After the Fog (25 page)

“That it?” Johnny said.

“Of course that’s not it. But that’s all I’ll say for now.”

Johnny broke into a grin. “Seriously? That’s all you’ll say?” He was losing his nerve. He needed to tell his mother he would not meet with the scout, that he didn’t want him coming to dinner, that she would never understand how he felt. He wanted to scream that her life is
exactly
as she wanted it. But that didn’t mean she could force everyone into her mold for how the world should be.

“Let’s make a deal, Rose, my dear mother,” Johnny said, knowing he’d always had good results with charm more than whining.

“Now you’re an Atlantic City dealer, are you?”

“Seriously. You’ve never really even listened to me play more than when I practice. Mr. Patrick said I’m talented. In the real way. If you come see me play and leave without understanding truly how good I am, then I’ll drop it. November 6
^th
, I’m playing with this fella up in Pittsburgh. Louisiana Red’s his name. He plays with Crit Walters. Up his house in the Hill. Right on his porch, this amazing gathering, with amazing music…”

Henry went to the sink and filled a glass with water.

His mother stiffened. Johnny was pushing her, even with her ability to act as though nothing was wrong. “Johnny,” Rose said, “I’m being really patient after a really hard day and I’m telling you...”

He couldn’t take it anymore. The charm would have to go. Johnny shifted his weight and grimaced. “Don’t call me Johnny. My name is John. Please.”

Rose forced a smile. “Johnny. John, nah, shit, I can’t call you John. You’re my baby, my Johnny. My boy. Sorry. You’ll have to live with it. And, I just, well, I
have
heard you play. I
know
you’re talented. That doesn’t make it a good career choice. Certainly not playing with some guy in the Hill on his porch. Louisiana Red? On a porch…” Rose sighed then looked at Henry.

She smoothed Johnny’s hair back and shook her head. “Go ahead. Go on to the Tap Room. But take that Old Granddad from the cupboard and welcome the scout to Donora tonight. Just drop it off at the hotel before you head to the Tap Room. We’ll talk about next week, next week.” Rose said.

Johnny bit his lip then straightened. Was she really dropping this? Small steps, his mother had always told him. “So that’s it?”

“Do what I say and that’ll be it.” She held her finger up. “And, the fog. Watch your step out there.”

Henry turned from the sink where he was scrubbing the roasting pan and glared at Rose.

Suddenly Johnny felt the need to smooth things over as he always did.

“And Dad,” He said. “I wrote three poems the other day. In the style of Auden, then Blake. You were right, seeing how two guys could write about the same things so differently, really showed me a lot. It’ll work for that college essay Mum’s always bending my ear to write. Poetry? That’ll sizzle their grey-matter, don’t you say?”

He had failed to tell them the truth, what he had planned. He felt so trapped between what he wanted and his need to please his parents. He wanted the same things as his mother, he just knew he could do it in a different way. Why didn’t she believe him?

Rose forced her smile, her cheeks looking like they would burst from tension. Johnny longed to see his mother’s real smile.

“That’ll knock their socks off for sure. You know, Mum, it will. I promise.”

Henry grabbed his son and gave him a jerky hug before turning him into a headlock. “Now get out of here or you’ll be up all damn night.” They scrambled across the linoleum then Henry released Johnny and went back to the sink.

Johnny couldn’t leave without coaxing a real smile from his mother, at least trying to.

She was staring at her hands, pushing a cuticle back with her thumbnail. When Johnny didn’t move away she finally looked up at him. He gave her a cheesy grin and did a little jig to the tune of
In the Mood
.

She didn’t dance with him as usual. She crooked her finger at him and he moved closer. She cocked her head to the side, looking into his eyes like she’d discovered an alien on the street then she ran her finger along his jaw line. She put her hand on his chest as though she was feeling his heartbeat.

“What, Mum?”

She shook her head and looked as though she was going to cry. Rose never cried and Johnny couldn’t stand there and see it for the first time. And so he left, feeling as though he would never manage the path through life that he had chosen, but not willing to give up trying. It was not like him to quit, no matter who stood in his way. Even if the person in his road was his mother.

R
ose threw back three shots, while Henry had two, after they finished cleaning the kitchen in silence. Rose could play “normal,” with the rest of the world. At least to keep Magdalena’s pregnancy a secret, but she would not let Henry off the hook. He had ruined part of their marriage with his secrets.

After the dishes she went into the yard for air. What a joke that was. The air was fat with black, grainy smog. But still she stayed, drawn across the grass where muted light shone from the Tucharoni’s windows. Softened by the fog, their house looked as though it was part of a storybook scene, and all that went on in that house was warm and loving.

Rose snuck up close to the window and rubbed a corner of one wavy pane with her finger. From the foothills, the song of the mill narrated. The flying shear, the familiar sound of steady slicing through steel, calmed her heart, as though she’d been birthed from the womb of a steel mill instead of a woman.

Through the window Rose watched Magdalena at the Tucharoni’s tiny Italian-tiled kitchen table, surrounded by their many family members. They were sandwiched like chipped ham in white bread, spilling out, dropping off the sides. Mrs. Tucharoni, Tony’s mother, stood behind Magdalena. What was Magdalena doing there?

Mrs. Tucharoni ran her plump fingers through Magdalena’s auburn hair, while the rest of the family listened to what ever she was saying. Magdalena smiled and threw her head back in a laugh. Was Tony really the father? The Tucharoni boy?

The entire family raised their mismatched glasses in a toast and Mrs. Tucharoni kissed the top of Magdalena’s head as though Magdalena had been
her
daughter for the last sixteen years. Rose bit the inside of her cheek. They looked so happy, all of them, like they actually loved one another. Being jammed in that house like kielbasa in Bob the butcher’s cabinet apparently suited them.

Rose glared at Tony, hoping her gaze would burn a hole through the glass, searing the center of his forehead, dropping him on the spot. But she imagined her nursing instincts would take hold and she’d be in the kitchen, easing him back to life. She squeezed her eyes shut to the image of him on top of Magdalena. There was no scenario with Tony Tucharoni pleasant for Rose.

Magdalena should take care of the baby without him. Rose couldn’t allow Magdalena to give up the baby for adoption as she had done with Theresa. If only the pregnancy could just disappear. Like those women Rose often cared for after taking home-concocted tonics, or abortions performed by certain doctors who didn’t live in Donora.

Rose covered her ears as though she could block out the sound of her own horrifying thoughts. There were lots of ways to get rid of a baby. Many were unsafe, some never worked, and worse, some did. Rose knew that would not save Magdalena’s soul—erasing the pregnancy. And there was no way for Magdalena to raise the baby alone. There was no way to reverse what she had done.

Magdalena was smart, but green as hell. She had no idea what she had done in having sex with that boy. The Pavlesics would be maligned forever. The next five generations would sit around kitchen tables squawking about the downfall of the house of Pavlesic. How could Henry’s life have ended up like it has? For a fella who struck out Mel Ott three times, here he was just like everyone else, turning out loose daughters and aimless sons.

Henry’s voice came through the fog, calling for Rose. She wandered back toward the mottled light glowing near the door. When she got close enough, Henry stepped out with her tweed coat and nurse’s bag. “Bonaroti called. Skinny’s down the Merry-Go-Round. Trouble breathing.”

Rose turned away from Henry and he slid the coat over her arms. “Not unusual.” She was relieved to have an excuse to leave for a while.

Henry brushed lint from her shoulders. “Folks are sicker by the minute. Fog’s worse.” Henry said.

She faced Henry and buttoned the coat-collar, wishing he’d head back into the house.

He stepped closer. “Bonaroti didn’t want to take any chances.”

Rose wanted her warm gloves, but wasn’t about to delay leaving to get them. “Umhmm.” She reached for the bag.

Henry moved it out of her grasp. “He insisted you go.”

Rose nodded. She knew what Henry needed from her right then. She cleared her throat and grasped the bag handles, her hands covering his. She wanted to say all was forgiven, that there was much more for them to worry about.

They stared at each other and finally Henry released his grip on the bag. Rose settled it over her forearm and Henry stepped back. He pulled a set of knit gloves from his back pocket.

Rose pulled them on. “Thank you.” She felt a twinge of affection stir.

Henry dug his hands into his pockets. “Rose.”

“Henry,” she said.

“Better go.”

And, she did. Heading down the back hill, she thought of Skinny, her plan of action. She was sure it would be the usual type of call where he wanted a little attention more than anything else. Rose glanced back at the Tucharoni home and shook off her tormented thoughts. At least there was someone who needed her and she would not fail to be there.

* * *

The night lit up from the blast furnaces at the bottom of the hill, so powerful, not even the fog could keep the blazing shades of red under its cloak. She shuffled along, down the steps, feeling each one with her foot as though blind. The railing was moist from the dewy humidity, and seeped through her knitted gloves. She steadied herself, as though she’d never walked those steps before. Her heel caught on a crack in the cement and she fell, spinning backward and down. She grasped the metal, her nurse’s bag falling off her shoulder and she dangled there, butt nearly on the next step down. She wrenched herself upward, groaning.

“Nurse Pavlesic.” A voice came from a few steps above Rose. She could see just their feet stopping next to hers and felt their arms latched under her armpits, across her chest, heaving her upward. She turned and looked up into Mr. Sebastian’s face. She yanked down her crooked coat that had hiked up past her waist and felt for her hat, realizing she hadn’t put it on.

“Is everything all right? Theresa?” Rose said. She wheezed in the dense, heavy air, trying not to be noisy like Theresa and every respiratory case she’d dealt with the last few days. Her heart pummeled inside her chest. The words, “my daughter,” kept shooting around her brain. She knew it didn’t make sense, but there was no denying the connection she felt to Theresa.

Mr. Sebastian leaned down from two-steps above. “She’s having her usual problems, it was rough earlier though. After you left she turned the color of summer plums.”

Rose wrapped her arms around herself. “Jesus, did Dr. Bonaroti come?”

“No, no, like I said, this is all very commonplace, it comes and goes.”

Rose stared, not believing what she was hearing, the casual tone. “Well, call him next time. Call
me
.” Let me take care of her, Rose thought. I’m her mother, me.

“I will, Nurse.” He cleared his throat then stepped down another two stairs, meeting Rose at eye-level. “I’ve come up here every night for the last week. Did you know that?”

Rose looked away; the odor of whiskey accompanied his words. She hoped he didn’t drink as heavily as his wife seemed to. Both turned and started inching downward—their conversation as stilted as their steps. How would she have known that the man spent each of the fourteen nights he’d been in town, up on her hill?

“Magnificent view,” he said. “Not tonight of course. Overlook Terrace’s is much different. That’s a mistake, being there, across from the zinc mill. Theresa’s fragile, wheezing for years, but this is making it much worse.”

“So, you’ve come over here to check out the real estate?”

He stared at the side of Rose’s face. Her hand instinctively went to her ear, brushing her hair over the double lobe, out of habit.

He finally looked directly at Rose. “No. I’ve been coming here to talk to you, but I always change my mind before knocking on the door.”

She didn’t feel she had to be coy with Mr. Sebastian. Rose assumed his concerns with the clinic were more practical than Mrs. Sebastian’s. He would want to know the money was well spent, but not be worried about whether the choice to fund the clinic would allow for fashionable dinner parties and balls with fancy people. Rose suspected that partially drove Mrs. Sebastian’s decisions—the prospect of a glitzy social life with those not associated with Donora’s healthcare situation.

“What? Your whole family just swoops in when the mood strikes?” Rose said. “Your wife wasn’t as shy.”

“No, well, like I said, I did not actually knock. But I like spontaneity, I admit it.”

“Pfft. It has its place. So? How can I help you? I have to make a call down at the Merry-Go-Round. It’s probably nothing, but people are particularly sick these past two days.”