The Daughters of Erietown

by Connie Schultz

  She crossed her arms against her chest. “You’re done? What if I’m not? What if Paullie and I keep showing up until you agree to be a father to him, too? Maybe it’s time Paullie met his brother. His sister. Poor Paullie. He was just as excited as they were at your game. He was cheering for his daddy, too.”

  “You stay away from my family.”

  “I know where you live,” she said, her face defiant. “On Route Twenty. Erie Street. I’ve driven past your house a dozen times. You have a porch swing. And one of those netted backstops on the side of your house. For your other son.”

  Brick stepped close enough for her to smell the cigarette on his breath. “If you ever come anywhere near my family again, you’ll never get another cent from me.”

  “Fuck your money, Brick,” she said. “Fuck you and your perfect family that has no idea what you’ve been up to.”

  She walked back to the bar entrance and turned to look at him. He was wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. She waited until he had stuffed it into his back pocket and pulled open his car door.

  “Hey, Brick,” she yelled. “See you soon.” She slammed the bar door and pressed her back against it as she slid to the floor.

  Rosemary opened her car door and rummaged under the front seat.

  No envelope. Sixth week in a row.

  She climbed into the car and pulled the door shut. “So that’s that,” she said in the darkness. She wrapped her arms around the steering wheel and laid her head on the backs of her hands. “Oh, God, Paullie.”

  The savings Brick had given her was gone. She had spent all of it on Paull. His first pair of real shoes, a winter jacket and boots, and two bags of clothes from size 2 to 6. She got him fun stuff, too, in a single shopping spree. A Matchbox carrying case and a dozen cars. An Etch-A-Sketch. A two-wheel bike for the future. A baseball glove and bat like the ones she’d seen Brick pick out for Reilly.

  “Honey, he’s a little young for some of this stuff,” Aunt Lizzie had said after Rosemary rolled the bike into the garage. “Couldn’t some of this have waited?”

  “He’s going to be bigger before we know it,” Rosemary said, grinning as Paull kicked the tire. “I want him to have the same things that other little boys his age have. Like his brother has.”

  It was a mistake to take Paull to Brick’s game. What was she thinking? And why did she tell Aunt Lizzie about it? “I hate him,” Rosemary had told her that night. “I never want to see him again, ever.”

  “Oh, Rosie,” Aunt Lizzie had said, “I wish I could believe you, but you are obsessed with this man. You’re skin and bones, your eyes are sunken in, and your hair’s falling out. When’s the last time you even had a full night’s sleep?”

  “Aunt Lizzie, I’m barely holding it together here. Please don’t add to this. Please don’t make me feel worse than I do.”

  Rosemary reached up to adjust the rearview mirror and look at her face. Aunt Lizzie was right. She was a ghost, as hollowed out inside as she looked on the outside. “You can’t keep living like this,” Rosemary said to the mirror. “You’re almost thirty. You’re all used up. You need a plan.”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet. Every photo sleeve held pictures of Paull. She flipped through them slowly, pausing at the photo on his first birthday. She traced her finger along the top of his head, as if trying to push back the lock of hair in his eye. That bright red hair.

  She knew what it was like to grow up without a father. The longing. All the guilt. Jesus, the guilt, that if she’d only been a better daughter, her father would have stayed. She could never give her son the family he deserved. She flipped to the photo of Paull with Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Danny. He was sandwiched between them on their porch glider, their arms entwined behind him. Lizzie’s other hand rested on Paullie’s thigh. She looked so proud of him, and so possessive.

  Rosemary had appreciated her aunt’s willingness to help take care of Paullie from day one, but lately Rosemary was feeling more jealous than grateful. He spent more time with Aunt Lizzie, who, unlike Rosemary, didn’t have to work, and their daily rhythm of camaraderie made Rosemary feel increasingly unnecessary. Recently, Aunt Lizzie had developed a habit of correcting Rosemary in her interactions with Paull, always ending with the word “now,” which felt like code for “while you were gone.” Paullie wants his hot dog split lengthwise now. Paullie likes to pour the Mr. Bubble himself for his bath now. Paullie prefers his red sneakers now.

  Paullie preferred Aunt Lizzie for comfort, too. Rosemary thought about how he’d fallen down in the driveway last Saturday and scraped his knees. “Oh, Paullie,” Rosemary had said, opening her arms wide as she walked toward him. He’d run past her, into Aunt Lizzie’s arms.

  “You are his family,” she said to the photo of her aunt and uncle with Paullie, “but you are not his parents.” She stared at her son’s face and tried to imagine him at age four, age eight, age ten. The older Paullie grew, the more he would need a father in his life. It had been hard enough for her, a girl, to grow up fatherless. Being fatherless could ruin Paullie. How would he learn to be a man?

  She tucked the wallet into her purse and started the car. She knew what she had to do.

  Tomorrow. She’d do it tomorrow.

  Sam had just started to doze on the sofa when she heard the banging on their door.

  “I know you’re in there!”

  Sam jumped off the couch, disoriented.

  Bam. Bam. Bam. “Answer the door!”

  Someone was knocking at the wrong door.

  Sam stood up and walked to the window. The woman, unaware of her, ran her fingers through her bleached hair, revealing a canal of dark roots. A little boy straddled her left hip, his legs locked around her as he fidgeted with a small toy. The woman hoisted him higher and pounded her fist again, louder this time, her arm chopping the air like an ax as she rattled the screen door’s aluminum frame.

  Bam. Bam. Bam.

  Sam stepped away to face the archway of the dining room. She watched the woman’s shadow bob across the fake bricks of the linoleum floor. Only bad news came to the front door. Cops. Mailmen with registered letters. Army chaplains with frozen faces that made Mrs. Rosario and Mrs. Davis scream for Jesus.

  No friend knocked on the McGintys’ front door.

  Bam. Bam. Bam.

  “All right,” Sam yelled. She pushed back sweaty bangs from her forehead and walked over to the TV set flickering in the corner. Lucy Ricardo was locked in the walk-in freezer, her hair a ridge of icicles as she wailed through the tiny, frosted window. Sam shook her head. How could one woman get in so much trouble? Ricky would be furious again. And Lucy would be scared of him, as always. Was there a single wife in America who wasn’t afraid of her husband? That’s what Sam wanted to know.

  She looked over her shoulder and turned up the volume on the TV to let the stranger understand the magnitude of her intrusion before shutting it off. She walked into the dining room and smiled through the screen at the little boy.

  “Hi,” she said to the child.

  The boy squealed and burrowed his face into his mother’s shoulder. He was two, two and a half tops, she figured. Sam McGinty was the most popular babysitter in the neighborhood. She knew ages.

  “Shh,” the woman said, jostling him a little higher on her hip. She combed her fingers through his red hair, which was sticky from the heat. He peeked out at Sam, and she tried not to giggle at how his hair stood straight up, like an exclamation mark on the top of his head.

  Sam narrowed her eyes and looked at him harder. He was sucking on the rear wheels of a diecast car. Green with white stripes. A Johnny Lightning Chevy Camaro, just like Reilly’s.

  The woman cleared her throat. “Is your mother home?”

  Sam nodded.

  “Well, would you get her?”

  Sam raised her chin an inch,
and waited for the “please.”

  “Now?”

  “Oh. Sure,” Sam said, acting as if the thought had never occurred to her. She flashed an adolescent’s smile of victory. She had made her ask twice.

  Sam pushed open the screen door. “Come on in.”

  The woman brushed past Sam and stopped in front of the square floor fan humming on high. The breeze parted the hem of her wrap dress, exposing her long pale thighs. She made no effort to smooth her skirt back into place. Her eyes darted around the walls, landing on the column of photos hanging to the right of the front door. Sam’s seventh-grade portrait was on top, hanging over the family picture taken four years ago at the union Christmas party. Reilly’s kindergarten picture was on the bottom. His picture was larger than Sam’s, and bigger than the family portrait, too, if you counted the frame, which Sam always did.

  The woman took a step closer and studied the McGinty family picture, which gave Sam time to study her. She was taller than Sam. At least five feet eight, she guessed, even in her flat, strappy sandals. Big boobs, too, which Sam immediately told herself nobody could blame her for noticing since the woman’s blouse was cut just south of Nashville, as her mother was bound to note later.

  Sam looked down at the woman’s red toenails and curled her own dusty toes into the beds of her flip-flops. “I’ll go get Mom,” she said. “She’s out back hanging laundry.” Sam started to walk to the kitchen, but paused to look again at the woman. “What’s your name, by the way?”

  The stranger raised her eyebrows and shifted the child higher on her hip. “None of your business,” she said, but then she smiled. “Rosemary. You tell your mother Rosemary is here.” She cupped her son’s face with her hand and kissed the boy’s cheek. “Rosemary and Paull. Paull-two-els.”

  “Paull-two-els,” Sam said, noticing now that the woman’s hand was trembling. “Wow. That’s just like my dad’s middle name.”

  “Yeah,” the woman said. “I know.”

  Sam had never heard her mother talk about any Rosemary, and her mother talked about everybody to Sam, but she decided not to press her luck with Miss None of Your Business and ask for a last name. She backed out of the room and into the sweltering kitchen filling with the smell of stuffed peppers bubbling in the oven. She pushed open the screen door and let it slam behind her.

  It took a moment for Sam to spot her mother’s scuffed Keds under the white sheets billowing on the line. Ellie was standing on tiptoe, clipping her husband’s softball uniform to the clothesline. Sam cleared her throat as she approached her mother. “Mom.”

  Ellie held up Brick’s softball pants. “Look at these knees,” she said. “No matter what I do, I can’t get these stains out anymore.”

  “He’s just gonna get ’em dirty again anyway,” Sam said. “It’s post-tournament play. What difference does it make?”

  Her mother pegged the pants to the line. “Every person who sees your father’s pants on that field is thinking, What kind of wife can’t get grass stains out of her husband’s knees?”

  Sam thought that sounded a lot more like her dad than any fan at a ball game, but she kept that to herself. Ever since her father had come home six weeks ago and announced they were moving, only her mother was allowed to criticize Brick McGinty.

  “Mom. There’s someone here to see you.”

  “What?” Ellie said, leaning over the clothes basket to pull out a wad of wet socks. “Who is it? It’s practically suppertime.”

  “Some lady named Rosemary. She’s got a little boy with her, too.”

  The socks fell to the ground. Ellie looked down at the grass but didn’t move to retrieve them. Sam scooped them up and held them out to her mother. Ellie dug her fingers into her hips and moved her feet apart, as if bracing for a blow. “Who did you say?”

  “Rosemary,” Sam said, reaching into the clothespin bag and pinning the socks to the line. “And a little boy she called Paull.”

  Ellie blinked rapidly as she looked at her daughter. She reached up to her beehive and started pushing at bobby pins. Sam noticed that her mother’s hands were shaking. She held her breath, and waited.

  Ellie locked eyes with Sam. “Well, I’d better go in and talk to this Rosemary.” She headed for the side door, untying her apron as she walked. “Here,” she said, tossing it over her shoulder. Sam caught the apron and followed her mother to the side of the house. She stayed in the driveway as Ellie walked up the stairs and paused at the top, slowly pulling open the door.

  “You stay out here, Sam,” Ellie said. “If Reilly comes back, keep him out here, too.”

  Ellie stepped inside. Her eyes locked with Sam’s as she eased the door shut.

  Brick threw his lunch pail through the open window of his car and looked up at the sky. A few clouds, a soft breeze. His favorite kind of evening. Almost made him wish the tournament wasn’t over.

  His team had finished second in the state, losing to Rosetti’s Bar and Grill in Youngstown. He blamed himself for that. He’d hit only one home run in that game. Too much shit on his mind. He’d talked Ellie into staying home with the kids. That had thrown him off. He missed hearing the kids’ voices in the stands cheering for “Pop-o,” but he’d been on constant lookout for another visit from Rosemary. Her last words to him made his stomach roil every time he thought of them: “See you soon.”

  Tonight, though, on the drive home, he was feeling a sense of relief. The tournament was over, and now they just played for fun. One of the guys had bragged in the locker room last week that he was dating the blonde at the bar at Sardelli’s. He was in the clear. Everybody was moving on.

  He should never have paid that money to Rosemary. She had no proof that kid was his, and Brick McGinty was hardly the only mick with red hair in Erietown. He was still paying for his stupidity, working so much overtime his body ached in places he didn’t know he had.

  He drove past Lawson’s and did a double take at the blinking Schlitz sign. Hell, why not? Why should Ellie always have to pick it up? He made a U-turn and pulled into the parking lot.

  He didn’t notice the cashier until she started chirping about what he was buying. “Chips and dip? Havin’ a party, Brick?”

  His scowl evaporated at the sight of their old neighbor. “Margie? When did you start working here?”

  Margie Grandin smiled as she stuffed the bag of Ruffles and Lawson’s onion dip into a bag. “After Bill died, we moved, as you know. Sold the dry cleaners two years ago. I’ve got too much time on my hands.”

  He searched his mind for the name of her daughter, the one he’d ordered Sam to drop as a friend. “How’s your girl?” he said.

  “Jenny?” she said. “Mouthy as her father used to be, that one. We spoiled her too much.”

  “It’s the age, Margie. Our Sam is driving her mother crazy.”

  She held up another bag. “You want your six-packs in here?” He shook his head. “Nah. I got ’em.” The chips and dip were a bribe, really, for Reilly. Maybe he’d sit and watch a little bit of the Indians game with his old man. Brick promised himself to be more patient this time with his son. What boy doesn’t like baseball?

  He took his time driving home. The evening breeze was getting cooler, and the cicadas were back, crooning in the night. It wouldn’t be long before Ellie’s favorite season was here. Let’s plan a drive to Pennsylvania when the leaves change, he’d tell her tonight. She’ll love that.

  He turned on the radio and listened to Herb Score talk about the Indians’ lineup. He turned onto Erie Street and shook his head at the sight of so many semitrucks still making their way east. God, he hated living on Route 20. Pretty soon, they’d have enough money to move. Another wave of relief loosened his grip on the wheel. He was keeping track in the little notebook in his duffel. Five more Saturdays would replace all the money he had taken out of the kids’ college account. Ellie would never know.r />
  He approached the Kleshinskis’ house, which was four doors away from the McGintys’. Lenny was sitting on the porch steps reading a book. That was one boy he’d never have to worry about with Sam. They were more like siblings. Ruby, a tall and ample woman, stood behind her son, yelled through cupped hands at the two younger boys wrestling in the yard. He heard her shout “dammit to hell” and laughed.

  He returned her wave, then looked straight ahead as life fell apart in slow motion.

  His fingers went numb on the wheel as his head filled with the woomph-woomph, woomph-woomph of his pounding heart. He couldn’t breathe.

  He slowed his car to a crawl and paused at the lip of their driveway.

  Her Fairlane was parked in front of their home, and she wasn’t in it.

  Sam heard the sound of crunching cinders in the driveway and waved to her father as she stepped out of the way. He didn’t look at her when he pulled to a stop.

  This was weird, her father’s car stopping here next to the steps. He always drove straight to the back of the house after work. Brick’s eyes were glued to the rearview mirror. She followed his gaze to the blue car parked in front of their house.

  She rubbed her bare arms as she walked to her father’s open window. “Hi, Dad.”

  Brick turned off the car. The engine clacked and clattered, getting in the last word before falling silent. She stepped back as he opened the door and slowly dropped one foot to the ground, then reached up to grab the roof to pull himself out. He was fresh from the shower at work. His hair was combed into shiny grooves, and he smelled like he always did at 4:30 in the afternoon. Sam breathed in the potion of Dial, Brylcreem, and Old Spice.

  “Where’s your mother?” he said, facing the street.

  “Inside,” she said. “We got company. Rosemary and Paull.” With-two-els, she thought she should add, but the look in his eyes warned her off.