After the Fog (5 page)

Henry sighed. It was probably one of Buzzy’s card-playing pals. What could Henry do? Fix the damn problem. He knew that was the answer, Henry rubbed his temples, acid gathering in his belly. The real question was which problem to solve first.

* * *

Henry lifted the door on its hinges and pushed, alleviating that horrific whine he meant to get around to oiling away but never did. With the door shut, dread cloaked him. He hadn’t kept many secrets from Rose. Maybe he’d been afraid to. Or was he really the good guy he wanted to be all along?

Now, his fear of the truth—what Rose would make of the facts—had turned everything backward. He told himself he could get away with it, that he had time to sort things out. Denial and hope were two wonderful states of mind for Henry.

He stood in the shadows of the hallway, collecting his thoughts, watching his wife comfortable in the kitchen. He’d hoped long ago to have put her in her own home, make it “her” kitchen, but every time they were close, something snatched the money out from under them.

Sometimes Rose heard him come into the house, but this morning she must have been deep in thought. She didn’t bark an order or wrap him in a hug or plant a kiss on his cheek. Henry watched her cooking and wondered what she’d do if she found out.

With one hand Rose cracked eggs into her favorite green Corning bowl. With the other she flipped hot cakes. Her lean forearms belied her power, both physical and mental. Her backside was round, but small, and the blue robe fell over her form like a fine dress, exquisitely highlighting her shape.

She slid across the floor, humming a slow, sad tune. It reminded him of what he’d heard earlier that day about the Greshecky woman. Clearly that wasn’t a case Rose would let go of easily. Still she carried on with her chores. Most women weren’t like Rose.

She was unsentimental, a machine, like the mills. She did what had to be done no matter how she felt. Nothing interfered with the way she operated. She just moved ahead like a rolling mill.

Rose wiped her hands on her apron then sniffed under her arms. Henry smiled. His Rose never did like a stench. Her head jerked toward the small utility room off the far side of the kitchen. Her shoulders slumped and she scurried to the room, huffing and irritated.

He heard the storm door open—the one that led to the landing that they built from trash-heap wood and nails “borrowed” from the mill. The landing allowed Rose to store their garbage on the far side of the house, away from where the family would have to walk past it. What could have called her attention there? No one would ever climb that staircase except someone returning from dumping the garbage.

“You mangy mutt, Rags!” Her voice hit Henry’s ears and his shoulders hunched bracing on behalf of the dog. He hated to see Rose yell at the sorry pooch. “I don’t have time for this bullshit.” Henry heard the door slam and watched Rose stomp into the kitchen still too distracted to notice him peeking in the doorway.

Henry was about to tell Rose not to be harsh with the dog. It couldn’t help being a lost soul. But, he stopped when Rose tugged the icebox open and pulled out a package of bologna. She crumpled the wrappings against her leg before tossing them on the counter and disappearing into the utility room again. Henry heard the door open and hit the wall behind it. He slipped across the kitchen floor and poked his head into the utility room.

Rose stood at the open door; the dog was rolled into a ball, his snout barely peeking out.

“Now, you go away. You’re not wanted here.” Rose laid the meat in front of the dog’s nose, patted the top of its head and backed away.

She left the utility room and ran smack into Henry.

“Hen?”

“Hey.”

“What? The garbage doesn’t put itself out.”

Henry nodded and jammed his hands in his pockets. A smile pulled on the corner of his mouth. He wanted to tell her he knew she liked the dog.

Rose pulled his face to her, pecked his lips then the creases at the corners of his eyes. She held Henry’s gaze like she was determining whether he’d seen her interaction with the dog.

Henry wrapped Rose in his arms, pulling her pelvis into his, kissing her neck. The salty taste on her skin after a long night of nursing excited him. She squirmed, sliding out of his grip, and his hand groped for hers before she completely got away. He pulled her back and smoothed loose hairs off her face.

Rose quickly covered her left ear with the hair he’d brushed back. After all these years, she was still conscious of him seeing her double earlobe—a congenital defect. In utero her ear had folded over on itself giving the effect of having two lobes.

“Later, Hen.”

He wrapped around her, pulled her back against his belly, his chin on the top of her head, her hair smelling more like her than the shampoo she used. He could hold her forever, he thought. He was lucky to have any sex at all, let alone regularly. His friends often joked about the fact his wife was a nurse, and worked like a man, but he didn’t care. The times she wasn’t there with a tray of sandwiches, she was there with the sex. He loved that she was independent. That it was
almost
as though she didn’t need him at all.

He kissed the top of her head. “I heard about Greshecky’s wife—Isabella.” She stiffened and he let her go. Suddenly he wanted to tell her what had happened at work. She would understand. He reached for her again.

Rose turned, tears welling. She shrugged. “Said a rosary for Isabella. She’ll be in heaven with her baby…or maybe not, you know, no baptism…” Rose waved her hand in front of her face and pushed past Henry. She straightened the blue and white serving dish in the center of the table and sighed, as though her contentment had dissolved in an instant.

Henry knew, with Rose, she’d feel better soon. By evening she would have wrangled the good out of the bad and she’d be back to her normal self.

* * *

Buzzy rushed into the kitchen, heading for a glass of water. “How’s my favorite sister-in-law?” He glanced at Henry then kissed Rose’s cheek. She brushed it off with the back of her hand and looked to Henry for an explanation.

Henry’s breath caught a moment and he coughed into his hand, forcing his body to relax. He knew Buzzy’s routine. He was desperate, but he was only in phase-one desperation. He would try to charm Rose; he wouldn’t attempt to bully her, not yet. If only Buzzy had listened to Henry and Rose.

Buzzy spread his hands, looking over the table, set with the dishes they bought every time they deposited money into Mellon Bank. “Where’s the grub? I’m showered, I’m ready for food.”

Henry limped to the table, brushing past Buzz.

Rose took a deep breath and released it as she went to the stove. “Food’ll be a minute, Hen. Unk had a bit of, well, you know how things go with Unk.” She pushed melting butter around one of three skillets.

“No matter,” Henry said. He slumped into his chair and wrenched his WH Auden Chapbook—The Age of Anxiety—from his pocket and paged to where he’d left off during his lunch break.

Rose’s eyes narrowed, straining to see Henry’s foot as she carried blistering hot coffee to the table. “Are you limping from the old injury or did you get hurt today?”

Henry didn’t care about discussing his injury. It was what would follow—the conversation regarding why he showered at the mill and
who
treated the burn that he didn’t want to have.

Rose poured Henry’s coffee and set it in front of him. He wrapped his fingers around the thick mug, brushing Rose’s as he did. Henry knew the line of questioning that would follow. He couldn’t help but get caught in Buzzy’s heavy gaze.

“What?” Rose said. “I saw that look the two of you just passed like a bad dollar bill. What’s in the vault? This isn’t Mellon Bank, you know. Nothing goes in the vault without my say.”

Henry pushed the conversation in a safer direction. “Little slag on my Achilles is all,” he said. “Nothing new is in the vault.” He grimaced looking down at his foot.

“That goddamn pol-ak,” Buzzy said, “Vinski’s going to get us all killed. Goddamn jackass is never where he should be.” Henry was glad Buzzy’s con-artist ways worked to his benefit from time to time.

“Let me have a look, Hen.” Rose got down on her hands and knees and cocked her head, spreading open Henry’s seared workpants. She drew in a breath as though it were she with burned skin. Henry looked at her rounded back, her muscles moving beneath her robe. His gaze slid back toward her behind. He patted it.

She sat back on her heels, face flushed. “It appears as though Nurse Dottie fixed a decent bandage,” Rose shrugged. “For now it’s decent. Her work doesn’t always stand up over time.”

Henry knew Rose’s deep dislike for Dottie Shaginaw and treaded carefully when it came to praising Rose’s rival.

Rose went back to the eggs, Henry, to his poetry.

Buzzy snapped the newspaper open and began reciting the headlines. He shoved Henry’s foot with his.

Henry lifted his gaze from his chapbook and shook his head. He was not ready to beg Rose for money to cover Buzzy’s irresponsibility, again.

“I saw that,” Rose said.

Buzzy pulled out the wooden chair beside Henry and rotated it. He straddled the seat and rested his forearms along the back. “Saw what?”

“That foot nudge,” Rose said over her skillets. “What are you two up to? You owe money, again, Buzzy? Unk was mumbling about money lost again…”

“No! Rose you know I’ve changed.”

Rose stared at Buzzy then Henry. Henry felt sweat on the top of his head. He opened his mouth to tell the truth, but Buzzy was already filling the air with what he considered quality thoughts.

“That polak Vinski’s gonna get someone’s hand sheared off,” Buzzy said. “If he isn’t made to tow the line. I don’t know what the USW’ll have to say about that jackass. We fought long and hard to form that union, to be protected from the white hats, but who’ll protect us from our own? Son of a bitch’ll cost you, um, me, I mean, some fella at least a week’s pay if that jug head Nelson finds out.”

Henry leaned forward on the table glaring at his brother. Damn Buzzy, Henry thought, subtle as a jackhammer.

“Just read the paper, Buzz. How about the Steelers this week? Who they playing?” Henry gritted his teeth.

“
Who
lost a week’s pay? I’m not stupid you know.” Rose poured the eggs into the pan and scraped them into tiny, buttery bits of heaven.

“No one, Rosie,” Buzzy said with that smile he’d used to get what he wanted all his life. “All’s well on the Murray Avenue front. Everywhere else, though, well, everyone’s an asshole these days, Rosie. Except Hen, here that is.”

Rose slapped a lid on each of the skillets on the stove, turned off the burners and sauntered over to Buzzy and Henry wielding a spatula as though headed into battle. She poked it into the air at the two of them.

“What’s all the code-speak, bullshit Buzzy? If you think I’m not aware that you’re rambling an awful lot of nothing to cover up something then you’re crazy.”

Buzzy held his hands up in surrender.

Rose narrowed her eyes at him.

Henry forced his attention back to Auden hoping to convey nonchalance.

“Just yammering after a hard night’s work.” Buzzy nearly dropped his coffee mug.

Henry glanced at Buzzy, noting his clenched teeth. It made Henry think his brother was more nervous than he originally supposed. Maybe the fellas shouting his name earlier weren’t simply his buddies. Maybe Buzzy wasn’t playing a friendly card game anymore.

Apparently, though, Rose was appeased. She tossed the spatula on the counter, and stalked into the utility room.

Henry leaned forward, hissing his whisper at Buzzy.

“What the hell was that?”

“Just trying to soften things up before you let the boom down. That’s all, just trying to help.”

“Well, no thanks, Buzz, old boy. Keep your trap shut.”

Rose came back in the kitchen, eyeing the two of them suspiciously.

Henry’s nerves were on edge. He tapped his book of poetry. “This Auden gets me thinking.” He lifted the book in Rose’s direction. “I think he’s suggesting technology is looming too large. That it’s scraping away at our common sense, our connection to each other…”

“That’s what that book’s about?” Rose said.

Henry shrugged. “I’m getting a little of that from it—a little cynical, a little hopeful. Like when I think of those mills, all the incremental elements that have to fit perfectly together in order to produce a single steel thread. When I think of that wire! Sometimes it all seems parochial, sometimes it seems like the most worldly work a man can do.”

“Don’t romanticize that mill,” Rose said. “The seventeen-year locusts have more of a social life than you fellas. Every seventeen years those little bastards come out of the ground, mate, and eat each other or some shit like that. That’s no existence for anyone, man or insect.”

“Easy nurse, Pavlesic,” Buzzy said, “I think the guy’s had enough injury without your insult lumped on top.”

“Stuff it, Buzzy.”

She patted Henry’s shoulder. He grabbed her hand and pulled her closer.

“We have to talk, okay?”

Henry tried to interpret Rose’s body language, determine whether her stiff posture was due to Buzzy being there or if she knew something was going on with him.