The Truth about Mary Rose

by Marilyn Sachs

  THE TRUTH ABOUT MARY ROSE

  Marilyn Sachs

  Chapter 1

  “Let’s play Stanley and Mary Rose,” I said to my cousin, Pam.

  We were sitting on the floor of her room playing dominoes. My cousin held a domino in her hand, and studied the domino track. There was a three on one end and a double zero on the other. She brought her hand down slowly and placed her domino to the right of the three, but then she changed her mind and put it to the left. She looked at it in a worried way, and then picked it up and moved it to the right.

  “There,” she said, and took a deep breath. Then she looked at me, and smiled. “How do you play Stanley and Mary Rose?” she asked.

  My cousin, Pam, has the nicest face in the world. I love my cousin Pam so much. I don’t think I ever loved anybody the way I love her. Except for Mary Rose, but that is different. My grandmother is always saying, “Blood is thicker than water,” and maybe that is the reason. All I know is that when I lived in Lincoln and thought that Danielle Rogers, and then last spring that Lori Schubert was the best friend I could ever have, I just didn’t know anything. There’s nobody like my cousin Pam.

  Since we moved to New York our family has been staying with my grandmother. That’s my mother’s mother, and Pam’s father’s mother. Pam and I have tried to be with each other as much as we can. And since her mother and my grandmother aren’t talking to each other, I’ve been spending lots of time here at her house.

  Which is all right with me. Her mother is a pain, but her house is great. She is very rich. She has her own color TV set, her own phone, and even her own set of dominoes—ivory ones. There is a swimming pool outside, and a maid inside to do all the dishes. Like I said, her mother, my Aunt Claudia, is a pain, but as long as I can be with Pam I could put up with a lot worse.

  “How do you play Stanley and Mary Rose?” asked my cousin Pam.

  “Pam,” I said, “I love you so much I don’t know what I would have done if I had never met you. It would be like living in a desert, like going hungry, like being trapped in a tunnel with no light.”

  “Oh, Mary Rose,” she said, and started giggling. She really feels the way I do, but she isn’t much of a talker.

  “But how do you play Stanley and Mary Rose?” she asked.

  “You mean you never play it?”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Well, you can be Stanley, since he’s your father, and I’ll be his sister Mary Rose, since I’m named after her. OK?”

  “OK. And then what do we do?”

  “Well, we can play it lots of different ways, but let’s start on that night.”

  “Yes?”

  “Now—our parents are working in the store, and Veronica is at a party, so the two of us are alone. Let’s say it’s about 9:30, and let’s make believe we’re—let’s see—we’re ...”

  “Watching TV?”

  “No, there wasn’t any TV in 1941. We could be listening to the radio though, and maybe—maybe we could be playing dominoes.”

  My cousin switched on her clock-radio. Some loud rock music filled up the room.

  “Is this all right?”

  “I don’t know,” I said carefully. Mom says I get into trouble because I’m too bossy. And I don’t want Pam ever to think I’m too bossy. “Do you think that kind of music is right?”

  “I see what you mean,” said Pam. She switched on the FM, and finally came up with some slow, classical music. “How’s this?”

  “I think that’s just great,” I said. “Couldn’t be better.”

  She started giggling again. Everything makes her happy. She is so much fun to be with. “Now what?”

  “OK, now let’s play dominoes, and you make believe you’re a little kid of six.”

  Pam is very tall for her age. Both of us are eleven, but she is about half a head taller than me, and I’m not exactly short either. But she scrunched herself together, and blew out her cheeks, and puffed up her mouth. She honestly looked like a little kid. Maybe having three sisters makes her experienced at what little kids look like.

  We played dominoes for a while, and then I said in a nice voice, a little higher than my usual voice, and a lot sweeter, “Well, Stanley, honey, I guess it’s time for bed.”

  “No,” pouted Pam, “I don’t wanna.”

  She is really tremendous. I had to stop to laugh.

  Finally I said, “Now, Stanley, honey, you know Mama said you should be in bed by 8:30, and it’s after 9 now, so why don’t you get into your pjs and brush your teeth, and Mary Rose will read you a nice story.”

  “Awight,” Pam lisped. She got up, and kind of stamped around the room. Then she made believe she was undressing. Then she came back, and said in a whiny voice, “I can’t find my toothbrush.”

  So I helped Stanley find his toothbrush, and then Pam got on her bed, and I told her the story of Sleeping Beauty.

  “And they all lived happily ever after,” I said. “Now, Stanley, let’s kneel together and say our prayers.”

  We knelt together, and we said, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

  “God bless all my dear ones,” I said, “my mother, Peggy Petronski, my stepfather, Ralph Petronski, my father, Frank Ganz, my sister, Veronica Ganz, my half-brother, Stanley Petronski. May the Lord bless all the people in the world who are good and kind, and may he comfort all those who despair. May he bring peace to those whose hearts are heavy, and ...”

  “Mary Rose! Mary Rose!” Pam said, and she was being Pam. “Do you really think she said all that?”

  I was going to say it was my part, and I could play it any way I liked, but I didn’t want her to think I was bossy. And sometimes, I guess I do get carried away.

  “All right,” I said, “let’s go on.” So I tuck Stanley in, and he falls asleep. Then I go back into the living room, and I read for a while. Then I stop reading. The music is still on—slow and sad—just right. I sniff the air.

  “I smell something,” I cry. I rush into the kitchen (over near the TV set). “It’s a fire!” I say. “A fire! My God, I’ve got to save Stanley!”

  I run over to the bed, and begin shaking Stanley. He is sleeping very soundly. “Stanley,” I cry, “wake up, Stanley!” Finally he wakes up.

  “Whassamatter?” he says. He is very sleepy.

  “Run, Stanley!” I cry. “Run! Save yourself! Run, my beloved brother! Run! I am going to save the rest of the people in the building. Run! Run! Run!”

  Stanley runs.

  I go around ringing the bells and telling the people to save themselves. I am just about to go downstairs when I remember there are people on the top floor that I didn’t reach. By this time, the fire has spread across the landing, and I can’t get upstairs. But I can try to put out the fire, and save all those innocent lives. I run back into my apartment. The fire surrounds me. I try to throw water on it, but it is too late. I am trapped. I cannot get out the door. The sound of the fire engines ... ladders ... hoses ... I rush to the window, the flames are all around me. Firemen are carrying people out from the apartments above me. I stand at the window. A reporter sees me, and takes my picture.

  “Look!” someone shouts. “That child! She saved our lives. Save her! Save her!”

  It is too late. The building begins to cave in. I stand at the window and put out my arms—in blessing, and in farewell. The photographer takes another picture. The building collapses, and Mary Rose dies—a heroine’s death.

  My cousin Pam is crying. The tears are streaming down her face. “You’re so lucky,” she says, “to be named after her.”

  I know I am. But I want her to feel good too, so I sa
y, “We’re both lucky. I mean just to have her in the family.”

  Pam nods, and then I ask her, “Are you named after somebody?”

  She makes a face. “My grandmother. My mother’s mother, not my father’s.”

  “No, I didn’t think you were named after her.”

  We both laughed, and then Pam says, “That was beautiful.”

  “We can do it again,” I tell her. “Or if you like, we can do the funeral.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure, and you know what, Pam? Why don’t you be Mary Rose. Do you have something beautiful you can wear?”

  “I have that pink peignoir set I got last Christmas that I never wear.”

  “OK, put it on, and would it be all right if I made these flowers into a crown for your hair?”

  “Sure.” Pam carried the peignoir set into her bathroom.

  “Your mother won’t mind?” I called after her. There were so many things my Aunt Claudia did mind that I had to be very careful. I didn’t want my Aunt Claudia to hate me the way she hated my grandmother.

  But Pam said there were plenty of flowers in the garden, and her mother wouldn’t mind. So I made a crown for her head, and she lay down on her bed, and I put a daisy in her hand.

  “Oh, you look great,” I said.

  Pam opened her eyes. She sat up. She looked worried.

  “But Mary Rose,” she said. “Do you think there really was a funeral—with her laid out, and everything? I mean—was there anything left of her to lay out?”

  “You know,” I told her, “they can do all sorts of things with bodies. They can make people look like they’re not even dead.”

  “But if there wasn’t anything left ...”

  “Did you ever go to a funeral?” I asked her.

  “No. Did you?”

  “Not exactly, but my friend’s uncle died, and she went, and she said he looked better than when he was alive.”

  Pam lay down again, and I was just about to be Stanley, sobbing by her coffin. But we heard her mother coming up the stairs.

  We were playing dominoes again when my Aunt Claudia opened the door. She is a little, skinny woman, but she has a big belly now since she is about eight months pregnant. She says she wants another girl, but everybody knows she only says it because she doesn’t think she’ll have a boy. My grandmother says it’s her fault she can’t have a boy. She doesn’t believe it when my mom tells her it’s the man’s genes that determine the sex of the child.

  “What are you wearing that for?” my Aunt Claudia asked. “And why were the two of you shouting like that before? It sounded like you were yelling ‘Fire!' "

  My Aunt Claudia always asks the kind of questions that you can’t answer. Because if you did, you would sound stupid, and nobody is purposely going to sound stupid. But I am always worried that my Aunt Claudia will begin to hate me the way she does my grandmother, and if anything happened to separate Pam and me, I think I would die. So I try to be very careful when I speak to her.

  “Oh, Aunt Claudia,” I said, “Pam’s peignoir set is really beautiful. She looks just great in it.”

  Which is true. I never say anything that isn’t true. It’s just that under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t be likely to say anything about Pam’s peignoir set at all.

  Some of the up-tight wrinkles went out of Aunt Claudia’s face. She even nodded at me. “Well, I like a girl to look like a girl,” she said.

  “Mother,” said Pam, “can Mary Rose stay over another night?”

  I had already slept over for two nights, and Uncle Stanley was supposed to drive me home tonight after dinner.

  “No,” said Aunt Claudia, “tomorrow you have to go to the dentist.”

  “Well, Mary Rose can come and wait. Please, Mother ...”

  I looked away and tried to act like it didn’t make any difference to me one way or the other. But I was really the one who put Pam up to asking.

  “No,” said my aunt. “Mary Rose has been spending just about every weekend here since she arrived in New York. I know her parents want to see her sometimes too.” Aunt Claudia laughed.

  “No, they don’t,” I said. “They don’t mind not seeing me.”

  “Well, I’m sure they do,” said Aunt Claudia, “and I think we’ll just plan on you going back home after dinner.”

  I looked hard at Pam. She looked at me, and then at her mother. She said, “Mother, why can’t I go and stay over at Grandma’s with Mary Rose? Grandma always asks me to stay, and Daddy says it’s all right with him if it’s all right with you.”

  “Your grandma is recovering from a broken hip, and I’m sure she doesn’t need any extra children running around her house. Besides, I can’t imagine where she’d put you. Her house is small enough, but with Mary Rose’s family staying there, there just wouldn’t be any room. Of course, it’s very nice of her, and I’m sure she means well ...”

  “I could sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor, and she could have my bed,” I said. “Please, Aunt Claudia, I love to sleep in a sleeping bag.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said.

  “But, Aunt Claudia, I sleep in a sleeping bag sometimes even when there’s no one in my bed. I love to sleep in a sleeping bag.”

  “Please, Mother,” said Pam.

  “We’ll see,” said Aunt Claudia, “but not tomorrow, because you have to go to the dentist.”

  “How about next weekend?” Pam asked.

  “We’ll see.”

  “Should I call Grandma, and ask her if it’s all right?”

  “I said we’ll see, Pam, and that’s all for the time being!”

  Pam didn’t say anything. She is different from me. Because if it was my mother, I’d still be in there going strong.

  “And, Mary Rose, make sure you get all your things together, so you’ll be able to leave right after dinner. Now I’m going to lie down and try to get a few minutes rest. It would help if you girls tried to play quietly.”

  After she left, Pam said, “She won’t let me go.”

  “I figured,” I said.

  “But you can always come here.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And, Mary Rose!”

  “What?”

  “Do you really like my peignoir set?”

  “Sure, I do.”

  “I mean—if somebody gave you one, would you wear it?”

  “I would. When I was Mary Rose at the funeral, I would.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said my cousin Pam.

  Chapter 2

  In the fourth grade, Miss Henderson, our teacher, asked us to write a wishing poem. I wrote:

  MY WISH

  I wish I could speak to Mary Rose.

  That’s my name too.

  I am named after her.

  She died in a fire.

  She saved everybody’s life but she died.

  I wish I could speak to her.

  I would tell her that I love her

  And that I wish I could be like her.

  Not to die in a fire

  But to be brave and beautiful like her.

  Miss Henderson read it to the class, and Danielle Rogers said I was always showing off about being named after Mary Rose.

  That was when we lived in Lincoln. We probably would still be living there, but one day last November my father got a telegram.

  I remember it because I was home sick from school that day. I was sitting in the kitchen drinking hot chocolate, and my father was making rice pudding. My father always makes rice pudding when he is worried about somebody being sick.

  He was carrying the dish of rice pudding over to the stove when the doorbell rang. You know how it takes only a second or two to put a dish in the oven, but if somebody rings the bell when you are about to do it, you get all mixed up. So the doorbell rang, and my father stood there holding the dish, and not moving. He was thinking: 1) Should he put the dish in the oven, and go and answer the door? 2) Should he put the dish down somewhere else, and g
o and answer the door? 3) Should he carry the dish with him, and answer the door? or 4) Should he just keep standing there, holding the dish and thinking about what to do?

  The doorbell rang again, so I got up and answered it.

  A man in a Western Union uniform stood outside.

  “Telegram for Mr. Luis Ramirez,” he said.

  “Daddy,” I called. “There’s a telegram for you.”

  My father came over, without the rice pudding, and signed for it.

  “Go away from the door, Mary Rose,” he said. “You’ll get a chill.”

  He looked at the telegram in a worried way. Maybe he thought it was bad news about his son, Philip (my father was married before), or about one of his sisters or brothers. Nobody ever sends him telegrams.

  We walked back into the kitchen. The rice pudding was sitting in the middle of the table.

  “I wonder what it is,” said my father.

  “Go ahead and open it, Daddy,” I told him. “Then you’ll find out.”

  We both sat down at the table, and my father read the telegram. Then he began to cry.

  “Daddy,” I said, and I began to cry too. “Who died?”

  “Nobody died,” he said. Then he laid his head down on the table, and cried so hard his shoulders were shaking.

  “Can I read it, Daddy?” I asked. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t say no. So I picked it up, and read it. The telegram was very long. It told him Congratulations. That he had won first prize in the ARTISTS OF THE PLAINS COMPETITION, and that he would be given a one-man show in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in February. It also said that the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery in Lincoln was going to purchase his painting entitled Interior—7, and a check for $2,000 would be arriving shortly,

  “I don’t know why you’re crying,” I told him. “It’s the first time you ever won anything, and you never sold a painting for that kind of money before.”

  “I know,” said my father. He sat up and wiped his hand across his eyes. “I can’t believe it.”

  After a while, he got up, and put the rice pudding in the oven, and started to do the dishes. I hurried upstairs to the phone in my parents’ room because I wanted to call my mother, and tell her. I figured he’d be thinking about how to tell her, and in the meantime I could be telling her.