After the Fog (21 page)

“Nurse Dottie’s my nurse. And
you
need to keep something in mind.” Adamchek scowled as he looked up at Rose from his stool. “Whatever shortfall you have after the Sebastians dole out some cash, keep in mind the community chest might not have any funds to make up the difference. The fellas who decide what to do with the money are looking to expand the mill hospital rather than funding your clinic.”

Rose moved her grocery bag from one hip to the other hoping to cover up her panic at hearing that information.

Adamchek smirked. “You and Bonaroti need to learn a thing or two about what Dottie and the other mill nurses already know about the location of Donora’s money tree. And that golden boy of yours, you better tell him to spend more time on the field and less in the bar tickling the ivories in the Hill District or whatever horseshit his band does there.”

A crash at the back of the store startled Rose. There, on the floor, cans and boxes scattered around him, was Ian Greshecky, trying to right the display he’d knocked all to hell.

The clerk groaned and started to scold Ian. Rose waved him away, saying she’d help clean up. She raced back there, set her bags down and began to stack the cans and boxes with him. Rose hoped she’d find the right words for a boy who lost his parents as a five year-old, and the day before, his aunt.

When they were done, Rose stood, but he remained on the floor. Rose pulled him to his feet and several cans fell out of his coat, denting as they hit the ground. He was stealing, right there in front of Rose.

“Ian. You can’t…” This boy knew right from wrong, but he was desperate. Isabella had been a second mother to him. Losing her must have pushed him over the edge.

She wanted to scold him, tell him that all he had to do was ask for help and she’d find a way; she wanted to smack him on the ass like she would Leo or John, but seeing him, basically orphaned twice was too close to what she had experienced. She scooped up her grocery bag and shoved it into his arms. “Take these. I’ll be over—to help you get re-settled. Your uncle will shape up. I’ll make him. I know—”

Rose stopped herself mid-lecture, not wanting to embarrass him further. “Just go on, I’ll be there in the next day, or Miss Fanny. She’ll be over by the day’s end, I’m sure.” He shoved the bag back at Rose, surprising her. She shoved it back and with that final movement he took off out of the store, hugging the groceries to his chest.

Rose pushed the last can back into place, leaned her head on the shelf and crossed herself, lost in what she couldn’t control. She had no more room on the tab for groceries at Isaly’s and no time to get to another store before she was due at the clinic. She sighed and thought of all the ways she might be able to make plain chicken broth seem like filet mignon. She’d lived on less, payday was Friday—Henry would get most of his pay for the two weeks, wouldn’t he? She wouldn’t be paid until the middle of November.

She took Leo’s hand, ignoring his questions regarding their now missing groceries, and the sneer that rode up on Adamchek’s mug.

“Don’t be an asshole when you grow up, Leo. The one good thing about seeing one in person is knowing you never have to be like him.”

Rose did not care that someone might call her Dolly Doom; her duties often required acknowledging truths people didn’t want to. Her position might be misunderstood or underappreciated. What mattered was that she did what was right.

Leo squeezed Rose’s hand and smiled up at her between skips and hops. Sometimes the truth did hurt and no one knew that more than Rose.

* * *

Rose and Leo made a quick jag up to Thompson Avenue to Dr. Bonaroti’s office. He worked out of a storefront. Several families rented the rooms above the office, stuffed inside like Sunday’s pigs in a blanket. Though Rose was paid through a one-time donation by the outgoing superintendent and his wife, and spent most of her time visiting homes, she worked closely with all six doctors in town. She kept a few hours each week at the clinic in Bonaroti’s office, seeing patients and offering lessons for families who wanted more information than she could give in their home.

Bonaroti, the most outspoken of all the doctors, appealed to Rose. All six were kind and went about their business with steady hands, but none were as colorful and straightforward as Bonaroti despite his stirring up trouble with the mills. If he didn’t do so much for the people of Donora she might have held his rabblerousing against him.

And, he had cared for Henry’s Uncle Sam before he died, ensuring he received the best attention a person with few means could. After Rose and Henry had emptied their bank account in caring for Uncle Sam, Bonaroti stepped in and added to the funds. Rose would never forget that, and was forever indebted to him.

Opening the doctor’s office door sent a bell tingling. The receptionist, Miss Cathy looked up and grinned, her bucked teeth hanging over her lower lip. Rose lifted her hand to say hello and Leo plopped onto his knees on one of the wooden, slatted chairs by the floor to ceiling windows. He fiddled with the strings that worked the curtain pulls. Rose smacked his bottom.

“Now you sit,” she said. “I have work to do in the back. Don’t cause Miss Cathy a lick of trouble.” Rose should have headed up the hill, done her chores, and soothed her husband’s soul that surely smarted from his firing, but she needed to file her reports. More than being committed to her responsibility, she wanted to read Theresa’s file, to ferret through the girl’s medical history. She told herself it was Theresa’s discomfort she wanted to reduce and she did want that, but she also knew the information in the files might alleviate her own.

Leo ran his finger down the window glass, making squeaky noises.

“Dammit, Leo,” Rose brushed his hand from the glass. “Looky here.” Rose knelt in the chair beside him and used her coat sleeve to wipe away his fingerprints.

As she did, she noticed a woman step partially into view, her head bent down. Another woman leaned in as though whispering in the first one’s ear. Something in the hazy sight of them magnetized Rose. She strained to see more. They shifted out from behind the building, but were still obscured by the dark fog. The first woman was familiar. Rose moved closer to the glass, wiping it with her cuff. Was it? It couldn’t be. Then there was that signature toss of her long hair. Hair that should have been held neatly back with a gumband, making a pretty ponytail. Rose pushed her forehead against the glass. What would
she
be doing down on Thompson? Magdalena.

“What in Gilmore cemetery hell is going on?” Rose said. She pushed away from the window to find out.

“Magdalena!” Leo yelped and scrambled ahead of Rose, heading out the door. Leo ducked in between people walking down the street, running behind the women Rose had seen together.

By the time Rose reached the spot she’d seen Magdalena and her friend standing, only Leo was there, looking as confused as she felt.

He lifted and dropped his shoulders. “It wasn’t her, I guess,” Leo said.

Rose turned in a circle, squinting into the fog. “You sure?” They couldn’t both be mistaken.

“She woulda stopped when we called if it was, right?” Leo said.

Rose made a final rotation and stopped at the sight of Miss Ester’s Dress Shop, her storefront hidden by the fog, an eerie outline of ghostlike mannequins in the window, calling Rose’s attention in a way it never had before. Rose clenched her jaw. That’s what Magdalena was doing down here, Rose thought. Had she already quit school?

She stuck her hand out to Leo. “This way, Leo. We’re going to pay a visit to Miss Ester and set a few things straight.”

Rose stepped off the curb to cross the street, but heard voices coming through the fog, panicked words, carrying on the shrill screams of someone who was seeing another in pain or danger. Rose moved toward the voices and didn’t get far before she saw Nurse Dottie and Doc Bonaroti huddled on the sidewalk with Shirley Pollack.

Shirley coughed and hacked, hands on her knees. “Down at G.C. Murphy, Mr. Schmidt collapsed.” Shirley grasped Bonaroti’s arms and used them to straighten up.

Dr. Bonaroti balled his fists and turned Shirley away, heading back down toward McKean Avenue. “It’s these blasted mills. No rational human can deny it. That zinc mill is a monster!” He poked his finger toward the zinc mill. “Rose, get our bags. I’ll meet you at Murphy’s. Dottie, head to the McCallister’s and we’ll finish our discussion later.”

Rose sent Leo home with strict instructions to stay on the inside of the sidewalk and move slowly, not stopping until he was safely in the house.

She moved as quickly as possible, her own lungs a little short on breath—the air burning as her body worked harder. She teetered somewhere between a shuffle and a run. She dodged people in the daytime darkness, the streetlights barely showing through the atmosphere, their beams, impotent now.

Out of breath, Rose finally reached where Schmidt lay on the ground. His face was smog grey, as though he’d been colored with it from the inside out. He was writhing on the cement. Rose waved her hands in front of her, trying to shoo the fog away like smoke, but there was no displacing the heavy blackness.

Bonaroti knelt over Schmidt’s chest, trying to keep the man from flailing around, and to assess what exactly was causing Schmidt’s shortness of breath. Bonaroti put his ear at Schmidt’s mouth and laid his hand on his chest.

“He’s breathing, but it’s shallow,” Bonaroti said. “This isn’t like his normal attack. He’s never fallen over like this.”

Rose knelt down and lifted one of Schmidt’s arms over his head while Bonaroti applied pressure to his back. His breathing weakened further.

“Put him flat, put his legs over your bag,” Bonaroti said. “Let me try something.”

Rose followed directions, but was perplexed.

Doc put his ear to Schmidt’s mouth and put his fingers on the man’s neck. “He’s not breathing anymore. Heart’s still beating, though.” Rose was astonished. He gave him several breaths right from his mouth into Schmidt’s.

“Doc? That’s not an accepted…”

“Look,” Bonaroti said as he straightened and began to push on Schmidt’s chest. “His color’s coming back. Here, take his pulse. I’ll give him some more air if needed.”

Rose lifted Schmidt’s wrist. It was splattered with white house paint, making his bluish hue even more evident.

She put her fingers in place for the pulse. “There it is. Weak, but there.”

Bonaroti and Rose worked together, shifting back and forth, Rose pulling his arm up, checking his pulse and Bonaroti giving breaths. They were relentless until Schmidt’s wife appeared on scene, horrified at the sight of Rose and the doctor bent over her husband. Rose realized how strange it must have looked.

Mrs. Schmidt whacked at both of them, sending Rose back on her heels, her mouth smarting from taking one of the grieved woman’s blows.

Bonaroti cradled Schmidt’s body, trying to keep his airway open.

Mrs. Schmidt draped herself over her husband. “He’s grey! Grey as the fog!” she said.

Rose bent down, trying to pull the woman away, to comfort her while Bonaroti worked. But the woman shrugged, bellowing to leave her alone.

Chuck, the gasoline attendant, arrived on scene in a rusty blue pickup truck. With his one arm, he pulled an old door from the bed to use as a stretcher. They heaved Mr. Schmidt onto it, hoping to get him to Charleroi Hospital in time to relieve his labored breathing.

The men struggled to get the large man into the back of the truck, and Rose walked Mrs. Schmidt to the front where she would ride.

When Bonaroti hopped in the back with Schmidt, Rose closed the tailgate.

“Those damn mills are killing us all,” he said.

“Don’t bring the mills into this, Bonaroti.” Mrs. Schmidt said. “Little Jim’ll lose his job, his pension and then we’ll have nothin’!”

Chuck’s truck engine wouldn’t turn over, the engine howling in protest.

“Rose,” Dr. Bonaroti said, his words snapping with military directness. “Sebastian called. Tomorrow, head back there. Read Theresa’s file, first. School them in all they need to know about caring for her. They’re opposed to giving her Asthmador but I’m sure that would ease her discomfort.”

Rose nodded, concerned that phone calls from the Sebastians were made so soon after her visit.

“Old man Sebastian,” Bonaroti said, “was rambling some sort of nonsense. I’m not sure about what. But, he mentioned he wanted Dottie to see Theresa and I said, no, she’s a mill nurse. I can’t see his daughter tomorrow. Schedule’s filled up already. Calls piling up like slag in Palmer Park. Go back and fix whatever problem that man has. We aren’t playing musical nurses just because he has a...”

Rose leaned in to hear better, but the engine finally turned over and the truck pulled away. She lifted her hand to wave and watched as the taillights disappeared into the fog. Why had Sebastian mentioned Dottie, of all people? Rose’s stomach twisted. That nurse would not replace her. Especially when it came to Theresa. Rose knew Doc trusted her and that’s why he told her to read the files and follow-up the next day. Rose ran the events of the last hour through her mind again as she moved back through the fog.

Rose looked at her watch. Cathy would have left the office so Rose would head home and file her reports the next day. She hoped Mrs. Schmidt would be more grateful that her husband was alive than put off by the rescue technique Doc had used. She knew it made sense to do what Bonaroti did—they did it for babies all the time—but it was strange for family members, like Mrs. Schmidt to see someone blowing air into another person’s mouth and pressing on a chest.