After the Fog (14 page)

Henry leaned toward Rose, his forearms resting on his thighs. “I’m sure Mrs. Sebastian understood.”

“I’m sure she didn’t.”

Henry sat back in his chair. “People understand these things. Family.”

“Not everyone.”

Henry shrugged. “Give her a chance. She seemed nice enough. Her daughter was here, too. She said you were heading there tomorrow. To check out the daughter’s lungs or something.”

If Mrs. Sebastian didn’t cancel Rose’s appointment with her daughter the next day, that was a good sign. Rose told herself everything would be okay. “She said that? At what point in the visit did she say I had a call at her home?”

“When she was leaving.”

“Leaving. Yes. All right.” Rose nodded. She put her hand to her chest and felt her heartbeat slow.

“Listen Rose, tonight or tomorrow, we need to talk.”

Rose forced a laugh. What else could there be? “Why not now? Might as well drop all the bombs the same day, right?”

“Yeah, might as well.”

Buzzy popped back into the kitchen. “Let’s beat it, brother Hen. We’ve got extra money to make.” Buzzy rubbed the palms of his hands together. “Rose, Mr. Masucci was looking for a couple fellas to take his painting overflow—houses on the north end of town are peeling like bananas in a monkey cage. Said he’d make it worth our while.” Buzzy rubbed his thumb over his fingers to show he was expecting money.

Rose lifted her chin to Henry signaling that he might as well head out. The sooner Buzzy could repay them the better.

“But, don’t forget the Lipinski family,” Rose said. Henry kissed both cheeks then her lips before leaving. She touched her lips where his had just been. She couldn’t stand Buzzy always whiny and worrisome. If not for Leo, she might cut her losses and tell Buzzy and Sara Clara to hightail it the hell out of town.

As the two men left the house Rose could still hear Buzzy’s voice cut through her. Saying he was too exhausted, he didn’t have the time to help others, on and on. Buzzy never failed to make her wish he could
feel
how lucky he was, to just once really lose something that couldn’t be replaced, just one thing, just once.

* * *

No point in waiting around wishing. Rose kissed her rosary and put it back in her drawer. She cleansed her hands and arms and began to prepare roast beef, green beans and mashed potatoes for dinner. Once the roast was bedded down in the oven, she baked a chocolate cake, put on another pot of coffee, and did two shots of vodka.

Rose then gathered the laundry that Sara Clara hadn’t done and traipsed down into the cellar. Where was Sara Clara? Rose fumed at the sight of wet clothing, hanging over the washtubs, dripping as though recently abandoned.

Rose’s stomach clutched when she saw a scribbled note, in Sara Clara’s handwriting clipped to the clothesline that draped from one rotting beam to the other. Rose snatched the paper and slogged to the far corner of the cellar, yanked the string where a second bare bulb lit up.

Dear Rosie,

I started a load of laundry during my lunch break. (I fed John and the fellas from the school and they were shootin’ mad you weren’t there to prepare their meal) and as you can see, something was in the load that turned everything in it grey. I decided rather than ruin it more, to leave it for you, so you could cool down before I get home for dinner and you string me up by my toes. I am sorry, Rosie. You may take the funds to cover the towels from my strike-can. I’ve hidden it under the sink, behind the rat poison as all the women in Donora do. I have become one of you.”

Truthfully frightened at the thought of your pending response to this news,

Sara Clara

I’ll show her shootin’ mad, Rose thought.

“Sara Clara!” Rose bellowed.

No answer. Rose knew her voice would carry through the heat registers, that Sara Clara could hear her. Rose waited for the sound of Sara Clara’s feet rushing down the steps, to really apologize for this. She’d had enough.

Rose tried to remind herself that she was lucky to have a family.
Not this family
kept flashing through her mind. Henry, yes. The kids, yes. The rest of them?
They
were quickly ushering her to a shallow grave.

She screamed for Sara Clara again. No response.

Rose’s shoulders slumped. Frustration exploded inside her. She gritted her teeth, crumpled the note, threw it so hard her shoulder felt as though it separated, and she stomped back to the washtub.

She lifted items from the water—Buzzy’s blackened work-shirt, Rose’s embroidered wedding hand-towel which now boasted blotchy Rorschach-like shadows over the delicate flower garden Auntie Anna had handmade eighteen years before.

Rose stared at it, pulled it taut then chucked the towel back into the rancid water. She couldn’t fix that mess. Not right then. Rose hadn’t felt lethargy, the kind of fatigue that swelled her bones, in decades. Rose suddenly couldn’t stop the helplessness from washing over her, making her want to hide.

Rose trudged up the creaky stairs made of mismatched wood planks and told herself to forget the laundry, and just do her reports and go to sleep. If no one else in the house was going to do their share, why should Rose do more?

* * *

Rose gathered her papers, notebook and pencils then closed the bedroom door. She had dinner warming in the oven, the cake in the icebox, and coffee ready to go for the family’s supper. She was too tired to be hungry herself. She’d just do her work then have a quiet meal alone, sneak a peek at Texaco Star Theatre at 8:00 pm and nod off for the night. In bed, writing her plans for the next day, she was too tired to stay awake and her mind was too fuzzy. Finally she simply fell asleep.

Rose felt a hand on her shoulder then Henry’s whiskers against her cheek.

She rolled onto her back, pencils and papers falling off her body. “What time is it?”

“Ten.” Henry showed Rose her clock and replaced it on the bedside table. “I’m leaving for my shift. I didn’t mean to waken you.”

She shifted again and the papers and pencils fluttered to the floor. Henry bent to pick them up. He piled them neatly at the foot of her bed. Her sleepy vision blurred and she wondered if she would remember this in the morning. He looked as beaten as Rose felt. Finally more awake than asleep, Rose felt a jolt of fear that something was happening with Henry. Something she should know about. “Hen. What’s wrong?”

“Something at work that’s been bothering me. And I just want to let you know that I love you, no matter what.”

Rose sat up on her elbows. She squinted. He was probably feeling all the guilt he should have for keeping Magdalena’s secret from her.

“I said I forgave you for the Magdalena thing. You said you’d fix it, I said don’t let it happen again. You’re covered, Hen.”

“No. It’s not that. This morning when we were talking and I said sometimes there’s a right and a wrong thing. I’ve been thinking all day, I’m making too big a deal out of it, I just need to—”

“You’re rambling.”

Henry leaned into Rose and kissed her hard on the lips. She gave into the kiss feeling familiar affection at being the object of Henry’s attention.

He held her face, caressing her cheekbones with his thumbs. “I just wanted to get your thoughts on something. That’s all. But you’re tired. You always do the right thing and I know. Now I know.”

Henry stood and went to the door.

“Hen!” Rose glanced at the clock. He was going to have to sprint down to the gate to make the shift change. He didn’t have time to quell her confusion, but she couldn’t let him leave the room.

He raised his eyebrows at her from the doorway.

“Just be careful.” What a stupid thing to say. What she wanted to do was order him to stand there and reveal what was behind his wandering queries. But she didn’t want his pay docked or for him to be fired for tardiness.

The thought that Rose might never see Henry again brought to life a dull fear she hadn’t felt in ages. Rose collapsed onto the bed, her heart thrashing in her chest. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. She lay still, willing her body to listen to her mind, to understand, Henry would be home, that worrying about injury or death when he went to work was not worth her time. There was no way to keep him safe. He was good at what he did, that though other men were maimed and killed in the mill, they were not as strong or smart as Henry.

What was happening to her? Maybe Sara Clara was getting to her in more than one way. Maybe it unnerved her, having the young woman there, a set of eyes that hadn’t seen how bad work in the mills was before there were eight-hour shifts, or unions, a sense of control over their lives. Maybe it was reflecting back a truth Rose knew existed—she didn’t want her son anywhere near the mill. She would mourn Henry forever if he died, but she would live. The death of her children? Well, they could put her in the grave with them for all she’d be able to handle after that.

With the last burst of energy Rose slid out from under the bedcovers, slipped out of her clothes, into a nightgown, and back into bed still not bathed. Her head felt heavy on the pillow and she hoped sleep would remove all that had stained her life that day. For that moment, she believed that was possible.

Wednesday, October 27
^th
, 1948

T
he benefits of uninterrupted sleep were never to be underestimated. At five in the morning Rose woke, her mind sharp. She rolled into Henry’s side of the bed, the sheets cool from the absence of his body. She rubbed her eyes, crossed herself, and said a short prayer for his safety. Then she offered one for the others. Inside her words to God, she felt protected as if she and He stood within her clasped hands, sheltered by His grace. She pushed her folded hands to the ceiling three times and hopped out of bed.

Rose pushed back the curtain as she did when she woke each morning. She squinted. She had expected to see the lamplight at the neighbor’s house illuminating both of their back yards but she could only make out a cottony glow that didn’t beam past the lamp itself. Were the windows that dirty? She rubbed the glass then examined her fingertips. There was soot on her skin, but not enough that it would make the early morning sky appear charred as it did. She shrugged. She pulled the curtain back into place, sure the sun would burn back the fog by noon.

She headed toward the bathroom, tripped over a raised stretch of carpet in the middle of the hallway and stubbed her toe. Her knee ached and brought back the memory of Isabella, and Rose faltering as she headed down the dark hall to the woman’s bedroom. Chills ran up her spine. She was struck with an image of the lifeless Isabella and her dead baby tucked in the crook of her arm.

She ran the faucet in the tub, and bent over the edge, her knees digging into the cracked tile floor. Rose scrubbed her scalp and hair under the soothing water, as she shook off the memories of Isabella. Early in life she’d learned allowing herself to feel pain—physical or emotional—caused her to lose the ability to make good decisions, to be a good person, to function at all.

Finished with her hair, Rose plugged the drain and slipped into the comfort of full submersion, thinking that a total cleansing to baptize the day was what she needed.

With her to-do list reeling through her mind, a freshly bathed Rose breezed through the dusting and sweeping on the main floor then tackled the laundry mess in the cellar. At the top of the stairs, she pulled the string to the bulb, and cast the stairs with feeble light. She brushed aside cobwebs at the bottom and looked up into the wooden crosshatched supports before ignoring their filth.

Rose passed the coal cellar and jumped as the metal door swung open. She heard the coal man’s shovel scratching into inky mounds of coal outside, then a load hitting the floor in chunks; smaller shards splashing like black water.

“Hey there Nico,” Rose said.

“Rosie.” The coal man peeked through the hole in the wall. “Milk man nearly broke his neck on them steps up to yunz guys’ utility room—up by yer kitchen.”

“I told him to leave it out front. On
that
porch sixty-seven times, I told him.”

“Tell ‘em again,” he said. “Fore he breaks his neck n’at.”

“He breaks it, then screw ‘em, I warned him,” Rosie said.

“I’ll pass that along,” Nico said.

Rose nodded.

Past the cinderblock shower, past Unk’s workbench where each tool had its hook, and on the underside of the shelves, baby food jars hung like glass bats. Unk had screwed the lids of baby food jars into the wood and each jar, turned into its lid, was suspended in the air, boasting its contents, as neat as Rose could ever imagine tiny construction items being stored.

At the back of the cellar Rose dunked her hands into yesterday’s wash water, feeling around for the carcasses of her beautiful tea and hand towels.

She smiled down at the linen. A small segment of the embroidered flower garden remained in full bloom, somehow still vibrant blue, pink and red. Rose crossed herself, thinking she’d been witness to a miracle that morning as she cut the salvageable part—a four-inch segment—from the ruined towel and tucked it into her jeans pocket. She fingered the rest of the sopping, grey towel then threw it into the garbage.