Authors: Eileen Goudge
Tags: #Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Family Life, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Sagas, #General
a pretty good mood then. Besides, she hasn’t seen the baby.”
Marie frowned. “What’s the point? We’d just get into a fight, like always. Nothing’s changed.
If anything, she’s worse since she got sick. Jesus Christ, I don’t know how you stand it.”
Rose wanted to scream out,
I don’t know how I stand it either. It’s worse than you can possibly
imagine. But who else is there?
But she held herself in. No use unloading on Marie. She shrugged, and said quietly, “I have
to.”
Rose held her sister’s gaze. She stared into eyes the same odd [98] pale blue as Nonnie’s, but
more human, a glimpse into the heart that lay beneath her tough brittle shell.
“I always envied you,” Marie said in a voice that was softer, more earnest than her usual one.
“You’re stronger. Smarter. Not like Clare and me. We took the easy way out.” Her hand shot out,
thin cold fingers gripping Rose’s wrist. “Don’t let her beat you, Rose. Don’t ever give up.”
Rose drew back, thrown off balance. She was astonished. Marie? Envious of
her
?
“Shit.”
Pete’s cry tore her attention from Marie. Rose turned, saw him staring angrily at his car, a
battered green Valiant speckled with rust. A ticket flapped under one windshield wiper.
He ripped it free, then turned to deliver a savage kick to the red-tagged parking meter. “Two
minutes, those bastards. They couldna give us two more fuckin’ minutes.”
“C’mon, Pete, no sense gettin’ all worked up about it now,” Marie cajoled wearily. “There’s
nothin’ we can do.” She turned back to Rose, giving her hand a quick little squeeze. “Hey, listen,
thanks, for the ... you know. Every little bit helps. Come see us sometime, anytime, I’m always
home. Hell, where else would I be?” She jerked her head toward the church entrance. “Say
goodbye to the Blessed Virgin for me, will you? I’m not up to it. One more minute of staring into
that halo of hers and I’ll go blind.”
Like an alleycat landing on its feet, Marie was her old self again, leaving Rose wondering if
she had imagined the other Marie of a moment ago.
Rose couldn’t help but laugh. It
was
true about Clare. Yet she felt ashamed somehow, having
such uncharitable thoughts right here on the steps of Holy Martyrs.
“I will,” Rose promised. She kissed Marie’s cold cheek, and waved to Pete, who was already in
the car, gunning the engine.
She felt torn between loving her sister, and wanting to throttle her.
Now to deal with Clare, as if she didn’t already have enough to handle. Sweet, saintly, helpless
Clare. She watched her sister emerge from the church, screwing her face against the harsh light
like a baby, her petulant child’s mouth rounding in a small
O
of disappointment when she saw
that Marie had gone.
[99] “Marie couldn’t wait,” Rose told her. “She was in some kind of hurry.”
“Oh, my fault,” Clare answered cheerfully. “Father and I got so caught up, we lost track of the
time. I’m afraid we had a little disagreement. Father thinks it’s bad for the Church, this Vatican
Council of Pope Paul’s. I didn’t think so at first, but I suppose Father must be right. ...”
Rose felt a prickle of irritation. Why didn’t Clare ever hold out for her own opinions? They
should have taken some of the starch from her wimple and put it in her backbone.
She checked her watch. “We have plenty of time before your bus. Why not come back to the
apartment? Nonnie would like that.”
“Nonnie, yes.” Clare nodded. “You know, Rose, I say a rosary for her every day, and I’ve
asked Father Laughlin to include her in the daily blessing.”
A foul taste came into Rose’s mouth, as if she’d eaten too many sweets. How easy it was for
Clare, with her rosary beads. Rose could almost hear their gentle clicking in her head. How nice,
to kneel in the cool quiet of a church, ticking off your worries one by one, while others sweated.
Rose, resentment simmering inside her, strode down the steps, up the sidewalk, not looking to
see if Clare was following, not caring.
Then Clare’s voice was beside her, a bit out of breath, wafting on a cloud of white steam like
the Holy Ghost. “God is with you, Rose. He hears your prayers. He won’t forget you.”
Suddenly Rose felt the urge to hit her sister. “Did you hear what happened to Buddy
Mendoza?” Buddy used to live next door, an old schoolmate of Brian’s.
Clare’s face, pink with cold, turned a slapped-looking red. It was no secret she’d had a crush on
Buddy once—until Nonnie’d found out, and put an end to it.
“Buddy? He ... he went into the Army, didn’t he?”
“He was in Vietnam. They shipped him home last month ... what was left anyway. His face
was blown away, I heard. And most of his brain. They keep him alive with machines.”
Rose heard the sharp intake of Clare’s breath, saw her make the sign of the cross. And was
instantly ashamed. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling unbearably guilty. Ugly, that’s what
she was becoming. Ugly and mean, just like Nonnie.
[100] Avenue K now. They were passing Suds ’n’ Duds, where she washed Nonnie’s soiled
sheets every Saturday, and Eva’s beauty shop next door, with its row of dusty plants in the
window, where she took Nonnie for a wash and set while the laundry spun in the big blue dryers.
God, deliver me from evil,
she prayed silently.
Then, turning up the brick pathway to their apartment building, into the dark lobby smelling of
pine disinfectant.
Trudging up the long flights, Rose imagined the worst, as always, Nonnie dead, another stroke.
She felt a moment of dizzying hope, followed by crashing guilt. How could she
wish
her own
grandmother dead?
Rose turned her key, and held the door open to let Clare in ahead of her.
Then suddenly Clare was screaming, a shrill piping sound.
Rose pushed ahead of her into the living room, dark, lit only by the ghostly glare of the
television set, a nauseating smell rising up, gagging her, like the stink of an overflowed toilet.
Mother of God, what
—
?
Then she saw. Nonnie. Sprawled face down on the plastic runner that ran diagonally across the
living-room carpet, her quilted pink robe flapped open to reveal the thin white sticks of her legs.
Dead? Oh God, no. And she’d
caused
it, by wishing it.
Rose knelt, light-headed with a mixture of fear and wild hope, as she grasped the wrist that was
no more than a shank of bone draped in loose, sliding flesh.
Then Nonnie stirred, moaning. The horrible swamp smell was stronger now, making Rose want
to vomit.
Swallowing hard, Rose thought:
Oh Lord, she couldn’t make it to the bathroom so she went in
her pants. She must have fallen trying to get there. Damn Mrs. Slatsky for leaving her alone.
The squawking of the TV seemed suddenly too loud, as if the volume had been turned up all
the way, making Rose’s head throb. Some stupid game show. A lady in a gorilla suit jumping up
and down and screaming over the refrigerator she’d won.
Rose wanted to scream too, or to laugh madly. This was
her
prize, the rubber chicken behind
Door Number Three. A mean old lady lying in her own shit.
She twisted to look up at Clare. “Help me get her up.”
[101] But Clare just stood there, fidgeting with the rosary beads that dangled from her waist,
blue eyes wide and blank. Her round baby face frozen in disgust.
“Clare!”
“Do ... do you think we should move her?” Clare fluted anxiously. “Suppose something’s
broken.”
Nonnie was stirring now, trying to sit up. Rose slid an arm under her shoulders, and managed
to hoist her to her feet single-handedly. She wasn’t heavy; it was like lifting a bundle of dry
leaves, damp and rotting underneath. Saliva dribbled from the sunken corner of her mouth, as
Nonnie wrestled with the guttural sounds in her throat, struggling to shape them into words.
Damn Clare and her rosaries. Why didn’t she help?
Anger fueled Rose, made her strong. Supporting the old woman, she managed to drag Nonnie
to the bathroom. She wrestled her out of her robe, and somehow got her into the tub. She cranked
on the water, and reached into the cupboard for a washcloth. Now came the disgusting chore of
washing her.
Just don’t think about it. Thinking makes it worse.
Rose imagined a giant hypodermic needle filled with Novocain, numbing her from head to toe.
She would go through the motions, but in her mind she would be somewhere else.
With Brian. Tonight. They’d planned to spend it together, and she would let nothing interfere.
Not even if Mrs. Slatsky couldn’t stay with Nonnie.
Brian had said he needed to talk to her about something. Something important.
Dear God, let
him say he can’t wait, that we should get married right away, not in a year. I need him so much.
A horrible noise roused Rose from her longings.
“Gaaarraghhhh.”
Nonnie was trying to say something. Rose felt warm spittle spray against her cheek. Nonnie’s
pale eyes rolled frantically from Rose to the open doorway.
“Gaaaaarrrrraaagghhaa.”
Finally, Rose understood. Clare. Nonnie wanted Clare.
Rose stared down at her grandmother’s withered, gray-white body floating in the dirty
bathwater. She felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach.
Nonnie didn’t give a damn for all the backbreaking times Rose [102] had carried her, the
grinding routine of feedings, and this ... cleaning up her disgusting messes.
She only wanted Clare.
And where the hell
was
Clare?
Rose found her sister on her knees on the plastic runner where Nonnie had lain, her lips
moving in silent prayer.
Rage then, so fierce, like a gale blowing through her, a roaring in her head, a burning in her
chest. She wanted to slap Clare, slap her senseless right there where she knelt.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the anger drained away. “She wants you,” Rose said, too tired
to fight, sinking down on the sofa, hearing the sigh of the plastic slipcover.
Clare blinked her eyes open, and smiled, as sweet and blameless as a baby awakening from a
nap. “Yes ... of course.” She rose, smoothing her skirt, moving soundlessly into the next room on
her thick crepe-soled nun’s shoes.
Think about Brian,
Rose willed herself, dropping her head into her clenched hands, struggling
to shut out the smells and the wild shrieking laughter of the television.
Soon it’ll be just us.
Always ...
Rose was floating.
Far from her grandmother, and the hellish apartment on Avenue K. Far from anything and
everything that caused her pain.
In the warm hollow their bodies made under the covers, Brian’s long frame stretched loose
alongside her, she felt herself drifting on the gentle swells of his breathing, the pumping of his
heart. Safe. Peaceful.
Brian, sweet Brian. Her lover. How strange it had seemed in the beginning, thinking of him
that way. She remembered her pleasure the first time, her sickening guilt, then bursting into tears.
And Brian, distraught, thinking he’d hurt her. Each of them reassuring the other, and then
somehow they were doing it all over again.
Nine years ago. Mother of God, had it really been that long?
Rose had stopped going to Confession after that. What was the use? No point in telling God
she was sorry, when she knew perfectly well she was going to keep right on doing it. And how
could she stop? Loving Brian was the only thing that kept her alive.
[103] She could only hope that God, in His infinite mercy, would somehow understand and
forgive her.
Rose shifted, propping herself up on her elbow so that she was facing him. Over the ridge of
his shoulder, she could see out the window, a street lamp glowing in a fairy ring of mist, islands
of snow dotting the South Field green. And off to the right, the brick and slate hulk of Butler
Library.
How many times had she lain just so, looking out the second-floor window of Brian’s Hartley
Hall room? Dreaming of the day when they wouldn’t have to sneak time to be with each other.
Soon,
she promised herself.
Another year at the most. Then we’ll be together, just like we
promised each other. I’ve waited this long, so I can wait a little longer, can’t I?
Her gaze returned to the room. A narrow closet-sized cubicle, its walls pocked with thumbtack
holes, and lined with board and cinderblock bookshelves, all jammed with books. The books she
herself dreamed of having the time someday to read. Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Joyce,
Baudelaire. And in the corner, on the scarred oak desk, sat Brian’s ancient Underwood, a pile of
typewritten pages spilling from a box lid. The novel Brian had been writing before he got buried
in the dissertation.
She had read the novel, and it was good. Better than good. Pride swelled inside her, warming
her. It didn’t matter that this bed sagged terribly, and neither of them had two cents. He would be
famous someday, she was sure of it. His books on shelves in student rooms like this one, beside
Joyce and Faulkner.
She studied his face. All planes and hollows in the shadowy half-light from the street. Sweat
gleamed on his forehead, the blade of his nose. She licked a bead from his temple, savoring the