The Whiskey Tide (27 page)

     
"Sit here a minute," he said leaving her at the foot of the stairs. He went quietly up to the second floor and knocked at the door of the left rear apartment. He had to knock a second time before he heard activity. The door unlocked and Aunt Norah stood before him in her wrapper. At sight of him, her expression went from wariness to alarm.

     
"I'm okay," he said quickly. "I'm sorry I scared you. But there's a friend of mine downstairs needs help. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time tonight and she got hurt. She's afraid if she goes to the hospital word will get out and embarrass her family. Will you look at her? Please?"

     
He felt twelve years old again, as humbled by the need to seek his aunt's help as he was sure it would be given freely.

     
Aunt Norah's face took on a look of anger he hadn't expected. He'd hoped she'd assume the 'wrong place' was a speakeasy, but he'd anticipated only a rebuking word or two, not this dark disapproval.

     
"Hurt how?" she asked shortly.

     
"Shot." He swallowed. "I don't think it's too bad, but she keeps on bleeding."

     
"I'm not a doctor, Joe."

     
He looked away from her accusing gaze toward the potted fern. "I'll take her to the hospital, then."

     
Aunt Maggie's white head, fluffed by sleep, peeked around the doorway that led to the bedrooms. "Why, Joseph! What on earth?"

     
"Bring her up," Aunt Norah relented. "Just give me a minute to dress. Maggie, put some fresh sheets on my bed with that pad of rubber beneath."

     
Almost weak with relief, Joe crept down the stairs.

     
"I'll take you up just as soon as she's had a chance to dress," he said softly.

     
"Are all thirteen of them awake?"

     
He chuckled. "Those are the ones I live with. These are my mother's aunts."

     
"Oh. The ones who would have spoiled you. Is that how you're half Irish?"

     
"Yeah." She sounded lightheaded. He needed to kill a few minutes while Aunt Norah got ready, so he kept talking. "My mother was a nurse too. My father pretty near cut his finger off, and Vic, his brother, took him in to get it stitched. Dad yelped when the nurse started cleaning it and she told him not to be such a baby. Three months later she married him."

     
He was too impatient to wait any longer and took her upstairs. At Kate's insistence, he set her on her feet when they reached the apartment.

     
"Aunt Norah, this is Kate," he said as his aunt reappeared. She wore a dress now, covered by a starched white apron he recognized from her hospital days.

     
"I — am sorry for the inconvenience." Kate managed the words with effort, one hand pressed to her side.

     
Aunt Norah's face softened. Behind her Aunt Maggie popped into view. She had dressed too, and was surveying Kate with delight.

     
"Let us help you in to where you can lie down." Aunt Norah took Kate's arm with calm authority. "Don't use any of the water that's heating, Joe. I need it."

     
He went into the kitchen where two burners of the stove burned full flame under kettles. For the first time since seeing blood on Kate, he felt a growing confidence that everything would be okay. He was being taken care of by his elderly aunts, just as he had been in childhood, he thought ruefully. He went to the drawer where he knew he'd find an extra rosary and was saying it silently when Aunt Norah came in.

     
"I won't be able to tell you anything until I've looked at her." She turned on the taps at the sink and began to scrub her hands and forearms with a new bar of soap she'd brought with her. She didn't look at him.

     
"I'm sorry."

     
She nodded, the gesture partly forgiving. "You should use better sense about where you go to drink, Joe. I know a lot of people are breaking the law, but you needn't forget you've been taught manners. Just because a girl wears trousers doesn't mean you shouldn't look out for her."

     
"She doesn't usually—"

     
"Yes, she said something about her grandfather wanting to take his boat out and not having a proper crew."

     
It was the story they'd worked out on the way over. Kate had remembered. Aunt Norah poured steaming water from one kettle into a bowl and soaped and rinsed again.
 
"You can use what's left from this front kettle if you want coffee. Leave the other one to come to a boil in case I need it. Up in back of that cabinet is the last of some whiskey we keep for when Father Anthony calls. Put it out on the parlor table. Your friend's going to need it if I have to stitch her."

     
When he'd done as instructed he said the rosary through twice more, then sat with elbows on knees staring down at black and white linoleum tile. Aunt Maggie fluttered in.

     
"My, she has lovely manners, Joseph! Thanked Norah for looking at her... keeps worrying about staining the sheets. You can tell she's from a nice background." Delight with the whole adventure and her own role in it clung to his auntie as she dropped scissors and a thread with needles on it into the pan of now boiling water. "Norah's going to stitch her," she said importantly as she checked the time on the kitchen clock. "She said tell you the only damage was to the skin. She had a bottle of disinfectant she used to clean the holes."

     
"Holes?"
Joe lifted his head in alarm. He'd seen only one.

     
"One in and one out," Aunt Maggie enumerated. "Just practically right next to each other. The one out was where it tore." She checked the clock again, waited a minute longer, and lifted the sterilized items carefully onto a clean towel. As she started out, she patted Joe with her free hand. "You need to clean up a bit, sweetheart. You look like a train robber with that stubble all over your cheeks."

     
A moment later he heard a small whimper that pierced clear to his soul. Then silence. Restlessly he stood and got the teapot down. Aunt Norah liked tea when she was tired, and he was sure she would be from this. When she finally appeared, her movements told of exhaustion.

     
"Maggie's sitting with her for a bit. She'll be all right. The bullet had gone right through her."

     
"Aunt Maggie said."

     
"Dr. Mason had me stitch sometimes, so that's done right. I had nothing to give her, though. She wouldn't have the whiskey. Just bit on a towel."

     
Joe turned away from the thought of it. How could a fragile body like Kate's endure such pain? He'd seen proof of her courage before, yet was humbled by it.

     
"Sit," he said pulling a chair out. "I made you some tea."

     
"No milk."

     
As he set the cup in front of her he was startled to see the shine of tears in her eyes. The palms of her hands pressed fiercely against the table and she looked up at him.

     
"Don't you ever ask me to do anything like this again, Joe. Don't ever think I'll help a girl get rid of a baby, or fix her up if she's tried to do it herself!"

     
He stared at her, too shocked to speak. The tears that had glazed her eyes spilled over. She looked down at her work toughened hands.

     
"I had to once. A doctor called and told me to come to the rectory. I thought something had happened to one of the priests, but there was a girl.... It was a priest's child, Joe! I know it from how they acted. And he — the doctor—"

     
Her lined face crumpled, tears stuttering over the ridges. Joe reached across the table and caught her hand. She held his tightly. For the first time ever with his aunt, he was aware of being the strong one.

     
"I was so young. Scared. Of the doctor — the church. Too scared not to do what I was told, even though I knew what I saw happening there was a sin—"

     
"You had no choice." He shouldn't have put her through this, stirring old memories with requests for help he'd had no right to make. Looking at her familiar face, he experienced disquieting insight into how tough his two aging aunts must be despite their doilies and pots of violets.

     
"I've never told Maggie." She wiped at her eyes. "Never confessed it. How could I, when the Church itself was involved?"

     
"You've confessed it to me. Just now. And you felt contrition." Joe squeezed her fingers.

     
Her look was weary. "That doesn't count, Joe. You know it."

     
"It counts in war. When you can't confess to a priest, you confess to another Catholic. This is the same. God forgave you a long time ago, Aunt Norah. Forgive yourself."

     
She didn't comment. Instead, she raised her cup of tea and drank it slowly.

     
"Your friend's very nice." She hesitated. "How well do you know her?"

     
"Not carnally, if that's what you mean."

     
"It wasn't." Her face relaxed into something approaching a smile. "I'm glad of the answer, all the same." She studied him. "That girl comes from money, Joe. Her underthings were expensive."

     
"The money's gone. Her father died and left them with hardly a cent. She's taken it on herself to provide for the rest of them."

     
"How?"

     
"She's been to college. I think she teaches somewhere. And she charters her boat out. Runs it herself. That's how I know her."

     
"We'd let her stay. She ought to have a good rest. But she says she wants to go home."

     
Joe stood. "I'll take her, then."

     
"She ought to have something for pain. I'll write down what to ask for and someone can go to a druggist for her first thing in the morning."

     
Joe put an arm around her and kissed her cheek.

***

     
Kate was desperately tired of mustering courage. She had lost track of time. The drive to her house seemed to take an eternity. By the time Joe cut the engine and came around to help her out of the borrowed car, she wanted nothing more than to curl in a small ball around the awful pain in her side and close her eyes and not have to speak.

     
"I can walk," she forced herself to say as he lifted her out of the car.

     
"You won't."

     
He covered the distance to the kitchen door quickly. She let out a breath of relief as he shouldered his way through the screen door and used his toe to let it close behind them without a sound.

     
"I'll carry you to the top of the stairs," he whispered. "Where are they?"

     
Kate pointed, too drained to protest. At the last minute she remembered an important bit of information.

     
"You have to lift the doorknob," she whispered. "It sticks."

     
He maneuvered as noiselessly as ever Aggie had done sneaking in. They were almost to the foot of the stairs when a light flooded on.