The Red Coat

by Dolley Carlson

  The boss’s daughter avoided answering and directly asked, “Bernice, is my brother there yet?”

  Pip had his own posh apartment on Commonwealth Avenue, and the family seldom knew what Price Irving Parker III was doing when he was away from his responsibilities at the offices of Parker Shipping.

  Shortly after graduating from college, he’d taken on the reins of company controller and, at the same time, was predictably being groomed for company president in light of his father’s pending retirement.

  “No, Miss Cordelia, neither your father nor brother are here yet. Would you like me to leave a message?”

  “No, thank you, Bernice.” Bet he’s still in bed. Bet dollars to donuts it’s not his own. Pip, where are you? Where are you? Where are you?

  Miss Cordelia Anne Parker of Beacon Hill, second born and only daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Price Irving Parker II, walked through the city of her birth for the next hour, alone, saddened, fearful of a future without her parents. Who’ll give me away when I get married? Certainly not Pip … and what about Christmas … This can’t be happening.

  Early on she found herself in the North End, the Italian section of town, and the patrolman on duty thought she looked strangely out of place at that early hour when delivery truck drivers accounted for most non-Italians. “Are you lost, Miss?”

  “Perhaps I am, Officer.” Perhaps I am. She fiddled with the flap of her shoulder bag. “Forgive me, I was thinking out loud. Thank you. I’ll be fine.” And she looked both ways before crossing the dew-dampened street.

  “Take care now,” the patrolman cautioned. If he’d been a betting man—with five children, a mortgage and live-in mother-in-law, he dared not be—Officer Canavan would’ve wagered: This attractive young lady is down in the dumps. Maybe she just lost her fella in the war, yeah, that’s it, and these Wasp types keep it tight, poor gal.

  Cordelia could barely stand the thought of entering her family home again. Once inside, she’d have to deal with everything, right away, and apparently without the help of her brother. But as soon as she crossed the threshold, he was there, sitting on the third step of the spiral staircase, bent over with his face in his hands.

  When Price Irving Parker III raised his handsome head, it was apparent he’d been crying. With puffy eyes, mussed hair (running his hands through his hair when troubled was a habit Pip’s parents weren’t able to thwart), and slumped shoulders, he crossly asked, “Cordelia, where in the world have you been?”

  She closed the massive front door behind her, secured the lock and without saying a word, met her brother halfway.

  CHAPTER 21

  I went downstairs and scrubbed the kitchen floor! Then I felt better.

  Who was it said, ‘Blessed be drudgery’? I used to laugh at the idea.

  There’s nothing like it to heal our frazzled nerves … so long as our

  bodies aren’t frazzled, too. That day, after the floor was finished, I set

  to work and got a big dinner for the family—a hard dinner …

  I was tired enough to drop, but I was myself again.

  THE KINGS OF BEACON HILL

  CHRISTINE WHITING

  THEY SAT THERE AT THE kitchen table, the two most important women in Robert Donnelly’s life, his mother and his wife.

  At age nineteen, Rita Donnelly was pregnant with her first child and carrying the baby close, according to the only three people in the world who knew about it, other than her husband. And that meant she “hardly showed,” as Rosemary assured her.

  “Which,” Kay remarked, “is fairly surprising, for a girl as small as you are, I’d think that baby would be leading the way, right away.”

  Today, the expectant mother chose to wear her navy-blue suit to Sunday Mass, since the jacket still buttoned, and more importantly, it hid a chain of safety pins used to expand the waist of her now too-snug skirt. A baby was coming, and soon she’d have to buy maternity clothes, but until then, safety pins, coats, and jackets would help to hold her secret a little longer from everyone but her husband’s mother and her two sisters—none of whom were particularly thrilled when they first learned she was expecting, because, at the time, the couple’s May wedding day was still weeks away.

  It was only a few months ago, on a blustery, rainy, early April afternoon, in Quincy, as several inside-out umbrellas led their owners down the Chalpin’s puddle-strewn street, and other brave souls clung to each other for surety, that Rita King and her intended, Robert Donnelly, met with his mother and her sisters in Kay and Steve’s cozy upstairs apartment. Rosemary had taken the train in from New York.

  All three women assumed Bob’s last minute request for “just the five of us, okay?” had something to do with the couple’s upcoming wedding plans. It did, and it didn’t.

  After all the hellos and hugs, removal of hats and gloves, coats, and lastly rain boots, which were lined up outside the apartment door, next to open, dripping umbrellas, everyone came inside. Bob, a broad-shouldered five foot eleven, wearing his best slacks and sport coat, remained standing. While the ladies, clothed just as nicely in day dresses and stockings and high-heeled shoes for the younger women, lower-heels for his mother, sat down before the coffee table. It was laden with platters and bowls of delicious choices: a variety of precisely stacked, cut-in-fourths sandwiches, mixed nuts served with a nutcracker and picks, pastel mints, and Rita’s favorite dessert, “lady finger” slices of Drake’s raisin pound cake. Kay pertly offered additional refreshments.

  “I’ve got hot water on for tea, no coffee, sorry, and some ginger ale in the icebox.”

  Before anyone could answer, Bob spoke up. “If you don’t mind, Kay, I have something to say first.”

  His mother noticed the tips of her son’s ears were red, a sure sign he was nervous, if not guilty of something. I bet they’ve run out of money. Well, I have some tucked away, not much, but it’s theirs for the asking. Without question, I’ll want every penny back. Money doesn’t grow on trees.

  “I’m going to cut to the chase and say I love Rita with all my heart, and I can’t believe she’ll have me.”

  The women smiled at each other, and Rosemary said, “You make a really nice couple.”

  There was an awkward pause as they waited for Bob to continue. He looked down, punched his right hand into his left, and took a deep breath.

  Rita got up from where she was sitting on the couch next to Rosemary, walked over to her intended, and faced the curious women. “I’m in a family way.”

  Bob’s mother gasped. “God Almighty. I knew something was wrong, but I never thought it’d be something like this.”

  Rosemary looked as if she was going to cry. “It can’t be true.” She fell back on the couch from her attentive, sitting-on-the edge position, folded her arms and said, “After all we’ve been through, Rita, and you end up like this. Dear Jesus.”

  Kay untied her organdy hostess apron, threw it on the couch, glanced at Rosemary, and glared at Rita. “Thank God Mum didn’t have to hear this.”

  The future groom sheepishly looked at Rita’s sisters and, not quite as cowed, at his mother. “I’m sorry it turned out this way, but we are getting married. Father Kenney already knows, and under the circumstances, our ceremony should be taking place in his office, but he wants Rita to have the Saint Augustine’s wedding she’s always planned on. He’s really stretching his neck out for us, Mum. Monsignor Shea doesn’t know a thing.”

  Father Kenney had a long-standing soft spot for the bride that began two weeks after her birth in November of 1925, the day he baptized her “Rita Margaret” at Saint Augustine’s.

  After the initial shock and shame, it was Rita’s future mother-in-law who began to calm everyone down and set everything in the right direction. “Let’s make the best of it. Keep the whole business under our hats and get on with the marriage.” She clapped once as if to clear the air. “Does that wedding dress still fit you, Rita?”

  The future bride’s hands instantly went to her
stomach, one on top of the other. “Yes, it does, Mrs. Mac,” she said, having tried the borrowed gown on recently for her own peace of mind.

  When Rosemary and Tony were married at Gate of Heaven, the majority of guests were women and children. World War II was in full swing. Rita would invite many of the same people, wear the same gown and same veil, and borrow the same bridesmaids’ dresses for her attendants, but this bride would carry a much larger bouquet.

  Rosemary had been ecstatic to loan her baby sister the wedding gown and veil but presently felt uneasy about the pure white garments being worn under such circumstances.

  “Oh, I’m very disappointed in both of you,” she said. “And you know what, Bob? Your ‘I love Rita with all my heart’ really doesn’t mean much when I consider everything my sister will have to go through now.”

  “Ro!” Rita pleaded. “This is my future husband you’re talking to. Please stop!” Her cheeks were crimson.

  When Rosemary caught Rita’s distress, her first thought was to comfort. “It’ll be okay, honey. You’re not the first and you certainly won’t be the last.” She had nothing more to say to Bob. What a cad.

  Kay wasn’t so kind, and her disdain was directed at Bob Donnelly alone. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  His mother wisely put a stop to it. “There’s nothing’s to be gained by that kind of talk, although I’m inclined to agree with you.” She looked at her son and shook her head. “You’ve broken my heart.” Later on, when mother and son were alone, she mercilessly lit into him. “What in God’s name were you thinking? Doing a thing like that to a nice girl about to become your wife?”

  On this sleepy Sunday afternoon in July, almost two months after the wedding, her suit jacket removed, a borrowed apron donned, the mother-to-be was helping her mother-in-law with the lunch dishes, when the older woman insisted she sit down to dry the rest of the silverware. “Here, let’s put it all in this bowl.” Bob’s mother gathered the wet utensils from one end of the drain board. “It’s not good for the baby, Rita, you being on your feet for long periods of time.” She pulled a sturdy oak ladder-back chair away from the kitchen table, her water-wrinkled fingers curled around the top rung’s heart cutout. “They’ll get just as dry with you sitting down as standing up.”

  The table, both extensions in at all times, held a divided drawer for silverware, and after turning back the white, fruit-bordered tablecloth, Rita pulled the drawer open, slipped each dried utensil into its proper section, and alternately observed her mother-in-law’s busy-bee movements. She dipped her hands in the sink, swiftly washed dirty dishes, pots, and pans, gingerly balanced them on the drain board, reached up, down, and sideways to put various items away, and in between, watered her prized African violets, lined up like beauty queens—some ample, some slight, all very sweet—on a yellow metal utility cart.

  Rita wondered how her mother-in-law, despite having such a large household to care for—husband, George; disabled young adult son, Buddy; teenage son, George Jr.; teenage daughter, Jane; nine-year-old son, Dicky; dog, Blackie; and parakeet, Peety— managed to cover the table at all, let alone with a pressed cloth. Then she remembered her own mother, Norah, used to do the same thing, and she remembered why.

  “It’s one thing to be short of money, darlin’, but a bare table makes you poor. Food tastes better when the table’s properly set.”

  The bride—she’d been married such a short time, bride still applied—felt gratefully at home in this sunny kitchen that smelled strongly of good food, faintly of cigarette smoke and coffee, pleasantly of soap. The floor was gray linoleum with a colorful rag-rug in front of the sink, and the humming icebox was filled to capacity with items such as homogenized milk, Canada Dry ginger ale, eggs, butter, oleomargarine, bacon, Hershey’s chocolate syrup, Vermont Maid maple syrup, horseradish, Lee & Perrins, Heinz mustard and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, red Jell-O with sliced bananas, Spam, and deviled ham. Her husband’s mother frequently said of the last two items, “God only knows what they’re made of.” There was cream cheese, American cheese, and whatever was left over from the three meals a day she served her family; nothing ever went to waste.

  Stale bread became bread pudding. Cold chicken, roast beef, or fish, cut into pieces, were combined with sautéed celery, onions, and white sauce for noodle casseroles, or finely chopped along with potatoes for hash. Even sour milk was saved and used in a delicious, old, German cake recipe that specifically called for the curdled ingredient.

  There always seemed to be something cooking on the big, black, iron stove that still smelled of this morning’s baking, egg custard, and banana bread. And their friendly cocker spaniel, Blackie, forever napped in front of it, even in the summer heat.

  Every cupboard was bursting with a topsy-turvy variety of dishes, glasses, serving ware, pots, pans, and non-perishable groceries. Bread and crackers were stored separately in a green, black-stenciled breadbox placed on top of the icebox. Their parakeet was perched in his freestanding birdcage, next to four wide-open windows, where thankfully, a breeze of fresh air was coming in, while the café curtains flew up and about like the hems of pretty dresses on a windy day.

  The kitchen table was conveniently central and used for a wide variety of activities. Homework, bill paying, food preparation, and understandably all meals, and most times, it was where family and friends preferred to visit, with a cup of tea or coffee, glass of Kool-Aid, Zarex, water, milk, or tonic, along with a bowl or plate of “Mrs. Mac’s good cookin’.”

  Alcohol was forbidden in Mrs. Mac’s house. Milk and Hershey’s chocolate syrup was the only mixed drink permitted, made especially for nine-year-old Dicky. Curiously, the triangle punctures on either side of the syrup can were always made with a beer can opener, “Gorwin’s Packaged Goods Store” embossed on both sides.

  Rita’s mother-in-law, Ethel McDonough, formerly Donnelly, and before that, Murphy, known by most people in Southie as “Mrs. Mac,” had finally decided to take a seat too, and she began writing a recipe on the back of a used, “perfectly good” envelope in her very distinctive swirled handwriting: Ethel McDonough’s Irish Soda Bread.

  In her day, Ethel Louise Murphy had been the belle of the ball, with a wavy blonde bob, shapely, five-foot-five figure, icy blue eyes, and fashionable clothing lovingly sewn by her mother. Ethel tended the finishing touches—buttons, hemming, and pressing—on her own “custom-made” wardrobe.

  Mrs. Mac put her pencil down and raised her blonde-faded-to-gray head. “Doesn’t every Kate and Eileen want this recipe? And I’m not one bit reluctant to say no when asked. It’s a family secret, and that’s where it’s staying, in the family. And now that you’re one of us, Rita King,” she presented the envelope with great flair, “I’m happy to give it to you.”

  Mrs. Mac’s Irish Soda Bread

  2-½ cups flour

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  1 teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon baking soda

  ¼ cup butter or margarine, at room temperature

  ¼ cup melted butter

  ½ cup sugar

  1 egg slightly beaten

  1-½ cups buttermilk, at room temperature

  1 cup raisins

  2 teaspoons caraway seeds (optional)

  Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.

  Cream butter and sugar. Add the slightly beaten egg and buttermilk. Blend well.

  Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients, and mix by hand until well moistened.

  Fold in the raisins and caraway seeds (optional).

  Pour into a greased 1-½ quart glass casserole. Or you may divide the dough between two smaller casseroles.

  Brush top generously with the melted butter, and sprinkle generously with sugar.

  Bake in preheated 375-degree oven for 30 minutes. Then reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees and bake an additional 30 minutes.

  Bread is cooked when a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minu
tes, slice and serve warm with butter.

  Next day the bread may also be toasted.

  Ethel Louise Murphy and John Joseph Donnelly, ironically with the same first and middle name as Rita King’s father but never called anything other than Jack, had married at Saint Ambrose’s Church in Dorchester, in autumn, 1922, moved straightaway to Southie, and eleven months later, “Et” gave birth to a healthy baby boy they named Robert. Two years later, their second son, John, nicknamed “Buddy,” was born and pronounced “perfect” by the attending physician. But in the following months, it became evident to one and the same that Ethel and Jack’s new baby had cerebral palsy. His inability to roll over or sit without support (initially attributed to slow development), jerking movements, and gaping, crooked smile were dead giveaways. And giveaway is exactly what Jack Donnelly had in mind.

  “Institutionalize him, Ethel, or else I’ll leave.”

  “Jack, Buddy’s our own flesh and blood. Mother of God, how can you even think of doing such a thing?”

  After weeks of his wife pleading for Buddy to remain in their home, Jack Donnelly wouldn’t budge, and neither would she.

  In Irish Catholic South Boston, marital infidelity was the only socially and barely acceptable reason for leaving a spouse. Abandoning a good wife and his own two children, one of them “with something wrong, God bless him,” as all the neighbors could see, would make outgoing, prideful Jack Donnelly a social pariah, and he knew that only too well. So the scheming husband and father deigned to spread a disgraceful rumor that the “crippled toddler” wasn’t his baby after all. And he left.

  Ethel Donnelly spent a great deal of time and money at the local pharmacy because of Buddy’s special needs, making regular purchases of aspirin, cough syrup, glass straws, mercurochrome, diaper rash medicine, castor oil, cod liver oil, Vaseline for his dry lips, and penny candy for both little boys. Bobby liked bull’s-eyes, caramels with powdered sugar in the centers, and Buddy enjoyed lollypops, held by his older brother or mother until the last bit was sucked away.