After the Fog (13 page)

Rose looked down at Mrs. Sebastian’s shoes. One of the exquisite appliqués was missing. Rose shut her eyes, wondering what other damage had been done to Mrs. Sebastian’s clothing in the Lipinski home.

“Your shoe.”

Mrs. Sebastian turned her slim foot back and forth as though the action would make the appliqué reappear. “Yes, I know. No sense in going back into that nightmare to root through the debris for a piece of glittery shoe décor. Besides, everyone can use a little piece of shiny glass something in her home. Don’t you agree?”

Rose watched Mrs. Sebastian and Theresa weave in and out of the crowd of grey suits and everyday calico dresses of housewives headed out on errands, and felt a tinge of hope. Rose said a quick prayer that Mrs. Sebastian saw the experience as Rose had—as proof that her role in the community was vital. But, she wasn’t so sure she had shown that. She wasn’t sure at all.

* * *

Someone was shaking Henry like a martini. He opened his eyes, blurry and dry, and rubbed them. Who was bothering him? He swung his legs over the side of the bed to see Sara Clara. She dug her cotton candy colored nails into his shoulder, whispering, like a snake hissing.

“I need your help.” Her heavy, lavender perfume turned his stomach, but her face, its perfect porcelain, heart-shape made him want to pull her into him and hold her as though she were his wife. He pushed her away.

“What the hell’s half acre are you doing?”

“Rose is gonna string me up.”

Henry saw Sara Clara’s face strained with fear. He’d always thought Sara Clara put on an act, being afraid of Rose, a performance of insufficient housekeeping skill so Rose wouldn’t actually ask her to do anything around the house. But this time, it was clear, Sara Clara was scared to death.

“Get the hell out. Get Buzzy up,” Henry said.

“No, Henry, it’s not another burnt roast. It’s that
woman
, superin-whatever y’all call it; she’s here for her own little home visit she said. Rose. Is. Going. To. Fry. My. Kiester. This woman makes Rose seem sweet. A girl is with her. Beautifully dressed. Rose is gonna have my hide.”

Henry’s mind was half-asleep as he ripped away the blankets and pulled on his jeans. Sara Clara must be mistaken. He grabbed a white undershirt and then threw it back and took a more tailored shirt, two toned with buttons down the front.

He went to Rose’s wash table, threw water over his face and wet his hair back with a comb. He scurried to the room at the front of the house, but no one was there. Henry jogged down the hall to the kitchen, paused and saw two very well dressed women, the younger one, not much older than Magdalena. This was going to require his best gentleman act.

Henry sauntered across the floor and extended his hand to the elder of the two as though they were meeting at a charity ball instead of in his kitchen, with him barefooted and barely awake.

“Mrs. Sebastian.”

Her handshake felt like a dead fish. Henry pulled away noting his black nails, wishing he was cleaner.

“We were just leaving.”

“I know Rose would want you to have some tea. Rose…was she expecting you?” Henry looked around the kitchen and scratched the back of his neck.

“Why, no.”

Henry suddenly saw the kitchen through the eyes of a stranger, the mayonnaise on the countertop, chicken scraps littered on the stovetop. Mrs. Sebastian lifted and replaced her blue-shoed foot on and off the floor like a ticking clock, seemingly mesmerized by the sticking sound that emanated each time she did.

Henry bit the inside of his cheek when he realized the smartest thing was to let the woman leave before she looked any closer at the mess. “I’ll let Rose know you came by.”

Mrs. Sebastian nodded and surveyed every inch of the kitchen as she headed toward the doorway. The younger girl had wandered into the hall and when Henry got there she was moving down the hall, one step at a time, smiling at all the pictures on the wall. She stopped at one of Rose, Henry, Magdalena, and Johnny. With a spindly forefinger she touched Rose’s image, tracing her hair as though she could feel the real thing, as though she were being absorbed into the photo.

Henry opened the door and Mrs. Sebastian ushered her daughter away from the pictures. Theresa shuffled along, looking over her shoulder. Henry caught a final condescending scowl from Mrs. Sebastian and couldn’t stop himself from tapping her on the shoulder. She turned to face him.

“My wife,” Henry stuttered. “Nurse Pavlesic. She’s the best at what she does. There’s not another nurse like her in the world. I promise you that.”

“I’m not sure that’s my question.” Mrs. Sebastian disappeared out the door.

Henry realized how bad all of this was for Rose. For the clinic.

Back in the kitchen, he tried to help clean up the mess. Sara Clara was not an apt homemaker. Henry felt the frustration that Rose must have experienced nearly every day. His sister-in-law came from a long, privileged line of southern belles and if it weren’t for getting pregnant by Buzzy and disowned by her family, Sara Clara never would have set foot past the North Carolina border let alone set up house in a steel town like Donora.

Henry realized for the first time something that Rose had known all her life. It didn’t matter whether a woman’s home was constructed with thick burgundy bricks, grey-blue cement, pitted, wood planking or corrugated metal sheets. What mattered was that she damn sure treated it as though it rose up from fields of gold and had been carefully shingled in spare diamond brooches. If there was a surface in a home—it ought to sparkle.

Dirt and disorganization was the bane of every woman’s life and the presence of it distorted truth and reality and well, there was simply no place for it, Henry saw right then.

He knew Mrs. Sebastian would not hold the mess she witnessed against Henry or Sara Clara. It would be pinned on Rose like a badge of shame, marring the chance Mrs. Sebastian would support the clinic.

Henry scrubbed at burnt chicken grease on the stove with his nail, rubbing so hard he thought his finger might bleed. He could not imagine life without Rose being a nurse. He’d had a glimpse into that world seventeen years before and it wasn’t a scene of grace. It was the worst few months of both their lives. It was then that Henry did what he did. And though he couldn’t take it back, he had done his best to never repeat it. He hoped that counted for something when the whole thing crumbled. He hoped it counted for something.

* * *

Rose saw ten more families that Tuesday. After she checked, taught, treated her patients, and delivered acts of kindness and compassion, she arrived back at 2 Murray Avenue with a pinching dread in her chest. What if she could not secure the funding? What would her patients do?

Inside the house, sweltering dry heat blew past her as she went through the kitchen to the utility room. Rose assumed Sara Clara would be washing the clothes that she’d seen in her room that morning. Rose would clean her instruments upstairs instead. No point in fighting over the tubs after such an exhausting two days.

She glanced back at the kitchen. The tower of dishes that had been in the sink early that morning was gone. The countertops were cluttered with rags and a row of coffee mugs. Still, at least something had been done while she was out working.

She shed her coat, dropped it over a hook, sniffed under her arms and grimaced. A shower would come the minute she finished with her implements.

Rose scrubbed her bottles and brushes with green soap until her forearms cramped. She replaced the depleted supplies she had on hand, wrote order slips for needed provisions and penned the narratives that depicted every aspect of her visits and the plans for future ones.

These responsibilities were satisfying to Rose—a beginning and an end to them with a simple yes or no to whether she’d been successful at that part of her job. Though a niggling worry poked at Rose, she felt it would be impossible for Mrs. Sebastian to ignore the value of her work. She closed her notes and smoothed her hand over the leather cover. She needed to sleep and pray and get to confession. With those things in place she would be able to do her work to the standard she expected.

She went back through the kitchen even more confident she had made Mrs. Sebastian’s purse rain like April. Henry and Buzzy sat drinking coffee. She poured herself a cup.

“Say, boys. How about I make you a sandwich with your coffee and then you head over to the Lipinski’s.” She arranged thick ham and cheese onto white bread.

“Fix the broken chair, get rid of the wine barrels, and make sure the McClatchy’s, down two houses from the Lipinski’s, have coal for their stove.”

Henry scratched his stubbly chin and agreed to the work while Buzzy slurped on scorching hot coffee, scowling between sips.

Rose snapped her fingers in front of his face. “If I’m going to watch your son all damn day, you’re gonna give me something in return, Buzzy Pavlesic.”

Buzzy snapped back. “Leo’s here. Kid woke me two hours ago.”

“He was with me most of the day. Just about ruined my quest for money from the superintendent’s wife. Not to mention your wife has yet to do her chores on time.” Rose hated to be critical of little Leo, but the words flowed. She rubbed her tired eyes and yawned.

“You can bully your patients, Rosie,” Buzzy said, “but you’re not
my
boss. You’re not my nurse. Jesus Christ almighty, stop nagging. And, just so you know, I’m not the only one sick of your neb-nosing like you’re boss of everyone. Superintendent of Health, or some shit.”

Rose ripped Buzzy’s coffee cup from his grip, swishing hot coffee onto her hands. “Dammit! Why don’t you just skidoo, Buzzy. And shut your trap while you’re at it.”

Buzzy shrugged and slapped his palms onto the table. He pushed to standing. “Fine. This house is a shithole anyhow. No sense in hanging around when my family’s privacy is violated every minute of the day.”

“Ummhmm.” Rose wiped her wet hands on her uniform.

Henry stepped in front of Rose, blocking her view of Buzzy as he faded out of the room. Henry kissed Rose’s forehead. She pulled back, glaring.

“Ignore the bastard. I do.”

Rose nodded.

He gripped Rose’s arms and squeezed. “I need to tell you something.”

“What now?”

“Mrs. Sebastian.” Henry drew and released a deep breath. “She stopped by earlier.”

Rose wiggled out of Henry’s grip. Her heart contracted in fear. “She. Did.
What
?” The house was not ready for company when Sara Clara had the only hand in housekeeping.

Rose covered her mouth. “Without calling first? This house? She was in
this
house?” Rose’s gaze shot around the kitchen, taking note of everything that was out of its place.

Henry took Rose’s hand from her mouth and held it against his chest. “She was here to make sure you weren’t leaving young children at home to take care of other people’s problems, not to inspect the state of our housekeeping.”

Rose took her hand from Henry’s and balled her fists at her sides. That was exactly what the woman was doing there.

“It’s all right, Kiddo,” Henry said. “She told Sara Clara she grew up in similar circumstances. Sara Clara explained the mess.” Henry dug his hands into his pockets and shrugged.

Rose stepped back, looking around. “This isn’t pristine, what I’m looking at here, but it’s not a mess. Not like when I left this morning. Exactly
when
did Mrs. Sebastian show up here?”

“Well, Sara Clara had prepared lunch for a lady friend she’d met shopping as well as Johnny’s gang, and well, you can picture…”

Rose closed her eyes and dropped her head back, surrendering to the images that shot though her mind.

“I’ll kill her. My God, I’m gonna kill her. It’ll be quick and clinical, minimal blood, but if I have to set eyes on her again, if she causes me to lose this money I don’t know what I’ll do. How many things will your brother and his wife ruin?”

Rose looked at her shaking hands. She felt disconnected from what was normally her strength—managing the way the world saw her and her family. What was happening? She realized she’d skipped confession, and her rosary, even her prayers had been lackluster.

Henry’s voice was washing over her, but she couldn’t hear the individual words. She needed to get a hold on her life again. And, that always started with her rosary. Her kitchen rosary. She needed to feel the weight of the wooden beads between her fingers. She ripped through a drawer in the hutch.

“Rose. It’s fine. I think she understood.”

Rose shook her head as she laced the beads over her wrist so she could finger the crucifix. It was the only thing that could help her now. She’d been told once that her lazy attention to Catholicism was the root of her deep pain and stupid decisions. She believed Sister John Ann when she had said it.

Her fingers slipped over the beads, but her thoughts didn’t go to her prayers. She knew what Mrs. Sebastian would be thinking. That Rose belonged in her home, cleaning, keeping it the way she was telling all the women around town to keep their homes.

Henry guided Rose to the table, put her in a chair and sat across from her.

Rose ran her fingers over the beads. “Did you explain that Sara Clara couldn’t keep a house if God himself swept up the shit ahead of time? That household debris literally falls from Sara Clara’s body? Did you tell her your brother and his wife are like human colons, expelling shit at regular intervals throughout the day?”