When No One Else Will

by Amanda Skenandore

Genres: Historical Fiction; Small Town & Rural; Southern

Synopsis

Based on the true story of an illegal women’s clinic at the center of a high-profile trial in 1940s Chicago and the nurse who risked her safety and freedom to work there, a thought-provoking, powerfully timely novel of courage, sisterhood, and women’s healthcare for readers of Kristin Hannah, Kerri Maher, and Audrey Blake.

In the fall of 1939, while Europe grapples with the outbreak of war, Mimi Lukas wages a private battle in her Chicago neighborhood. Her husband, Stan, once a promising White Sox player, has been sidelined by a broken leg. His hopes of returning to baseball are dwindling along with their savings. As Stan sinks into inertia, Mimi resolves to go back to nursing.

When a friend tells her of a women’s clinic in need of a nurse, Mimi hesitates. Such places are illegal and at odds with her religious upbringing. But Dr. Gabler’s office isn’t the dingy establishment Mimi envisioned. The space is clean, bright, and welcoming, the staff skillful. Patients are treated with dignity and compassion, even as they are sworn to secrecy about what happens within its walls.

The patients, too, are not who Mimi expected. Some are heartbreakingly young. Most are married, and many already have children. Police and state prosecutors are paid handsomely to turn a blind eye. As Mimi finds kinship with her colleagues and with an officer on retainer, she begins her own private reckoning between what is legal and what is necessary, no matter how painful or inconvenient.

But Mimi senses the tide turning against them. She knows, too, that soon she must decide how much she will risk to defend the ideals she’s come to embrace through hard-won experience . . .

Poignant and insightful, here is a story of courage and empathy, as timeless as it is timely.

Release date: May 26, 2026

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

Chicago, 1939

“You’re sure your husband approves of this?”

Mimi shifts atop the thinly padded examination table. “Mm-hmm.”

She’s relieved he can’t see her face. Her too-wide eyes and taut smile. The look of someone unaccustomed to lying.

“Perhaps we ought to wait until he can join us.”

“No.” Her voice echoes through the small room, high-pitched and piercing. Mimi takes a calming breath. “His leg. You remember. He still can’t fully walk on it.”

“Well, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” Now her voice sounds like her own. Soft, friendly, harmless.

The doctor wheels his stool closer and lifts the sheet covering her legs. “A little wider, dear.”

Mimi spreads her knees, wincing at the cold pinch that follows.

“He’ll be healed up in time for spring training, won’t he? A strong fellow like him.”

His words come muffled through the sheet, and his breath prickles her thighs. Must they talk while he does this? She’d just as soon close her eyes and imagine herself far away, the heroine of some daytime radio serial, until it’s over. She can almost hear the radio announcer’s smooth voice in her head:

Welcome to The Mimi Lukas Show! Today’s episode is brought to you by Holland-Rantos. Women have more to worry about than bright complexions and soft hands. For those intimate concerns, there’s Holland-Rantos, maker of hygienic preparations and appliances for all your feminine needs. Ladies, ask your doctor about Holland-Rantos products today!

Mimi would laugh but for the uncomfortable pressure between her legs. The scale in the corner, the glass-fronted supply cabinet, the jars of gauze and bottles of iodine, the vision chart tacked to the exam room wall—it all comes back into unwelcome focus.

What had the doctor asked? Oh yes, about her husband.

“Fully recovered come spring,” she says. “That’s the hope, anyway.”

A fool’s hope. Stan will be lucky if he’s able to run the bases again by midsummer.

“Good. They’ll need him if they want to beat those Yankees.”

Mimi doesn’t have the heart to tell him that the Sox cut Stan from the team. He’ll read it in the papers soon enough.

She endures another few minutes of baseball talk before the doctor wheels his stool back and sits up straight, his bespectacled eyes meeting hers. His hairpiece has slipped back a few inches, revealing sparse patches of gray hair. Sweat dapples his brow, even though the room is decidedly cool. Surely, he’s finished his exam, but the metal speculum he inserted remains uncomfortably in place.

“You know, in my day, we let God decide these things.”

God? What does he have to do with baseball?

The doctor continues, lecturing her about motherhood being a woman’s natural role and the joy children bring to the home, and Mimi realizes they’re no longer talking about baseball. She’s tempted to interrupt him and ask what God thinks about medical advancements like sulfa drugs, tank respirators, and infant incubators. Or perhaps she ought to remind him that she is a mother. He delivered both her children, for heaven’s sake!

Surely, she needn’t mention last year’s miscarriage. God had decided that one, hadn’t he? Another girl, Mimi was certain. She’d already picked out a name.

Mimi never told her husband. Not before. Not after. Stan hadn’t broken his leg yet, but things were already getting hard. Best not to bother him with it. That was the advice of Bonnie Knows Best at Ladies’ Home Journal, anyway. She’d wept at that first spot of blood, overcome with both loss and relief.

“It’s only for right now,” Mimi tells the doctor once he’s finished his lecture. “While things are a bit—er—unsettled.”

She’s not sure if it’s pride or shame that keeps her from saying more. That she hasn’t been able to treat the kids to an ice cream soda in months. Or that their new school clothes came from the secondhand stalls on Maxwell Street. Or that she plundered the last few dollars from the old coffee tin in the back of her closet to pay for today’s appointment.

The doctor sighs and removes the speculum. Mimi’s relieved not to have the cold metal inside her anymore. She’s further relieved when he pulls over a creaky side table. A small paperboard box, three tin canisters, and something that looks like a short, steel crochet hook sit atop the table. He opens the canisters. Each contains a different-sized rubber ring. Mimi grits her teeth as he descends beneath the sheet and begins probing again, this time with his fingers.

“How many grand slams had your husband hit before his injury? Four, was it?”

Again with the chitchat.

“Something like that,” Mimi says, wishing he’d just get the darn thing fitted.

In truth, Stan hasn’t hit like that in years. But if nursing school taught her anything, it’s that you never contradict a doctor, even if you’re talking about something as silly as sports.

He pops his head up, grabs one of the rubber rings, measures it against his index finger, then grabs another. She feels his fingers inside her again, clumsy and dry.

“Bear down,” he tells her when he finally gets the ring inserted. She does. The ring slides out and hits the linoleum floor with a wet smack. From the corner of her eye, she watches it wobble on its edge to a stop halfway across the room, leaving a faint slick behind it.

“Damn it,” he mutters, not bothering to pick it up before trying another size.

Mimi’s cheeks burn. A root canal would be better than this.

At his command, she bears down again. Thankfully, the new ring remains snugly in place.

“Good,” he says. “A seventy millimeter should do the trick.”

Mimi starts to sit up, but he flaps a liver-spotted hand and bids her stay put while he putters around the office, rifling through desk drawers and peeking beneath stacks of paper. At last, he finds what he’s looking for: a foldout chart of the female anatomy.

She remembers such charts from her nursing school days, recalls looking at them with wonder, trying to envision those strange passages, folds, and recesses inside her own body.

Mimi looks away, her gaze settling on the far wall, where his yellowed credentials hang. The rumble of automobiles and the crossing cop’s shrill whistle sound from outside.

How young and silly she’d been back then. She’d never so much as kissed a man, let alone made love to one. The idea of growing and birthing a child was as bleary and mysterious as that of God.

Never you mind, had been Ma’s reply when Mimi asked where babies came from. Don’t let a man touch you, and you won’t have to find out, you hear?

So Mimi thought babies were spread the same way as chickenpox or ringworm until her older sister set her straight. You could hold a fellow’s hand, Ginny told her, and still be safe. Wear his jacket. Let him kiss you. (Watch out for fellows with bad breath, though!) Making a baby required a special kind of touching. But in the end, even Ginny hadn’t known the full truth of it. The full cost.

Now, Mimi turns her attention back to the old doctor as he fumbles with the chart. His brow is sweating again, and his eyes are skittish. Mimi chokes back a bitter laugh. Why should he be uncomfortable? She’s the one with her legs splayed.

Still, she waits for a break in his stammering description of the fallopian tubes and uterus before reminding him of her training.

“Nursing school?” The relief is plain on his face as he folds the chart. “I plum forgot. And afterward?”

“A private duty assignment on Lake Shore.”

He nods approvingly. Mimi doesn’t tell him her assignment lasted all of three months. Stan wasn’t keen on career girls, and the old man who employed her wasn’t keen on married nurses. So that was that. Love had seemed an acceptable trade-off at the time.

“Don’t suppose they taught you about these?” He holds up the rubber diaphragm.

She shakes her head. They had hours of lecture about obstetrics in school, but not one mention of birth control.

With the same bumbling discomfort as before, he explains how to use the steel inserter to introduce the diaphragm into the birth canal and fit it snugly in place over the … um … er … cervix. Mimi lays back, grimacing at his cold touch as he demonstrates. Then he hands the instruments to her.

“Your turn.”

Now Mimi is the one blushing and bumbling. Sure, this man delivered her children, but this is an entirely new level of intimacy. Her mother would balk at the idea, but it’s Ginny she’s thinking of as she fits the lip of the diaphragm into the notches of the inserter and guides it into her vagina under the doctor’s watchful gaze.

Unless you were one of Mrs. Sanger’s renegades, no one used diaphragms back when she and Ginny were girls. Heck, no one even knew about them, let alone how to get one. But it might have saved Ginny’s life. And somehow, Mimi has the feeling it just might save hers.



Mimi hurries from the pharmacy, making it to Halsted Street just in time to catch the L. There were two signature lines on the prescription—one where the doctor scribbled his name and one left blank for her husband. After fifteen minutes of hand-wringing, she’d surreptitiously signed Stan’s name, then presented it to the druggist with a tight smile. He didn’t even glance at the signatures.

Now, the Holland-Rantos diaphragm, in its paperboard box, sits snugly in her purse. She tries to look unbothered as she settles into her seat, ankles crossed and head high. The L lurches into motion. Next to her, a businessman reads the paper. Across the aisle, a colored woman bounces a toddler on her lap. Mimi smiles at the boy, but he turns away and buries his face in his mother’s shoulder. The woman’s eyes cut to her, and Mimi can’t help feeling like the woman knows her secret. I wouldn’t lie to my doctor, those brown eyes seem to say. I wouldn’t forge my husband’s signature. Mimi’s hands tighten around the straps of her purse. She turns her head and looks past the man and his newspaper out the window. The slanting afternoon sunlight reflects off the passing buildings—a dense cluster of stone, brick, and steel stretching skyward.

She hadn’t arrived at the doctor’s office knowing she would have to lie. It was all far more complicated than she’d expected. The exam. The fitting. There’s still a slight ache between her legs. Besides, it’s not as if Stan’s opposed to birth control. At least not that he’s said. He’s not half as religious as his mother. In fact, if it hadn’t been for her and her constant eavesdropping, Mimi might have broached the idea with Stan before she made the doctor’s appointment.

The man flips the page of his paper. Has he reached the sports section yet? Has news of Stan’s release made it to print? Maybe it’s not news at all—an injured player already well past his prime. Still, she fights the urge to look over the man’s shoulder and see. He glances at her with disapproval. Don’t come any closer, his gaze seems to say. And for heaven’s sake, be frank with your husband.

Bonnie Knows Best would say the same thing.

Fine. Tonight. She’ll tell Stan about the diaphragm tonight. Along with the other decision she’s made. Her finger traces the outline of the box through the fabric of her purse. Perhaps Stan’s just as worried as she is about their dwindling bank account. Perhaps he’ll see the box and share her relief. Perhaps they’ll even laugh about the shaky signature she passed off as his.

Mimi looks back at the woman and her child. He’s ruddy-faced and chubby—a rare sight these past years, but just as a boy his age should be. This time, when she catches his eye, he gives her a shy smile. The woman, however, is still flat-lipped and staring. Mimi feels seven again, chalk in hand, standing before the blackboard. Good girls do not tell lies. Good girls do not tell lies.

Finally, just before Mimi’s stop, the woman leans across the aisle. “I hope you don’t mind me saying,” she whispers, “but your dress. You’ve forgotten to fasten a few of the buttons.”

Mimi glances down. Her dress gapes open above her navel, exposing her cheap rayon slip beneath. She gasps and crosses her arms over her waist. Has she really been walking around half-dressed since she left the doctor’s office? She ought not to have left in such a rush.

“Thank you,” she whispers back.

The woman nods. “We ladies got to look out for one another.”

Mimi’s cheeks still burn with embarrassment when she arrives home. No wonder the druggist didn’t pay the signatures on her prescription any notice. No wonder the man beside her on the L eyed her askance.

Junior’s bicycle lays on its side in the front yard, its back tire perilously close to her flower bed. The pansies have wilted with fall’s arrival, but the asters and black-eyed Susans still stand tall. A sprinkling of leaves crunches beneath her feet as she mounts the porch steps. Hadn’t she been out here just this morning with the broom? Paint curls away from the iron handrail, leaving flecks of black on her glove. There’s no money for a fresh coat, though. At least you can’t see the rust from the street.

Static greets Mimi when she opens the door. From the entryway, she can see Penny and Junior in the living room crouched beside the radio, fighting over the dial.

“Junior, your bicycle,” Mimi calls.

He sticks his tongue out at his older sister as he stands and heads for the door. Mimi catches him on his way past, pulling him close for a quick kiss on the forehead before he squirms away.

“How was school?”

“Okay,” he says, and is out the door before she can inquire further.

Mimi tucks her gloves into her pockets and hangs her coat on the stand. The catchy jingle of a soda commercial plays over the radio, followed by a man’s smooth baritone announcing the next show. Penny wears a triumphant smile as she settles closer to listen.

“Is your schoolwork done?” Mimi asks.

Penny nods without looking away from the radio.

“And the table set?”

“You haven’t even started cooking.”

“You know the rules. Chores first, radio second.”

Now Penny turns to her. “Pleeeease. Little Orphan Annie is about to come on.” A new tooth is already filling in the gap in the right side of her smile. Mimi’s gaze flashes to the armchair by the window, where her mother-in-law, Halina, sits. Her deep-set eyes—the same striking blue as Stan’s—are fixed on the Polish daily, Dziennik Chicagoski, in her lap. No doubt it’s filled with news of Poland’s recent invasion. First the Nazis, now the Soviets. But whatever story’s caught Halina’s eye, Mimi knows her ears are still listening in.

“Five minutes, that’s all,” Mimi says to Penny.

Her mother-in-law shakes her head and flips the page of her paper. Mimi ignores her. She’s always chiding Mimi for being too lenient with the kids. Never mind that it’s her, their babcia, who slips them candy before dinner and lets them stay up late when Mimi and Stan are out.

Usually Stan’s dragged himself from bed by this hour and is seated by the window, too, crutches leaned precariously against the floor lamp, his bum leg propped up on the fraying ottoman. But today’s Chicago Tribune sits untouched on the coffee table beside the latest Ladies’ Home Journal. A bad day, then.

“Five minutes,” she reminds Penny before steeling herself and heading down the hall toward the bedroom.

Immediately after the accident—a spectacular collision between Stan and Detroit’s second baseman after a line drive into right field—he’d been his usual jovial self, even telling the reporter who followed beside his gurney to the ambulance that he’d be back in time to finish the series. He stayed optimistic through the first weeks of recovery. Flowers and fan mail filled his hospital room. Boys from the pediatric ward snuck down to get his autograph. But the flowers soon wilted, and with them, his spirits. The season was shot, and though none of the doctors were brave enough to say it, likely his career.

He remained at the hospital with his leg in traction for six weeks. By the time he arrived home, the happy-go-lucky man she knew had become a bitter, morose stranger. Sure, some days were better than others. Days when he might ask after the kids’ time at school or thank her for a rib roast cooked just to his liking. But there were other days when he didn’t get out of bed at all. When he snapped at her for reminding him to do his calisthenics and grumbled that the supper she prepared was too salty or too dry.

Mimi fears today is one of those days.

Before she can turn the bedroom knob, there’s a knock at the front door. She glances over her shoulder, waiting to see if Penny or Halina will get up to answer it. Another knock comes, a louder, double rap. Mimi sighs and goes to answer it.

Betsy from two houses down must be short a cup of sugar. That, or Mrs. Davenport from across the street wants to complain about Junior cutting across her lawn again. But when Mimi opens the door, two men in navy blue coveralls greet her instead. One carries a clipboard. The other rests an elbow on the top rail of an upright dolly.

“Is this the Stanislaw Lukasewicz residence?” the man with the clipboard asks.

Mimi hesitates. Stan hardly ever uses his given name. “Yes.”

The other man straightens and wheels the dolly through the door, leaving Mimi no choice but to shuffle aside to avoid being run over.

“Kitchen in the back?” he asks her.

“What?” She looks to the man with the clipboard. “What’s going on?”

“We’re from General Electric, ma’am. I’m afraid you’ve fallen behind on your payments. We’ve come to take back your refrigerator.” He holds the clipboard out to her. “Sign here, please.”

“There must be some mistake.” They’d missed a payment or two, it was true, but surely this could all be sorted out. She hears the thrum of rubber atop her newly polished parquet floors and turns to see the other man wheeling the dolly down the hallway toward the kitchen. “Wait!”

“No mistake,” the man with the clipboard says. “A notice was mailed out last month.”

Mimi thinks back. An official-looking letter from General Electric had arrived some weeks back. She’d set it aside for Stan like she did with all important mail.

The man thrusts the clipboard into her hands and fishes a pen from his breast pocket.

“Surely we can come to some sort of arrangement. I’ve got …” How much money does she have on hand? Ten … twenty dollars? She looks down at the paper on the clipboard, skimming the legal mumbo jumbo until she sees a number. A hundred and five dollars—that’s how much they’re behind. Mimi’s stomach sinks. Even if she turned out every purse and pocket in the house, there’s no way she could come up with that much money on the spot. She could run to the bank. If she withdrew their entire savings, it just might be enough. But then, how will they eat?

“Please. I’ve got some … some jewelry. Pearls and such. They’re real. None of that cheap mail-order stuff.” She glances down at her wedding ring, then hastily covers it with her other hand. Her necklaces and earrings she can do without. She’s already pawned a few of them. But not her ring.

“You have to take that up with the office, ma’am. We’re not permitted to take payments of any kind. Just the appliance. Sign here.” With a grease-stained finger, he points to a line at the bottom of the page.

A clang sounds from the kitchen. Mimi scribbles her name on the line, hands back the clipboard, and hurries to the kitchen. She arrives just in time to see the other man yank the refrigerator’s plug from the wall. The soft hum that’s filled her kitchen for months dies. He moves toward her beautiful machine—top-of-the-line, with stainless steel sliding shelves and a super freezer compartment at the bottom—with his rusty dolly.

“Wait!” she cries again. He stops and looks at her with tired indifference. “At least …” She wants to tell him to use a drop cloth so he doesn’t scratch the surface, but that’s foolish. It’s not her refrigerator anymore. “At least let me get the food out.”

He opens the refrigerator door wide for her. “Be quick about it, will ya? We’ve got three more stops to make.”

A rush of cold hits her. Mimi winces, even though it doesn’t matter if they let all the cold air out now. She looks at the tidy shelves. Just that morning, she’d taken everything out and wiped down the interior, taking stock of what they had. Not as much as they used to, but enough to get by. Now, she grabs the jug of milk from the middle shelf, hesitating before twisting around and setting it on the kitchen table.

The man clears his throat, and she moves more quickly. Cream, eggs, yesterday’s Jell-O salad. She sets them haphazardly on the table, then fills her arms anew.

The commotion draws her mother-in-law to the kitchen. Mimi hears the warning thud of her stiff gait and smells the wintergreen oil prescribed for her achy joints before she sees her.

“What’s this?” Halina says from the doorway.

Mimi drops a bundle of carrots and half a head of lettuce onto the table. “They’ve come for our refrigerator.”

“And you’re giving it to them?” Halina’s accent is even heavier than usual. She turns to the man and scowls. “Thieves!”

“No, Mamo. We fell behind on our payments.”

Halina redirects her sour expression at Mimi. She leans against the doorjamb, a badger roused from its winter torpor, watching as Mimi clears out the last of the food without offering to help.

Then, unceremoniously, the man wedges the dolly beneath the refrigerator and wheels it out of the kitchen and down the hallway toward the front door. Mimi follows at his heels. The children glance at her with confused expressions as she passes the living room, then turn back to the radio.

It takes both men to navigate the dolly down the front porch steps. Her beautiful refrigerator clinks and rattles as they descend. Across the street, she sees Mrs. Davenport pressing her sharply pointed nose against the glass of her living room window.

As the men wheel the machine to the curb and load it into their truck, Mimi sinks down onto the top step. The concrete is hard and cold beneath her. She hadn’t minded Mrs. Davenport’s nosy stare eight months ago when the gleaming new refrigerator had been carted inside. They’d been the first family on the block to replace their icebox with an electric model. Now, shame burns beneath Mimi’s skin. She’ll be back to hanging a sign for ice in her front window, and everyone, not just Mrs. Davenport, will know it’s gone.

The truck drives away, but Mimi can’t bring herself to go back inside. The sky is starting to darken when the front door opens behind her.

“Mama,” Penny says, “there’s someone out back.”

“One of them hobos,” Junior adds.

Mimi grabs the iron railing and hauls herself up. “That’s not what we call them, Junior—they’re just like you and me, remember? But for the—”

“Grace of God go I,” he finishes for her. “Yeah, I remember.”

Today the well-worn words seem almost prophetic. The children trail her through the house to the back door off the kitchen. A man in ragged clothes stands on the stoop. It’s been several months since anyone like him has come knocking. Long enough she’d almost begun to think the Depression might really be over. Today’s a bitter reminder it’s not.

“Good evening, ma’am,” the man says to her, touching the brim of his worn hat. “Pardon for troubling you, but might you have a little supper to spare?”

She glances over her shoulder at the food on the table. Even if she and Halina can manage to haul the icebox up from the basement tonight, the iceman won’t be by for another two days. By then, nearly everything will have spoiled. She might as well cook up what she can.

“Come back in half an hour, and I’ll have a good meal ready.”

A gap-toothed smile stretches across his face. It’s almost enough to beat back her melancholy. Almost.

“Thank you kindly, ma’am.” He touches his hat again. “I will.”

“If you’re traveling with others, bring them along, too. We’ve got plenty to go around.”

Tonight they did, anyway. Tomorrow was another story.



Three days later, Mimi hurries home after a busy day of marketing. Their old icebox is decidedly smaller than the electric refrigerator, and the freezer box doesn’t stay nearly as cold. But they don’t have money for frosted foods like Creamsicles, anyway.

After unloading the groceries, Mimi goes to check on Stan. When she left late this morning, he’d made it out of bed and into his well-loved armchair in the living room. Now that chair is empty, and she fears his bum leg has driven him back to bed.

She reaches for the bedroom doorknob like it’s a hot coal and turns it gingerly. She blinks. It’s not particularly bright inside, but she’d expected total darkness. The unmade bed is empty. Mimi opens the door fully to find Stan tottering before her vanity mirror, tying his tie. He’s dressed nicer than she’s seen him in weeks—navy blue slacks and a collared shirt. His jacket is draped over the vanity chair, and silver baseball cufflinks—the ones she bought him on their first anniversary—wink at her in the lamplight.

She starts to ask if he needs help but stops herself. The last time she asked, he hollered at her for treating him like a cripple. Instead, she settles for an even-toned, “You look nice.” Still risky, but better than standing there gawking.

Stan turns and flashes her that megawatt smile of his. Here’s the man she married.

“Be sure to put a little extra on for supper,” he says. “Gibbins is coming.”

Mimi feels herself deflate like an overmixed soufflé. Extra. What extra? They’d been getting by on less and less for weeks now. Never mind she hasn’t had time to tidy the house.

Tell Gibbins to come another day, she wants to say. Instead, she straightens and dons her best happy-housewife expression. “Do you think he has news?”

“Sure does.” Stan turns back to the vanity mirror and finishes with his tie. “Said he wanted to talk it over in person.”

And squeeze a free meal out of them to boot.

Mimi hurries off to the kitchen to warm the oven, trying not to worry. Only two types of news need to be delivered in person: very good news and very bad.

“Thank you, Mrs. Lukas. That sure was delicious pie. Even my own mother’s can’t compare.” Gibbins tosses the checkered napkin onto his empty plate and pushes back from the table. Mimi smiles. He said the same thing last time he ate over. And the time before.

“You sure you wouldn’t like another slice?” Mimi asks. She hasn’t taken one herself to be sure there’s plenty to go around.

“No, no. Two’s my limit.”

She rises from the table and takes his plate to the sink. Gibbins isn’t a bad fellow, just a bit too slick for Mimi’s liking. The sort who’s quick with a joke or wild story—like the time DiMaggio mistook Gibbins’s topcoat for his own and wore it on his first date with Dorothy Arnold. When he returned it, I could still smell her perfume! Sure, you laugh. You might even believe him. But later on, you wonder what sort of stories he’s telling about you.

Not that anything in Mimi’s life is worth broadcasting. In her husband’s life, perhaps. But not hers.

Still, she’s glad he’s here. Gibbins knows everyone in baseball. In his long career, he’s been a manager, league organizer, promoter, and scout. If anyone can help Stan get a new contract, it’s him.

“Want me to clear the kids out of the living room?” she asks Stan as she tops off their coffee.

“Nah, we’ll talk here.”

He’s still smiling. Has been all supper long. And as much as she doesn’t trust Gibbins’s stories, it sure has been nice hearing Stan laugh again.

Mimi fills the sink with soap and water but leaves the dishes to soak so the two men can have privacy. Stan pats her on the rear as she leaves. He’s sitting easier than he has since coming home from the hospital: shoulders relaxed, bum leg stretched out under the table, crutches leaning forgotten against the wall. Her hope swells.

She makes it four steps down the hall before temptation gets the better of her, and she flattens herself against the wall to listen.

“The missus won’t mind if I smoke, will she?” Gibbins asks.

Mimi does mind. She’s never liked the smell. But Stan must have assured him otherwise, because a matchbox rattles and a flame rasps to life. A few moments later, cigarette smoke drifts from the kitchen.

“Want one?” Gibbins says. “I hear they’re good for your health. Gets the blood flowing.”

She hopes Stan will say no and is grateful when she hears Gibbins stuff the matchbox and cigarettes back in his pocket.

“How goes it, anyway, the healing?”

“The docs are still saying I’ll make a full recovery. Did you tell the folks in Washington that? Christmas if not sooner.”

Christmas? Not a chance.

“I told them.” Gibbins’s cigarette crackles. Fresh curls of smoke float into the hallway. “I’m afraid they’re not interested, Stan.”

“Not interested? But I was having a damned good season before the accident. I was hitting—”

“It’s not your stats. They’re, well, not bad. But Stan, you’re thirty-six.”

“Earle Brucker is thirty-eight. Hell, Jo Heving’s almost forty!”

“They’re not com