The Truth about Mary Rose

by Marilyn Sachs

  “Yes, it’s still there. Everything is still there. I didn’t hurt anything. But, Mary Rose ...”

  “What?” She was moving out of the door.

  “Mary Rose, please, just tell me, is it true what Uncle Stanley said about you? Is it true what he said about that night?”

  “What night?” She was moving quickly through the door.

  “The night of the fire.”

  “What fire?” she said, and then she was gone.

  I called, “Mary Rose! Mary Rose!” after her, but she didn’t come back.

  My mother came back the next day. She didn’t tell me what happened to Mary Rose’s box, and I didn’t ask. She did say that she didn’t mean to rub it in, but she hoped I understood now how wrong and dangerous it was to listen in to conversations not intended for my ears. I said yes I did understand. That was good, she said, and she also hoped that meant I wouldn’t do it again. But she didn’t wait for an answer. She is not the kind of grownup who likes to trap people. I am glad I have her for a mother and not somebody like Aunt Claudia.

  My mother said she thought maybe the best thing would be to talk about Mary Rose, and discuss exactly what Uncle Stanley had said. But I said no. I told her not to worry, I wasn’t going to say anything to Grandma or to anyone else for that matter, but I told her I didn’t want to talk about Mary Rose.

  “You will when the hurt wears off a little,” said my mother, “and you’ll feel better when you do.”

  But she didn’t press me.

  She’s wrong. I don’t think I ever will want to talk about Mary Rose. Even though I am hurting. But it’s not for me I’m hurting now. It’s for Mary Rose. The way I hurt for Pam or Grandma or somebody I love very much. When they feel bad I feel bad too, and now I’m feeling bad for Mary Rose. Because she was a person. I know that now, and I know that there were lots of times that she felt bad, and whatever she was or is, I can feel that hurting even after thirty years.

  My mother is wrong and my father is wrong too. I’m not going to forget her, like he said. I’m not going to sweep her out from inside me like yesterday’s dust. But I’m not going to pick on her either, or listen to other people pick on her. They all think because she’s dead and can’t defend herself, they can say anything they like about her, and I won’t let them.

  The truth is the only thing I care about. Like I said before, I am a very truthful person, and the truth about Mary Rose is one thing I’ll never know. Except that she was a person. But I don’t want to hear a lot of different people saying a lot of different things about her. I don’t want to have to tell them off. Because it won’t be true what they’re saying, and she’s not here to stick up for herself. And even if she was, she’d be as bad as the rest of them. I know, if she was here, she’d say she looked just like that sexy, red-headed woman in her box. And then I’d have to tell her off too.

  Chapter 11

  “We burned it,” Pam was saying. “Next day, after your father came and got you, and my father went off to work, we burned it. It was your mother’s idea. She didn’t really tell me what got you so hysterical, or why my father was so upset. She just said she and I had to look out for the two of you—that’s my father and you. But she didn’t say it had to be a secret either, so I guess it’s all right to tell you.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “I told you that before.”

  “But that’s silly,” said Pam. “You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”

  “No, I won’t. And I don’t want to.”

  “Well, what will you do when Grandma starts in? Because she always does. You can’t tell her you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “She can talk about it, but I don’t have to. And I don’t have to listen either. I have a way of not listening when I don’t want to. Everybody thinks I am listening, but I’m not.”

  “I can do that too,” said Pam. “But anyway, I’m glad you’re not going to talk about Mary Rose anymore. It was boring the way you kept going on and on about her.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “About how great she was!”

  I still didn’t say anything.

  “It was exciting burning her box with your mother. It was like she was one of those evil ghosts, and she wouldn’t leave off tormenting people until everything that belonged to her was destroyed. I read a story like that ...”

  “You stop it, Pam!” I yelled.

  “Stop what?”

  “You stop picking on her! You leave her alone!”

  “Are you crazy?” Pam said. “I thought you didn’t care about her anymore. I thought you weren’t going to talk about her anymore.”

  “I’m not,” I shouted, “but you are.”

  “You know something, Mary Rose?”

  “What?”

  “I think you love her just as much as you always did. I don’t think you’ve changed at all.”

  “Can we stop talking about her?” I yelled. “All I want to do is stop talking about her. And you keep on talking.”

  “OK, OK,” Pam said, “Stop shouting! I know you’re still upset, so let’s just drop it. Of course, if anybody should be upset, I guess it really should be me. I know that you looked in the box when you found it, even though you promised ...”

  Sometimes she sounds like her mother, but I love her anyway. So I didn’t argue with her. I just said nicely, “Why don’t you shut your face, Pam, and I’ll show you the chair downstairs with the secret foot-rest.”

  Most of the company was sitting around the dining room table, drinking coffee and eating my father’s coconut cream pie.

  “But, Luis,” my Aunt Claudia was saying, “wouldn’t you agree that space and time have become the chief concerns of the twentieth-century painter?”

  I don’t know whether my father agreed or not. Pam and I walked into the living room, and she said, “This is a pretty room. The whole house is pretty. It’s not very big, but it’s pretty.”

  “Here, look at this.” I showed her the two old, matching club chairs on either side of the fireplace. Both of them were covered in a faded blue material.

  “They look exactly alike, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “But see, you sit in this one, and you can press the front of this arm as much as you like, and nothing happens. But go and sit in the other one. Go ahead, Pam.”

  She sat down, facing me.

  “Now, feel around the front of the left arm. Do you feel anything?”

  “No ... yes ... a little bump.”

  “Press it!”

  She pressed it, and a footrest jumped out from the bottom of the chair.

  “Hey, that’s neat,” Pam said.

  She put her feet up on the footrest, leaned back on the chair, and smiled at me.

  “It’s great that you’ve got this little house,” she said. “I think my mother might even let me come and spend a weekend with you.”

  “When?”

  “Why don’t you ask her—today.”

  “OK, I will.”

  “No. Wait. Maybe you better ask your mother first, and then she can ask my mother.”

  “OK.”

  “I hope she’ll let me come. She doesn’t have anything against your mother, and she really likes your father.”

  “She does?”

  “Yes. She’s always telling my father how creative and original he is even though she says she doesn’t like most of his paintings.”

  “That’s all right. Most people don’t.”

  “But she keeps telling my father what a great companion he must be, and she just knows he’s not the kind of man who watches baseball games on TV all the time, and only talks about sports or his job.”

  “No, my father never watches baseball games on TV. He likes ‘Mannix’ and ‘Mission Impossible’— programs. like that.”

  The baby began to cry. He was in the little sunroom, off the living room. I ran into the dining room, and said, “Aunt Claudia, can I pick him up? Please, Aunt C
laudia, I’ll be very careful.”

  She was getting up from the table.

  “Well ...” she said.

  “Sure you can pick him up,” my Uncle Stanley said. “But he’s pretty heavy for a guy not even a month old yet.”

  Aunt Claudia was half up and half down.

  “I’ll be careful,” I said.

  My mother stood up, and said, “You sit for a while, Claudia. I’ll go along with the girls.”

  “Oh, Mom, I can handle him myself,” I said, as we walked into the sunroom.

  “I’m sure you can, Mary Rose, but I think Aunt Claudia would be more comfortable if I was along.”

  “I don’t think so,” Pam said. “She doesn’t think anybody can take care of him the way she can.”

  The baby was on his stomach, doubling up his legs under him like he was trying to go somewhere but he didn’t know the way, and he couldn’t get started even if he did. His little fists were clenched and digging into the car bed mattress. He was wearing a bright blue creeper with white pompons on the feet.

  I put my hands under him, and my mother said, ‘‘Remember to support his head. That’s right.”

  I brought him up, and held him crooked in my arms. His bright, blue eyes opened wide, and his mouth made little sucking noises.

  My grandmother came into the room, and stood next to me, looking down at the baby. “Hello, Ralphie, hello, dolly, hello, you sweet, little, nice, big man ... you little Stanley, you funny, good-for-nothing, beautiful boy of a baby, you ...” She went on and on, and my mother laughed and made little kissing noises over him.

  Suddenly I felt the baby pull himself very stiff in my arms. His face got crimson, and he started to yell—loud.

  Aunt Claudia came in, unbuttoning her blouse. She took the baby away from me, sat down and began nursing him.

  The rest of us went back into the dining room. Pam poked my arm with her elbow, and motioned with her head in my mother’s direction.

  “Mom,” I said, “can Pam stay over for the weekend?”

  “Yes,” my mother said.

  Pam pushed my arm again, and I said, “Well, will you ask Aunt Claudia?”

  “I did,” said my mother. “It’s all right.”

  Pam said slowly, “She said I could? Today? She said I could stay over?”

  “Yes,” my mother said. “You can stay over until Thursday, as a matter of fact. Your mother wants to do some shopping with you before school opens, so I promised we’d get you home by then.”

  “I’ll have another piece of pie, Luis,” said my grandmother.

  “Four whole days!” Pam said to me. “I wasn’t even sure she’d let me stay overnight.”

  “Isn’t it great!” I said. “We’ll have a ball.”

  “I suppose,” my grandmother said, “you use that instant vanilla pudding to make this pie.”

  “No,” said my father, “I start from scratch. Is there any more coffee?” he called into the kitchen. Manny and Ray were doing the dishes. Saturday is their day, although when we have company, everybody is supposed to help.

  I walked into the kitchen. “Is there any more coffee, slaves?” I asked.

  Ray was washing the dishes, and Manny and Philip were taking the garbage out. Actually, they weren’t taking the garbage out, but they nearly were. Philip had the back door open, and Manny was standing in the doorway, holding a large bag of garbage with a big, grease stain all over the top. He looked as if he was on his way out to put the bag in the garbage can. But he wasn’t. He was standing there, arguing with Philip, my half-brother.

  “Don’t tell me what I said,” Manny was saying, moving his arms up and down.

  “I’m not telling you what you said,” Philip said. “I’m telling you what I heard. And I heard you say ...”

  “Watch out, Manny, that bag is going to fall.”

  Philip laughed. He’s twenty-two, and very handsome. My mother says my father looked like that when he was young, but it’s hard to believe. Philip is an actor. When he can find jobs, he’s an actor. The rest of the time, he works in the post office, or in a service station, or he doesn’t work at all. Like now. He’s in between jobs, and he doesn’t have any money. For the past week, he’s been staying with us, and I hope he stays with us all the time. I mean, I hope he finds a good acting job, but stays with us anyway. It’s fun having Philip around. My father’s happy too. He and Philip don’t talk a lot, but my father’s just happy that he’s here. Philip doesn’t talk much with anyone, except Manny. And he and Manny argue most of the time. But they’re always looking for each other to argue with, so I guess they must enjoy it. When he’s not arguing with Manny, Philip plays Monopoly with me. We’ve been playing every day since he came, and we never even put the board away.

  Manny went on out through the door, and you could hear him lifting the garbage can lid, and dropping the bag into the can.

  “I’ll bring the coffee in,” I told Ray.

  “OK, and then why don’t you come back, and give me a hand. These two jokers are so busy yakking, they’re no help at all.”

  “How can you say that?” Philip asked. “I did all the pots.”

  “Did what to all the pots?” Ray muttered.

  Manny came back into the kitchen. He was talking even before he came through the door. “I may have said that for me school was a necessity, but I never made a blanket prescription for the whole world like you said I said.”

  “See what I mean?” Ray said.

  I carried the coffee into the dining room, and poured some coffee for my grandmother and my father. Uncle Stanley and my mother didn’t want any more.

  Pam was sitting at the table looking unhappy. You could see she was busy thinking her own thoughts, and wasn’t listening to what the rest were talking about.

  “She doesn’t mind my going,” Pam said, “because she’s got the baby. Since he was born she doesn’t care what I do or where I go.”

  “But, Pam,” I said, “that’s great, and we’ve got four whole days.”

  “I know, I know,” she said, “but she never would have let me go like that before.”

  Aunt Claudia came back into the room. She was smiling. My grandmother said, “Is the baby sleeping?”

  “Uh, huh.”

  “He’s some baby!” said my grandmother. “He’s one of a kind.”

  She and my Aunt Claudia even smiled at each other. My Aunt Claudia started saying how the baby was eating so much, she didn’t even know if it was good for him to eat so much.

  Pam got up from the table and walked off into the kitchen.

  She’s still jealous, I thought. Jealous of the baby. Aunt Claudia kept right on talking about what a great eater the baby was, and then when she finished, Uncle Stanley began talking about what a great sleeper he was. “Not even a month old,” said my Uncle Stanley, “and he sleeps through the night.” He looked around the table and never noticed that Pam had left.

  Even he doesn’t notice it. Just like thirty years ago, his father didn’t see it either. My grandmother was smiling at Uncle Stanley. Or his mother. Pam is alone in it, I thought. Just like Mary Rose. My Mary Rose. All alone in being jealous and unhappy and desperate. This rotten feeling inside me pushed in all directions, and nearly made my ears pop. I jumped up from the table and ran after her into the kitchen.

  Manny and Philip were leaning against the refrigerator, arguing, and Ray was still washing dishes at the sink. Pam was helping him. She was drying the dishes and laughing.

  I stood in the doorway, half in the kitchen, and half in the dining room and listened. I could hear the water running in the sink, and the sound of each dish as Pam dried it, and put it on the kitchen table. Ray was speaking very low, and Pam was laughing all the time he was speaking.

  “What do you know,” Philip was saying to Manny, “about anything!”

  Nobody noticed me. In the dining room, my grandmother was talking, and the others were drinking coffee or eating pie. There was only her voice and the sounds
of spoons in cups or forks on plates.

  I was standing right in the middle of it all, listening to them, and nobody noticed me. Everybody was busy talking or laughing or arguing. A few minutes ago Pam was jealous and miserable, and now she was laughing. I had listened to her when she was jealous, and I felt bad. Now I was listening to her laugh, and I felt good. Thirty years ago when Mary Rose was jealous and miserable, weren’t there times when she laughed too?

  My Aunt Claudia pushed away her plate, and stood up. Everybody else was looking at my grandmother.

  “What did I say?” said my grandmother.

  I told her. “You said that Uncle Stanley looked tired, and that somebody should see to it that he eats regular meals, gets plenty of rest, and shouldn’t have any aggravation when he comes home tired from work.”

  “Mary Rose!” my mother said.

  “Did I say that?” my grandmother said, but my father started to laugh, and then Uncle Stanley, and finally Aunt Claudia. She sat down again.

  “Mary Rose,” my grandmother called, putting out her arm. I came over and sat down next to her, and she pulled my head down on her shoulder and kissed me. “She’s got some pair of ears, this girl,” said my grandmother.

  “Yes, she does,” my mother said, looking worried.

  But there was nothing to worry about now. This time I had listened to everything, so I wasn’t feeling bad. And I wasn’t hurting for anybody. Not for Pam or for my grandmother or for Mary Rose.

  For my nieces Susie, Carol and Amy

  Copyright © 1973 by Marilyn Sachs

  Originally published by Doubleday

  Electronically published in 2013 by Belgrave House

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

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