After the Fog

by Kathleen Shoop

  She slid across the floor, humming a slow, sad tune. It reminded him of what he’d heard earlier that day about the Greshecky woman. Clearly that wasn’t a case Rose would let go of easily. Still she carried on with her chores. Most women weren’t like Rose.

  She was unsentimental, a machine, like the mills. She did what had to be done no matter how she felt. Nothing interfered with the way she operated. She just moved ahead like a rolling mill.

  Rose wiped her hands on her apron then sniffed under her arms. Henry smiled. His Rose never did like a stench. Her head jerked toward the small utility room off the far side of the kitchen. Her shoulders slumped and she scurried to the room, huffing and irritated.

  He heard the storm door open—the one that led to the landing that they built from trash-heap wood and nails “borrowed” from the mill. The landing allowed Rose to store their garbage on the far side of the house, away from where the family would have to walk past it. What could have called her attention there? No one would ever climb that staircase except someone returning from dumping the garbage.

  “You mangy mutt, Rags!” Her voice hit Henry’s ears and his shoulders hunched bracing on behalf of the dog. He hated to see Rose yell at the sorry pooch. “I don’t have time for this bullshit.” Henry heard the door slam and watched Rose stomp into the kitchen still too distracted to notice him peeking in the doorway.

  Henry was about to tell Rose not to be harsh with the dog. It couldn’t help being a lost soul. But, he stopped when Rose tugged the icebox open and pulled out a package of bologna. She crumpled the wrappings against her leg before tossing them on the counter and disappearing into the utility room again. Henry heard the door open and hit the wall behind it. He slipped across the kitchen floor and poked his head into the utility room.

  Rose stood at the open door; the dog was rolled into a ball, his snout barely peeking out.

  “Now, you go away. You’re not wanted here.” Rose laid the meat in front of the dog’s nose, patted the top of its head and backed away.

  She left the utility room and ran smack into Henry.

  “Hen?”

  “Hey.”

  “What? The garbage doesn’t put itself out.”

  Henry nodded and jammed his hands in his pockets. A smile pulled on the corner of his mouth. He wanted to tell her he knew she liked the dog.

  Rose pulled his face to her, pecked his lips then the creases at the corners of his eyes. She held Henry’s gaze like she was determining whether he’d seen her interaction with the dog.

  Henry wrapped Rose in his arms, pulling her pelvis into his, kissing her neck. The salty taste on her skin after a long night of nursing excited him. She squirmed, sliding out of his grip, and his hand groped for hers before she completely got away. He pulled her back and smoothed loose hairs off her face.

  Rose quickly covered her left ear with the hair he’d brushed back. After all these years, she was still conscious of him seeing her double earlobe—a congenital defect. In utero her ear had folded over on itself giving the effect of having two lobes.

  “Later, Hen.”

  He wrapped around her, pulled her back against his belly, his chin on the top of her head, her hair smelling more like her than the shampoo she used. He could hold her forever, he thought. He was lucky to have any sex at all, let alone regularly. His friends often joked about the fact his wife was a nurse, and worked like a man, but he didn’t care. The times she wasn’t there with a tray of sandwiches, she was there with the sex. He loved that she was independent. That it was almost as though she didn’t need him at all.

  He kissed the top of her head. “I heard about Greshecky’s wife—Isabella.” She stiffened and he let her go. Suddenly he wanted to tell her what had happened at work. She would understand. He reached for her again.

  Rose turned, tears welling. She shrugged. “Said a rosary for Isabella. She’ll be in heaven with her baby…or maybe not, you know, no baptism…” Rose waved her hand in front of her face and pushed past Henry. She straightened the blue and white serving dish in the center of the table and sighed, as though her contentment had dissolved in an instant.

  Henry knew, with Rose, she’d feel better soon. By evening she would have wrangled the good out of the bad and she’d be back to her normal self.

  * * *

  Buzzy rushed into the kitchen, heading for a glass of water. “How’s my favorite sister-in-law?” He glanced at Henry then kissed Rose’s cheek. She brushed it off with the back of her hand and looked to Henry for an explanation.

  Henry’s breath caught a moment and he coughed into his hand, forcing his body to relax. He knew Buzzy’s routine. He was desperate, but he was only in phase-one desperation. He would try to charm Rose; he wouldn’t attempt to bully her, not yet. If only Buzzy had listened to Henry and Rose.

  Buzzy spread his hands, looking over the table, set with the dishes they bought every time they deposited money into Mellon Bank. “Where’s the grub? I’m showered, I’m ready for food.”

  Henry limped to the table, brushing past Buzz.

  Rose took a deep breath and released it as she went to the stove. “Food’ll be a minute, Hen. Unk had a bit of, well, you know how things go with Unk.” She pushed melting butter around one of three skillets.

  “No matter,” Henry said. He slumped into his chair and wrenched his WH Auden Chapbook—The Age of Anxiety—from his pocket and paged to where he’d left off during his lunch break.

  Rose’s eyes narrowed, straining to see Henry’s foot as she carried blistering hot coffee to the table. “Are you limping from the old injury or did you get hurt today?”

  Henry didn’t care about discussing his injury. It was what would follow—the conversation regarding why he showered at the mill and who treated the burn that he didn’t want to have.

  Rose poured Henry’s coffee and set it in front of him. He wrapped his fingers around the thick mug, brushing Rose’s as he did. Henry knew the line of questioning that would follow. He couldn’t help but get caught in Buzzy’s heavy gaze.

  “What?” Rose said. “I saw that look the two of you just passed like a bad dollar bill. What’s in the vault? This isn’t Mellon Bank, you know. Nothing goes in the vault without my say.”

  Henry pushed the conversation in a safer direction. “Little slag on my Achilles is all,” he said. “Nothing new is in the vault.” He grimaced looking down at his foot.

  “That goddamn pol-ak,” Buzzy said, “Vinski’s going to get us all killed. Goddamn jackass is never where he should be.” Henry was glad Buzzy’s con-artist ways worked to his benefit from time to time.

  “Let me have a look, Hen.” Rose got down on her hands and knees and cocked her head, spreading open Henry’s seared workpants. She drew in a breath as though it were she with burned skin. Henry looked at her rounded back, her muscles moving beneath her robe. His gaze slid back toward her behind. He patted it.

  She sat back on her heels, face flushed. “It appears as though Nurse Dottie fixed a decent bandage,” Rose shrugged. “For now it’s decent. Her work doesn’t always stand up over time.”

  Henry knew Rose’s deep dislike for Dottie Shaginaw and treaded carefully when it came to praising Rose’s rival.

  Rose went back to the eggs, Henry, to his poetry.

  Buzzy snapped the newspaper open and began reciting the headlines. He shoved Henry’s foot with his.

  Henry lifted his gaze from his chapbook and shook his head. He was not ready to beg Rose for money to cover Buzzy’s irresponsibility, again.

  “I saw that,” Rose said.

  Buzzy pulled out the wooden chair beside Henry and rotated it. He straddled the seat and rested his forearms along the back. “Saw what?”

  “That foot nudge,” Rose said over her skillets. “What are you two up to? You owe money, again, Buzzy? Unk was mumbling about money lost again…”

  “No! Rose you know I’ve changed.”

  Rose stared at Buzzy then Henry. Henry felt sweat on the top of his h
ead. He opened his mouth to tell the truth, but Buzzy was already filling the air with what he considered quality thoughts.

  “That polak Vinski’s gonna get someone’s hand sheared off,” Buzzy said. “If he isn’t made to tow the line. I don’t know what the USW’ll have to say about that jackass. We fought long and hard to form that union, to be protected from the white hats, but who’ll protect us from our own? Son of a bitch’ll cost you, um, me, I mean, some fella at least a week’s pay if that jug head Nelson finds out.”

  Henry leaned forward on the table glaring at his brother. Damn Buzzy, Henry thought, subtle as a jackhammer.

  “Just read the paper, Buzz. How about the Steelers this week? Who they playing?” Henry gritted his teeth.

  “Who lost a week’s pay? I’m not stupid you know.” Rose poured the eggs into the pan and scraped them into tiny, buttery bits of heaven.

  “No one, Rosie,” Buzzy said with that smile he’d used to get what he wanted all his life. “All’s well on the Murray Avenue front. Everywhere else, though, well, everyone’s an asshole these days, Rosie. Except Hen, here that is.”

  Rose slapped a lid on each of the skillets on the stove, turned off the burners and sauntered over to Buzzy and Henry wielding a spatula as though headed into battle. She poked it into the air at the two of them.

  “What’s all the code-speak, bullshit Buzzy? If you think I’m not aware that you’re rambling an awful lot of nothing to cover up something then you’re crazy.”

  Buzzy held his hands up in surrender.

  Rose narrowed her eyes at him.

  Henry forced his attention back to Auden hoping to convey nonchalance.

  “Just yammering after a hard night’s work.” Buzzy nearly dropped his coffee mug.

  Henry glanced at Buzzy, noting his clenched teeth. It made Henry think his brother was more nervous than he originally supposed. Maybe the fellas shouting his name earlier weren’t simply his buddies. Maybe Buzzy wasn’t playing a friendly card game anymore.

  Apparently, though, Rose was appeased. She tossed the spatula on the counter, and stalked into the utility room.

  Henry leaned forward, hissing his whisper at Buzzy.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “Just trying to soften things up before you let the boom down. That’s all, just trying to help.”

  “Well, no thanks, Buzz, old boy. Keep your trap shut.”

  Rose came back in the kitchen, eyeing the two of them suspiciously.

  Henry’s nerves were on edge. He tapped his book of poetry. “This Auden gets me thinking.” He lifted the book in Rose’s direction. “I think he’s suggesting technology is looming too large. That it’s scraping away at our common sense, our connection to each other…”

  “That’s what that book’s about?” Rose said.

  Henry shrugged. “I’m getting a little of that from it—a little cynical, a little hopeful. Like when I think of those mills, all the incremental elements that have to fit perfectly together in order to produce a single steel thread. When I think of that wire! Sometimes it all seems parochial, sometimes it seems like the most worldly work a man can do.”

  “Don’t romanticize that mill,” Rose said. “The seventeen-year locusts have more of a social life than you fellas. Every seventeen years those little bastards come out of the ground, mate, and eat each other or some shit like that. That’s no existence for anyone, man or insect.”

  “Easy nurse, Pavlesic,” Buzzy said, “I think the guy’s had enough injury without your insult lumped on top.”

  “Stuff it, Buzzy.”

  She patted Henry’s shoulder. He grabbed her hand and pulled her closer.

  “We have to talk, okay?”

  Henry tried to interpret Rose’s body language, determine whether her stiff posture was due to Buzzy being there or if she knew something was going on with him.

  Buzzy slid the Donora Herald American from the table and snapped it open again in front of his face. “Oh looky here, Truman’s about to lose the election to Dewey. Nice. Another jackass running the world. Just what we need.”

  “We’ll talk all right,” Rose said, “but I’m busy this morning. Doc Bonaroti set me on that Sebastian woman thinking I can get her to pop open her Chanel handbag for the sad sacks of Donora. He’s convinced I can persuade her to fund the clinic.”

  “He’s right,” Henry said.

  Buzzy dropped his paper and put his hand to his ear. “I think I hear Magdalena calling.”

  “Ass,” Rose said and ambled toward the hallway. Henry watched her disappear from sight, and from figuring out she was right to suspect Buzzy was in trouble again, and Henry was privy to it.

  Henry hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until Rose left the room and he was assured Buzzy couldn’t reveal anything. Henry took the moment of peace and turned back to his poetry. He slipped into Auden’s world of poetic, human interaction, thankful Rose was too distracted by her lack of clinic funding to push either of the two men on any matter at all. They’d been given a reprieve. For how long, Henry didn’t know.

  * * *

  The looks that passed between Henry and Buzzy troubled Rose, but not nearly as much as the recurrent images of Isabella and what it would mean for the Greshecky family. She covered her mouth, feeling like she needed to shield herself from an unseen, malignant force. The sound of furniture being pushed across the floor above her called to mind Sara Clara—the obvious, futile presence in the house.

  Perhaps the noise above was evidence that Sara Clara was finally going to contribute to the household without any more fuss. But, even thoughts of Sara Clara laying around in bed all day instead of contributing to the family, would have to wait.

  Rose rapped on Magdalena’s door. No reply. Must be in the bathroom. Rose crossed her arms and tapped her foot, waiting. Magdalena’s door opened and she slunk into the hallway using the wall for support.

  “You sick?” Rose said, remembering Johnny reporting that Magdalena wasn’t going skating this afternoon, the norm for months.

  Magdalena shook her head. She wrapped herself in her arms and sat on the stairs. Her bony knees peeked up from under her skirt. She tossed her head and her silky locks swung and draped her back, ready for Rose to go to work.

  She settled on the crooked step behind her daughter, the fresh odor of Camay and Breck shampoo wafting up as Rose lifted Magdalena’s chestnut hair.

  Magdalena sighed and scowled over her shoulder, silently warning Rose to speed it up. But, Rose loved these moments, the opportunities she had to touch her daughter—do her hair, help her dress, button a blouse. Once Magdalena barreled into her teens, she had careened right past Rose, with barely a look back.

  Rose had tried to forge a close relationship, create that happy friendship she saw some mothers and daughters share. Rose had to settle for the reassurance she was raising her daughter right and giving her opportunities to have a life, a career without money-worries. Rose had nothing in the way of a stable beginning to life. Luckily she’d had nursing to fill the gap left by her childhood, the craggy hole that remained after Rose trusted people she shouldn’t have.

  Rose shuddered. Growing up in an orphanage left her with painful memories so deep they’d shock her, and surface with a sight or smell or a feeling and invoke something she’d forgotten. But in being a good mother to Magdalena and Johnny, she had thought she could heal her past pain, her past sins.

  At the very least she could be vigilant about how her children looked and dressed. Rose knew what it was like to be clad in tattered clothes with shoes worn through to the pads of her feet. She knew what that did to a person’s soul. She understood the value of dressing well, and it wasn’t about shallow expressions of wealth. A girl’s appearance was the quickest way to send the message about herself, who she wanted to be or thought she was already.

  Only on the days when the orphanage was expecting nervous, fashionable couples, looking for a child to adopt, did someone touch Rose in anyway rem
otely nurturing. Those days the women at the orphanage would do Rose’s hair. But it wasn’t a loving gesture, more of a yanking, the sound of a comb thwacking through knots as Rose’s head snapped back and forth with the grooming. The memory of it made Rose shudder.

  Rose treated Magdalena’s grooming as an act of love. She’d never tugged Magdalena’s hair. She cherished every quiet moment with the comb she had.

  Rose’s eyes began to burn at the thought of Isabella and her infant daughter. They would never have these moments. Rose would never say it out loud, but if not for Ian being without Isabella now; Rose thought it was better both mother and daughter died at the same time. To live without your baby. Rose’s eyes filled. She knew what that meant. She couldn’t start thinking about that. She didn’t have the time to feel something so raw.

  “Mum? How old were you when you got married?”

  “Twenty.”

  Rose put the brush in her mouth and ran her fingers through Magdalena’s locks, remembering the picture of her and Henry on the baseball field, getting married at Forbes Field on the pitcher’s mound, that photo in Life Magazine, showing her as happy as she’d ever been.

  Rose ran the brush back through Magdalena’s hair. “That day was spectacular. Wow, that sun. We don’t get sun like that often. Fat and yellow as can be.” Rose wrapped the gum band around the hair and gently pulled Magdalena to standing with a sigh.

  “Why?” Rose said.

  “No reason.”

  Rose wondered if everyone was bizarre today on purpose or if they just couldn’t help it.

  Magdalena looked over her shoulder at Rose. “Daddy’s perfect. I want a man just like him.”

  Rose raised her chin at her seventeen-year-old daughter trying to see inside her soul. What did she really want to know with this line of questioning?

  Rose put the brush into her robe pocket.

  “You’re not worried about that bullshit are you? Boys? Pal around with the gang all you want, go roller skating with Susan and the Delany boys and so forth, but there’s no time for complicated love bullshit, right now.”