Chapter 2
Spring, 1951
The teacher’s lounge at St. Agnes smelled faintly of burnt coffee, paper glue, and lemon floor polish. The windows didn’t open all the way, and the radiator still clicked like it was trying to finish a sentence someone had started last winter.
Maria Hill sat at the edge of the small round table near the back, nursing a chipped mug of coffee that had gone cold ten minutes ago.
The teachers were louder than usual this morning. The rain had come in hard during the night, and there was something about bad weather that always made people meaner.
“She dropped the Barton kids off again today,” said Mrs. Wilkins, stirring powdered creamer into her cup with far more force than necessary. “Didn’t even have the decency to walk them to the door. Just watched them go in and drove off.”
“Who?” asked Miss Greene, her voice tinged with interest.
“You know who, the Russian girl,” Mrs. Wilkins said, like the words tasted bitter.
“Oh,” Miss Greene muttered. “Her.”
“She’s always hanging around that garage,” Wilkins continued. “Under the cars, grease on her hands, pants on like a man. Clint Barton’s out there all day with her. Lord knows what Laura’s thinking.”
“She’s probably not,” said Miss Greene. A small laugh followed.
Maria took a sip of the coffee. Bitter. Watery. Burnt.
“Maybe she’s just grateful her husband came back from the war. Some of us weren’t so lucky,” someone chimed in.
That hung in the air too long. Maria felt it settle on her like dust.
“She’s not from around here, right?” One of the newer teachers asked. “Came over after the war?”
“She did, I also heard she lives with them,” said Mrs. Kincaid, second grade, perpetually clutching her pearls.
Maria didn’t look up. She stirred her coffee slowly. The spoon scraped the bottom of the mug in a steady rhythm.
“You’re joking,” said Wilkins, eyes wide. “Well. That’s just…improper.”
“More than improper,” Greene sniffed. “It’s disgusting. A young woman like that…living with a married man?”
“And his wife just allows it? What a shame.”
“There are rumors, you know. Not just about her being—well, loose.” Greene added, voice pitched low like she was telling a top secret. “They say she’s here to infiltrate us. A communist. A spy sent by the Russians.”
Maria resisted the urge to roll her eyes, in her opinion, the Russians had more urgent matters at hand than spying on the mundane residents of Westview, Ohio.
Tired of their theatrics, Maria stood, rinsed her mug in the sink, and dried it with a towel. She left the lounge with the hum of their whispers still rising behind her like gnats.
The rest of the day passed in the slow, measured way all school days did. Math worksheets. Spelling lists. Recess in the mud. A boy with a skinned knee and a girl who forgot her lunch. Maria taught like she always did, calm, poised and professional, and if her mind wandered once or twice, it didn’t show on her face.
By the time she left the school that evening, the sky had darkened with the kind of thick, low-hanging clouds that promised rain. The town had that strange hush it got before a storm: dogs restless, windows shut early, porch lights flickering like nervous winks.
Maria drove her old Buick. An ugly, bulky thing with a temperamental starter and a steering wheel that whined every time she made a right turn. She didn’t mind. She liked the familiarity of it. The way it wheezed and bucked like something alive.
Until it didn’t.
The engine sputtered once, then again. She cursed softly and barely managed to coast to the side of the road, gravel crunching under the tires. She tried to start it again, then twice more before finally giving up. She looked around, there weren’t many houses near this side of the town and she hadn’t seen another car in at least 15 minutes.
The rain came in slow, cold drops at first, then all at once, pattering hard against the windshield, drumming against the roof. She sat with her hands on the wheel, watching it fall, feeling the chill creep in through the door seals.
She opened the door and started walking towards one of the houses a little over a mile away from the road, with any luck they’d be home already and let her use their telephone. The frigid rain soaked through her coat quickly and coldness seeped into her bones. She was only a couple of feet away from her car when she saw a pair of headlights cutting through the storm.
An old red pickup slowed as it neared, tires hissing on the wet road. The window rolled down.
“Need help?”
The voice was raspy and low, and it sent shivers down her spine, not necessarily the bad kind.
Maria blinked through the rain.
The woman behind the wheel wore a baseball cap pulled low over bright red hair that clung to her temples in damp strands. Her face was striking even under the unrelenting rain. She had green eyes that stopped Maria cold. Vivid, unnaturally so, and full of something Maria couldn’t identify.
Maria hesitated. “It won’t start.”
The woman pulled the truck off the road, parked behind the Buick, and stepped out without another word. She moved with practiced efficiency, rolled-up sleeves already soaked, boots splashing through the muddy gravel. She popped the hood like she’d done it a hundred times before.
She didn’t make conversation. Just worked.
Her hands moved with purpose. Grease under her nails. A wrench pulled from the cab. She leaned into the engine without hesitation, rain soaking through her collar, and adjusted something Maria couldn’t begin to name.
“You flooded it,” she said, not unkindly, her accent was faint but distinct, Russian. “Too many tries, too close together.”
“Oh.”
The woman glanced at her then. Just once. Then she went back to the engine, made one final adjustment, and closed the hood.
“Try it now.”
Maria slid into the driver’s seat and turned the key.
The engine started.
She looked up.
The woman was already walking away, back toward the truck.
“Thank you,” Maria called after her.
The woman paused, hand on the driver’s side door. “Don’t flood it again.”
And then she got in, started the engine, and drove off, tail lights glowing red against the rain-slick road.
Maria sat there for a moment, shivering from the cold. Listening to the steady hum of the motor. To the rain softening against the glass.
She didn’t even know the woman’s name.
But something about her stayed, like the scent of rain long after the storm.