After the Fog (7 page)

Buzzy lit a cigarette and waved the smoke away from the table.

Each payday, Buzzy, Henry and Rose forked over their pay, into the family pot so that as soon as possible, each person could purchase their own home. Unfortunately, illnesses, Buzzy’s irresponsible ways, and a house-fire had filched the family funds from Rose’s open hand so many times she wondered if she’d ever have the opportunity to live the way she’d imagined.

She dreamed it so much and so long, she couldn’t admit it might never come to be. She thought of the orphanage, lying there as a child on rickety cots, slotted between thirty-one other girls, frigid breezes lifting thin sheets and keeping her from drifting into the safety of sleep. During those sleepless nights she formulated the life she’d wanted to live. And really, all that she desired was a small, warm, clean home, a safe home, filled with love.

Rose washed up and served the food, distracted by a spike of hope that Auntie Anna might be right. Maybe they did save enough money for Rose and Henry to buy their home. Rose plunked eggs onto the plates as the conversation drew her from her own mind.

“Having their ninth child?” Sara Clara squealed. “Why, aren’t they aware of
methods
?”

Henry dropped his head into his hands, elbows on the table, he rubbed his temples.

“What’s a method?” Johnny said.

Sara Clara leaned across the table, “Family planning. Margaret Sanger? Surely having a nurse in the family means y’all are enlightened on these matters.”

Johnny drew back, face crunched up.

“Marital Relations?” Unk’s gravelly voice cut in.

Henry shot his hands into the air like someone scored a touchdown. “Holy Christ! Do we have to talk about this?”

Rose cleared her throat, working around the table, getting to the bottom of the first pan of eggs.

“Humph. They could adopt the baby out, you know,” Sara Clara said. “Why Buzzy, didn’t you say that mill nurse Dottie Shaginaw wanted to adopt a baby?”

Buzzy looked at Sara Clara as though she suggested he lop off a limb. “Adopt out? Are you nuts? If you have a baby, you keep it; it’s not some extra dog for Pete’s sake. You raise the kids you make. That’s that.”

Rose’s careful plunking of buttery eggs onto plates faded to scraping burnt grease so hard that the screeching of metal on metal silenced the discussion. Rose shrugged and went to the sink. She tossed the pan into it and ran the water trying to blot out the conversation at the table for a moment, but then couldn’t stop herself from listening as the conversation resumed.

Buzzy stabbed at his eggs. “You know an adopted child is never treated the same as the real kids in the family. Better off dead. Besides, Dottie’s a little off center if you know what I mean?”

“Off center?” Johnny said.

“She likes…well, other nurses, if I could put it delicately, Johnny boy.”

Nonsense. Rose fumbled a second skillet of eggs, making it crash back onto the burner. The breakfast table was not the place for this type of talk—about adoption or Dottie. Diamond Dottie with a child? She was still a child herself, cocooned in her girlhood home, spoiled by wealthy parents, only working as a nurse out of boredom. If she really cared about people in need she’d be a community nurse.

But off-center? Rose didn’t believe that. Dottie was much too interested in flirting with Henry every chance she had to be even a little interested in women. And, she certainly couldn’t handle a baby. Rose picked up the frying pan without a potholder and dropped it immediately, bouncing some eggs out of the pan. She scooped up the eggs and glanced over her shoulder to everyone staring at her again.

“Excuse me. Sorry. I didn’t say anything.” Rose pursed her lips, irritated by all of them. She pushed the plug into the drain and filled it with hot water and soap. She shuddered as she replayed Buzzy’s words in her mind. He could be so cruel. He knew Rose had grown up in an orphanage, and had desperately wanted to be adopted. It’s not as though Rose were still in that situation, but to hear such heartless statements regarding unwanted children…well, Rose thought, unwanted said it all.

Rose shivered even in the heat of the kitchen. Was it the change of life already? She was only thirty-eight. She told herself Buzzy didn’t know what he was talking about. Trouble was, his ideas weren’t any different from most folks.

Rose was half-listening to her family when she heard Magdalena’s voice come over the din of the others. “Well, I suppose this is as good a time as any to say this.”

Rose turned to her daughter, rubbing her arms to stave off the goose bumps crawling up them. She wondered if Magdalena was going to request they all say a prayer for her and the test she needed to take.

Magdalena straightened in her chair. “I’m quitting school to start an apprenticeship with Ms. Hakim. She said I’ve got a stunning ability to sew a straight, tight line, that I could babysit for her in between learning to perfect my dressmaking skills.”

The silence in the room was as startling as Magdalena’s announcement. Everyone gaped at Rose, clearly waiting for her response.

She could not think. Her hearing must be going. She grabbed the skillet with bacon and stomped to the table and shoveled some bacon onto Sara Clara’s plate. She must not have heard right.

Henry cleared his throat. “If Magdalena really wants to be a seamstress, well, I think it’s something to consider. Maybe she has too many responsibilities compared to other girls, too many expectations that suit boys better.”

“She’s a big girl,” Rose said as she scraped bacon from the bottom of the pan for Buzzy’s share. “School is the first responsibility on the list of shit she has to do as far as I’m concerned.”

“She’s still a baby,” Henry said.

“I thought I might—” Magdalena said.

“She can decide,” Henry said, “if her future means four years of college with men who may not be ready for a woman as smart as they are. I understand—”

Rose grunted and slammed her spatula into the pan. “My daughter will not quit school to sew of all G.D. things. No!” Rose slapped the pan with the spatula several times, anger overtaking her senses.

“Hello? I’m right here!” Magdalena pounded her fists onto the table once, rattling the place settings.

Rose pointed at Magdalena with her spatula. “She’s still a
baby
! She can’t make her own decisions! That’s what the hell we’re for!” Rose wiped her brow with the back of her hand. This was not what she needed on a morning like she’d already had. She needed a swig of vodka, needed to calm down.

Sara Clara patted Henry’s hand. “It’s okay, Hen, everything’ll end up fine.”

Rose stared at Sara Clara’s manicured fingers patting Henry. Rose wanted to smack Sara Clara’s hand away.

“Oh,
now
you know everything will be all right, Sara Clara? Now
you
know, huh? A damn miracle, right here in Donora,” Rose said.

“Mum,” Magdalena said. “Just because I want to sew doesn’t mean I’m not as smart as you thought I was. It doesn’t—”

Rose smashed the spatula into the pan again. “It means you have nothing to your name if that’s the path you take. You have no idea what it’s like for women who are at the mercy of their husbands. You have never seen—”

Sara Clara tapped her knife against her coffee mug. “Now Rose, there are some things a woman simply can’t worry about. Isn’t that the advice I recently heard you offer?”

Rose glared at Sara Clara. What the hell was happening? She did not have the time to engage Sara Clara or any of them in a reasoned argument. She would deal with them later and they would do what she wanted because she loved this family and Magdalena would forget about this sewing. Suddenly, all Rose wanted to do was head off to the world of nursing, where nothing ever went as expected, but where Rose always had the answers.

“The Texaco Star Theatre’s on tonight, right?” Johnny said. It was just like him to inject some levity. “Eight pm. Maybe that blond sweetie pie will be back to sing another show-tune or two.”

Rose usually appreciated breaks in the tension like that. That was normally all she needed but her arms felt as though they were wrapped in steel, as though her body finally recognized the decades of tireless work she’d used it for and gave up.

Rose stalked to the stove and tossed the pan back onto it. “Serve yourselves,” Rose said bolting from the kitchen. All she could do was flee. She did not have the luxury of sitting around messing up people’s lives.

R
ose tried to calm herself by taking deep breaths. She stared at her bedside table, knowing the vodka was inside it, wanting it like a man wanted a shot and a beer after his shift. Like every Pennsylvania mill town, Donora had bars tucked between shoe stores and five and dimes, hardware stores and churches. No matter what was standing there, a watering hole of some sort was wedged next to it.

The men worked hard enough during a sweltering, backbreaking shift to justify stopping for a drink on the way home even if work ended at seven in the morning. Still, many a housewife met her husband at the gate on payday to collect the wages, to make sure the money wasn’t sucked back with whiskey and Iron City beer.

Rose couldn’t stand it any longer and yanked open the stubborn drawer. She was tired and the booze might slow her down even more. But she argued to herself, a nip of vodka might numb her anger enough to refocus on what lay ahead that day. She stared at the flask. She deserved a sip. She thought of the men who left their shifts. They loved a good boilermaker—a stiff drink that consisted of a shot of whiskey—glass and all—plunged into a herculean-sized tumbler of beer that they guzzled down as though they were stranded in the desert.

That was what Rose felt like, traipsing through the hills, caring for dozens of families in just one day. Her throat would be choked with soot after her shifts, and just like the boys at the mill, she needed a shot, but took it at home, at some point during her day. She would throw back the booze like prohibition was minutes from reinstatement. A nice shot provided cover from time to time. Or a tall cool one allowed her to blow off steam. Either way, the booze was anesthetizing, a gateway to getting by or getting through.

She reached in the drawer and ran her finger over the embossed flask. In and out. Rose drew deep breaths, unable to block out Sara Clara’s, Magdalena’s and Henry’s words from her mind. Why would Magdalena give up all that she’s worked for her entire life? She had a scientist’s mind. She was Rose plus she had the advantages of a loving family, and stable home, a sturdy path to academic and then career success. Not a young girl’s typical journey, but her daughter wasn’t ordinary.

Rose scolded herself, told herself not to worry about nonsense, that Magdalena was only momentarily frustrated and worried about her pending scholarship. Rose knew Magdalena was a smart girl, but she knew a lot of the world’s big problems stemmed from lack of education, more than a dearth of smarts.

The question most burning Rose was why Henry would pretend it was reasonable for Magdalena to quit school. He knew a woman needed her independence. The only way to guarantee that was through financial security. And seeing as Magdalena was not heir to a fortune, her mind would have to provide for her. Rose had taught her daughter since the first time she whispered sweet words in her ear: You are magnificent Magdalena, you keep your wits about you, you work hard, be great.

She didn’t have time for this. She had to meet Mrs. Sebastian, the wife of the new mill superintendent, at ten A.M. at the Lipinski home.

Rose opened and closed her hand around the flask of vodka. She shook her head, paralyzed by fear she’d take a drink; motivated by the desire for one. She closed her eyes, the events of the morning causing her as much anxiety as her ambivalence about taking a drink.

She exhaled her frustration, unscrewed the lid and tossed a mouthful of vodka into her mouth. It stung like an angry wasp and hit her stomach like needles. Her shoulders hunched forward and she resisted her gag reflex. With the edge of the bedspread, she wiped her mouth. Her heartbeat slowed and she rubbed her chest below her collarbone.

Rose replaced the lid on the flask and shoved it to the back of the drawer. She leaned over the side-table, gripping the edges. She wanted more. But, no. One shot was enough.

Walk away and get dressed, she thought. She squeezed her eyes shut.

No.

Just one more.

She rifled through the drawer for the flask. In hand, she unscrewed the lid and took her shot. The alcohol spread through her body. Magdalena’s announcement, Henry and Buzzy’s breakfast shenanigans, all of it made her think she was losing everything. She needed to employ logic and rid herself of blind uncertainty that only led to self-fulfilling prophecy. And, not the good kind.

She threw open her closet door and pushed aside her freshly ironed uniform and good church dress. She knelt on the floor and rammed three hatboxes to the side. Her breath short, she crawled deeper into the closet, groping along the wall where the side met the back and popped open a hidden door. Her chest heaved as she focused on the orderly rows and stacks of non-perishable goods. Everything was there in the exact order that she left it.

This stash of foodstuffs was as important as saving money, she thought. And hidden here, no one would find it. She ran her fingers over the cans of beans, soup, spam—anything that would keep. She would have everything they needed to survive if needed and she wouldn’t share a bit of it with lazy Sara Clara.