“Now, Rose,” Sara Clara said, “dear, my daddy, the mayor of Wilmington, North Carolina has graciously offered to put up scores of sick Donorans, to offer them the opportunity of fresh air. Donora’s sending at least two nurses down with us. Why don’t you—”
Henry thought Sara Clara was a sweet woman, but naive, poking Rose the way she was.
Rose was practically spitting her words. “Your father? The one who disowned you for marrying that ‘Yankee, mill-hunky Croatian,’ is that how he put it?
Sara Clara’s mouth tightened and her eyes filled. She fumbled with her hanky, tracing the blue embroidery before meeting Rose’s gaze.
Buzzy had come from the other direction, hauling Auntie Anna by the hand, startling the trio as he roared at them, breaking the mourning silence. He struggled under Auntie’s weight, but Henry knew that had more to do with him spending Saturday evening as a punching bag for the fellas he owed beyond what Dottie had helped him pay. Buzzy had sworn that amount had covered it all.
Rose had avoided Buzzy since he’d begged her for money and Henry was sure she had enjoyed his absence. His brother’s sunglasses barely hid the evidence of his stupidity.
“You be nice to my wife,” Buzzy said out of breath. “I’ve had it with walking on egg shells around you.”
“Screw you, Buzzy,” Rose said. She glanced at him then back at his wife. “Why don’t you and Sara Clara get the hell out or pull your weight or whatever, but don’t you dare hold your lazy, gambling ass up above me.”
“You don’t deserve Henry,” Buzzy said. He ripped his glasses off and revealed two blackened eyes, one swollen shut, scabbing over. Rose flinched but wouldn’t break his gaze.
“I almost lost my legs because he was too scared to ask you for help, Miss High and Mighty. And when I asked you, you were too damn busy. I can barely see or walk and you’re responsible, Rose. Hen should have left you when he had the chance. He is such a good man and this is what he has to put up with.”
Rose laughed in his face. “My fault that you got the hell knocked out of you? A good man? Why don’t you ask Henry about his lies and then look me in the face and say he’s a good man.”
Buzzy threw up his hands. “He had to take the money, Rose.” Sara Clara hit Buzzy in the arm. “She means that Henry gave up college to marry her and move here. He lied to her about that twenty years ago. He told her the other day…”
“Bull,” Auntie Anna, said in a whisper and drew everyone’s attention like she’d rung a gong. “It’s about Dottie. Right, Rose? Dottie Shaginaw helping Magdalena?”
Henry shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground.
“You didn’t tell her about college?” Sara Clara said.
“I didn’t tell her about any of it,” he said.
Rose shook her head as though clearing it. Her teeth were clenched tight, adding to the tension in her face. “Now, that baked beans are spilling all over the cemetery,” she said, “why don’t you spill the whole damn thing, Henry Pavlesic. Tell your adoring fans about Dottie, and I don’t mean about helping Magdalena. Why don’t you explain what the hell is going on between the two of you? It’s nice to know I don’t have to feel guilty for despising you.”
Leo came across the hill crying and Buzzy and Sara Clara pulled Auntie Anna along, and went to their boy, leaving Henry and Rose alone.
Henry wanted to reach for Rose, embrace her, but he knew that was not a smart move. “Shut the fuck up and listen Rose.” He kept his hands in his pocket and kept his voice as steady as he could. “I don’t like secrets and it’s been eating me up for a long time to keep this from you, but I was trying to help Dottie—that was the first lie, that was the relationship you’re talking about. We did have relations. But not what your thinking. Not full completion. I won’t deny it. It was back when my father died and I couldn’t handle his death.”
Rose stepped back from Henry.
“Magdalena and Johnny were so little and colicky and I needed you and you left me. You went into the night with that black bag of yours to the hospital to work and you left me. Dottie stopped over to see you, but like I said, you were out. And she was having some trouble. A relationship, her parents coming down on her—we’d been friends since we were six, Rose. I just wanted to help her out.”
“So what? Boo-hoo. I went to work so the logical thing to do was to fuck Dottie?”
“I was helping her and yes, having someone need me for a second was comforting. And we didn’t sleep together. We only—”
“So I’m not needy enough. Hmm. That’s it?”
“It just happened, Rose. We never got close again that way. When Magdalena came to me two weeks ago, I didn’t know what to tell her, then I got hit with the slag in the ankle and there was Dottie, like she could read my mind or some shit and before I knew it was all coming out and she said she could help Magdalena.”
Henry stepped toward Rose as a hawk swooped down behind her before lifting into the air and disappearing, making him lose his thoughts. Rose grimaced and shook her head at him.
Henry crossed his arms. “In the end, I was late back to the furnace and got fired because I blew my stack, partly angry at myself, partly for the colored fella.” Henry reached for Rose. She flinched away from his touch.
Henry cleared his throat, wanting to drop to his knees and beg her to forgive him. “I was just so angry that all of this was happening and I lost all sense. I wasn’t sure they’d fire me so I waited to tell you until I knew for sure.”
The corner of Rose’s mouth twitched and she folded her arms.
Henry thought maybe she was softening. “I know Buzzy rubs you the wrong way but I promised my father I’d watch over him and I failed at that.” Henry swallowed hard, forcing his shame away. It was too late for pride.
The Johnson’s dog began to howl, pulling on its chain down below, next door to the Sebastians. Rose turned toward the barking. She dropped her arms and mumbled something about the dog being made of rags. Henry put his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off and turned back to him once Mrs. Johnson pulled it into the house.
Henry refocused on Rose, feeling vulnerable in the line of her hard stare. “I stole money from the household to keep Buzzy alive, I knew about Johnny’s interview with Julliard. I did all of it Rose. All of it. And I’m sorry. I couldn’t be sorrier.”
Rose looked as though each word were a bullet puncturing her skin.
She broke Henry’s gaze and pushed the straps of her purse over her shoulder. When she finally looked back at him, the intensity of her expression chilled him.
She jutted out her chin. “So I gave you the opening to betray me repeatedly. I did this, did I?”
Henry realized he’d stupidly thought releasing the inventory of deadly lies he’d told would somehow clear things up. There would be no retrieving their relationship by simply listing his trespasses. It was time for her to help make this work.
He stepped toward her and put his hand out, but didn’t touch her. “I love you Rose and I love the way you are, independent, a nurse. I love you, goddammit. But until you stop seeing yourself as perfect, and disappointed that everyone else isn’t, then you’re going to keep losing out.”
“Really Henry? Thanks so much.”
“I’ve been wrong. I’ll take what you dole out for that. But I’m telling you for your own good, stop putting your job first. Your kids need you. I need you.”
“You son of a bitch. You’ve ruined everything. Johnny, Magdalena, everything. Why weren’t you there when I needed you? You should have gone with Johnny to deliver that booze and food to the scout. Just once I’d like my husband to fill in, without me having to tell you what to do, how to do it, or when.”
Henry felt a change inside, his guilt shifting to anger. “You’re the one who went traipsing all over town. You should’ve been home, making dinner for the scout. Don’t blame me. You’re the one who sent Johnny out in the fog. You went to the Sebastians to care for someone else’s stupid
kid before caring for your own. Maybe if you had been at the accident site instead of Dottie, you wouldn’t have yanked Johnny out of traffic, bruising his spine, because you’re so damn good at what you do. You are God almighty perfect.”
Henry’s hands flew around to punctuate his words. “Maybe if once you put your family first, instead of barking orders, your son could still walk. You chose some stranger, Theresa damn Sebastian over your own flesh and blood. Blame yourself.”
Rose pushed her purse over her shoulder again, hand quaking. Henry saw Rose’s eyes lose their arrogance to pain and he was sure for once his words got through.
“I did not choose a stranger over my flesh and blood,” she whispered with quiet anger. “You son of a bitch.” Rose fingered her purse strap at the shoulder, her face losing its anger, but taking on a different tension, despair.
Henry drew back.
Tears wet Rose’s cheeks. Henry resisted wiping them away.
Rose’s shoulders slumped, but she held Henry’s gaze. “Theresa is my flesh and blood. She’s my daughter.”
Henry dropped his hands. “What?”
Rose glanced down the hill at the Sebastian’s house then nodded slowly. “I gave her away twenty years ago. And there she was, the other day. There she was.”
Henry felt as if she had belted him in the stomach.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Henry remembered her harsh reaction to Magdalena’s news. Her unbalanced concern for Theresa.
Rose’s body tensed as though she were trying to force back the sobs that now moved through her. Her voice was flat. “I never forgot her, the orphanage. Any of it. Any of the sinful, rotten things I’ve done. For the last twenty years, it has followed me around, haunting me.”
He couldn’t process what she was saying. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rose laughed. “Tell you what, Henry? That I was tricked into giving my baby up by the first person I ever thought loved me?” Rose buckled forward. Henry caught her.
“Rose,” he said.
“You think I believe I’m perfect? I’ve known exactly how imperfect I am since the day I was born. My parents gave me away to monsters.” She crumpled into him. “No one even touched me except…”
Henry could feel her armor split open, her entire countenance softening in a way he’d never seen before. “Should I have told you I didn’t even know who the father was? Tell you before I ever got pregnant I spent a decade being used by the director of the orphanage? That his wife didn’t blink? Tell you that, Henry? You would have loved me if you knew all that, right? You might be a good man, Henry, but you’re no saint. I knew it even then.”
Rose cried bucking into Henry. He dragged her back toward the car, thankful that onlookers would simply believe she was crying due to Johnny’s accident and Unk’s death.
Henry tucked her inside the car and walked around the other side and got in, staring at Rose.
“All I ever wanted was my children to have warmth and love,” she said. “I loved them best by letting you love them more. If that was wrong, I’m sorry. It was all I could do. It was all I knew how.”
Henry strangled the wheel, driving way too fast for the winding, rising streets of Donora. He just wanted to drop Rose off at home and get the hell out. For the first time in his life he thought he might know how Rose felt, like all there was to do was hide, pushing away anything that might not seem to fit in his world. And for the moment, one of those things was Rose.
* * *
After the funeral, Rose pushed through the side door and removed her coat. She was met with the burnt odor of food. Had Sara Clara left the oven on? Rose mustered the energy to generate a bad thought toward Sara Clara, but she was too tired for the thought to spur the frustration that typically followed such musings.
Henry dragged behind her. They didn’t walk into the house together, a couple united in love and grief, as they would have before the awful fog had infiltrated their lives. Instead, their bonds were severed; they were useless to one another.
Rose felt a sudden relief at being home, only to be replaced by the realization Johnny would never be the same, and Magdalena’s life would be full of remorse whether she gave the baby away or kept it.
You need to forgive yourself. Those words startled Rose as though they’d dropped through the air. Father Tom’s words. He’d said them. That’s the voice she’d heard. Rose unbuttoned her coat and jammed her hat on an empty hook and noticed Johnny’s coat hanging there. Johnny had forgotten it that day as he ran out of the house and into Dicky’s car.
Forgive yourself.
Rose thought of poor Dicky, what he had to live with. It didn’t matter if everyone else forgave you if you didn’t forgive yourself. She thought of the look on Henry’s face when she confessed to him the details of her past. She had no way of knowing what he thought. Of course he was shocked, she could see that. But he seemed angry on top of it. Maybe he just felt shock on top of the pain he’d already been feeling. Maybe he could still forgive her for all they’d been through, for not being good enough at mothering, at being a wife.
Forgive yourself. The voice nudged her. The soul shadow. But it wasn’t Theresa anymore. It was the priest.
Rose entered the kitchen and was surprised to find Mrs. Saltz, her wide backside outlined by a tight-fitting dress that squeezed her curves rather than smoothed them over. The ties of Rose’s favorite apron cinched her pudgy waist. Rose tried to slink back out of the kitchen, unnoticed, but as she backed out, it struck Rose there was no wailing or crying or theatrics.
“I hear you,” Mrs. Saltz said without turning from the stove. Her arm made large circles as she stirred something in the giant stockpot. “Mail on table there.” Mrs. Saltz jerked her head toward the table. “Just dropped it, that US mailman.”
“Oh.” Rose slid into a chair at the kitchen table, feeling as though she hadn’t been off her feet in weeks. Rose was hypnotized with fatigue, and the fat woman stirring at her stove. Rose did not move but took in the once neat room, seeing from a distance the stove’s backsplash was covered in oil, the countertops littered with dishes and ingredients.
Mrs. Saltz dipped a tea bag in a mug and delivered the drink to Rose.
Rose held it under her nose, smelling mint.
“I thought it might suit you,” Mrs. Saltz said.
Rose sipped the tea, paging through the mail in front of her, not processing what she was seeing. It wasn’t until she reached the middle of the pile that she felt a jolt. The same kind of crisp, linen envelope that Mr. Turnbow had left when he visited three days before. From Julliard.
Now, her son would never have the chance to go to Julliard, even if she approved. What would they do with a cripple? This was a kid who would spend his days rotting in a chair, keeping busy playing checkers with people who had no potential. Johnny had plenty of potential but it was as if he were now a hidden coal seam trapped inside the earth, part of the world, but not able to contribute to it. Potential wasn’t worth shit.
Johnny was stuck. Worse than Rose had ever imagined possible.
She dropped her head in hands, rubbing her temples and she wondered how she would handle the path her life had taken. For the first time in decades she wasn’t sure if she could go on at all.
Rose was suddenly aware of the silence in the house. She opened her eyes and met Mrs. Saltz’s gaze. Rose narrowed her eyes at the woman. She could not remember ever seeing Mrs. Saltz when she hadn’t been about to cry or in the midst of tears. “Why aren’t you crying?”
“Because you are.”
“I’m not crying,” Rose said, placing her mug back on the table.
Mrs. Saltz pointed at her chest. “I can feel you weeping here.”
Rose’s eyes filled, and she wiped her teardrops.
Rose was oddly comforted by Mrs. Saltz. She had never thought of her as very capable, yet there she was. In Rose’s silence, Mrs. Saltz yammered on, detailing her plans to use the money she’d socked away, to move
her family, without Mr. Saltz, of course, to the warm, healing springs in Georgia.
Normally Rose would have been excited, agreeing Georgia would be far enough south that Mr. Saltz would never suspect, but she didn’t have the energy. The concern was gone, as though it’d never been there. Had Rose faked her entire existence, not really caring for anyone at all? Rose listened to her heart. No, she did have concern; she just didn’t have anything left to give.
Forgive yourself.
Rose pushed herself up from the table, opened the hutch door and fished out a fresh bottle of vodka. She unscrewed the lid and took a swig.
Henry entered the kitchen. Maybe he’d find a way to forgive her.
Rose turned to face him; he looked stricken, his eyes shot with hate.
Henry took a shot glass from the hutch. “Bonaroti stopped by, thinks Unk died because he lived in this town. Says he can tell a guy from the valley just by eyeballin’ them. Some fella, Stadler, a chemist is up here, trying to find fluoride or fluorine, of all the damned things, in the lungs of the bodies who haven’t been buried. A byproduct of the zinc mill.”
Henry’s voice was monotone, like he was talking in order to buy time or gauge Rose’s mood. “Bonaroti said the government will be in here in a day and a half and the mills are going to have to answer for this. They should have shut things down before Sunday morning. But they kept ratcheting away, collecting their cash while good people met their demise. Including John. Goddammit. The mills are full-blast running again, people working like nothing happened.”
Rose turned back to her tea and pushed the vodka across the table with the back of her hand, a silent offering to Henry. She snuck a glance at Mrs. Saltz at the stove, stirring.
Henry filled the shot glass and threw it back, not looking at Rose. “Bonaroti said you could actually do something to help people when the Feds get here, do something more than just care for people after they become ill, you could actually stop people from getting ill. Said he’ll need your help over the next few weeks…interviews, surveys…”
A head nod was all Rose could muster. She was so ashamed. “Hen?” Rose said, hoping he’d understand that for once she needed to hear the words that went along with how he felt about her. She needed to hear that he understood her and loved her and forgave her, but she could not ask for it.
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