“You did a great job, Louisa. But she’s grown up now. She doesn’t need protecting. Can’t you let her make her own decision on this?”

“Goddamn you, no, Victoria! And if you’re going to keep on about it, get your ass out of here and don’t come back!”

Her face turned red under its greenish sheen and she started coughing. I was batting a thousand with the Djiak women today, getting them furious in descending order of age. All I needed to do was tell Caroline I was quitting and I could make it four for four.

I waited for the paroxysm to subside, then led the conversation gently back to topics Louisa enjoyed, to her young days after Caroline was born. After talking to Connie I could see why Louisa had relished that time as one of freedom and gaiety.

I finally left around four. All during the long drive home through the evening rush hour I listened to Caroline’s and Louisa’s voices debating in my head. I could understand Louisa’s strong wish to protect her privacy. She was dying, too, which gave her desires more weight.

At the same time I could empathize with Caroline’s fear of isolation and loneliness. And after seeing the Djiaks close up, I understood why she’d like to find other relatives. Even if her father turned out to be a real jerk, he couldn’t have a crazier family than the one she already knew about.

In the end I decided to look for the two men Louisa had talked about last night and this afternoon—Steve Ferraro and Joey Pankowski. They’d worked together at the Xerxes plant, and it was possible she’d gotten the job through her lover. I’d also try to track down the grocery clerk Connie had mentioned—Ron Sowling or whoever. East Side was such a stable, unchanging neighborhood, it was possible that the same people still owned the store and that they would remember Ron and Louisa. If Ed Djiak had come around playing the heavy father, it might have made an indelible memory.

Making a decision, even one to compromise, brings a certain amount of relief. I called up an old friend and spent a pleasant evening on Lincoln Avenue. The blister on my left heel didn’t stop my dancing until past midnight.

6

The Mill on the Calumet

In the morning I was ready early, at least early for me. By nine I had done my exercises. Skipping a run, I dressed for the corporate world in a tailored navy suit that was supposed to make me look imposing and competent. I steeled my heart against Peppy’s importunate cries and headed for the South Side for the third day in a row. Instead of following the lake down, this morning I went west to an expressway that would spew me into the heart of the Calumet Industrial District.

It’s been over a century since the Army Corps of Engineers and George Pullman decided to turn the sprawling marshes between Lake Calumet and Lake Michigan into an industrial center. It wasn’t just Pullman, of course—Andrew Carnegie, Judge Gary, and a host of lesser barons all played a part, working on it for sixty or seventy years. They took an area about four miles square and filled it with dirt, with clay dredged from Lake Calumet, with phenols, oils, ferrous sulfide, and thousands of other substances you not only never heard of, you never want to.