After the Fog

by Kathleen Shoop

  “Magdalena’s pregnant. She’s seventeen and pregnant. And I hate her for it. How could she do that?” Rose ground her teeth so hard they hurt.

  Father Tom’s face conveyed confused interest, like a scientist tackling a theoretical quandary.

  Rose tightened her whisper. “I taught her and taught her and taught her. And she had the nerve to say all she wanted was to be held or loved or some shit as though her father and I hadn’t done just that. I grew up in an orphanage. I know what ‘needs to be held’ means and that daughter of mine does not know what she was talking about. And, she didn’t listen. She went about her life without a thought for me. I mean, doesn’t she know the weight of her sins? That now I have to bear some of the sin? My soul already has a reservation at the inn in hell and I’m full up to my chin with my own misdeeds…Slut.”

  “You didn’t call her that, did you?”

  Rose shook her head slowly. “But I said the word. She thinks I did.”

  “Are you confessing or discussing, Rose?” Father Tom cut her off.

  Rose dropped her hand from her eyes and met Father Tom’s gaze.

  “I want to offer my thoughts on your crises,” he said, and exhaled. “But yesterday you said you didn’t need that, only a penance and I don’t want to throw out penance willy-nilly, so I’d like you to clarify what exactly you are confessing. Or discussing. I’m fine with that, too.”

  Rose bit her lip and ran her fingers into the pew’s carvings that snaked and circled and ran down its back.

  Rose was about to tell him where to shove it when it came to her. This was what Henry had been talking about. The thought hit her hard. She did hoard her pain. She did not share who she was. And she wanted to discuss this with Father Tom. For the first time in her life, she didn’t move right over whatever problem there was in front of her—how could she possibly fix all that had gone wrong by saying a few Hail Marys? Maybe she could let it all out, finally. For the first time, she wanted to release all her sins and still have someone to tell her she wasn’t going to rot in hell.

  Sister John Ann was the one who had brought Rose so fully back to the church. In deed anyway. The woman had helped her through Bennett’s leaving, and nursing school, convincing Rose that some of her failing was due to her lackadaisical spiritual life. If Rose just went back to the church, really committed to its structure and beliefs, she would live a much happier, richer, safer life. And she had. She had done everything Sister John Ann had asked, for nearly twenty years.

  Father Tom tapped Rose’s hand.

  She straightened at Father Tom’s recognition of her still sitting there, struck mute. “Oh. Yes. Yes. Um. Go on. Please.”

  “Six Rosaries.”

  “Six Rosaries?” What happened to the discussion? She thought he would take the lead. What happened to the warmth she’d just felt emanating from him, telling her she could trust him? Why couldn’t he sense what she wanted?

  “Six,” he said.

  Rose squeezed her eyes shut and gripped her bag. She wanted to scream. She needed to know the world isn’t falling into a black hole, that Donora wasn’t being swallowed up by fog, that her family wasn’t slipping into the banks of hell. Please.

  Rose heard Father Tom shifting in his seat and she opened her eyes.

  His head was bowed and his elbow rested on the back of the pew between them, his hand was raised, palm toward her. She felt comfort from the sight of him like that—open.

  He spoke with his eyes shut. “You have been redeemed by God countless times over. At this point, it’s you who needs to take responsibility for your life. You’re doing the right things. Every little moment doesn’t have to be parsed into sins and non-sins. And, I think this—this minute attention to the sinful details of your existence—is very much rooted in something that gives you great shame and pain. Usually, those things are rooted in childhood.”

  His voice was calm and Rose let it wash over her. “You move a mile-a-minute. I think for you, there would be some benefit in just being. Go to the country, take in some nature. It’s not good for people to live inside all this noise. It numbs what’s important. Nature is God’s way of letting us know he is here.”

  Rose’s lips quivered thinking of her endless list of sins. He understood, somehow he did. She fitted her hand into the outline of his, heat from his skin melding with hers as his long fingers topped hers off.

  “I’ve tried to make my whole life a work in redemption,” Rose said, her voice rising and carrying into the rafters before she pushed it back into a whisper. “Can’t you see that? Can’t anyone see that? God can’t. He brought on this barrage of punishment and either he’s an asshole or I haven’t been redeemed for shit.” Rose crushed her eyes closed. Heat rushed between their hands as though God himself connected them. She could feel his compassion running into his hand to hers. She wanted to tell him everything.

  “Sometimes, Rose,” Father Tom said, “you just need to pray, not confess or pray for something or for your soul or for some specific thing. Sometimes you just need to ask for your own private, peace. And finally, let this go. Or tell your husband about it and free yourself. Just let go of it. You have been redeemed.”

  Rose sat with that thought. She waited to be awash in relief, to have her hair blown back by the grace of God. She remained, open to the hard evidence she’d been redeemed, the feeling of purity that she always experienced to some degree after confessing her sins. She needed to tell everything, to bleed the infection in her soul before it could be healed, but she couldn’t get the words out.

  Peace didn’t emerge or settle in her heart. Anxiety took over and Rose felt panic shake her lingering hopefulness. She opened her eyes and looked at the Father’s calm expression. Rose could not believe his words even though she wanted to.

  She would feel the redemption. God didn’t work in small, quiet ways. He either ripped the earth open or thrust it back together. God didn’t just sprinkle a little quiet grace. Father Tom was wrong and she had wasted her time.

  She snatched her hand away from Father Tom’s and tore out of the pew without another word. She bolted up the aisle and her attention was drawn to a body in a pew ten rows back. Dottie Shaginaw—statue still, staring into space as though she might not notice a crazed woman racing away from a priest.

  Rose’s common decency was absent in the face of her dismay at the state of her soul.

  “Dottie Shaginaw. I bet you have a slew of sins to purge. So, get on with it.”

  Dottie turned to Rose, her gaze following Rose down the aisle.

  Rose looked back over her shoulder while still moving toward the exit. She watched Dottie stand, straighten her shoulders and arrange her nurse’s hat.

  That woman had much to confess and Rose was sure some of it, at least, had to do with Rose’s family. Rose did not like her own harum-scarum demeanor, her loss of control and decorum, and did not appreciate Dottie of all people witnessing it.

  For the first time in Rose’s life the church was more prickly heat than soothing ointment. The air was humid and suffocating and she wondered if hell was, instead of scorching flames, a slow roasting blister.

  Rose left the church, and gave a sidelong glance at the holy water and knew without a doubt she wasn’t coming back.

  * * *

  Rose entered the doctor’s office and was greeted by the receptionist, Cathy. She didn’t look up when she informed Rose that Bonaroti had been called out to care for six men. “Doc’s convinced it’s the mills. I don’t know if he’s right but this fog hasn’t lifted for three days. I’m starting to think he’s onto something.”

  Rose was starting to agree with Bonaroti, too.

  “He wants you to see Theresa Sebastian, first, then he’ll meet you back here. He wants to have a meeting with council and the board of health.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “To shut the mills down until this smog lifts.”

  Rose shook her head at the notion. “No one’ll ever agree to t
hat. You shut the mills down and not only do you lose production, but the furnaces are shot. They’ll never do it.”

  Cathy leaned across her desk and waved Rose closer like she was about to let loose a wild secret. “They might have to. Some fellas from the government—I’m talking the Feds here, no joke—are looking into this smog. Say because we sit in this valley, with the river fog, and strange weather, that there’s an inversion—a temperature inversion. The heavy air usually on the bottom is on top, like a lid, holding down the smoke from the mills and all those chemicals. Says, the zinc mill’s smoke is the worst and it’s going to kill us all if we just sit here like—”

  “That makes sense. I never, thought…but that’s exactly right.”

  Cathy leaned forward, her eyes bugged out. “The Fed guy. Doc spoke to him on the phone for two hours this morning. He said they could take the mills to a dead heat if necessary. The furnaces won’t crack if they do that.”

  “The parade’s still on? The game?”

  Cathy nodded.

  “The folks getting sick aren’t outside, right? I mean other than Schmidt the other day. It’ll pass. Maybe faulty coal furnaces? It has to pass, it always does.” Rose’s words were thin in her own ears. Still, she felt it necessary to say them even if she didn’t believe them.

  “Depends who you ask,” Cathy said.

  “Right.” Rose turned to go into the back room to read Theresa’s file.

  “Listen Rose,” Cathy leaned on her elbows, chin on her intertwined fingers. “I have a suggestion regarding Magdalena. I know a fella. The Doc here might see his way to helping you, but I understand the need fer yunz to keep your business close to the vest n’at. But, there’s a fella up in Pittsburgh who could set Magdalena up nice.”

  Rose shuddered.

  “Rose?” Cathy’s voice startled Rose. “You look like you came around the corner and smacked into the ghost of Sixth Street gate. Or like you were drinking. I wouldn’t tell anyone if you decided to have the pregnancy handled like we discussed. Magdalena could go on with her life, you could go on with yours and everything would go back to normal. I mean, it’s not like it would be a bad life if she married. God knows married life’s been good for me. And well, your Henry is a catch. I’m babbling. But, it just seems like yunz guys have such grand plans for the kids and you’re sort of charmed n’at. I’d hate to see her just, well…get married.”

  Rose shoved her hands in her coat pockets to hide the way they shook. Henry was a good man. He had understood Rose—seemed to know that a single caress on the shoulder or glance across the table with a reassuring wink was what she needed at a given time.

  With those small gestures, Rose felt as though he had given her permission to omit information about herself, that he somehow knew she’d had layers of acts stacked up inside her like coal seams. He’d seen no reason to mine those areas of her past, knowing that to pick away at it might risk her very existence just so he could say there was nothing he didn’t know about her. Maybe she’d inadvertently given him permission to keep secrets, too.

  He was good, that Henry. He allowed her to work. In a real profession, not just some sort of clerk or sales girl. He understood her need to care for others. That she could not survive life using traditional marital happiness measures. Yes, of course, she was happy. There certainly hadn’t been time to mope around when things happened that might make her unhappy. No she was not the moping type.

  Cathy shrugged and sighed then lit a cigarette as she stood to take Rose into Dr. Bonaroti’s office. She waved her hand in the direction of the doctor’s desk. “That fat file, the one shaped like the backend of Mugsy Davichek. That’s Theresa Sebastian’s file.”

  Cathy patted her hair with the hand that held the cigarette and fumbled for the light switch with the other. “It’s chock full of tiny handwriting and illegible stuff n’at. So, if yunz need anything Rose, if you want that fella’s number in Pittsburgh you just pick up the phone.”

  Rose nodded. She was already in Dr. Bonaroti’s chair ripping open the file. She started at the back, where she thought she might find information that would allow Rose to shape a version of Theresa’s childhood in her mind.

  “Natural Mother strong, healthy. Husband is deceased, but no signs of family or anything associated with being a married woman of childbearing age. A young man has visited the mother. Claims to be her brother. We suspect he is the father. Despite clearly nomadic lifestyle, the baby and mother are exceedingly healthy. Mom suffers no ill mental effects of having adopted out her offspring. Baby, exceptionally healthy.”

  Rose sat back and rubbed her forehead. No ill mental effects? Rose didn’t remember the nurses or doctors assessing her in regard to her mental state. What would make them write that, assume that? She’d been so young and naïve that she believed they’d bought her story. Rose read every word in Theresa’s file, trying to picture every inch that Theresa had grown—the numbers in black and white, Rose visualized what the quantities would have looked like on the real life baby.

  It was only a couple of months before the regular doctor visits began for Theresa. “Inconsolable.” “Bruising.” “Weight Loss.” “Malnourished.” “Mrs. Sebastian indicates that baby has rejected her, that the infant knew she wasn’t her mother. Mother admitted to St. Francis for a rest.”

  Chills lifted the hairs on Rose’s arms. Theresa knew I gave her away. Rose wondered if Theresa had her own haunting soul shadow to deal with daily. In the file it was clear, Theresa missed her mother. She knew the difference, she knew.

  Rose slid a pencil from Dr. Bonaroti’s jar and tapped it on the desk blotter. What did this mean? It had been clear to Rose that Theresa was more a distraction to the Sebastians than a daughter. Maybe not Mr. Sebastian, but still, with him being a leading citizen and all, Rose could not imagine he would have the time to spend with Theresa on a normal basis.

  Rose read through each page in the file, the pages getting whiter and whiter as she got nearer the top of the pile. A picture was forming in Rose’s mind—Theresa’s vacillation between being healthy and deathly ill, the idea that her parents didn’t want her asthma to be treated in any ongoing way—a girl no one wanted to be troubled by?

  In addition to the notes about Theresa’s health, there were frequent citations from Mrs. Sebastian’s psychiatric doctors, some seeming to characterize her as a very mentally fragile woman and others attributing her visits and “rests” as attempts to garner attention from her husband and others.

  There were a few notes regarding Theresa and excessive bruising, some that indicated “hand-shaped,” or “roundish in shape,” but it never said how they got there—until the final page. It indicated that a doctor in Pittsburgh thought Theresa was inflicting the bruises on her own body. Rose held her breath. Doctors suggested Theresa rest at one of the health resorts in the southwest where the air was clean and dry and free of irritants associated with industrialized cities.

  Rose closed the file slowly, trying to hide her anger with purposeful, quiet movements. It was a simple case of inept parenting. If Rose had been Theresa’s mother, this file would not exist. She should reveal who she was, and take Theresa away from the zinc mill. Rose felt a pulsing in her head. Was the zinc mill the problem? Or was she just jealous, upset that the people who raised her flesh and blood weren’t that good at it.

  No, Rose thought, Theresa’s problem was Theresa’s weak mother and father who, well, hit her perhaps. Rose was sure Theresa didn’t inflict her own bodily harm.

  Rose straightened and re-straightened the files, squaring them off, turning them and then squaring them off again. She couldn’t get up, yet she couldn’t sit still. She wished the Sebastians hadn’t been so well off. If they were poorer, they would have sought the care of a visiting nurse rather than doctor after doctor. Doctor’s notes were never enhanced with descriptive details as nurses’ observations would be. But, Rose thought, had the Sebastians been poor, they might not have sought any sort of care at all.

>   Rose pushed to standing. She drew deep breaths; all of her worried energy about the Pavlesic family was now channeled into action. She would get to Theresa, find a way to remove her from the Sebastian home. Rose could envision the history of interactions between Mr. and Mrs. Sebastian, arguing over what to do with Theresa, suggesting that they made a mistake in adopting her from an unknown woman of no means.

  Well, Rose thought, they were selfish assholes, the Sebastians, for Rose had seen Theresa with her own eyes, seen what a lovely woman she’d become and if anything in that file had told Rose about the family, it was that they were the ones who were sick and all that Theresa needed was to be placed back with her true family, her birth mother—Rose.

  * * *

  Rose bid Cathy goodbye, ignoring her attempts to continue their discussion about Magdalena. Rose stepped into the fog and drew a breath that made her hack into her hand. She coughed violently, knowing she needed to get to her appointment at the Sebastians, fog or not. The air had grown thicker, blacker, coal dust suspended in what would have normally just been grayish fog. Rose tried to wipe it away, but merely displaced it temporarily.

  She turned to head down the sidewalk when she realized the fog had hidden the fact that she was standing elbow to elbow beside someone else. She was too distracted to be polite and pushed past the person, plodding past others, doing her best not to knock into anyone else.

  Rose covered her mouth as she walked in stops and starts, thinking back to the day she gave Theresa away, the way she clung to Bennett, the scent of his cologne, both comforting and repelling. She repeated Bennett’s words of love and marriage; they would have ten children once he finished school.

  The words had blanketed her in warmth on a cold night. While a nurse had administered a strong drug when her cramping grew too great, Rose drifted into sleep reassuring herself that she could convince Bennett she could keep their daughter while he finished college, and could handle anything to ensure they all stayed together.