After the Fog

by Kathleen Shoop

  Magdalena stiffened and drew away.

  Rose recalled her conversation with Johnny. “Wait, but you’re not going skating today? Johnny told me. You sick?”

  Magdalena shrugged and put her hands on hip, chin in the air, and for a second Rose saw every bit of who she was in her daughter.

  Magdalena blew out her air as though she’d just been told to clean up Unk’s waste. “Can’t a person be under the weather in her own house without the community nurse taking her temperature every five seconds? It’s this test I have. I really want that scholarship. Okay?”

  Rose was relieved by Magdalena’s words and she gathered her into a suffocating hug. Rose believed she would be able to feel any real trouble coursing through Magdalena’s veins if she just held her tight enough.

  Magdalena went stiff and tried to pull away. Rose gripped harder, until the girl had no choice but to embrace Rose back. Rose felt her daughter’s arms slide around her back and she laid her head on Rose’s shoulder.

  “I’m proud of you, Magdalena.”

  Magdalena nodded into Rose’s shoulder.

  Satisfied, she gripped Magdalena’s shoulders “Okay, move it,” Rose said, “Lots to do, right? Just remember you can do anything you set your mind to, Magdalena. There are no limits on your future. None.”

  Rose patted Magdalena’s back, spun her toward the kitchen and smacked her on the behind as though sending a horse out to pasture.

  Magdalena looked over her shoulder, face twisted up with confusion before she disappeared into the kitchen.

  Rose never had to worry about Magdalena being a wayward sort—a poor decision maker. No, Magdalena had everything Rose never did. No black holes marring her soul.

  She’d given Magdalena and Johnny all the love and security they needed to grow up and make the right decisions. She didn’t have to waste her time wondering if they were okay. And that was as comforting as anything to Rose.

  * * *

  Rose stood just outside the kitchen doorway. She leaned against the wall, gripped by exhaustion, remembering she had only slept a few hours before she’d been called out to the Greshecky’s to deliver Isabella’s baby. She could hear her family, the lot of them, gathered in the kitchen. At that moment, she wished they would all disappear and she could go about her business without interference.

  Rose grimaced. She wanted to obliterate that awful thought, but it was there to stay. She prayed for peace and the ability to be content with what she had, this family. But, she and Henry had worked hard to put money away for a nice family of four to purchase a home. It seemed so simple. Save more than you spend. Reasonable. Especially when both parents did work.

  Yet, there was still no house for the Pavlesics. Not when family members needed to borrow from their savings, or stole it. Or gambled it away. Because family staying together in the hopes of making a better life took precedence over everything.

  The Pavlesics lived enmeshed like prickly strands of hemp, twined together, abrasive, but strong from one end of the rope to the other. The rope may have been strained from the hemorrhaging of their joint bank accounts, or by petty arguments and useless jealousy, but it was as stable as it needed to be. The damage wasn’t even noticeable from certain angles, or over time.

  Rose told herself to toughen up. She should go to her family, to Henry for comfort. But she had never been able to verbalize her feelings as she wished she could. She was grateful for Henry and the family he’d given her by marriage, but still, even with them seven feet away she felt alone in every way.

  The steady hum of conversation, punctuated by Buzzy’s guffaws and expressions of “you don’t say!” kept Rose from moving. She couldn’t shake the heaviness in her chest. She took a deep breath and exhaled as she peered around the wall.

  The family sat sausaged at a table intended for six, shoulder jostling shoulder, squeezed so tight that Rose often let the coal go low during the course of a meal for all the warmth generated by sheer body heat and a hot argument. Buzzy’s and Sara Clara’s child, Leo, and Johnny and Magdalena sat along one side of the beat-up Formica table.

  Auntie Anna, an elephantine white-haired woman sat at the far end of the table, grinning at Leo. She fingered the leather strings around her neck that held her bulging suede sack of cash between her shapeless breasts. Unk was at the end closest to the stove, rubbing his temples, lost in his thoughts or simply confused by the banter.

  Sara Clara’s wide smile and cheerful expression was in full force. She was clearly over her earlier mood or faking it so no one besides Rose would know of her melancholy. Her neat figure was made more alluring by jeans, showcasing her long, trim legs, and a form-fitting, coral cardigan pushed her breasts out over the table as though Isaly’s had purchased advertising there and demanded Sara Clara make a sale that very breakfast.

  The picture-perfect twenty-three year-old sat cinched between Henry and Buzzy. Sara Clara’s wavy hair, silky as exquisite Japanese threads, was gathered in a ponytail and made her appear sophisticated; the same hairstyle made Magdalena look innocent.

  Rose shifted her weight and fussed with her hair, pushing strays back in place, squeezing her bun, a jumbled mess after a long night. She’d been too busy to shower and observing Sara Clara prompted a surge of envy. Sara Clara did nothing to help out at home, but always looked stunning for her job of Queen Do Nothing All Day.

  Sara Clara’s purring at Henry made Rose cringe. The woman-child bestowed all her attention on Henry, every blessed day, probing him for stories about his days as a Pittsburgh Pirate.

  Rose sighed at Sara Clara forcing Henry to relive the best and worst stretch of his life as though it were her story, too. It called up too much emotion for Henry and it unnerved Rose. The exercise excited Sara Clara, satisfied with the stories of another life rather than having her own.

  “No, why of course, I understand the decision to go to the Pirates instead of accepting that chemistry scholarship,” Sara Clara said, and swept her petite, manicured hand over Henry’s forearm, resting above his wrist. “But Henry, realllllly a Pittsburgh Pirate. What tales you have to tell!”

  Rose was pleased to see Henry worm his arm away and run his hand through his hair. She hadn’t realized she groaned in response to Sara Clara’s inquisition until the whole family turned toward her. She moved quickly to kiss Auntie Anna good morning, and saw the family’s plates were empty. No one had served the food. Like always, they waited for her.

  “I ain’t hungry,” Auntie Anna growled at Rose. “Gonna count the money n’at. Think we’re ‘bout flush for that house you been talking about building.” Auntie Anna pulled her money pouch—the one she never removed unless Rose was forcing her to bathe, or was checking her for repeated bouts of pneumonia, or adding more money.

  Rose spoke to Auntie as though soothing a wild animal, tucking the sour smelling sack back into Auntie’s shirt, telling her that they would certainly count the money on pay day—Friday. Rose had been depositing funds into the bank on behalf of her family, but still gave a portion to Auntie Anna, as was the tradition for all of them. Rose would have liked to put all their pay in the bank to make sure it grew at the rate it ought to, but it wasn’t Rose’s home and despite Auntie Anna’s diminished abilities, no one was ready to take the last scrap of her dignity. Besides, from the lessons learned in 1929, Auntie Anna was as safe a bank as Mellon at the bottom of the hill.

  Buzzy lit a cigarette and waved the smoke away from the table.

  Each payday, Buzzy, Henry and Rose forked over their pay, into the family pot so that as soon as possible, each person could purchase their own home. Unfortunately, illnesses, Buzzy’s irresponsible ways, and a house-fire had filched the family funds from Rose’s open hand so many times she wondered if she’d ever have the opportunity to live the way she’d imagined.

  She dreamed it so much and so long, she couldn’t admit it might never come to be. She thought of the orphanage, lying there as a child on rickety cots, slotted between thirty-one other gir
ls, frigid breezes lifting thin sheets and keeping her from drifting into the safety of sleep. During those sleepless nights she formulated the life she’d wanted to live. And really, all that she desired was a small, warm, clean home, a safe home, filled with love.

  Rose washed up and served the food, distracted by a spike of hope that Auntie Anna might be right. Maybe they did save enough money for Rose and Henry to buy their home. Rose plunked eggs onto the plates as the conversation drew her from her own mind.

  “Having their ninth child?” Sara Clara squealed. “Why, aren’t they aware of methods?”

  Henry dropped his head into his hands, elbows on the table, he rubbed his temples.

  “What’s a method?” Johnny said.

  Sara Clara leaned across the table, “Family planning. Margaret Sanger? Surely having a nurse in the family means y’all are enlightened on these matters.”

  Johnny drew back, face crunched up.

  “Marital Relations?” Unk’s gravelly voice cut in.

  Henry shot his hands into the air like someone scored a touchdown. “Holy Christ! Do we have to talk about this?”

  Rose cleared her throat, working around the table, getting to the bottom of the first pan of eggs.

  “Humph. They could adopt the baby out, you know,” Sara Clara said. “Why Buzzy, didn’t you say that mill nurse Dottie Shaginaw wanted to adopt a baby?”

  Buzzy looked at Sara Clara as though she suggested he lop off a limb. “Adopt out? Are you nuts? If you have a baby, you keep it; it’s not some extra dog for Pete’s sake. You raise the kids you make. That’s that.”

  Rose’s careful plunking of buttery eggs onto plates faded to scraping burnt grease so hard that the screeching of metal on metal silenced the discussion. Rose shrugged and went to the sink. She tossed the pan into it and ran the water trying to blot out the conversation at the table for a moment, but then couldn’t stop herself from listening as the conversation resumed.

  Buzzy stabbed at his eggs. “You know an adopted child is never treated the same as the real kids in the family. Better off dead. Besides, Dottie’s a little off center if you know what I mean?”

  “Off center?” Johnny said.

  “She likes…well, other nurses, if I could put it delicately, Johnny boy.”

  Nonsense. Rose fumbled a second skillet of eggs, making it crash back onto the burner. The breakfast table was not the place for this type of talk—about adoption or Dottie. Diamond Dottie with a child? She was still a child herself, cocooned in her girlhood home, spoiled by wealthy parents, only working as a nurse out of boredom. If she really cared about people in need she’d be a community nurse.

  But off-center? Rose didn’t believe that. Dottie was much too interested in flirting with Henry every chance she had to be even a little interested in women. And, she certainly couldn’t handle a baby. Rose picked up the frying pan without a potholder and dropped it immediately, bouncing some eggs out of the pan. She scooped up the eggs and glanced over her shoulder to everyone staring at her again.

  “Excuse me. Sorry. I didn’t say anything.” Rose pursed her lips, irritated by all of them. She pushed the plug into the drain and filled it with hot water and soap. She shuddered as she replayed Buzzy’s words in her mind. He could be so cruel. He knew Rose had grown up in an orphanage, and had desperately wanted to be adopted. It’s not as though Rose were still in that situation, but to hear such heartless statements regarding unwanted children…well, Rose thought, unwanted said it all.

  Rose shivered even in the heat of the kitchen. Was it the change of life already? She was only thirty-eight. She told herself Buzzy didn’t know what he was talking about. Trouble was, his ideas weren’t any different from most folks.

  Rose was half-listening to her family when she heard Magdalena’s voice come over the din of the others. “Well, I suppose this is as good a time as any to say this.”

  Rose turned to her daughter, rubbing her arms to stave off the goose bumps crawling up them. She wondered if Magdalena was going to request they all say a prayer for her and the test she needed to take.

  Magdalena straightened in her chair. “I’m quitting school to start an apprenticeship with Ms. Hakim. She said I’ve got a stunning ability to sew a straight, tight line, that I could babysit for her in between learning to perfect my dressmaking skills.”

  The silence in the room was as startling as Magdalena’s announcement. Everyone gaped at Rose, clearly waiting for her response.

  She could not think. Her hearing must be going. She grabbed the skillet with bacon and stomped to the table and shoveled some bacon onto Sara Clara’s plate. She must not have heard right.

  Henry cleared his throat. “If Magdalena really wants to be a seamstress, well, I think it’s something to consider. Maybe she has too many responsibilities compared to other girls, too many expectations that suit boys better.”

  “She’s a big girl,” Rose said as she scraped bacon from the bottom of the pan for Buzzy’s share. “School is the first responsibility on the list of shit she has to do as far as I’m concerned.”

  “She’s still a baby,” Henry said.

  “I thought I might—” Magdalena said.

  “She can decide,” Henry said, “if her future means four years of college with men who may not be ready for a woman as smart as they are. I understand—”

  Rose grunted and slammed her spatula into the pan. “My daughter will not quit school to sew of all G.D. things. No!” Rose slapped the pan with the spatula several times, anger overtaking her senses.

  “Hello? I’m right here!” Magdalena pounded her fists onto the table once, rattling the place settings.

  Rose pointed at Magdalena with her spatula. “She’s still a baby! She can’t make her own decisions! That’s what the hell we’re for!” Rose wiped her brow with the back of her hand. This was not what she needed on a morning like she’d already had. She needed a swig of vodka, needed to calm down.

  Sara Clara patted Henry’s hand. “It’s okay, Hen, everything’ll end up fine.”

  Rose stared at Sara Clara’s manicured fingers patting Henry. Rose wanted to smack Sara Clara’s hand away.

  “Oh, now you know everything will be all right, Sara Clara? Now you know, huh? A damn miracle, right here in Donora,” Rose said.

  “Mum,” Magdalena said. “Just because I want to sew doesn’t mean I’m not as smart as you thought I was. It doesn’t—”

  Rose smashed the spatula into the pan again. “It means you have nothing to your name if that’s the path you take. You have no idea what it’s like for women who are at the mercy of their husbands. You have never seen—”

  Sara Clara tapped her knife against her coffee mug. “Now Rose, there are some things a woman simply can’t worry about. Isn’t that the advice I recently heard you offer?”

  Rose glared at Sara Clara. What the hell was happening? She did not have the time to engage Sara Clara or any of them in a reasoned argument. She would deal with them later and they would do what she wanted because she loved this family and Magdalena would forget about this sewing. Suddenly, all Rose wanted to do was head off to the world of nursing, where nothing ever went as expected, but where Rose always had the answers.

  “The Texaco Star Theatre’s on tonight, right?” Johnny said. It was just like him to inject some levity. “Eight pm. Maybe that blond sweetie pie will be back to sing another show-tune or two.”

  Rose usually appreciated breaks in the tension like that. That was normally all she needed but her arms felt as though they were wrapped in steel, as though her body finally recognized the decades of tireless work she’d used it for and gave up.

  Rose stalked to the stove and tossed the pan back onto it. “Serve yourselves,” Rose said bolting from the kitchen. All she could do was flee. She did not have the luxury of sitting around messing up people’s lives.

  Chapter 4

  Rose tried to calm herself by taking deep breaths. She stared at her bedside table, knowing the vodka
was inside it, wanting it like a man wanted a shot and a beer after his shift. Like every Pennsylvania mill town, Donora had bars tucked between shoe stores and five and dimes, hardware stores and churches. No matter what was standing there, a watering hole of some sort was wedged next to it.

  The men worked hard enough during a sweltering, backbreaking shift to justify stopping for a drink on the way home even if work ended at seven in the morning. Still, many a housewife met her husband at the gate on payday to collect the wages, to make sure the money wasn’t sucked back with whiskey and Iron City beer.

  Rose couldn’t stand it any longer and yanked open the stubborn drawer. She was tired and the booze might slow her down even more. But she argued to herself, a nip of vodka might numb her anger enough to refocus on what lay ahead that day. She stared at the flask. She deserved a sip. She thought of the men who left their shifts. They loved a good boilermaker—a stiff drink that consisted of a shot of whiskey—glass and all—plunged into a herculean-sized tumbler of beer that they guzzled down as though they were stranded in the desert.

  That was what Rose felt like, traipsing through the hills, caring for dozens of families in just one day. Her throat would be choked with soot after her shifts, and just like the boys at the mill, she needed a shot, but took it at home, at some point during her day. She would throw back the booze like prohibition was minutes from reinstatement. A nice shot provided cover from time to time. Or a tall cool one allowed her to blow off steam. Either way, the booze was anesthetizing, a gateway to getting by or getting through.

  She reached in the drawer and ran her finger over the embossed flask. In and out. Rose drew deep breaths, unable to block out Sara Clara’s, Magdalena’s and Henry’s words from her mind. Why would Magdalena give up all that she’s worked for her entire life? She had a scientist’s mind. She was Rose plus she had the advantages of a loving family, and stable home, a sturdy path to academic and then career success. Not a young girl’s typical journey, but her daughter wasn’t ordinary.