After the Fog

by Kathleen Shoop

  * * *

  Rose battered away on the Saltz’s door. They never could hear a damn thing in that house. Finally, Rose pushed open the door and stepped inside. Onions, body odor, and a jarring farm stench greeted her. What the hell? Rose wrinkled her nose and breathed through her mouth as she walked past the broom closet. She stopped, went back and pulled open the door.

  Fifty yellow chicks tumbled out the door, peeping, waddling, crapping all over each other. Rose covered her mouth.

  On cue Mrs. Saltz stepped out of her bedroom and into the hall. Her teary onslaught began, arms draped around Rose’s neck. Rose recoiled, holding her breath to avoid the dirty body smell.

  Rose told Mrs. Saltz she couldn’t keep peeps in the house, that it wasn’t sanitary and her other children could still be at risk for polio even if it was almost November. Mrs. Saltz whimpered and said she thought it would help their family if they could furnish their own eggs.

  Rose stepped over peeps, shoving them aside with her foot. Just because there was some data that pointed away from filth ushering polio into the body, Rose wasn’t taking chances with letting patients house animals as though they were battening down on Noah’s Arc. But, she needed to tend to the boy. If she stopped to get rid of the peeps, she’d never get anything done so she would have to trust Mrs. Saltz to do her part.

  Rose lumbered past Mrs. Saltz, toward Joey’s room. “Tell me how Joey is, and then get those peeps outside or in the cellar. Anywhere but in here.”

  “Joey. He’s in pain, in such pain. He can not breathe.”

  Rose had mentioned Warm Springs, Georgia, where they could send Joey to ease his pain. It was much more effective to work his limbs in combination with the warm spring therapy, but it was expensive. Rose had enough of Mr. Saltz putting his own drinking ahead of his son. After seeing him last night at the Merry-Go-Round, Rose was sure what didn’t go to drink, went down the shitter at the card game. Right along with Buzzy. Two dumb-asses, both of them on the losing end of poker more often than not.

  “Listen,” Rose said in a whisper. “I saw your husband last night, gambling. He must have money. If we’re one day away from payday and he has enough to enter a game, then he’s holding out on you. You could probably pay for—”

  Mrs. Saltz grabbed Rose’s arm, pulled her closer and whispered, her German accent camouflaging her words even more when she spoke quietly. Rose held her breath and leaned down.

  “I’ve managed,” Mrs. Saltz said, “to push away almost enough money to send Joey to warm spring. Before he go, I think we need iron lung. This air is thick, filled with garbage. The general manager mill man say he have nothing to say about air, but I know. I only sound stupid.” Mrs. Saltz interjected German words when she couldn’t find the right English ones.

  Rose would have pulled away and dismissed her words as nonsense, but something made her listen. Had this broken, sorrowful, weepy woman actually managed such a feat as hiding money from her husband—enough to send her son to Warm Springs? Rose felt reprimanded. Not that the woman could have known that Rose’s brother-in-law drained their savings repeatedly. But still, Rose always dutifully handed over most of her money to Auntie Anna. Henry had said that was what family did, when they first moved in with them fifteen years ago. Eager to be part of the big Pavlesic family, Rose had obliged.

  Rose patted the woman on the shoulder. “That’s something, saving that money. Really, that’s really…stunning.”

  “Your Unk teach me how to save. Tell me where to hide in my house. Plain sight, he say.”

  Could it be possible that Mrs. Saltz would know where the old man had hidden his rumored money? If there really was such a thing. “Where does Unk say you should hide it?”

  A croupy cough and groaning came from behind the closed door of Mrs. Saltz’s bedroom. She put her finger to her lips ending the discussion and resumed her wails, disappearing into the kitchen.

  Rose reached for Joey’s doorknob, but didn’t turn it. She wondered if Mrs. Saltz’s crying was some sort of mechanism to maintain the balance or imbalance in her life. Rose heard Mr. Saltz grumbling behind the other bedroom door and it made sense. If Mrs. Saltz went too long without wailing, he’d suspect perhaps she could function, after all. Rose had trouble believing Mrs. Saltz had managed to hide away enough money for Warm Springs—but if she had, then Rose was even more puzzled. Why would Mrs. Saltz live the way she did?

  More grumbling and thrashing came from Mr. Saltz’s bedroom. Rose glanced over her shoulder to Mrs. Saltz by her husband’s door, her hand poised on the knob. She hobbled over to Rose and waved for Rose to bend forward to whisper in her ear.

  “I sorry to be the one,” Mrs. Saltz said. “But a nice lady like you should know. I know women like you from Germany. Know a lot, yes. But, how you say it, not what happening right under nose?”

  Rose drew back, her face contorted with confusion.

  Mrs. Saltz waved Rose back.

  “Mr. Pavlesic,” she said in a whisper. “He there last night. Merry-Go-Round with men and poker and women. People run at mouth, like the chicks in the closet.” She opened and closed her fingers to her thumb. “Chirp-chirp. Chirp. They say you know everything but what your husband is up to.”

  Rose felt her jaw drop, but she couldn’t seem to close it.

  “I say, you the nurse I want in my house. Not hoity-toity mill nurse.”

  Rose bit the inside of her cheek as panic flew through her. “You mean Dottie? Dottie Shaginaw?”

  A clamor came from Mr. Saltz’s bedroom followed by groaning. Mrs. Saltz scurried off like a rat from fire. Rose stared at the woman’s back as she disappeared into the bedroom. Rose heard Mrs. Saltz’s cries behind the door and her husband’s angry voice ordering her to get some water, and cursing. The door opened and a teary-eyed Mrs. Saltz came out.

  “Wait, Mrs. Saltz. Did your husband say if Buzzy won or lost last night?”

  “Lost. But your Mr. Pavlesic, he there, he take care of things for his brother. I feel bad for you, for having husband who—”

  Glass broke behind the Saltz’s bedroom door and Mrs. Saltz cringed then re-entered the bedroom before she could finish her end of the conversation.

  Rose wanted to burst into that room, tell him where he could shove his demands, and ask what the hell the missus had been talking about. Could Mrs. Saltz have been confused? Rose had been drunk the night before, but she knew Henry had been with her. He’d been home when she arrived, hadn’t he? She thought she heard him in the bathroom and then he appeared as she was praying.

  She tried to remember the timeline of the night before, once she’d begun drinking, but she couldn’t. She would sit down and map it out if she had to, later, but right then she had a job to do. And if she found out Henry was up to any sort of bullshit, why she’d simply toss him in the Mon.

  * * *

  Rose entered Joey’s room and smiled in the direction of his bed. Normally he was looking right at her, happy, alert, ready with a knock-knock joke. The kind of person Rose thought everyone should emulate. The kid had suffered a lot. Rose would take his body, and push and pull it, feeling as though she was ripping him apart and he wouldn’t make a sound. Rose took a deep breath and hummed as she popped open her bag.

  She crept over to his bed and sat beside him. He was sleeping, his breath choppy and more shallow than usual. She wiggled his shoulder.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He opened his eyes and pushed himself up, his tendons in his neck stretching. He grimaced from the pain, but his cracked lips gave way to a smile.

  Rose allowed him to struggle, knowing how important it was that Joey control his life. He fell back on his pillow. She fussed with the stethoscope. Hail Mary full of grace…Hail Mary, Hail Mary…her lips repeated the well-worn prayer, but her mind prayed something else—thanks that her children had never, ever suffered like Joey. She reminded herself that she’d have to add this to her list of sins—thanking God that her children were healthy.

  A lo
ud meow startled Rose and she spun around, bouncing the bed, making Joey suck back air.

  A cat sprung onto Rose’s back. She threw her shoulders back, biting her lip to keep from screaming and scaring Joey. The hairball would not let go. It dug his claws in and her skin stung. She flailed her arms, spinning around the room until she stumbled backward, landing on Joey’s bed, the cat finally releasing Rose.

  Rose sprang up and spun around, hands covering her mouth, not breathing, mortified that she’d just flung herself onto the bed of a pained, sick child.

  But when she finally focused she saw Joey had pushed to sitting and was petting the cat, mewing at it as it mewed back. His breath was still labored, his complexion grey, but his demeanor, calm.

  If this was any other person, she would have ripped the mangy cat from the patient’s grip. But she let Joey nuzzle it, the purring turning her stomach, but lighting Joey’s face like Christmas at the Carnegie’s.

  He explained that the cat wasn’t his. “But he likes me. And my mum. He sits on her all day long.”

  Rose nodded. She knew who owned the cat, the man who slept under the Saltz’s porch, behind the loose lattice. No one seemed to know he was there. Mr. Saltz would have charged him a boarder’s fee no doubt. No, like Rose apparently not knowing what her husband was up to, the Saltz’s did not know who lurked under their very house.

  “I can’t breathe, Nurse Pavlesic.”

  Rose jumped at the sound of Joey’s voice. She cocked her head and watched him breathe. She pushed him gently backward onto the pillows, reaching around the feline.

  The cat hissed as Rose pulled one of Joey’s hands free. “Let’s take a look, right here.” Joey’s forefinger scratched at the cat’s neck, appearing and disappearing below the fur.

  He released the cat and it leapt away.

  Rose turned Joey’s wrist over to take his pulse.

  “Nurse?” Joey said through his sandpapery voice.

  “Just breathe, Joey, just breathe.”

  Rose studied his wrist and began recounting his pulse.

  “I watch out that there window. I see little Leo hopping about, heading to work with you, playing jacks and hopscotch and tag…”

  Rose nodded and tried to focus on his pulse.

  “You think I’ll hop and run and play tag again some day, Nurse?” Joey’s eyes watered with his strained words.

  “Yes, you will.” Rose’s voice cracked. She wondered how she could tell this boy such a lie. It wasn’t in her nature to sugarcoat anything. “Anything’s possible, Joey. You just need to believe. And breathe. Just breathe.”

  He turned toward the window and gazed out, as though he could see beyond the fog that shrouded his normal view of their street. Rose counted his pulse yet again. After a few tries she focused and finally completed the task.

  “You lost count a-gainnnnn,” Joey said.

  “What?”

  “You lose count every time you take my pulse. You start over every time at least twice.”

  “Well with you chattering like you do…working around that damn cat, kiddo that’s no surprise. Now stuff it in your sock.”

  “Aren’t you going to trace it?”

  “What?”

  “My wrist. You always rub my wrist with your thumb before you lay your fingers there. I love that. It tickles.”

  Rose stared at Joey’s wrist. She realized right then that she’d spent her entire nursing lifetime looking at people’s wrists, studying the way blue veins and red capillaries sprawled across one person’s and shot down another’s, the way coloring might be darker or lighter in some spots, looking for her daughter, hoping someday that Florida-shaped marking would somehow appear on someone’s wrist, revealing the little girl she’d given away.

  “I didn’t realize I did that,” Rose said.

  She finally focused long enough to get an accurate count.

  “It’s okay,” Joey said.

  “Hmm?”

  “You losing count. I like that touch. Yer sort of mean n’at, always yelling at this person and that, but underneath it all you’re a kind person. I can feel it in yer fingers when you’re not yanking my limbs all to whatnot. Tell me again ‘bout Sister Kenny who devised this torture. Please, your story makes me laugh.”

  Rose smiled then once out of Joey’s sightline the grin fell away. She put her hands under his head, pulling his neck straight. The pain she planned to inflict would help him maintain a minimal level of health, but Rose believed it was worth it.

  She took a deep breath, letting the exhaled air wash away her emotions, so she would be able to do her job, inflicting pain, and then come back and do it again. She couldn’t let sympathy mix in her heart, let herself feel what he did. That wouldn’t help Joey. She needed to be a nurse first.

  She removed his sock and a rancid odor of filth smacked her. It blended with her queasy stomach and she swallowed her nausea. She grabbed the sole of his foot with one hand and pushed down on his quad with the other, bringing forth the first scream she’d ever heard Joey let out. She thought, she’d have to report his decline in health and wondered if he would have to be hospitalized; no medical facility in their right mind would attempt to place an iron lung in a rat-trap like the Saltz’s.

  Rose finished Joey’s exercises, washed him down, dressed him in the cleanest pajamas she could find before giving him a nip of bourbon for the pain she’d caused and then pulled Mrs. Tucharoni’s clean sheet from her bag and tucked it around Joey’s body. Rose left the Saltz’s crooked home to a chorus of screams and thuds of furniture and other items hitting the walls.

  She felt an urge to go to Henry and not only thank him for the wonderful life he’d given her, but also to confess to him about her first baby, about her virginity that didn’t exist when they married. But then, really, her current state of mind was best soothed by her work and a proper Church confession.

  Chapter 12

  Like a stopped up bowel system, the typical five minute jaunt to the church—was now stops and starts, people straining through sidewalks, pushing into bustling housewives and hurried businessmen, jostling others so often that people quit apologizing and chattering about the binding fog. They simply kept going toward their destination. This fog was not normal. Nothing was. But Rose kept making her way through the thick fog. She’d never seen it this oppressive, so debilitating. It was definitely all wrong, and Rose would meet with Bonaroti about it. This time she would listen. There must be something more she could do.

  Rose reached the church, her chest tight from the stinging air. Even she, someone in perfect health, was feeling the effects of the gritty smog. She ran her tongue around her mouth and spit into the grass beside the steps. It was too dark for Rose to see if her mucus was black or clear. Just the fact she had to spit told her everything she needed to know. Maybe that day was the one that brought all her sins down around her head. Maybe God had finally decided to punish her. And he was so repulsed by her he’d punish the entire town.

  Inside the church, Rose dipped her hand in the holy water font, crossed herself and noticed Father Tom sitting in the pew across from it. She hoped that meant Father Slavin was in the confessional. She headed down the aisle and saw the confessional was free.

  Father Tom sat with one foot over his knee, toying with his shoelace. “So, what brings you here a mere twenty-four hours after your last confession and twelve or whatever it was since that one?”

  “It’s actually twenty-six hours.” Rose straightened and gripped her bag handles tight, her nails digging into her palms. “Normally, when the confessional is empty I’d find Father Slavin in the sanctuary, dusting, polishing silver, refilling the candles, dusting.”

  Father Tom narrowed his eyes at Rose and raised his shoulders. He didn’t snap back as she expected, and for a moment she stopped judging, long enough to look into the man’s eyes.

  “Well,” Father Tom said, “I dunno much about what the general public thinks of me, but I do remember Father Slavin telling paris
hioners he introduced me to that I was wise. He actually used that word. As if he knew I’d need that sort of positioning when you came in.” He clasped his hands together and pointed his forefingers at Rose as though they were a barrel of a gun. “So, have at it.”

  “Here?”

  “God can hear us just the same right here.”

  Rose looked around at the empty church, and felt off-kilter. She thought she should tear out of church and offer her sins directly to God instead of through the priest. But something in Father Tom’s kind face softened her, made her shuffle into the pew behind him.

  She covered her eyes and rested her elbow on the back of the pew in front of her.

  She started in a strained whisper. “Bless me oh Lord for I have sinned. It’s been roughly twenty-six hours since my last confession. One, I drank like a steel man on payday last night. I came dangerously close to flirting. Well, I did flirt, and I liked it. Four through 100, I swore using various and sundry words including the Lord’s name in vain. Atrocious thoughts for various people in my life along with my wishing certain ones might drop dead found their way into my head. Just popped in there like the devil himself.”

  Father Tom leaned back turning his ear directly toward Rose as though he might have missed a few words.

  Rose was picking up speed. “I have deep frustration toward my husband. The frustration is tinged at the very least with pure hatred. He’s one of the smartest men I know. But, not smart in practical ways and that gets in the way of real life. He’s all up in his head,” Rose wheeled her hand in a circle at the wrist, “And he’s keeping secrets. That’s where the hate lives. The other ‘I’m too busy thinking bullshit,’ just pisses me off. He’s commiserating with people who cause me so much trouble and that’s what makes me want to vomit. And then there’s my daughter Magdalena.”

  Rose stopped talking and she realized all the other stuff she blurted out was just a dam holding back her real dismay. She peeked at the priest through her fingers. She didn’t know why, but she trusted the man. Maybe because he would soon be gone when Slavin returned. She could unburden herself to someone who would never sit at her dinner table.