Bygone

She’s in another alley. Not the same alley. It reeks of garbage and heat radiates up from the ground. The sun beats down on her.

“Hi pretty lady.” A man lays on a pile of blankets. He smiles at her, showing his few remaining teeth. “Where’d you come from, huh?”

Darcy stumbles back from the slurring man. At the mouth of the alley a car goes by. An old car. And then another.

Her head spins, but she forces herself to take a deep breath. She’s not going to faint, and she’s not going to cry. She recognizes the street, she realizes with relief.

The man slurs behind her, his voice carrying.

She’s just a block from the bank.

Starting for the apartment, she pulls off her sweater. The street is different. The people are different. They walk faster, keep their heads down. The corner shop is closed, and so is the butcher’s.

In fact, everything looks dirtier. Less cared for. Darcy picks up her pace when someone catcalls her. An older woman yells at the man, and the man yells back.

She passes Mickey O’Brien’s apartment building and sees that the doors are nailed shut and most of the windows are broken.

She hurries around the corner and sees their apartment building. The doors are open and three kids sit on the stoop. Darcy has to use the handrail for support as she climbs the steps.

At their door, she straightens her shoulders and knocks instead of using the key inside her purse.

Someone yells inside the apartment and a child squeals. The door is yanked open and a woman with ruddy cheeks and wild hair stares out at Darcy. Past her, Darcy can see unfamiliar furniture and three small children.

“Whadda you want?” The woman demands.

Darcy’s mouth opens and closes, but all she can see is a green armchair where Steve’s easel had stood.

“Get outta here!” The woman yells, looking Darcy up and down with a sneer before she slams the door.

Darcy falls back against the wall, heart pounding in her chest.

“Darcy? Darcy Rogers?” A little old man asks, shuffling closer to touch her elbow.

“M-Mr. Grant?”

“Oh girlie. Come on to my place. I’ll get you a cup of tea.”

He wraps a surprisingly strong arm around her and guides her down the dingy hall. They skirt around a pile of garbage and then he’s opening the door to his apartment. She’s been inside before, so she recognizes the tired couch and sagging armchair. The upright piano is still against the wall.

Mr. Grant gives her a cup of tea with a generous pour of whiskey in it. Darcy’s hands shake as she raises the cup to her lips.

“Are you here with anyone?” Mr. Grant asks her, easing himself down into the arm chair.

Darcy shakes her head.

“Have you had anything to eat?” He’s already standing back up, moving towards the kitchen.

She focuses on finishing her tea. He sets a plate in front of her. She recognizes liver loaf with brown pan gravy and canned beans.

Darcy sees the newspaper folded and resting on the arm of the couch. The paper crinkles in her tight grip and her hands shake so badly that she can’t read it at first.

June twelfth, 1953.

She sets the paper aside and eats mechanically. Mr. Grant escorts her to his daughter’s old room. Eunice had shared it with little Vera. There’s a metal bed frame, a dresser, wardrobe, and a small writing desk. He sets a glass of water on the side table along with two white pills the doctor had prescribed to help him sleep.

He insists he doesn’t like the way they make him feel and brings her a clean men’s nightshirt.

“You just get some rest, Mrs. Rogers. We’ll get you straightened out in the morning.”

Darcy takes the pills and lets them drag her down to sleep, hoping this is just a bad dream brought out by too much stress and the nightcap with Howard Stark.

But she wakes in the morning in the unfamiliar room, staring at faded yellow floral wallpaper. She decides she’s allowed to cry, just for a few minutes.

She wipes her face and gets dressed again, in the same dress she’d worn only yesterday, dancing with Steve in their apartment. She checks the contents of her purse and finds two dollars and sixty cents, three ration cards, Steve’s enlistment acceptance slip, and her warm gloves.

Then she realizes she’s crying again.

She gets it out of her system and straightens up, making the bed as she plans. She should have enough for a subway pass. She’ll go to Stark Industries. Howard had just told her if she needed anything, she thinks with a slightly hysterical giggle.

Stark Industries had occupied the same building from its founding until late in the cold war, Darcy knew. So unlike anything else, she could trust that it would still be in place.

Mr. Grant knocks on the door lightly. He’s made breakfast.

Darcy eats scrambled eggs, fried ham, and buttered toast. He hesitantly hands her the newspaper, and keeps a running conversation up about his granddaughter Vera who is earning straight A’s in school and singing in the choir. There’s an article about President Eisenhower’s changes to the White House, and another featuring an interview with Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Darcy insists on clearing up. When she finishes putting away the dishes, he’s standing in the living room, listing to one side.

“If you need anything, you come right on back.” He tells her firmly, then extends his hand with a piece of paper in it. “I want you to have this.”

Darcy bites her lip to keep from crying when she sees it’s not a piece of paper. It’s a picture. The man that had become Mr. Grant’s son-in-law had taken it, that last weekend.

Steve sits on the stoop railing next to Bucky, and Darcy stands between Steve’s legs. Bucky has an arm thrown over her shoulder. Rebecca and John sit on the opposite railing, and Mickey O’Brien, Tommy Kleiner, and Marion Prescott sit on the steps.

“Thank you, Mr. Grant.” Darcy breathes. She carefully stows the picture inside of her purse.

“And I want you to take this.” He holds out five dollars. “You ain’t gonna change my mind, missy, so jus’ take it. Some’a these hooligans forgot, but I remember the old neighborhood. We take care of each other.”

At the subway Darcy learns the fares have increased from five cents to fifty cents and she’s glad Mr. Grant had given her the extra money.