The Red Coat

by Dolley Carlson

  His wet nose pressed through a space in the chain−link fence surrounding her house. She called him Mike after her late husband, Michael Frances McCormick, and chided him again, “Ah, gone on with ya’s, Mike. It’s just the children playin’ and a couple of me friends comin’ along. Good afternoon Norah, Mary.”

  “And to you too, Mrs. McCormick,” they said in unison, never missing a step at Norah’s insistence, when she said under her breath only a moment before, “Mary, we’ve got to keep movin’. If we stop to chat, we’ll still be in front of the widow McCormick’s house tomorrow mornin’.”

  When they were a safe distance away, Mary said, “God bless her, Norah. I don’t think there’s anyone home upstairs, if you know what I mean. Didn’t I hear her one time askin’ that aggravatin’ animal what he wanted for his dinner? ‘Is it the corned beef you want tonight, Mike, or a smoked shoulder? Just tell me darlin’, and it’s on the table.”

  The widow Sweeney and her new tenant, Mrs. Lonergan, were standing on the front porch of Mrs. Sweeney’s three-family apartment house, commonly known as a three-decker. Both women held their arms folded, as women often do when they’re standing still in conversation, leaning down to a car window with one more goodbye, or bending over a baby carriage cooing.

  Agnes Sweeney glanced up and down at the Jordan Marsh bag. “And where would you two prosperous ladies be comin’ from on this sun-kissed afternoon?” To Norah’s mind it sounded like an accusation.

  Mary’s heart, as close to Norah’s as a friend’s can be, had the same impression. She mischievously responded with one hand resting on her hip, the other helping to gloriously tell the story. “Haven’t we spent the entire day on Beacon Hill? And isn’t it grand this time of year with tulips pokin’ their pretty heads out of window boxes and dancin’ with daffodils ’round the trees and across borders in those beautiful uptown gardens? Sure and you would have loved the sight, Agnes Sweeney, and don’t we want you to join us next time? Isn’t that right, Norah? And wouldn’t our new neighbor, Mrs. Lonergan, be welcome too?”

  Nola Lonergan and her family had just moved up from a cold water flat. She found the Jordan Marsh bag a bit intimidating let alone Mary’s account of where the two women had spent the afternoon, and only hoped she’d be able to fit in with these sophisticated ladies.

  Norah adjusted the bag, an indication she’d be walking on, but courteously offered her own contribution. “And don’t I regret departin’ your good company, Mrs. Sweeney, and you too, of course, Mrs. Lonergan? Surely we’ll be comin’ to know each other better, but me family will be eagerly waitin’ for their supper. We’d best be on our way.”

  As soon as Mary and Norah were out of Agnes’ sight, they leaned against each other and giggled like two schoolgirls who had just pulled one over on Mother Superior.

  Mary spoke first. “That one thinks she’s so high and mighty, bein’ landlady to the two families. If it wasn’t for her late, dull, husband—” they both laughed again. “God in heaven, Norah. Jack Sweeney was the dullest man I ever met. Well, if it wasn’t for his one moment of intelligence, buyin’ life insurance, Agnes Sweeney’d be livin’ in Gate of Heaven rectory; cookin’ and cleanin’ for the priests instead of acting the grand lady and takin’ them all out to Durgin Park Restaurant for their Sunday dinner.”

  Norah was ashamed to add to such talk, but found the opportunity irresistible. “And don’t you find it amusin’ she’s constantly tellin’ us what they ordered for their dinner, as if lettin’ us in on some big Vatican secret, and implyin’ we’d be closer to the Almighty if we did the same?”

  Mary went on. “And isn’t she ever so careful to state it isn’t her alone with all those priests and Monsignor? That she never goes without the company of another widow.”

  Norah quipped, “Sure and we’re all so concerned that those darlin’ priests are just waitin’ to get all two hundred pounds of her alone, so they can steal a kiss.”

  “God forgive us both,” Mary petitioned. They laughed again.

  Mary’s daughter Marion stood up and called out, “Ma, I’m over here.” She parted from a group of teenagers sitting right down the middle of Mrs. Riordan’s front porch steps, taking great care not to bump one of the eight red geranium filled flowerpots on either side. Mary loved the sight. There’s the loveliness of youth and nature all in the one place.

  “Hello, Ma, Mrs. King.”

  Morris’s Pharmacy had three part-time soda jerks, but John Michael brought in the most business with his captivating smile, twinkling blue eyes, and quick wit.

  Mary whispered to Norah, “And isn’t this the first time in the three weeks since they discovered each other that I’ve seen my Marion in public without your John Michael at her side?”

  Nora answered, “I know he was workin’ at the pharmacy early this morning restockin’ before hours. Maybe Mr. McDonough needed him to work the fountain too.”

  Mary smiled at her daughter’s joy, while the group tapped their feet to the big band music of Glenn Miller, “Chattanooga Choo Choo” coming from a radio plugged into an extension cord that wound its way into a downstairs window.

  Mrs. Riordan had warned the young people when her son asked if they could listen to the radio. “I don’t mind, as long as you keep the sound down and your fannies on the steps. Do you hear me? It’s indecent for ya’s to be dancin’ anywhere but a hall.”

  Mary said, “Hello to you, Miss Marion Callanan. And I trust you’ve done your Saturday chores. For no daughter of mine would be carryin’ on with the music and all if there was work to be done.”

  “Ma, it’s all done. And I’ve even set the table.”

  “I’ll see you in about an hour then?”

  “Yes, Ma.” Marion began to sit down again, holding the back of her plaid skirt close to her legs, but stopped herself. “Mrs. King, could you please tell Rita I missed her? We were supposed to meet in the church basement this afternoon. Sister Veronita asked if a few of us would help put the palms in order for Sunday Mass.”

  “You two are becomin’ palm experts, for didn’t you do the cleanin’ and sortin’ last year?”

  “Yes,” Marion answered, her easy smile as sweet as they come. “And this year Sister Veronita surprised us. She had a Devil Dog for everyone there. I went by your house afterwards but no one answered the door. Here’s Rita’s.”

  “Sure and you’ll be friends for life sendin’ this cream-filled chocolate cake her way.”

  Norah held the coat closer, with both hands now, and felt a lump in her throat at the thought of what her missing children might be enduring. She knew Mary understood, but Norah chose not to talk about it. She wanted a few more minutes of peace and to speak of Rosemary’s goodness.

  “You know, Mary, there’s not a finer daughter, God love her. Were you aware Rosemary has a scar on her right arm? Will we never forget the day it happened, though it was fifteen years ago this coming November? Sure and it’s a shame we’re always rememberin’ it on Rita’s birthday. For wasn’t she born at home, and wasn’t Rosemary helpin’ the doctor, gettin’ the kettle of hot water off the stove when the burner flipped up and stuck to the underside of her delicate, bare, seven-year-old arm, brave little thing? She only let one cry be heard, and when I shouted from me bedroom in the midst of givin’ birth, ‘What is it darlin?’ she came to the door and without lookin’ in said, ‘Nothin’, Mummy. I’m just excited about the baby comin’ so close now.’”

  CHAPTER 4

  May the roof of your house never fall in and those beneath it never fall out.

  IRISH BLESSING

  AS WAS THEIR CUSTOM ONCE they arrived at Norah’s home, no matter where the two women were in a good story, lament or complaint, the conversation stopped but their feet kept moving, with Norah taking a soft right and Mary continuing much further down to N Street. There would be no lingering.

  But today, their conversation ended as soon as the Kings’ apartment was within sight. Norah stopped walking, still looking in the
distance and Mary stopped one step past her. The shades at 567 E. 8th Street, middle floor, were down. Drawn shades while it was still daylight meant one of two things: a night worker was getting rest, or there was trouble. John Joseph King didn’t work nights.

  Moments before nineteen-year-old Norah Catherine Foley boarded the ship for America, her tearful mother removed a small crucifix from around her neck and put it on her firstborn. “When times are hard darlin’, press your hand to the cross, and God’ll let me know I need to be prayin’ for you.”

  Norah pressed her crucifix Dear God, not again. “Come on now, Mary” she said. The two women walked without a word between them until they reached Norah’s address.

  “Goodbye, and God bless you, Norah King.”

  “Goodbye, and God bless you too, Mary Callanan.”

  “And Norah,” Mary called as she turned around, pocketbook dangling from the crook of her arm like the legs of a hip-held child, “God bless your family. God bless ’em all.”

  Three-deckers provided somewhat affordable housing for families of modest means. The sturdy buildings held three or six flats and a small back porch for each. This ingenious urban design was driven by the influx of immigrants during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

  Norah King’s fingers had barely touched the front doorknob of the three-decker’s common entrance when she pulled away. She was frightened the landlords, Marie and Gerard Flynn, might have their apartment door open as they often did, for the chance of a friendly hello or conversation.

  The Flynns were childless, which by Southie’s large-family standards made them poor and the Kings, their tenants with eight children, rich. Norah felt certain the landlords had once again heard sounds of beating, cursing, and crying coming from her family’s apartment, and she didn’t want to have to explain John’s drunken violence with a lie, as she had many times before. “I’m sorry for any disruption we may be bringin’ to this fine house with the boys tossin’ each other about, and Mr. King’s disciplinin’ of our brood. Sure and he doesn’t want the children growin’ up to be hooligans. And it’s their father’s opinion the occasional corporal punishment helps them to remember their place. But didn’t Father Kenney say it wasn’t lyin’? She quietly returned to the sidewalk. Goin’ in the back way will be safer.”

  Father Kenney had known the King family since they first moved to Southie. He baptized four of their nine children and gave First Holy Communion to the oldest three, though shortly after he saw the family through a tragedy no parent wants to bear, they moved from Saint Augustine’s parish to Gate of Heaven on the other side of town. Rita Margaret, the Kings’ seventh child and youngest girl, was his favorite. “They’re all beautiful children,” he said, “but that Rita, she’s a shiny penny.”

  Just one month ago, on a blustery March afternoon, Norah returned to her old neighborhood and looked in on an elderly shut-in. Norah believed if she looked after that dear old woman, the angels would lead someone to look after her own dear mother in Ireland.

  When she took an apron from the back of the kitchen door, Lillian Gallagher protested. “With a family the size of yours, Norah King haven’t you enough to do? Put the kettle on, and we’ll have a cuppa.”

  Norah smiled. “It’ll only take a few minutes to scrub the bath and do a little sweepin’,” she said, while laying a small blanket over Lillian’s knees. “You’ve got to watch yourself, now. For isn’t that demon pneumonia just waitin’ round the corner of every cold room?”

  Lillian gasped. “How’d you get those awful bruises on your arms?”

  “Oh, aren’t I forever bumpin’ this way and that, maybe doin’ the laundry or shovelin’ coal in the furnace.”

  Lillian simply said, “Go to Father Kenney, Norah. He’ll help ya out.”

  On her way home that day, Norah King walked right by Saint Augustine’s rectory, turned back, made the sign of the cross, and while she still had the courage, went up and rang the doorbell. The housekeeper answered, opening the door only partway, with one hand folded around the door’s edge. Warmth and the delicious smell of a pot roast dinner wafted out into the cold, damp afternoon air.

  “Good afternoon, Norah King. What can I do for you?”

  “Good afternoon, Jean Adair. If it’s not too much trouble, would you ask Father Kenney if I could please have a moment of his time?”

  The housekeeper, a middle-aged spinster and one of the best cooks in South Boston, prided herself on protecting the priests from what she considered unnecessary intrusions. “Aren’t you over there at Gate of Heaven now, Norah? Do the priests of that parish not have time for their own people?”

  “I was just passin’ by—”

  The housekeeper interrupted her. “Fine then, just come in.” She led Norah to the parlor. “Have a seat. I’ll inquire if the good Father can see you.”

  Jean Adair’s parents doubted they’d ever be asked for her hand and dreaded the thought of spending old age with such a bossy daughter under their roof. When she got the job of cook and housekeeper to the priests, which provided two rooms of her own in the rectory, Jean’s parents fell to their knees and thanked God.

  Jean Adair considered Norah’s request as she walked across the hall. Thinks she’s pulling the wool over my eyes with that “just passin’ by” nonsense. She quickly rapped—one, two—on the large pocket doors of the priest’s study. A person knows a person goes to another parish when they don’t want the neighbors seeing them walking into the rectory. Not waiting for an answer, Jean Adair pushed the doors open. “Begging your pardon, Father.”

  Norah, too anxious to sit, stood right where the housekeeper left her. What a lovely room they’ve got here. The gleaming hardwood floor and woodwork, jewel-toned area rug, Connemara marble fireplace, deep maroon divan, several overstuffed chairs, and a good-sized tea table in the middle of it all, provided a welcome distraction.

  The housekeeper, so tall and thin that some parishioners secretly called her “Olive Oil,” had a fairly light step and ten minutes later, she startled the former parishioner when she briskly said, “He’ll see you. And please remember the Father’s time is very limited.”

  Father Kenney wore well-pressed black slacks, scuffed black oxfords, a black shirt with a white Roman collar, and a brown cardigan sweater. Saint Augustine’s most popular priest was in his early fifties, and was portly, with a shock of salt and pepper hair, expressive brown eyes, and a ready smile. His reputation for kindness made the lines at his confessional longest. People were always willing to wait for mercy and grace.

  Father Kenney sprang from his desk chair. “And how’s the mother of the eight best behaved children in South Boston?”

  Norah stood tall, feet together, hands clasped. “Thank you for seein’ me, Father. It’s the church’s advice I’m seekin’.”

  Father Kenney had only seen Norah King this grave once before. Extending his hands, palms up, looking very much like the statues throughout the church, he said, “God has been with us in times of joy and sorrow. He’ll not leave us now. Please, Mrs. King, let me help you with your coat.”

  Norah, embarrassed because the lining of her ink-blue wool coat was so threadbare it had fallen apart under one arm, said, “Thanks just the same, Father, but I’m still a bit chilly.”

  “Would you like me to have Miss Adair prepare us some tea?”

  “No, thank you, Father.”

  “Please, have a seat,” he said.

  Norah sat down on one of two well-worn upholstered chairs across from his desk, on which books and papers lay in scholarly disarray. The priest returned to his chair and pulled a small tray from the side of the desk toward him. “Can I pour you a glass of water then, Mrs. King?”

  “Thank you, Father, yes.” Norah silently thanked her benefactor too. It’s you, isn’t it Blessed Mother, made him ask because you know how warm I really am.

  Father James Daniel Kenney prayed without a sound as he picked up the carafe and poured a glass of water for each of them. Sac
red Heart of Jesus, please give me the right words for this grieved, good woman who sits before me.

  “Now tell me what’s on your mind?” Father Kenney leaned forward, resting his folded hands on the desk.

  “Father.” Norah hesitated. “It’s my husband and the drink.” She hesitated again. “I’m not even sure I should be tellin’ you any of this.”

  “You’re doing nothing wrong. Please, continue.”

  “Father, when he’s drunk, John beats the children. Me too. And all the time he’s yellin’ horrible things at the top of his lungs for the neighbors to hear. I’m scared to death the landlords are goin’ to throw us out. And aren’t they forever askin’, ‘Mrs. King, is everything all right up there?’” Norah used an American accent when she quoted the landlords. Her own lyrical speech returned with the next sentence. “Father, I’ve been givin’ them this excuse and that, but I can’t go on with the lyin’, knowin’ it’s an offense to God Himself, let alone the blight on me own soul.”

  “Excuse me please.” Father Kenney took a sip of water. God help me. How many women have sat in that very chair saying more or less those very words and guilelessly trusting me to come up with some kind of miraculous solution to their predicament? “Has it always been this way, Norah?”

  “No, Father. Just let me say, I’ve no trouble with Mr. King stoppin’ at the pub after a hard day’s work. Sure and it’s the part of Ireland that none of the men left behind. And that was John’s way, with the occasional drunkenness. But he’s been comin’ home drunk most of the time and bringin’ more of the stuff into the house with him.” Norah took a quick breath. “And don’t the children and I pray to Saint Jude that their father will go straight to the bedroom when he walks in the door that way? And he does, some of the time.” Norah took another breath. She wasn’t accustomed to speaking so quickly but she was mindful of the housekeeper’s warning. “Just this last Monday, Father, I had to lie to the landlords again with the two youngest, Timmy and Tommy, standin’ right there beside me. What kind of example is that to be gettin’ from their mother? What am I to do, Father?”