutenant don't you listen to him."
"Ma you'r not playin' fair. He didn't have anybody to teach him the rules."
Garrison frowned and stared across the table at the man who was obviously teasing him. "Rules? Casino, what are you talking about?"
"You never let them know your middle name."
Totally mystified now, he asked. "Who?!"
"Mothers! They'll use it against you. I swear Warden you'll live to regret this."
"You just drink your coffee and stay out of this." She had finished filling Casino's cup and slapped him on the shoulder as she turned to set the pot back on the stove.
"You just wait." he cocked an eyebrow at the Warden and raised his cup. "You'll find out."
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"Now Lieutenant you look tired. I want you to go and take a little rest."
He'd been given the room down at the end of the main hall. There was a bathroom attached and from the height of the sink and door pulls he had his suspicion that it was Casino's parents' room, modified for his mother diminutive stature, but when he protested he'd been assured that theirs was upstairs with the rest of the family and this had been built for company. As he moved his few things from the bag into the closet and dresser he listened to the muffled sounds of a family going about the business of living.
It was fairly quiet now with only three of the family home. There were more, usually a lot more according to Casino. His sister-in-law and her two boys had come to live here after his older brother, Marcus, had been sent to prison, but she was at work and the boys at school. And the younger sister, Marika, the one who'd taken Jeannette in, lived just a short distance away and spent a great deal of time there. The youngest brother would be home at the weekend. He was taking some sort of special training course with the oldest sister's husband and they lived too far away for him to make it home every night.
The position of the room in the house insulated him from them but didn't isolate him. He could hear the murmur of their voices as they sat talking in the kitchen and the sound of their feet as they walked down the hall. The floor upstairs squeaked so he knew when someone was up there, at least over this end of the house. There was a screen door, must be in the back of the house because he was sure they hadn't come through one when they got here, that slammed and bounced, hitting three times before it settled when someone moved through it.
And then there was the sound of the neighborhood itself. Children who were too young to be in school played in the yards of the houses around them, and there was a regular camp following of dogs that barked along with them, keeping an eye on things and reporting back to the mothers who were inside cleaning or cooking, or just visiting with their neighbors as they worked in their gardens. The chickens were a bit of a shock. Casino hadn't known about them until he'd got back, but his mother explained over lunch that they were easy to keep, eating scraps from the table and bugs out of the vegetable gardens, and the eggs filled out their diet and made the rationing easier to deal with. Most of the families had at least a few. She said the two boys were always hungry and she'd been able to keep up with their need to eat by keeping the birds. She had a hen raising a brood now and told them they'd be replacing the older members of the flock who were destined for the roaster and the stew pot. Some people kept rabbits, but she said they were too cute and she couldn't bring herself to kill them. The chickens, with their 'beady eyes' didn't have the same effect on her. And there were two cows in the neighborhood! The families had gone together to buy them and shared the expense of their keep, along with the milk, butter and cheese they provided. The old couple at the end of the block had originally been from the country and enjoyed having the animals around even though they refused their share of the provender. There was some talk of getting some goats and possibly a pig or two now.
He hadn't planned to go to sleep when he stretched out on the bed, but he did. Casino's mother carefully opened the door and looked in before she started on the nightly ritual of closing up the house. She'd been a bit worried when the Lieutenant had slept through dinner but her son convinced her that sleep was probably more important for the young Army officer now and she'd finally relented and fixed a plate and left it in the ice box hoping that if hunger woke him and drove him to the kitchen he'd find the note she left for him on the table.
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If the home he'd grown up in had come as a surprise to Garrison, Casino's younger sister Marika was a revelation. She and her husband Chris arrived for dinner on the second day, bringing Jeannette with them. Chris carried Jeannette to the door where she joyously greeted him again and told him he was too skinny, then giggled with delight as her new found Papa Grand transported her into the kitchen atop his broad shoulders. After shaking hands briefly Chris turned back to the car to help his wife up to the house. Marika was tiny and dark like her mother with a broad forehead and wide almond shaped eyes that sat over a small mouth that seemed permanently curved up in a smile. She exuded a calm self assurance and immediately put him at ease by reaching out to shake his hand and ask how he was enjoying his stay with the family. Garrison had to drop into a crouch to meet her eyes as she smiled up at him from her wheelchair. The ramps that led to the doors, the lowered counters in the kitchen and bath hadn't been newly placed for Jeannette to use as he'd assumed, they'd been constructed so this younger daughter could have ready access to the house and help with the chores in the kitchen. The bedroom that had been constructed on the ground floor for 'company', the one they'd put him in, was probably the room she used when she lived or visited here.
"I was glad my brother and Mama hatched this plot to have you stay with the family Lieutenant. I wanted to thank you for your help in bringing Jeannette to us."
So Casino's mother twisted his arm to get the doctors' plans from him, and then she'd brow beaten him into bringing him down here, and he hadn't had anything to do with it. Garrison smiled to himself, that hadn't sounded quite right when the safe cracker was pitching it up at the hospital. "I was glad to help. And I can see what he meant about you two looking alike. She could be your daughter."
"If I have anything to say about it, she will be." The light that flashed in her eyes told him that the only thing that would stand in the way of an adoption would be someone from the little girl's family being found and stepping forward to take her.
Over a relaxed evening and dinner Garrison discovered Casino's young sister and her husband were easy to like. Both of them were open and friendly, offering details of their life before he could even think of the questions. When he asked them how they'd met Marika explained that she knew when she'd first seen Chris that he was the man she wanted to marry.
"I'm afraid I found out where he lived and then went back in the morning and followed his father to their business and got myself a job there so I could be close to him. It took me four months to convince him that we should get married and another two that we should go out of state and come back as man and wife." She threw an affectionate glance at her parents sitting hand in hand at the head of the table. "I knew the family would object�not to the marriage as much as to my leaving school." She contracted polio 18 months after her marriage and only 4 months into her pregnancy. "When they told me that I wouldn't ever be able to have children� I thought I would die. Every dream I ever had of the future had a big house, like this one, filled with children. To have all of that taken away, I didn't know how I could go on, but after I stopped pushing him away Chris convinced me that we would have to be enough, just the two of us. And then he told me with a completely straight face that he could be just as childish as I needed him to be!"
Chris was seven years older than Mari and according to him that nearly got him killed when Pop found out his daughter had married an 'older man'. "I couldn't believe it when I went in that day and saw this tiny little thing sitting at the desk in Dad's office. I was working there while I went to college and was taken with her right away, I mean how could I resist? But I couldn't figure out how she was going to get anything done around there. The way the place is set up there's a whole wall of cabinets with file drawers in them, I mean floor to ceiling, and look at her. I have to tell you Lieutenant she isn't much taller when she stands on her feet!" By the spark of irritated humor that flashed in her eyes this was obviously a long standing tease of his and, regardless of the wheelchair and braces, he had decided it was too good, and too true, to give up on just because of a little thing called polio.
"I came in one day and she had drawers pulled out in order and had made herself a set of 'stairs' up to the top row and was rooting around up there looking for some contract that Dad couldn't find. Another time I got there and she'd brought a set of jacks in from the lot and was using them to stack boxes in the back. She'd lift one side of it and then go over to the other side and do the same thing. She'd worked back and forth like that until she got the box up where she wanted it and then she just shoved it onto the shelf." Reaching out and putting his large hand over hers he continued with pride. "Now when she tells me she's going to do something I don't have any doubt that she'll do it."
After they got married he continued to go to school part time and worked full time with his father to support them. When she contracted polio and lost their baby his father convinced him to bring her back to live with them and go back to school full time so he could end up with a good enough job to take care of her. He was now an architect and also held an engineering degree. With his education and his father's experience and contacts in the construction trade they were beginning to build a successful business, even with the restrictions imposed by the war.
When her father-in-law offered to let them live with him and send Chris back to finish his education Marika had helped convince him to accept the offer. "It was a perfect match and Chris had grown up in the business. I knew he and Ed would end up working together anyway. Now Chris works up the designs and Ed and his crew build them. Ed knows what to expect and Chris knows he's got good craftsmen that will put a quality product together." As soon as Chris' education was complete and he started earning decent money she decided to go back to school herself and complete her high school education. She was now taking classes that would eventually allow her to work with troubled children. Her greatest concern was his guilt at being left at home when all of his friends and cousins were signing up or already involved in the war effort. "Maybe you can convince him that somebody has to stay home to keep the country running, get everything ready for when all of this is over and you all come home again."
Chris knew she depended on him, even if she was stubborn and capable enough of doing almost everything for herself, but he was still having a hard time believing that injury he'd suffered to his right eye as a child, that left him partially blind was the blessing she claimed it was. He still felt that he wasn't fulfilling his obligation to the country, to go over and fight along with the rest of his friends and family. It was a little easier now that Jeannette was here, but he still felt a little like a slacker.
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"You ready to go?"
"Sure." Garrison shoved the chair away from the table and stood, picking up their cups he walked over and sat them in the sink. He'd tried to wash a dish that he'd used yesterday and been thoroughly dressed down for it. He knew better now.
Casino stepped into the doorway raising his voice so he could be heard down the back hall. "Ma! We're goin' over to Mari's to check up on Jeannie." The two men walked out of the kitchen and headed towards the front of the house.
"Craig Fredrick Garrison!"
They both stopped in their tracks. The Warden turned to stare at him, eyebrows raised, a look of surprise on his face.
"See." Casino shrugged, "You didn't believe me, but I told ya."
He was right. Hearing all of it strung together like that froze him on the spot and made Garrison feel like he was about five years old. His mind raced back through all the things he'd done that morning searching for any transgressions. He smiled at the impulse to check his trousers for a tear and his shoes for mud, and couldn't stop himself from glancing down to see that his hands were clean! He squared his shoulders and turned back towards the kitchen, "Yes Ma'am?"
She was just walking in the door on the opposite side of the large room, carrying a basket she'd used to collect the mornings offering of eggs in from the yard, and she was wagging a finger in his direction. "You're not going without breakfast young man. Now you come back in here and sit down while I make you two something decent to eat. A cup of coffee and out the door!" She tilted her head back to look up at him. "No wonder you're so thin. Look at you! You aren't supposed to have bones sticking out of you like that!" She turned back to the stove mumbling under her breath as she set to work.
A shove from Casino started him moving. Well, he thought, she was definitely in charge. And like her second son had said, it was probably a lot easier to just go ahead and do like he was told. He pulled the chair out and sat down. Besides, whatever she was doing over at that stove smelled pretty good.
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The boys had come back in the middle of the afternoon. She could tell from their windblown, sunburned appearance they'd spent all day outside playing with Jeannette. Well, the quiet young Army officer looked like he could do with a little time to relax and play, but as thin as he was, she hoped Marika had thought to feed him lunch. In any case, a little snack before dinner certainly wouldn't be wasted on him, and the kids would be home soon, she always put something out on the table for them.
"You boys come in here and have a bite to eat."
"You'r gonna be lucky if you can still fit in your pants by the time she lets you outta here." Casino walked over to the stove and picked up the ever present pot of coffee, filling the cups that sat on the table as the Warden took his seat. When his mother turned from the ice box and he saw her offering Casino cringed as she sat the plate down in the middle of the table. "Oh God! Ma, get that outta here! If I have ta' eat that I'm gonna heave!'
She looked at her son and then at the platter of cheese and bread. "What are you talking about?"
"Seems like that's all we ever get when we're working a job over there." His voice took on a plaintive tone. "Don't you have some kinda meat somewhere? An old sausage? Even some eggs would be better'n this!"
She glanced at the Lieutenant, he was looking down at the coffee cup he held cradled in his hands, and he was trying not to laugh. Shaking her head she took the plate up and turned back to the ice box. Covering the platter with a cloth she sat it back inside and pulled the paper package she'd brought from the butcher out. Lighting the stove she sat her large iron pan to heat and tore the paper revealing the sausages she thought she'd be cooking for breakfast in the morning.
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They were collected around the table again. It seemed the life of this family revolved around the kitchen. They were lingering there, satisfied with their dinner and the condition of their stomachs, talking. "We're mutts. I mean we got somebody from almost everywhere in this family. Pop's grandparents came over from Poland, but his Mom, my gram's Czechoslovakian. Ma's were from all over, Italy, Russia, Romania. You name a country over there in the middle a that mess and she can name a relative that came from it."
"With all of that in the family, why don't you speak anything other than English?"
"Well, I guess I know a bunch a words from a bunch a different languages, cause a the family. But they're just family words ya know? I couldn't talk to anybody but a grandma or somethin' with 'em. Some of 'em I know'd probably get me put up in front of a firin' squad!" He laughed across at his mother "Besides you and Actor got all that covered."
Cringing at the reference to firing squads she turned to address the Lieutenant. "You can speak different languages Fredrick?" She'd settled on his middle name, she said it suited him.
"Oh yeah, Freddy here can speak a lot of 'em" Casino smirked at him over his cup and then winced as his mother slugged him in the arm.
Garrison watched them for a moment, shaking his head and smiling, before he answered her, "Me? I speak German, I can get along in French and Italian, and I can get into trouble in Greek. I got in with some street kids while we were staying there."
She was watching him with her mothers' eye and ability to smell a cover up, "You mean you got into trouble with some street kids while you were staying there." She filed the 'staying there' away in her memory. She'd find out all about that in a minute�
He glanced down at the cup of coffee in his hands and smiled as he looked back up at her, "Let's just say I have some first hand experience with some of the things my guys can do�."
Casino snorted. "Well, well, well. I wondered how you picked up on all that stuff so fast. Wait'll I tell the guys!"
She watched the color bloom across the young man's cheeks, turning on her son she fixed him with the stare that she always used on the boys, the one that let them know she meant business. "You'll do no such thing. It's for him to tell his story to them if he wants to, not you. You stay out of it."
Casino raised an eyebrow and then shrugged, she was right, besides it was enough that he knew, but he'd throw the threat out anyway, just to keep the guy off balance. "I don't know, this might be too good to keep to myself."
"Casino! I told you to be quiet." She looked across at Garrison's confused expression as she settled herself at the table again. Knowing her son, she knew the reason for that look. "I don't suppose he's ever told you just how he got that nickname?" she asked sweetly.
"Ma!" There was a hint of warning in her son's voice.
Garrison shot a look at his explosives expert and saw a mixture of apprehension and humor on his face. This might be an interesting story� "No Ma'am. All of the men use them. They just seem to go along with what they do. I assumed it was because of the gambling."
"Well" She laughed quietly into her coffee, "gambling was involved."
"Hey! How come when it's him" Casino jabbed a finger in Garrison's direction "it's HIS story to tell?!"
"Because this isn't your story! This is our story, your fathers and mine. So you just sit there and be quiet." Casino settled back in his chair with a resigned smile as she looked up and started the tale. "After Marcus and Lawenda were old enough for us to leave them with my parents Josef got the money together to take me for a week at the shore. We had a lovely room with a view of the ocean and we were going to walk on the sand, and eat fried clams, and just have some time to ourselves. There was a gambling house on the boardwalk though and that drew him in�." She raised an eyebrow and continued. "It wasn't just him either. The lights, the music and all the people� It was exciting. It looked like fun. And, at first we won some money." She smiled remembering their foolishness. "As soon as we were hooked they took us for every penny we had. There went the lovely room, the ocean view, the sand and the fried clams. One night we had there, and then we had to beg money to wire my parents so they could send us enough to get home. Nine months later" she nodded in the direction of her second son. "we had him. Josef said we'd managed to win big at the casino after all and took to calling him 'the casino baby'. The story was so good everyone else took it up too and as he grew up he got to be Casino Boy and then" she shrugged, "just Casino."
"You don't believe that one, do you?" Casino asked hopefully.
Garrison looked from mother to son. "Casino, you're not trying to convince me your mother would make something like that up,,, are you?" He sat back in his chair and laughed. "Of course I believe that one!"
She beamed across at him,,, such a nice young man. "You said you spent some time in Greece. Is your father in the Army like you? Did your family travel a lot?"
"Ma! Lay off the guy for a while." Casino leaned his elbow on the table and shot his mother a meaningful look. "Look, Warden you don't have to�"
"My father died when I was only three or four. Mother's family lived in Germany so we went over and stayed with them for a while. When we left we traveled through Austria and Yugoslavia and down into Greece. We came back to the States from there."
Casino thought that was a pretty cleaned up version of what they'd found out over in Germany. He got up to take their stuff to the sink and realized he'd never thought to ask how in the hell they'd gotten out of Europe. He just took it for granted they went somewhere along the coast of Germany or France, bought a ticket and climbed on a boat and beat it.
There was something in the Lieutenant's voice, and her son was sending urgent 'Do Not Enter' signals from his position behind him. Obviously there was more to this, and he knew it. She'd get it out of him later and she changed her line of questioning. "All of that time traveling, all of the things you must have seen. Where did you live when you got back?"
"We stayed in the New York area. There were so many people coming in from Europe by then and they needed people who could speak the languages. Mother could. It seemed like all she had to do was hear a language and she could pick it up. She was qualified to teach too. She'd managed to get that far before she got pregnant with me and had to quit school."
"Does your mother still teach? Where is she now?"
"Ma! That's enough."
"Casino, it's alright." He understood what Casino was trying to do for him and appreciated the effort, but he found that it was easy to answer her questions and for the first time he didn't mind talking about it. He smiled, Casino was right, she could probably get anything out of anybody. "Mother died less than a year after we got back to the states."
"I'm so sorry." She reached across and laid a hand on his arm. "What did you do, where did you go?"
"I tried to stay on my own in the flat they'd set us up in but the neighbors turned me in�." he shrugged as he explained. "There was a real shortage of space, I guess they didn't think one kid in an apartment alone was a fair deal. Anyway, the Children's Society picked me up and I spent some time in one of their facilities. Before she died Mother had gotten the money together and hired an attorney to look for Dad's people, and he managed to track me down. After he showed on the scene they put me out in a foster home, couple of them actually. He finally found some of Dad's cousins that were willing to take me and I went out to California to live with them."
"Why didn't you go to them when they let you out of the hospital?" She knew very well how far it was out to California but surly the Army could've gotten this boy out there so that he could be with his own family. It seemed to her that he'd been through enough to earn at least that much.
He looked away wondering what to tell her, then smiled, Casino was right, she could probably smell a con a mile off. He settled on the truth, "My cousin's wife wouldn't have wanted me out there." He hurried his explanation as her eyes narrowed in disapproval. "Besides, they aren't there anymore. My cousin was posted to Hawaii."
Garrison sat there a moment, remembering meeting Madelyn at the train station that first time. Somehow he'd convinced himself that he was going to find family at the end of the trip across the country. His mother had kept a warm, loving image of his father alive for him in her stories about him and, in his fifteen year old heart, he'd transferred that image onto the unknown relatives that were waiting for him at the end of the line. It had taken mere seconds for Madelyn to disabuse him of those childish hopes