“Betty’s a big ‘society gal’ now,” Zella said, swirling the ice cubes around and around in her drink. “You know, ‘la-di-da.’ But when we were kids, we sure had fun. Betty had a little too much fun herself, you know.” Zella held her cigarette while pointing her index finger in Vera’s direction. Her eyelids had lowered to half-mast, and her drink was even lower than that.
“Ye-ap. Betty had too much fun, and got herself in a family way. Had to marry Charlie Miller right away. That was too bad for Forest.”
“Forest?” Vera asked. “Your Forest?” Forest Sadler’d been the one who laughed the hardest when Marvin Taggart told them all he had to divorce his wife, Mildred, because turns out she was already married.
“Yeah.” Zella was starting to sway gently back and forth as she sat on the top step of the porch. She stared off into the distance and her words began to get a little slurry.
“Betty wenn with Foress before Charlie. But Foress should’ve known it wouldnn go nowhere, not with Betty and her parents, and what with Foress working at the Sohio station, smellin’ like gasoline all the time. It was funny, he took that job ’cause the Sohio was on the north side, and he wanned to see how many of those rish bishes he could meet. I guess he never spected to really fall for one. Those two had a spark, all right.”
Vera had more than half of her drink left, and swirled it around in the glass. She shook her head and tried to follow Zella’s ramblings. Maybe if she drank a little faster.
“I might juss be his consolation prize. Same gene pool, differen breeding, you know?”
“Unh-hunh,” Vera agreed, but was thinking about how she’d nearly fallen over when she’d heard who Marvin Taggart’s wife, Mildred, was already married to.
Zella had settled into her liquor and lemonade.
“Oh, Forest ain’ too much to look at now, I know. An’ he drinks too mush. He didn’ start on the bottle until Betty an’ Charlie got hitched.”
“He took it hard, did he?”
“An’ how. Now, Vera,” Zella said, turning her swaying head toward Vera and reaching out her fingers to tap on Vera’s forearm. “I woulnnet spread it around, but I was never too sure Margie was Charlie’s, you know? She mighbe Forest’ssss.” As she extended the s’s in Forest’s name she began to laugh.
Vera laughed along with her, but let her thoughts drift back to Marvin Taggart sitting at the table in her dining room, eyes bulging out of his head as he shouted about “Mildred that double-crossing, no-good dame.” Marvin’s face had been beet-red, fists clenched, showing them all just how steamed he was about his ex-wife who was already married to “some guy named Edward Dalton.”
Zella’s laughter had tapered off along with her drink, and when it finally stopped she became philosophical again.
“Yeah, they had ‘it’ back then. Betty used to love goin’ to the Sohio station to see him there inniz lil uniform withiz cap oniz head. She said she loved the smell of the gasoline.” Zella hiccupped. “Said idwas zexxy.” She rolled her eyes and circled a finger around by her ear. “She’s real differen’ now. But we still talk on the phone from time to time. If I got a good story or sumthin’.” She rolled her eyes again and sighed.
It was that last sentence of Zella’s that rang in Vera’s ears long after she’d said goodbye to her, handed her the empty glass, and made her way back to her own house. It rang in her ears, and stayed lodged in her mind for weeks after that conversation. We still talk on the phone from time to time. And when the weather turned and the snow began to fall, and Vera called Vivian to ask what Charlotte might like for Christmas, Vivian was in one of her moods. She mentioned “all Charlotte’s high school joining,” which Vera’d thought she’d have been proud of.
“Well, good for her!”
But that just made Vivian even madder.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t have kids.”
Vivian may as well have smacked Vera right in the face.
So, on December fifteenth, Zella Johnson was practically salivating as she asked the telephone operator in Wooster to connect her to her cousin Betty Miller’s number. She’d just heard the juiciest gossip from her neighbor up there in Akron.
Chapter 51
Vera hadn’t written all that in the notepad, of course. She couldn’t have even if she’d wanted to, which she hadn’t. With her partial paralysis and overall weakened condition, it’d taken half a day and all of her strength just to get the important bits down on both sides of one page.
Vivy,
I can’t say that I’d ever have admitted this if it hadn’t been for this damned stroke. It’s funny what it’s done to my mind. I’m still all in here, and even though half of me’s asleep it’s like my brain’s been shook up and shaken out. The things I did right, from the ones I didn’t. And what I did to you just wasn’t right. And I didn’t even know it then, how bad it would hurt you, mess up your life.
I told somebody what I knew about Eddie and his first wife. I told somebody I knew wouldn’t keep it to herself and I knew who she’d tell. I guess in my mind, the way it was at the time, I thought it would serve you right. Cut you down to size a little. I thought everything always went your way. It was jealousy. Just real small-minded jealousy. You being the pretty one, and Pawpy’s favorite, and always getting what you wanted. I will tell you now, I feel a lot of shame about it all!
You’d think me being stuck here now in this bed I’d be even sorer about things. Oh, poor me! But, it’s strange. It’s not like that. I’d like to be able to feel the left side of my body, and be able to get up out of this bed without help, but I think it’s God’s way of showing me how good I had it. And, maybe I messed that up, not appreciating it more, you know? Or maybe the stroke messed up my brain more than I understand. But, I sure did mess up with you, and you gotta believe I’m sorry about it. Really and truly sorry. I never thought it would turn out this bad. I know we’ve always had our troubles, you and me, but I do love you, Vivy. And if I take a turn for the worse, I need for you to know that I do, and if I could take it all back, what I did, I’d do it.
—Vera
Vera watched with her watery eyes as Vivian read the notepad, and the tears filled and began to spill over. It was a strain to move her right hand up to brush them away. She couldn’t feel it, but the tears were rolling down the left side of her face, too. Violet came into the room carrying a tray with some toast and peanut butter crisscross cookies. When she saw Vera’s face, she rushed to set the tray next to her on the bed, grabbing the cloth napkin to wipe her tears.
“Oh, no, what’s happened?”
Vera knew if that nurse Wally’d hired didn’t work out, her baby sister would happily step in. She’d always been that way.
Vera kept her eyes on Vivian, who looked like she was in a mild state of shock, and Vera didn’t blame her one bit. Vivian, to offer some explanation to their youngest sister or maybe to try to understand it better, opened her mouth and started to read aloud from the notepad she’d just read to herself. As she read, Violet brought a hand to her mouth, wrapping the other arm around her middle. She stood there, with her back to Vera in the bed, shaking her head in dismay. Vera didn’t blame Violet for that, either.
Vivian finished reading and then closed the notepad. She couldn’t look at Vera, lying there helpless in the bed, the tears now unattended by Violet starting to mingle with snot dripping from her nose. Without a word Vivian stood, set the notepad back onto the nightstand, and walked out of the bedroom. Violet looked from Vivian’s retreating figure to Vera in the bed. Vera and Violet heard the front door open and close, and Violet went to the window to see their middle sister (perpetually craving attention!) walking away from the house. She walked right by the Buick parked at the curb, and kept walking down the street until she disappeared from view.
Vera, in her still-alert mind, would never have been able to admit if she’d meant for the gossip about Edward to have the kind of disastrous effect it did. Trickling down thr
ough the telephone line from Akron to Wooster, and then exploding in a burst of flames, like a lit cigarette dropped on a stream of gasoline leading right to the pump.
A few neighboring porch lights had switched on by the time Vivian got back to the Irwin house. She hadn’t looked at her wristwatch, but she’d have guessed she’d been gone two or three hours. Her pumps creaked on the floor of the entryway, and she looked into the parlor, where Wally was sitting, staring at the empty, darkened fireplace. He didn’t look up. Vivian guessed the nurse must’ve gone home.
Wally would eventually sleep with the nurse, causing a big scandal in the neighborhood and in the family, but for now he was still in shock, and mourning the loss of his wife the way she used to be. Wondering if he was partly to blame for the stroke. Thinking he shouldn’t have hit her the way he did.
Vivian climbed the stairs slowly, counting them the way she sometimes did in her own house. Fifteen. A much luckier number than thirteen, although less lucky if you happened to fall from the top. Fifteen. Like the day on the December calendar when Vivian’s world had crashed around her. Vivian would forever after connect the date of December fifteenth with the fifteen steps she had to climb up to her sister’s room. Violet had turned on the lamp next to Vera’s bed, and was sitting in the chair Vivian had left hours earlier, watching Vera sleep. No longer bothering to blot the drool dripping from the left side of her mouth.
She looked up when Vivian entered the room, and got up from the chair. Her hands went to her heart, and she mouthed, I’m so sorry. Vivian just gave a slight, defeated nod, and walked to the side of the bed, where she stood over Vera. Her eyes flicked briefly to the alarm clock sitting on the nightstand. A long time ago its weight would’ve felt good in her hand. But not now. Instead of reaching for the clock, she slipped Aunt Catharine’s Irish claddagh ring off her right ring finger, lifted Vera’s frail, weakened right hand, and slid the ring over the knobby knuckle of her third finger. She then turned to Violet and jerked her head toward the door. Violet left the lamp on, but closed the door to the room after them. Neither said a word to Wally as they walked past the living room and out the door into the mild summer night.
The two younger McGinty sisters sat silently in the front seat of the Daltons’ Buick, and stared straight out the windshield following the path the headlights made on the drive back to Wooster. The car’s engine and the constant vibration of the wheels on the highway kept the silence from seeming awkward. Vivian replayed the words from Vera’s notepad over and over inside her head, just like she had when she’d gone out for her long walk. Violet thought about the notepad confessional, too, and Vivian’s strained voice as she’d read from it. And then she thought about Vivian’s actions, and would think about them long after that day.
That McGinty claddagh ring had always meant more to Vera than it should have, in Violet’s opinion. She couldn’t believe Vivian had given it to her after what Vera had done. But Vera was sick and not likely to get any better; that was for certain. Violet sneaked a look at Vivian while she steered the Buick from the highway onto the exit. Vera had always been the know-it-all of the family, but Violet would point out that her sister Vivian really knew people.
“Did you see the papers?” Vivian finally broke the silence as they drove into Wooster, the glowing streetlamps coming into view. “They’re executing the Rosenbergs in a couple of weeks. The electric chair.”
“Oh?” Violet responded. “I didn’t see that. Robert said something about it, though. You’re reading the papers now?”
“Mmm-hm,” Vivian murmured. Her gloved fingers tapped on the top of the steering wheel as they drove south on Beall Avenue, past the entrance to the Wooster College campus, where she used to mutter curses under her breath at the carefree coeds laughing and swinging their books around. Just seeing them used to flatten her mood and sour her outlook on the day, making her feel like she wasn’t good enough.
The new feeling inside her, bubbling up from her belly and spreading out into her extremities as she drove past, was one of excitement, nervous hope, and possibility.
“And, did I tell you?” She kept her eyes on the coeds but leaned toward her sister. “I’m going to get my high school diploma.”
Chapter 52
Vivian felt good about her plans to get her high school diploma. She wasn’t as sure how to feel about her anniversary this year. It was their sixteenth year together, if you counted the first fifteen years and seven months that weren’t legitimate in the eyes of the law. If she’d considered a piece of paper with Reverend Alsop’s signature to be more sacred than sixteen years of semi-faithful devotion, well then, that might have ruffled her feathers a little, but a lot had happened since that day. The sixteenth anniversary didn’t have any specific traditional gift attached to it. Last year, fifteen, had been crystal, and she’d hoped for candlesticks, but Edward hadn’t gotten her anything, because he forgot. But that had been before. There was no chance he’d forget this one.
Edward presented Vivian with a large box. He must’ve been keeping it out back in his shed, because she hadn’t seen it in the basement or in any of the closets. It was heavy, and wrapped in beautiful silver ribbon, and he set it on the coffee table in front of her. It looked like he’d had it professionally wrapped at Freedlander’s, which was something he always scoffed at. “I’ve got two good hands. I can put tape on paper and tie a bow.” Not to mention, it cost money to have that done at the store. The corner of Vivian’s mouth pulled a little and she shot him a queer look as he brushed a hand on the sofa cushion next to her and sat down.
She turned her attention back to the gift, and gently pulled at one end of the ribbon, watching as it slid out from the bow. She worked the knot apart with her fingernails, now painted in Revlon’s Plum Beautiful, because she’d had enough of Fire & Ice, then slid the rest of the ribbon out from under the gift and set it beside the box to save. Edward’s foot began tapping next to the table. The unwrapping was going a lot more slowly than usual, since Vivian wasn’t too sure she wanted to see what was inside. She’d had plenty of disappointments that year and didn’t think she could handle any more. She carefully plucked at the tape holding the wrapping paper together, trying her best not to tear it. The wrapping paper could, and should, be saved, too, and she folded it into a square and tucked it under the ribbon sitting next to the box.
When she pried open the top of the box and looked inside, her eyebrows drew together in confusion. She reached in and pulled out several brand-new notebooks, opening the cover flaps to see that that was just what they were. Blank notebooks. She set them on the table next to the wrapping paper and ribbon, and reached back into the box to pull out a ream of paper. Also blank. She peered into the box and then took out one book, then another book, then another. As she read each title, she realized these were books she would need for her freshman-year courses of high school.
She’d saved the card for last, but tears were already stinging and blurring her eyes as she slid a Plum Beautiful fingernail under the flap to open it. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to read it. She was embarrassed to be crying, and wished Edward wasn’t watching her. He’d stopped tapping his foot and handed her his handkerchief, and she poked the fabric into the corners of her eyes to soak up the tears before they could spill out onto her cheeks and muss up her makeup. The card, unlike the wrapping, was not professionally done. It was just a piece of paper that Edward had folded into quarters and written on himself. A homemade card like the ones Charlotte used to make when she was in elementary school.
The outside read:
“Happy Anniversary to my Favorite Wife”
Vivian almost crushed the paper in her palm and threw it at him. She refused to look at him, even when she heard him snickering next to her. The nerve that man had. She pursed her lips and flared her nostrils, afraid that if she looked at him she’d start to laugh, and she wasn’t sure he deserved that just yet. She gave a sniff and a quick shake of her head, and then opened to the inside
of the card. The words, “To New Beginnings,” were written in large letters and then the number “1,” and in parentheses the word “Paper.”
She looked down at the stack of notebooks, the paper, and the books. It was all paper, for garsh sakes. Paper, for the first anniversary. And then she turned and looked at Edward, whose forehead was wrinkled and his wild, graying eyebrows tented together. If Vivian hadn’t known any better, she’d have said he looked nervous. Honest-to-goodness nervous, leaning forward, rubbing his palms on the knees of his trousers and watching her, his fingers all scratched up with paper cuts. There were no roses in the crystal vase. No “sorry blooms” for this anniversary. This was not a gift given out of guilt. It was love, and it looked like Vivian and Edward Dalton were going to be starting over.
“Vivy”—Edward gave her a gentle nudge—“why did the guy keep hitting himself on the head with a hammer?”
She took a deep breath and arched an eyebrow, but didn’t look at him.
“Because it felt so good when he stopped.”
She sighed and felt the tears starting up again as she placed her hand over his on one knee. “Edward, you make my ass tired.”
Then she began to laugh.
Epilogue
Flora Parker had mailed Gilbert’s copy of his birth certificate to Wooster’s Daily Record the day after he’d been shot and killed. Harry Sweeney hadn’t bothered to check the Canadian postmark on the anonymous envelope. If he had, he could’ve made the story that much more intriguing, but Harry could be careless like that. That was one of the reasons he hadn’t been promoted to editor.
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