Hannah returned with a manila envelope. Mindful of Fern’s one functioning arm, Hannah opened the string-tied flap for her and pulled out some papers. She placed them in Fern’s lap. Two birth certificates and one marriage certificate. Her chest swelled and then shattered when she read the small, black, typed words on the marriage certificate: George Calvin Black and Fern Belle Black,neéTurret.
The paper turned blurry, and the tip of her nose started to tingle and run. Hannah quickly passed Fern ahandkerchief. “He said you two were going to go east for a while.”
She closed her eyes until the burning stopped.
Belle. Beautiful. Cal was no silver-tongued charmer, but he said what he meant, what he felt. And her maiden name of Turret…it would have made her laugh if she wasn’t in so much agony.
“We were,” Fern whispered. But Chicago had devoured him.
“And now?” Hannah sat forward on the sofa adjacent to her. “I mean, with him gone, will you go back to your family?”
That answer hadn’t changed. “No.”
Mrs. Levy stood up and collected the tea tray, then left them alone in the sitting room.
“Take them,” Hannah said after a few moments of the clock ticking loudly in the silent room.
With a shaking hand, Fern placed George Black’s birth certificate and the marriage certificate on the low table in front of her. “I’ll only need my birth certificate. Thank you.” Thinking of something, Fern looked up her. “Did Cal already pay your fee?”
Hannah’s lips formed a crooked smile. “More like overpaid.” She reached into her cardigan pocket. A neatly folded bulge of green filled her palm. “You can’t have much money on you, if any.”
The roll of cash Helen had given her had disappeared from her pocket sometime between the explosion and her waking in the hospital. Fern had planned to go back to Helen—as painful as it would be to see her and step inside that storeroom again—and ask if she could workfor her at the boardinghouse for a small wage. Fern would save and then be on her way. She told her plan to Hannah, who shook her head.
“I can’t keep this,” she said, thrusting the money toward Fern. “Cal isn’t going to use those papers anymore, and I know how much he wanted the two of you to leave.”
“I can’t.” Fern flinched back, away from the money. “It’s too much.” There had to be at least a few hundred dollars rolled up in there.
“Fern,” Hannah said sternly. “Take the money. Cal would want you to have it.”
She could nearly see him raising a dark eyebrow at her, his expression transforming into one that said,“Shake a leg, already, princess.”
Fern accepted the money and peeled off two ten-dollar bills to give back to Hannah. “This is for my certificate.”
Fern Turret. Her new identity.
Hannah accepted one of the bills, though with an aggrieved sigh to be taking either of them. “Where will you go?” she asked as Fern opened her mother’s suitcase—empty except for a few toiletries—and put the certificate inside.
She clicked the latches shut. “I don’t know. East still, maybe.”
She could go anywhere, she supposed. Well, anywhere her limited funds could afford to take her.
“Will you write once you settle?” Hannah asked. “I want to make sure you’re all right.”
How was it possible that Hannah and the Levys feltmore like family to her than the Adairs? They’d only met twice, and yet Fern felt more at home with Hannah, sitting here in this small front room, with its chintz sofa and dated wallpaper, than she ever had in her own home.
Fern nodded, grinning, her eyes puffy. “Yes. I promise, I will.”
Hannah and Mrs. Levy wouldn’t let Fern leave until after she’d had lunch with them, then Hannah tidied up her hair and gave her a change of clothes, a plain skirt and shirtwaist that she swore up and down were too small for her anyway. It was no use being prideful—the truth was, Fern would need them. No more Margie to select her gowns and pack her things. No more endless department store tabs or bottomless bank accounts. She would have to find a place to live and work and support herself.
Briefly, so briefly it only felt like a gasp of air, Fern had thought she would be doing those things with Cal. No more.
With a tearful hug and another promise to write as soon as she could, Fern left the Levys’ home. The bus station wasn’t far; she set out for it on foot, her suitcase a little bit heavier.
Her heart, too.
27
Four months later
