The Daughters of Erietown

by Connie Schultz

  Sam held out her arms and kept walking. “Folks, I’m sorry about this. We’re going to get this line moving again right away. Thanks for your patience.”

  “Nobody asked for my patience,” Jack Tyler’s father yelled.

  Sam smiled at him and said, “And yet here you are, Mr. Tyler, being as nice as can be.”

  Mrs. Johnson tsk-tsked as they walked. “People talking to you like you’re their servant or something,” she said. “Shameful.” Sam wrapped her arm around her secretary’s shoulder. “See what I mean? What would I do without you?”

  Mark McGraw was standing with his son in front of Dr. Marino, seething. “As soon as my wife told me what was going on here, I had to take off work.” Sam walked toward them and smiled at Jimmy, who was on the verge of tears. “Mrs. Johnson,” she said, taking the child’s hand, “would you please walk Jimmy down to my office and give him a Hershey’s Kiss?”

  His father pointed to the secretary. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.” Sam waited until Mrs. Johnson and Jimmy had left before turning toward the father. “Mr. McGraw, do you have your son’s records with you?”

  “He’s not touching my boy.”

  Sam looked at Dr. Marino, who immediately returned her smile. “It appears that I’m the first African-American Italian he’s met,” he said.

  Sam sighed. “I’ve got this.”

  Mr. McGraw pointed at Sam and Dr. Marino. “This is what happens when you hire a woman. She’s never even given birth. What does she know about raising our kids? Now she’s bringing in a black doctor to manhandle them.”

  Sam whipped around. “I will not have you talking about—”

  Dr. Marino placed his hand on her arm. “You’re going to need to stop talking to Principal McGinty like that,” he said. The room fell silent.

  Mr. McGraw glared at him. “You don’t tell me anything.”

  “In fact, I do,” Dr. Marino said. “I’m here because Principal McGinty is trying to keep your son safe from diseases that could kill him. That’s how much she cares about your little boy.” He turned to look at the other parents. “That’s how much she cares about all of your children.”

  “Dr. Marino,” Sam said, “you don’t need to—”

  “I’m a pediatrician,” Dr. Marino continued. “This is what I do. We’re going to go over your children’s records. If we find they’re missing any vaccinations, this nice nurse here”—he pointed to a white woman in a nurse’s uniform standing by a table a few feet away—“is going to give your children the shots they need. That way, they can stay in school.”

  Mr. McGraw glared at Dr. Marino, but said nothing. “Okay,” Sam said. “Let’s get this line moving.” The room started buzzing again.

  Sam looked at Dr. Marino, her face burning. “I didn’t need you to defend me, Carson.”

  He reached into the pocket of his white coat and pulled out a lollipop. “I know that, and so does everyone in this room,” he said, handing it to her. “What I wanted you to know, is that you deserve to have someone stick up for you.”

  She looked down at the lollipop in her hand. “I prefer grape.”

  “As of this minute, of course you do,” he said, smiling. “I’m onto you, Principal McGinty.”

  Sam set the mail on the table by her front door and looked over at the blinking message light on her answering machine.

  “In a minute,” she said, pulling out her ponytail as she walked up the stairs. Every book for professional women said she should have short hair to be taken seriously. The ponytail was her compromise. She ran her fingers through her hair as it fell around her shoulders and she thought about her long day.

  Over lunch in the cafeteria, Carson Marino had apologized for undermining her authority in front of the parents. “I was angry at that father, and showed a lapse in judgment,” he said. He looked so somber and earnest that Sam couldn’t help herself. She’d grabbed his hand across the tray and launched into her best Katharine Hepburn imitation. “Listen to me, mister,” she’d said, her voice full of exaggerated tremor, “you’re my knight in shining armor.”

  Sam fell back on the bed and winced at the memory of his confused face. Of course, Dr. Carson Marino never watched movies. He was too busy saving lives.

  Over lunch, she’d coaxed him into talking about his family. She could tell by his quick but thorough answer that he’d had a lot of practice answering the same questions. His father was a Catholic Italian kid from Brooklyn who fell in love with a black woman from Mississippi during his residency at a public hospital in Cleveland.

  “Her family had moved from the South when she was a little girl,” Carson said. “She was the third nurse in her family, and third-generation Methodist. When it was clear they were in love, Mom told Dad, ‘I’ll give up everything but Jesus for you.’ ”

  “Sounds like my mom,” Sam said, thinking of her parents’ Jack-and-Jesus wall. “She grew up Methodist, too, but became Presbyterian after she married. Still, Catholics believe in Jesus.”

  “Not enough, according to my maternal grandfather,” he said, grinning. “Family lore has it that the first time my mom’s father met my dad, he shook his hand and said, ‘Hail no to your Hail Mary. In this house we praise Jesus.’ ”

  Sam suppressed a laugh. “How did your dad’s parents feel about your mother?”

  “They didn’t meet her until after I was born, in 1954. ‘Family is family,’ Grandma Anita said, and that was that. I know how to cook more Italian dishes than Mama Sardelli, because of her.”

  “They were brave,” Sam said. “Your parents.”

  “My parents always joked that only an Italian boy from Bensonhurst would think it’s okay to marry a black girl from Mississippi. For years, they couldn’t even go visit her family. My grandparents, on both sides, were afraid they’d get killed.”

  “What was it like?” Sam said. “To be you. Cleveland is better than a small town, but the races still didn’t mix much.”

  “Everybody makes assumptions about everyone else,” he said. “It’s just easier to figure out what people are thinking about me.”

  “I’m sorry about that father,” she said.

  He looked at his watch and stood up, stacking her tray onto his. “Most people here aren’t like him, at least not face-to-face. When they’re in my examining room, or when I’m taking care of one of their children in the hospital. They get used to me.”

  “Still, why didn’t you stay in Cleveland?” she said as they walked toward the trash bin. “Why come here, to Erietown?”

  “I love my father. He’s head of pediatrics. He casts quite the shadow.” He emptied her tray over the bin. “Erietown needed another pediatrician, and I needed a cause, I guess.”

  Sam smiled at him. “Thank you for taking care of my tray.”

  “Thank you for letting me. I’m feeling the progress of this moment.”

  Sam changed into jeans and her old KSU sweatshirt and drifted back downstairs to listen to phone messages. The first one was Mandy Honkonen, 1975 senior class president of Erietown High School.

  “Samantha, busy mother of six here. The reunion committee is wondering if you could do those fancy class name tags again. Cahhhhl me.” Sam deleted the message and picked up a pen. “Call Mandy on Walton’s Mountain,” she wrote on the notepad. She pressed the button for the next message.

  “Sam, it’s Carson Marino. Your mom tells me your Katharine Hepburn imitation is from On Golden Pond. Maybe I should start watching more movies. Any chance you might help me with that? You have my card with all my numbers. Please call me.”

  Sam saved the message and hit the button again.

  “Sam, it’s your dad.”

  Sam sat up straighter. Her father had never left a phone message for her.

  “Give me a call when you get a chance,” Brick said. “Something
I want to talk to you about.”

  The machine beeped. End of messages.

  Sam picked up the receiver and dialed.

  “Hee-yell-oh.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Sam,” Ellie said. “I’ve been meaning to call you.”

  “I want to talk, but first, is Dad around? He left a message for me to call him.”

  “Your father called?”

  “Yep.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. That’s why I’m calling him back.”

  “He’s not here. He’s running errands.”

  “How was your day, Mom?”

  “Crazy. Three new admissions and a patient who tried to escape, twice.”

  “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  Sam knew to wait.

  “Well, a funny thing did happen on my way to the parking lot. I ran into Dr. Marino, who told me he’d just spent the day with you.”

  “At our school,” Sam said. “Vaccinations, remember?”

  “Sure,” Ellie said. “What I’m trying to figure out is why you did your Katharine Hepburn imitation for him.”

  “Is that your real question?”

  “Clever you,” Ellie said. “Sylvia Manning saw me talking to Dr. Marino, and as soon as he walked away she ran up to me and said, ‘I saw your daughter and him talking at a table in the cafeteria with their heads this close.’ ”

  “She was at my school?”

  “No, Sam,” Ellie said. “She was referring to a lunch you apparently had with him two weeks ago in our cafeteria.”

  “That was a meeting,” Sam said. “About vaccinations. We’ve had several.”

  “Uh-huh. Well Sylvia said you two were oblivious to everyone around you.”

  “Skip to the part where you told Sylvia to mind her own business.”

  “To be honest, Sam, I’m glad she told me. Somebody needed to tell me that my daughter was dating Carson Marino.”

  “We’re not dating.”

  “I know,” Ellie said. “You’re meeting. Did it occur to you that by meeting about the same topic over and over again he might have an ulterior motive?”

  Sam hesitated. “He’s a nice man, Mom.”

  “Sounds like maybe you think Carson Marino is more than just nice.”

  For the second time in one day, Sam surprised herself. No denial, no changing the subject. “Well, Mom,” she said, “what if I do?”

  “I’m fifty-six years old, Sam,” Ellie said. “I’ll take any color of grandchild I can get.”

  “Mr. Russo,” Sam said, bending at the waist to smile at a little boy. “And who is this?”

  The child smiled, revealing a gap in his top row of teeth. “Ms. McGinty, you know me. I’m Charlie.”

  Sam leaned in, pointing to his mouth. “Are you sure? The Charlie I saw last week wasn’t missing a tooth.” The little boy giggled as his father reached down to muss his hair. “We had quite a weekend in our house. Tooth fairy came Friday night, but forgot to follow Charlie’s handwritten instructions and took his tooth.”

  Charlie nodded. “She came back on Sunday and left it for me on my dresser. She wrote a note and said I was making her work too hard.”

  “Tooth fairy needs a union,” Agnes Lane said. “I hope she’s getting overtime.”

  Sam stood up and put her hand on the teacher’s shoulder. “Charlie, Mr. Russo, you know Ms. Lane.” Charlie waved as his father extended his hand.

  “Everyone knows Ms. Lane,” Mr. Russo said. “She brings Broadway to Erietown every spring. My wife and I started coming to the spring musical before Charlie was born.”

  Ms. Lane beamed and shook his hand. “How nice of you, Mr. Russo.” She pretended to whisper over Charlie’s head. “Between us grown-ups, you can call me Lane.”

  He laughed. “Lane. Great. You can call me Paull.”

  Lane looked down at Charlie and extended her hand. “And how is it that the handsomest leprechaun I’ve ever met has such an Italian last name?”

  “We’re Irish on my father’s side,” Paull said. “I have my mother’s maiden name. It’s complicated.”

  “Ms. McGinty,” Charlie said. “All of us have the name Paull. It’s my middle name. It’s spelled with two els.”

  Sam looked at the boy’s father and slowly nodded. “Paull-two-els,” she said. “I knew it was you.”

  He nodded. “And I knew it was you.”

  * * *

  —

  Sam sat down behind her desk and opened her drawer. “Sit down, please,” she said, pointing to two empty chairs across from her. She waited for Paull to sit before handing him the folded piece of paper.

  He opened it and looked at Sam. “You knew?”

  “Not exactly. Not when I was talking to you. After you’d left the restaurant and I saw your name on the drawing. The Paull-two-els.”

  “I remember writing this,” he said, running his fingers across BUTRFLYS BY SAM AND PAULL. “Can’t say my spelling is all that much better.” He flipped it over and read her handwritten note out loud: This was the second time I met Paull. 7:07 p.m., August 21, 1975, at Otto’s Tavern. He was 8 years old.

  He set the paper facedown on the desk. “You were really nice to me.”

  “Did you know I was your sister?”

  “No. My aunt Lizzie, she raised me, waited until two weeks ago to tell me about you. She loves me more than anyone on earth, but she’s as headstrong as a mule.”

  “I once read that a mule gets its strength and agility from a horse, but it’s smart like a donkey,” Sam said. “That what we think is stubbornness is really an ability to weigh the situation and avoid potential harm.”

  Sam could feel the heat rising up her neck. “I can’t believe I just said that. I’m an idiot.”

  “Nervous, you mean,” he said. “So am I.”

  She rolled back her chair and stood up. “I don’t know why I’m sitting behind my desk.”

  “You’re weighing the situation,” he said, smiling. “Like a mule, smart like a donkey.”

  Sam walked around her desk and sat down in the chair next to him. “I don’t know where to start,” she said.

  He pointed to the picture. “Why did you keep this?”

  “Guilt, maybe,” she said. “A longing, perhaps. I packed it in my train case the day before I left for college. It’s always been with me.”

  Paull nodded slowly, saying nothing.

  She started to stand up. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  Paull grabbed the chair arms. “The last thing I want to do is make you feel uncomfortable.”

  She motioned for him to stay seated, and sat down. “You must hate all of us.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “Until a month ago, I didn’t even know you existed.”

  “Why did your aunt tell you now?”

  “She saw your picture in the paper. She knew our paths were about to cross, because of Charlie.”

  “Erietown is pretty small,” she said. “It’s amazing we never met before now.”

  Sam picked up the drawing and folded it. “They fixed the railing on that bridge after she died. Did you know that?”

  “It wasn’t an accident. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t. I mean—” She reached across the desk for a tissue and blotted her eyes. “I wondered, of course. But it was already so sad, so awful.”

  “She left a letter behind for my aunt,” Paull said. “That’s how I know she drove off that bridge on purpose. That’s how I finally know, I mean. In the letter she said you rocked me in your arms and sang me to sleep.”

  Sam nodded. “You tried to hum along even though you didn’t know the songs. Then you fell asleep.”

 
“I met him a few years ago.” He pointed to the framed picture of Brick and Ellie on Sam’s desk. “Your dad.” He shrugged. “My dad, too, I guess. I talked to him.”

  Sam shifted in her chair. “When?”

  “Years ago, when I played softball for Sardelli’s. He came to one of my games at Smitty Field. Gave me some good batting advice after.”

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I can’t believe Dad would do that. How did he say it, who he was?”

  “He didn’t. I didn’t know who he was until last month, when Aunt Lizzie showed me two pictures she took of us talking.”

  “There are pictures?”

  He reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and pulled out the photos. “I’ve been carrying these around since the first day of school,” he said, handing them to her. “I had to work up the nerve to talk to you.”

  Sam stared at the photos as she spoke. “You look like the pictures I’ve seen of Dad at your age, when I was little. It must have freaked him out to see you.”

  “He didn’t say much. He just gave me some batting tips and walked away.”

  “Well, that’s that,” she said. “My father has always known you were his son. And so did Mom.” She handed him the pictures. “You have a brother, too, you know.”

  “Reilly, right?”

  Sam smiled, looking down. “Yeah. He’s a great guy. He and my father don’t really get along. They’re just so different. He was never an athlete like my dad. Like you.” She pointed to the photos in his hand. “No wonder Dad wanted to help you with your batting. He saw himself in you.”

  “Where did that leave you?”

  She stood up and smoothed the front of her skirt. “Immune, I guess. When I was twelve, I quit worrying about what my father thought of me.”

  “What happened?” he said, standing up.

  “You happened,” she said. “I rocked you in my arms and I realized that none of us had ever been enough for Brick McGinty.”

  Carson helped Sam with her coat and led her to the aisle. “Well, that was quite the romantic comedy,” he said. “Makes me want to go outside and start singin’ in the rain.”