Bishop's Road (23 page)

The nurse confirms what Ginny Mustard knows. Says she's healthy as a horse and should have a strong baby. Gives her folk acid and multivitamins. Tells the kitchen staff to let her drink as much milk as she wants and to do the heavy work themselves. That's how Ginny Mustard becomes head chef and while she can't order provisions until she learns to read, she manages to talk the person who does into adding a few more interesting items to the list now and then. Joe Snake brings cookbooks and she passes them around so the other inmates can pick a nice dish and read aloud how to cook it.

She wants to see what the new house looks like since Joe Snake moved in and he takes pictures of the work in progress, brings a new batch every time he visits. Paint samples and a catalogue
to choose a couch and kitchen table. Fabric and dimensions so she can make curtains in the craft room with Ella's help when she takes a prayer break. Ella knows how to knit as well and is teaching Ginny Mustard to make a blanket, soft and pink, with hope and dreams set in delicate stitches.

When the guards put Crazy Rachel in the cell across from Ginny Mustard, peace and quiet get up and leave in a flash. For once, her family, rich as they are, cannot bail her out and since she is only mad when she doesn't get her own way, no one is able to convince the courts that she's insane. Attempted murder earns her four years. Her chances of getting out a minute sooner are slim to non-existent. When they take her street clothes and give her prison garb they find half a pound of cocaine and a couple dozen joints in her fur coat pocket. She's pissed and screaming and no one is going to shut her up. They can do as they please, she'll stop when she feels like it and not before. Short of slapping a piece of duct tape over her mouth there's nothing much can be done so the guards hand out ear plugs and let her rip.

Joe Snake works hard to make the new house a home. He peels wallpaper, repairs plaster, scrapes old paint off the bannister, gets his friend Alf to help replace the kitchen cupboard doors. And he goes to the university and enrolls for January courses, buys a book about being a dad, reads every word. Ginny Mustard says the baby is a girl but he reads the boy sections too, just in case.

Ruth doesn't find it easy being on her feet all day and with minimum wage she can barely make ends meet but it's okay. She is happy with her independence. She is pleased to pay her rent and
buy her groceries with money she earns. If there's nothing left over for new shoes or a watch, so be it; there wasn't any on welfare either. And in a few months, if they keep her after Christmas, there'll be health benefits and a pension plan which you certainly don't get working the bars.

Patrick wants to marry her. The idea of spending her life with him is appealing but she's damned if she's going poor to him, will have her own income, however meager. She's tired at the end of her days and mostly just wants to go to her small home and be alone so they don't see as much of each other as he'd like. And of course, she spends time with Sarah and Peter, and though Patrick is certainly welcome, she doesn't always bring him along, doesn't feel like sharing her family with him every time she visits. He tries not to be hurt but he is.

Judy and Maggie are thrilled with their new place. They have a living room, kitchen, bathroom and a really big bedroom with space enough for two as long as they don't plan on entertaining the young fellows. Patrick told Joe Snake all about the conditions of Judy's probation and he keeps careful watch, takes a good sniff in the air around her when she comes in just in case she's had a bit of pot after school. Days when they don't stop at Maggie's dad's house he asks about homework and tells them to do it upstairs in the dining room where he has installed his computer and where he does his own work, the better to raise a baby.

Ginny Mustard wants Joe Snake's family to come for Christmas. She sends an invitation from prison with Becky doing the writing. There's plenty of space in the new old house. She orders furniture from the catalogue for the guest rooms. Tells Joe Snake where to buy a good turkey - fresh - for dinner. Makes him write down her instructions for gravy and tells him how much cream to put in the mashed potatoes.

Christmas at Mrs. Miflin's house had always been a dreary affair. A little fake tree with blue plastic balls glued all over was set
on the coffee table next to a plaster stable with sheep and the Holy Family, lest they forget the true meaning. The tenants drew a name each and gave a gift and there was a turkey and fruitcake but that's as special as it ever managed to be. Ginny Mustard would walk along the river and stare through windows at magic trees and parties for hours and never went home until all the pretty lights had been turned off for the night.

Christmas can break the hearts of women in prisons. They mightn't buy princes or the fantasy of the ball or happily ever after but the picture-perfect Christmas with soft snow and candles, rosy-cheeked children and gentle families, keeps vigil, reawakens every year in every Christian as soon as The First Noel hits the airwaves. And they crumble one by one, the women in prisons. And the bars may be steel or poverty or apathy, it makes no difference and no matter what they are saying aloud, if you listen closely you'll hear the desperation of the one dream that might come true but obviously not this year, maybe next.

Joe Snake brings home the biggest tree he can find and it takes up the entire living room with only space enough to squeeze past it into the dining room. It touches the ceiling and he has to cut some off to make room for the star. The back of the box of lights says that 200 will be right for a three-foot tree so he buys 4000. He covers the bannister with boughs and the house smells like a forest after warm rain.

Maggie wants her dad to come for Christmas dinner and
he says yes. One way or another he will get away from his wife who thinks they are going to Cuba for the holidays. She bought tickets ages ago because she just knows that Margaret will be causing trouble for them and is surprised that she hasn't heard tell of the girl since the time she threatened her at the house on Bishop's Road.

Dorrie came around the other day and asked if she could spend Christmas at Ginny Mustard's house and since she has such a flair for decorating as well as her own porcelain nativity scene that she will bring along if they want, Joe Snake said sure, the more the merrier. Dorrie hasn't seen her policeman since the wed-ding reception. Is feeling unloved these days and small lines are beginning to show around her eyes and mouth that weren't there before.

Over Eve the earth is working and moving ever so slowly. You won't notice if you aren't a bird. The weather has been warmer than it should but who's to say if that's true or false or if it even matters. Tiny shoots of green appear and then buds and one day a hundred purple crocuses in the fog, in the rain, and a reporter from the Daily News who happened to be covering a story about vandalism in the graveyard noticed the color and at first thought someone had lost a pretty sweater but soon saw the flowers. Called a photographer and a picture appeared on the front page next day.

It didn't matter that other people had crocuses blooming in their own yards and even a few tulips poking their way up through dead leaves to see what's going on with the seasons. Someone needed a miracle. Remembered the northern lights a while back. Connected them with the flowers for some odd reason
and asked around about the occupant of the grave.

Judy told all she knew which wasn't much but apparently enough and the rumors began that Eve was who she thought she was - mother of all - and as with most miracles, people figured that getting close to the source would heal them of their woes and the caretaker had the devil's time keeping everyone on the beaten path and not walking all over the dead. Someone decided to make a special headstone for Eve. Fashioned a large fat goddess with breasts and tummy and backside all falling over and plunked it down on top of the crocuses which demolished quite a few of them and pissed off some of the old ladies who come by every day to pray for each other's sick and dying husbands. They gathered up enough strength to push it over and planted more bulbs from their own gardens but they never did bloom as purple as Eve's.

Crazy Rachel has decided that Ginny Mustard is the bane of her existence and must pay. Dearly. That baby in her belly is rightfully hers since the father is most definitely Howard James. It all came out in court. How Ginny Mustard used to go to his house at night. How she stole away his dog and how Dorrie came to be living in that old Mrs. Miflin's house. If it hadn't been for her meddling, Rachel and Howard would be happily wed by now and she'd have her own baby on the way. But if she can't have her own, she'll have Ginny Mustard's.

Crazy Rachel's family is scared to death of her. While in her mother's womb she made life miserable for all. Kicked and screamed - her mother swears she screamed and her father is inclined to believe it with the nightmares his wife had from the moment of conception. The boys had never caused a minute's
trouble. That's because this is a girl and she's weird, said Crazy Rachel's mother.