After the Fog (26 page)

Sebastian and Rose hastened their pace down the stairs; he occasionally took her elbow when her foot would lose ground on a step.

“Well, I kept coming to talk to you about the clinic, but something kept me from knocking on your door. Then I met you, saw you with Theresa and I’m even less sure we’re making the right decision. My wife is against spending money on the clinic—says she wants to see her money erected with brick and lined with marble walls and such.”

Rose didn’t have time to waste. She knew Skinny was probably mildly affected by the overbearing fog of the day, but she needed to be sure.

“Spit it out. Are you funding the clinic or not?”

He stopped and Rose stopped with him. He blew out air and crossed his arms. Rose looked down the hill to where Mr. Sebastian was staring. Rose was confused. A man in his position in the mill should not be this concerned with a small chunk of money donated to a cause that benefitted an entire town. Yank the money and be done with it or hand it over.

“It has value,” he said.

Rose suddenly understood how much he loved Theresa. She realized right then that seeing Rose care for his daughter must have had an impact. He must have come to believe everyone deserved the kind of treatment his daughter did. Still, she wondered why he was gazing down the hill like the mills were his lost love.

“I know what happened with your husband,” Mr. Sebastian said, clearly done with his end of the discussion of the clinic.

“It’s a small town,” Rose said. Her face flooded hot; relieved the fog was so thick he couldn’t see her embarrassment. It wasn’t any of his business, her husband losing his job for no good reason.

“He’s wrong, you know.”

Rose’s neck tightened. She wiggled her shoulders to loosen up the tension and flipped her hair back, brushing it behind her ears. She could feel her anger growing. She had no choice but to defend Henry.

“My husband meant well. He cares. In a way different than most. We’re hoping he gets his job back. Work is plentiful around here until you don’t have any,” Rose said.

Mr. Sebastian was staring past her again. Rose looked behind her to see what drew his attention. Nothing.

“You look familiar Rose. Have we met before the other day?”

Rose caught her balance as she stepped from the last stair onto the sidewalk that ran down Fifth Street to Meldon, and the Merry-Go-Round bar where a sick man was awaiting her arrival. She wanted to scream. Yes, he’d seen her before. Every day when he looked at his daughter he could see Rose’s face. Theresa was her baby and Rose wanted her back. She’d wanted her back for twenty whole years. But, if there was one thing Rose was sure of, she never met the family who adopted her baby so many years before.

Rose tapped her foot and sniffled, trying to be calm. “No. We’ve never met. Any chance of Henry getting the old job back? Maybe give him a shift at the Zinc mill?”

You owe me for a lifetime with my flesh and blood
,
Rose thought.

“There’s always a chance, but I don’t know. I’ll talk to his supervisor…”

Rose fixed her gaze hard on Sebastian’s. What bullshit.

Rose knew men were not very observant when it came to even the most important life events and she could not imagine that he’d remember what she looked like if he had seen her the day Rose gave her daughter away. She hoped he’d finish what he started to say about Henry losing his job so she stayed silent.

“I should be satisfied that Donora has such a compassionate nurse as you—that no person, even strangers go neglected. Theresa is lucky you’re here. And I’ll talk to my wife about rethinking her cause. I’ll tell her Nurse Shaginaw’s plan may not—”

“Dottie Shaginaw? What’s she got to do with it? She’s never been a supporter of our clinic. Thinks all the money should funnel into the mill hospital. As if the only people who count in town are the ones turning iron into steel. As if the rest of us are useless byproduct. As if she’s better than—”

Rose did not approve of her rivalry and insecurities entering into a discussion with the one man who could convince his wife to pay for the clinic. So she shut the hell up.

“Doc wants me to stop by tomorrow to check on Theresa.” Rose started walking across McKean, heading to Meldon, satisfied Mr. Sebastian had no idea who she was.

“Hurry on to your patient. Your husband must be very understanding of your position in the community to have you gone most of the day and half the night.”

Rose bit the inside of her cheek as she held back her words. Normally, Henry would barely register her comings and goings because he’d be resting up for his shift at the mill. The thought of Magdalena shocked her again. Perhaps she had been gone too much. But, hell, they’d been in school. Both of them good students, good kids, what good would it do to sit around listening to the soaps all damn day, if she could get her housework done and be a nurse? Yes, she was gone day and night but she had not been negligent.

Rose nodded, not wanting to push her luck with him, and they moved down the sidewalk. The echo of their shoes reached Rose’s ears, over the din of the mill, making her aware of their silence. The only things she wanted to say to him were improper; she wanted his daughter to know she was the woman who gave birth to her.

When they reached Meldon Avenue, Mr. Sebastian tipped his hat and Rose ducked under the roof that hid the door to the bar, relieved to be back in her element, ready to nurse someone back to health and feel as though she actually served a purpose.

* * *

The entrance to the Merry-Go-Round bar had a roller skate for a door handle. Skinny had screwed it into the wood when a brawl between a womanizer and a cuckold resulted in the original handle being knocked off. With a tug the door yawned open and a drape of blue cigarette smoke whooshed past her with warm heat. She fruitlessly waved the smoke away and stepped inside.

Rose hooked her coat onto the arm of one of the dilapidated coat-racks and heard it groan in protest. Across from the racks was a U-shaped bar. Eleven men sat like sculptures, only their arms moving to raise their beers to their lips. It wasn’t until Mr. Bresner waved her over that any of them looked her way. Their faces drooped with drink, as though their facial features had been melted by alcohol and endless shifts in the mill. Not even their eyes managed to hold their normal shape, even blinking too big a movement to make.

“Skinny?” Rose shouted as she walked past the bar heading toward the backroom.

One bar-sitter shoved his thumb over his shoulder toward the back door Rose was already heading for.

Rose pushed through the backroom door and flicked the light switch to the right of the door. Skinny was splayed across a cot; his enormous belly rose and fell with guttural snores. Rose snatched the evening paper from his desk, spread it on the chair then lay her bag on top popping it open. She hooked the stethoscope into her ears and paced across the sloped wooden floor to Skinny. His lungs were remarkably clear for all the mucus shuffling around. Definitely upper-respiratory—that was good. As though seven moves of the stethoscope was the charm, Skinny shot up throwing Rose back on her ass.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Rose tripped over her breaths.

“Nice gams, Rosie,” Skinny said. He swung his legs over the side of the cot, peering at her from his drooping posture, head bowed, breathing hard.

Rose’s dress had shimmied up her thighs to her garters. She scrambled to her feet and smoothed her dress. “I don’t have time for this shit,” Rose said. “Bonaroti called, squawking about how you had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.”

“Nah-uh, he said that? That man’s an alarmist.” Skinny said.

“People are getting sick. Schmidt nearly died today.”

“I heard.” Skinny rattled off the list of mostly men who were having trouble breathing that day. Rose knew these men all had compromised health before, before, what? Rose shook her head, she knew what before was. The fog. The money made from three miles of thriving mills was a trade-off, the smoke, a sign of success and pride. Some people were weaker than others, but Rose knew a good life was better than a long one.

“Well I’m glad I’m not counting on you to mourn my almost death some day.”

“You’ll outlast us all, Rosie.”

“Oh Christ, I hope not.”

The valley was always foggy and its men were strong, the strongest of their kind. Yes, the soot was a nuisance, making three times the work that other women had on a daily basis. Yes, the men did bone-crunching work, but they were born of steel, even the ones who emigrated from other countries, even those fellas had steel in their blood, strength like no other, or they would not have found their way to a place like Donora to do work like they did. People just end up where they’re supposed to be.

“What?” Skinny clapped his hands in front of Rose’s face. “People end up where they’re supposed to be? What in hell’s half acre are yunz muttering about?”

Rose shook her head—she didn’t realize she had spoken aloud her thoughts. She put the stethoscope into her ears, ordered Skinny to relax, and placed the metal face along several spots on his back. Skinny rambled about some fellas from Pittsburgh busting several bar stools earlier that day. Rose was satisfied with Skinny’s pink color, but warned him to take his history seriously, to call right away if he experienced any more trouble.

“Now get on out there and have a drink, Rosie. On me. I’m great. Thought I took a heart attack, but as soon as I laid down and napped, I got back to normal.”

A wall-shattering crash made Skinny and Rose leap. The storage room door had flown open. Rose thought something had exploded, and headed, cautiously that way. Skinny tried to grab her hand and pull her back, but Rose wiggled loose from his grip. Laughter and the sound of cards being shuffled drew Rose closer. Once she could see into the space, she peered at a circular table, five men, cigars in mouth, cards in hand, drinks on the table and floosies draped around the room.

Rose smoothed her hair, staring. She couldn’t rip her gaze from the women—their dyed flaxen hair, beet-red lips and curve hugging clothing. She nearly overlooked one of the men.

Rose’s heart thumped so hard she grabbed her chest.

Buzzy. Sitting there, cards fanned in his paws. He flipped her that patronizing grin, some vixen on his lap. Rose couldn’t believe what she was seeing, her eyes focusing on who was standing behind him. Dottie Shaginaw?

“Buzzy Pavlesic!” Rose bellowed and cut across the floor to the doorway. At the threshold, she stopped short. Two other men were familiar, Mr. Adamchek, the man she had a run-in with at Isaly’s that day, and Mr. Saltz, the neighbor man who abused his poor missus. The look of the third man made her recoil; that guy and two others, she’d never seen before.

They sat like fat pigs, their hands working their cards without looking down. They were too busy smirking at Rose, gambling away their incomes without a thought for their loved ones.

She felt enraged and disappointed at the same time.

Rose stepped toward the doorway, ready to rip Buzzy from his seat and drag him home to explain to Sara Clara and the rest of them what he’d been up to, but Adamchek lifted his ripped, booted foot and kicked the door shut on her nose.

Rose reached up and pounded on it, hearing a lock slide closed and laughter erupt behind it. She leaned her forehead against the door; all her dreams for a new home were disappearing on the other side of it. And Sara Clara—Rose felt instant regret for how hard she’d been on her since they’d moved north.

Was this why Sara Clara could only get out of bed every other day, was so frightened all the time? Most likely Sara Clara had no idea what Buzzy was doing, just that he wasn’t where he should be. Rose pounded on the storage room door again, but no one answered and she felt the angry blood, numb her limbs.

A gruff voice called her name from the doorway. A barrel-chested, crew-cutted man appeared with forearms that told the tale of his years working up from a laborer to wire-puller, to boss in the mill. Jack Dunley shook Rose’s hand and slapped her between the shoulder blades. Skinny pushed up off the cot and lumbered out the door, taking his spot behind the bar.

Rose tensed and looked back toward the door that hid Buzzy. There was no way in. It wasn’t like this was the only spot in town where men were drinking and gambling away their livelihoods. Skinny wouldn’t make them open it. She would deal with Buzzy later.

Jack guided her toward the bar and pulled out a stool. He patted the round seat. “Get on up there, Missy. Yunz could use a stiff one.”

Rose should have left; she had too much work waiting for her, a daughter to handle, a secretive husband, and a wayward son. “Written all over my face, is it?”

“I just know the feeling, is all, I’m saying,” Jack said.

Again, she thought of laundry, dusting, cleaning her instruments, Henry, John, Magdalena. “I
could
use a stiff one.”

“Sometimes you just need a goddamn drink.” Jack pushed his fist into the air. “Skinny, my man! Two shots, two beers. Yesterday.”

Jack scratched his five o’clock shadow. Rose hated the sandpaper sound it made. It reminded her of the orphanage. She backed away.

His hands flew into the air like he was signaling a touchdown, his eyes bugging out. “Goddammit, just sit, Rose.” He pushed her onto the barstool.