The Daughters of Erietown

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The Daughters of Erietown Page 15

by Connie Schultz


  “A boy, huh?” Lavelle said, peering into Ellie’s arms. “Well, isn’t he adorable.”

  “Our first son,” Ellie said, kissing the tip of his nose. “Isn’t that right, little man?” She held him tight in her left arm as she opened the handbag with her other hand and rummaged for her lipstick. Lavelle picked up the tissue box and held it for Ellie. “Thanks,” Ellie said, plucking a tissue. She slid it between her lips and made popping sounds as she blotted the lipstick. “I feel so much better.”

  Ellie heard steps and looked past the aide, to the door. Her face lit up, and Lavelle turned around. “Brick,” Lavelle said, dropping the tissue box onto the floor. She bent down to pick it up and took a step back.

  Ellie looked back and forth at their faces, searching for clues. Lavelle grabbed Ellie’s used tissue, avoiding eye contact as she crumpled it in her hand. “Congratulations to both of you,” she said, rushing out the door with the tissue box in her hand.

  Ellie pulled the baby closer against her swollen breasts. She turned to face the window as Brick walked to the side of her bed. “Ellie.” She could feel his breath on her neck. “Who’s that little guy in your arms?”

  She shifted the baby slightly away from him. “Who was that woman, Brick? How did she know your name?”

  “I don’t know, Ellie. Maybe she saw my picture in the paper. Earlier today a guy in the waiting room—”

  “No,” Ellie said, slowly shaking her head. “I saw the look on your face. I saw the look on her face. She knew you.”

  Brick sat down on the edge of the bed. Ellie inched away from him. “Ellie, don’t do this. Please. I have no idea who she is. I don’t care who she is.” He looked down at the baby. “We’ve got a son, Ellie. We’ve got a boy. That’s who we should be talking about.”

  He reached toward the baby. “Can I hold him?”

  Ellie loosened her grip, and Brick lifted him out of her arms. “Wow,” he said, “look at that hair.”

  “A redhead,” she said. “Just like his daddy.”

  Brick exhaled slowly and looked at Ellie. “He’s perfect.”

  Ellie continued to stare at the baby. “He needs a name,” she said.

  “I was thinking,” Brick said. “I was wondering if we could name him Reilly. For Mom.”

  Ellie could feel her mood soften at the mention of Angie O’Reilly McGinty. She thought of Angie’s final hours, how Brick had stayed by his mother’s side until her heart finally stopped. Maybe Mrs. Drake was wrong about boys. Brick was a man, but he was always his mother’s son. Even now, six years after her death.

  “I like that,” Ellie said. “Let’s call him Reilly Paull. Paull-two-els. For your mother’s only brother.”

  Brick lifted the baby higher to get a better look. “Thank you, Ellie.” He tilted the baby so that she could see his face. “Thank you for giving me Reilly Paull McGinty.”

  Ellie nodded, silently noting the fear in his eyes.

  * * *

  —

  Two hours later, after Mrs. Drake had shuttled Reilly off to the hospital nursery for the night, Ellie lay on her back in the dark, unable to sleep. She reached over to turn on the table lamp and blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted to the soft light, grateful that she didn’t have a roommate.

  The door opened slightly, and Lavelle peered in. “Do you need anything, Mrs. McGinty?”

  Ellie motioned for the aide to come into the room. “I’d like to ask you something, if you don’t mind.”

  Lavelle walked slowly toward her. Ellie patted the spot next to her on the bed, but Lavelle shook her head. “We aren’t supposed to sit on patients’ beds,” she said. “I need this job. I don’t want to get fired.”

  “Sorry,” Ellie said. “I don’t mean to get you in trouble. I just thought you might be tired from standing on your feet all day.”

  “I’ve had worse jobs,” Lavelle said, picking up Ellie’s water pitcher to refill her cup. “I like making patients feel a little better, a little more comfortable. It’s a lot better than dodging dirty men’s passes at your ass and watching people drink themselves into an early grave.”

  “Did you tend bar?”

  “For almost five years,” Lavelle said. “At Flannery’s. I jumped at the chance when this job opened up.” She picked up the pitcher again, looked at Ellie’s full cup, and set it back down. “Do you need anything else?”

  “I need to know how you know my husband.”

  Lavelle avoided looking at her. “Maybe I saw him at the bar a few times. You know, with the other guys. After they got off work.” She pushed her hands into her pockets and shrugged. “I knew him a few years ago. But that was before he was married to you. He was kinda with my sister Kitty for a while.”

  Ellie’s skin started to prick at the back of her neck. “Kitty,” she said, trying to sound calm. “Oh, yeah, he told me about her. I think it was right before we started dating. What year was that?”

  “Oh, God,” Lavelle said, fanning her face with her hand. “I’m so glad I didn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know. Let’s see, had to be at least two years ago. Maybe three, even.”

  Ellie clenched her jaw and took a deep breath. “So, nineteen sixty, maybe.”

  Lavelle nodded. “Sixty. Sixty-one, maybe. I don’t remember for sure. When did you and Brick start dating?”

  Ellie lay back on her pillow and closed her eyes. “High school,” she said. “We married in nineteen fifty-seven.”

  Ellie silently counted to ten. When she opened her eyes, Lavelle was gone.

  Samantha sat on the edge of the sofa and kept her eyes on the clock.

  “Daddy will be home when the little hand is on the four and the big hand is on the six,” her mother had said. Sam knew this was true. Brick had been coming home at the same time from the day that baby Reilly came home. Made a fuss about it, too. “Four-thirty, Sam, and your daddy is home sweet home,” he said almost every night.

  In the months before Reilly was born, Sam had been a little nervous when her father was home. By the time her father asked her to bring him beer number four—she always counted because Mrs. Babcock said they should practice their arithmetic at home—her father was usually sad.

  “Your grandma Angie would have loved you, I’ll tell you that,” he’d told Sam last Valentine’s Day, after he started sipping beer number four. “You have her long fingers.” He raised his hand so that Sam could press her palm against his. “My fingers will never be as big as yours, Daddy.” He smiled, but it didn’t mean she had made him happy. She could tell by his eyes.

  Sometimes, Sam would say, “I love you, Daddy,” and hold her breath for as long as she could so she wouldn’t miss it if he finally whispered, “I love you, too.” Mommy said Daddy loved Sam but that men just don’t say that kind of thing out loud. Sam knew that wasn’t true because Mary McCallister’s daddy always said, “I love you, baby girl!” For no reason at all.

  After baby Reilly came home, her father’s mood changed, but she didn’t trust it. He talked in his new voice, but his smile was frozen, like she was looking at a picture of him. Still, it was a nice change, she decided. As soon as she heard his car pull into the driveway, even if she was sitting in her little rocker and feeding Reilly, she’d stand up and carry her brother to the door to greet their father. She wondered why Mommy never did this, but she didn’t ask why. She didn’t want to upset her.

  Her mother was different, too. One Mommy went to the hospital and another Mommy came home. Sam wondered if that’s what happens when you have a boy. Maybe you have to give up something nice about yourself for God to give you a son. Maybe Mommy told God she’d never laugh really loud again and he said, “Okay, then I’ll give you a boy.” Sam wished she could ask someone about that who would give her a straight answer. Mommy no longer sat on the edge of Sam’s bed to hear her prayers, so Sam kept slipp
ing in the question before the amen. So far, God had nothing to say about it.

  Sam looked at the blank TV screen. Daddy usually pulled into the driveway right after Barnaby said goodbye, but before Captain Penny told his first story. She loved Barnaby and Captain Penny. They never looked angry and they seemed to be talking right to her. Normally, Barnaby would be talking to her right now, but as Mommy had said, there was nothing normal about this day.

  “You have a job to do, Sam,” her mother told her as she bundled up Reilly. “You need to concentrate.”

  This was Sam’s first time to be home alone. A special occasion, she decided, and walked upstairs to change into the blouse she knew was her father’s favorite because two months ago he had leaned down to touch her face and told her the blue flowers embroidered on the collar matched her eyes just right. He said it again just four nights ago, but Sam knew habits had a way of stopping as fast as they started in their house. “Don’t get used to it,” she told herself whenever something new and good happened a few days in a row. Like when Daddy started giving her a Tootsie Roll after dinner. After three nights of that, Sam’s mother snatched the candy out of Sam’s hand. “Like we’ve got money for those dentist bills,” Ellie said. Sam didn’t cry. She had been ready for it to end.

  She pulled her blouse out of the dirty clothes hamper in the hallway and tugged on it to smooth out the wrinkles. She tiptoed into her parents’ room and held her mother’s favorite hand mirror, running her fingers along the letter “A” on the back before she flipped it to make sure her face was clean. She dabbed a single drop of White Shoulders on the inside of her wrist and then rubbed her wrists together, just like her mother used to do before baby Reilly was born.

  If Sam had known a baby boy could change a family so much, she wouldn’t have prayed so hard for a brother. “Sorry, God,” she said as she screwed the cap back onto the bottle. “But that’s how it looks to me.”

  Sam walked back downstairs and thought about her mother’s sudden exit this afternoon. The phone rang and Sam answered just as her mother had taught her to do. “McGinty residence. How may I help you?”

  “Honey,” the man said, “I need to speak to your mama.” Sam called her mother to the phone.

  “Today?” Ellie said. “Well, he won’t be home until four-thirty.”

  Pause.

  “I see. Yes, I agree. Better for everyone.”

  Her mother pressed her finger on the button in the cradle of the phone and dialed. “Mardee? I’m sorry to ask this, but can you come get me, please? Yes, it’s happening. Between four-thirty and five. I’m so—” Her mother glanced at Sam. “Well, you know.” She hung up the phone and draped her apron over the back of her chair at the dining room table instead of the hook on the basement door.

  Sam followed her mother around the house. Ellie picked up two clean diapers from the wicker basket on the floor and stuffed them in the bag she used for baby Reilly’s stuff. She opened the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of formula, and tossed it in the bag, too. She started walking up the stairs, paused on the third step, turned around, went back into the kitchen for another bottle, and crammed it into the bag.

  After her mother went upstairs, Sam emptied the overflowing diaper bag so that she could put things where they belonged. When she was finished, she retrieved Reilly’s stuffed Leo the lion from the playpen and buried her nose in its mane, inhaling the scent of her brother before setting it on top. Overhead, Reilly had started to wail, and moments later Mommy carried him downstairs.

  Ellie glanced at the clock before she pulled open the closet door and grabbed her jacket.

  “Hold your brother for a minute,” she said, handing Sam the crying baby.

  “There, there,” Sam said, hoisting him over her shoulder and patting his back as she swayed. She started humming one of her made-up lullabies, and Reilly stopped crying. “You have the touch, Sammy,” Mommy often said. But not today.

  Her mother buttoned her jacket. “Sam, I need you to stay here and wait for Daddy.”

  “Where are you going? Why can’t I go?”

  Her mother took Reilly, and immediately, he started crying again. “Sam, I can’t answer a lot of questions right now. There’s a man who’s going to come to the door, and he’s going to have something for Daddy.”

  A car horn beeped outside, and Ellie opened the door. “He’s going to have an envelope for Daddy. I want you to stay here and be with him.”

  “What should I eat for dinner?”

  “You know how to make soup. You can make dinner for you and Daddy.”

  Sam nodded. “I guess so.”

  “That’s my girl,” her mother said. And then she was gone.

  Sam now decided to stop looking at the clock and walked over to get a better look at the framed pictures hanging on either side of it. Jesus was on the left. President John F. Kennedy was on the right. The Jack-and-Jesus wall, Daddy called it. Before Reilly was born Mommy sometimes laughed when Daddy walked to the table for supper and yelled, “Hi, Jack! Hi, Jesus!” “Honestly, Brick,” Mommy would say, but she was always smiling. Sam liked it when Daddy teased Mommy and Mommy pretended not to like it.

  Sam sometimes wondered why, if Jesus was the son of God, he didn’t look happier. Maybe he knew what was coming.

  Most of her friends’ houses had the same picture of Jesus. Long hair on his shoulders, eyes looking up. At God, she figured. The picture in Mary Beth Murphy’s house was different. Jesus was bloody hanging on the cross, on the wall right over their TV. Sam burst into tears at the sight of him and ran all the way home.

  “That’s the problem with Catholics,” her mother said at supper. “They spend too much time on the crucifixion, instead of the resurrection.”

  Brick laughed. “President Kennedy’s Catholic.”

  “And we voted for him,” Ellie said. “That’s how open-minded we Methodists can be.”

  Her mother’s “we” had snapped Sam to attention. She couldn’t remember a single time Daddy had walked into church with them, but she was relieved to know that God knew her father was a Methodist.

  Sam looked at President Kennedy and wondered what it would be like to have a daddy who wore a suit and tie to work. She’d never seen her father in a tie, and she once heard him make fun of their neighbor Mr. McDonald for having to wear a “monkey suit” every day to his job at the People’s Savings and Loan.

  Daddy didn’t seem to feel that way about the president, and neither did Mommy. When Mrs. Carlton from church said she was shocked to see a Catholic next to Jesus in the McGinty house, Sam’s mother stopped pouring coffee into her cup. “Well, Gloria, God loves everyone. Even the bigots.” Mrs. Carlton picked up her purse and left.

  Daddy loved that story.

  Sam heard the sound of her father’s car tires crunch across the driveway cinders. She smoothed the front of her blouse and walked to the kitchen door. She smiled at Brick as soon as he pushed it open. “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Hi, sweetie,” he said, ruffling her hair with his left hand as he set his lunch pail on the counter. He looked around. “Where’s Mommy?”

  “Mommy and Reilly—” She stopped at the sound of someone knocking on the front door.

  “I’ll get the door,” she said, running to the front of the house. “It’s probably the man with the envelope.” She pulled open the front door and saw the gun resting at eye level in the man’s holster.

  The sheriff’s deputy leaned down until his eyes met hers. “Is your daddy here, honey?”

  Before she could say a word he stood up and extended his hand over her head. “Mr. McGinty?” Sam felt her father’s hands on her shoulders.

  “What can I do for you, Bill?”

  The deputy pulled his hand back. “I’m sorry, Brick, but I have to do this by the book.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a blue envelope. “Richard
Paull McGinty, you are hereby served by the Clayton County Sheriff’s Department.”

  Brick snatched the envelope out of the man’s hand and ripped it open. “What the—?” He threw the paper to the floor. “You like doing this for a living, Bill? Breaking up families?” He squeezed Sam’s shoulder. “Ruining the lives of innocent children.”

  “It’s not personal, Brick.”

  “Every second of this is personal. Get the hell off my porch before I throw you off.”

  The deputy started to lean down to say goodbye to Sam, but Brick yanked her back and slammed the door. He picked up the paper and walked into the kitchen. Sam picked up the envelope and climbed onto the couch to press her face against the window. The deputy was shooing away a handful of curious kids gathered around his cruiser. He turned to look back at the house, and Sam pulled the thin curtain across the window. She jumped off the couch and walked through the dining room just as her father started to cry.

  “Ellie, my God.”

  He was standing in the far corner with his back to Sam, his face buried in his hands. “Ellie. Oh my God, Ellie.”

  Sam had never seen her father like this. She ran over to him and pressed her cheek against his back, wrapping her arms around his waist. He clutched her hands. “My sweet little Sam.”

  “Daddy,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  He turned around and hugged her. “Mommy doesn’t want me living here. Mommy doesn’t love me anymore.”

  Sam burrowed her face into his shirt. “Mommy loves you. I heard her tell Mrs. Jepson on the phone yesterday that she loves you.”

  She could feel his grip soften, and his chest stopped heaving. He let go of her and reached for the dishrag draped over the faucet. “You heard Mommy say that?” he said, wiping his face. “You heard Mommy?”

  Sam nodded. “That’s how she said it. I still love Brick.” She pointed to the can of Campbell’s tomato soup on the counter. “I’ll make dinner,” she said. “I’ll make us baloney sandwiches and soup, just like Mommy told me to.”

 

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