After the Fog

by Kathleen Shoop

  Rose inserted the needle into the epinephrine and extracted .5 mg of the medicine. She jabbed Theresa in the arm and plunged the medicine into her body. She extracted the needle and waited to see if the stress lessened, if Theresa’s body would fall back to the bed, her color return.

  Rose bent over, listening for Theresa’s breath, watching for her chest to rise, feeling for her pulse, the smell of camellia shampoo wafting in the air. The medicine had some affect, but something was not right. She closed her eyes and listened to determine if Theresa was breathing and her heart beating.

  Nothing. No warm breath on Rose’s cheek, no chest rising and falling, no sound coming from Theresa’s taxed respiratory system. Rose’s body clenched as she lifted Theresa’s arm and attempted to get her breath circulating again.

  She pulled Theresa’s body upward, trying to jar the life back into her. When nothing worked, Rose grew desperate, and remembered Bonaroti using chest compressions and breathing techniques on Schmidt the other day. Rose didn’t hesitate beyond that single thought. If ever there was a time to try it, it was now with Theresa.

  She lifted Theresa as if she were a baby and set her on the hard floor. She blew two long, distinct breaths into Theresa’s mouth, and her chest lifted and fell with each burst of Rose’s air. Rose couldn’t feel a pulse.

  Mr. Sebastian’s sobs cut through the silence.

  “Shhh!” Rose snapped, before blowing another set of breaths into Theresa’s body. Sebastian’s face went slack; his back slumped against the window frame. Rose listened and watched again for Theresa’s air, her fingers at Theresa’s neck, waiting to feel blood rushing where the carotid artery fed her body with oxygenated blood.

  Nothing.

  She gave two more quick breaths and then felt down Theresa’s breastbone feeling for a good spot to administer compressions. “Sweet Jesus, help me,” Rose said, and delivered three controlled strong chest blows in succession, and then two more breaths. The sequence was repeated several times while she watched and listened for signs of life.

  Nothing.

  But, Rose noticed Theresa’s lips grew pinker. “Sweet holy Jesus,” she said again and put her weight on Theresa’s chest again.

  “Stop that!” Sebastian’s high-pitched scream startled Rose.

  She hesitated then began working again.

  “That’s my daughter you’re hurting!” He grabbed Rose’s arm and tugged her away from Theresa. Rose pulled back, wiggling out of his grip. He tripped over the rug behind Rose, giving her the chance to put her ear over Theresa’s mouth and fingers at her neck, listening for breath, feeling for a pulse.

  Rose’s eyes filled. “Thank you, Lord,” she said, and collapsed in joy on top of her daughter. Rose had breathed life right into Theresa’s limp body—given her life for the second time. Mr. Sebastian crawled across the floor to them, stunned by the sight of his daughter who’d clearly stopped breathing, now alive in the arms of her nurse.

  His face, drenched with sweat, as if tears were springing from his pores, reflected the awe Rose felt. Rose looked at the man and knew without a doubt, he loved his daughter.

  Rose rocked Theresa, buried her face in the girl’s neck then pulled away when Theresa began to heave and vomit clear fluid. Rose shushed her and turned her to her side, letting the liquid expel away from her body. Rose rubbed her back as she vomited again.

  Mr. Sebastian sobbed next to them, allowing Rose to work. She rubbed Theresa’s back in circular motions, comforting her. Rose watched her color fully return and when Theresa could sit, she reached past Rose for her father.

  And as suddenly as Rose had discovered that the Sebastian’s daughter had been her long lost baby girl, Rose realized it was not her place to tear their world apart.

  Sebastian met Rose’s gaze and he nodded as he reached out to his daughter, and Rose passed Theresa to him. He brushed her hair back, cradling her, whispering to her.

  Rose could not tell Theresa, anyone, that she was her daughter. She’d always feared she had handed her daughter over to someone incapable of loving her like she deserved. But, Theresa’s father loved her even if her mother didn’t. Mr. Sebastian’s affection was more than some people had.

  Rose rocked back on her heels and stood, her body rubbery. She gathered her instruments keeping an eye on her patient and her father. The shrill ring of the phone in the hall reminded Rose she had more work to do. Relief surged through her, knowing she could let Theresa be, and soon, she’d be home to her own family.

  The maid stuck her head in the bedroom and informed Rose she had a phone call—Tish. Rose nodded and glanced at Theresa and her father before going to take the phone call. She listened to Tish, hearing the urgency in her voice.

  “Johnny’s at the Witchey home. Dottie Shaginaw came upon the accident when she left her shift. She helped Henry get him there. There was nowhere else to take him. No one could get a hold of Bonaroti or you, the horse and wagon, or a car and then they realized what they’d done—just get the hell to the Witchey’s, Rose. I’m sorry about this. Really sorry.”

  Rose’s stomach turned over. “Tell me exactly what’s wrong.”

  “Just go, Rose. Just go,” Tish said and hung up the phone. Rose thought she heard the woman cry. Or was it a laugh? Rose was still unconvinced it was anything serious. It couldn’t be. She jogged back to Theresa’s room to get her bag. She took one last look at her daughter and Sebastian and ordered them to get to the cellar or to Palmer Park until the smog lifted. They needed to take advantage while Theresa’s breathing was normal.

  They needed to take advantage of everything in their life. Rose still felt hurt to see her flesh and blood living as someone else’s child. But she felt satisfied Theresa’s life, now, was for the best.

  * * *

  Rose climbed the railroad tie steps that led to the Witchey’s as someone opened the front door. The light from the house illuminated the form of Dottie Shaginaw. Surprised, Rose caught her foot and fell forward catching herself, barely missed striking her forehead on the next step.

  Dottie pulled her up.

  “I don’t need your help,” Rose said.

  Dottie didn’t respond but kept moving with Rose into the house. In the living room, Johnny’s gang sat—some with heads in hands, others fetal-positioned on the sagging couch. Johnny was not there.

  “There was an accident,” Dottie said, petting Rose’s arm. Rose snatched it away.

  “The boys in the car.” Dottie’s voice was calm and soft, as nurses were trained to talk. “The fog, you know. They were dropping something off at the hotel. But they were, driving, I mean and when I found them Johnny was staggering about, and another fool was driving his car and ‘course he couldn’t see squat in this fog and so I pulled Johnny out of the car’s path and when I did…”

  Rose could see Dottie’s throat constrict so hard a vein engorged in her neck and she had to cough to get a breath. Rose gripped her nurses bag handles hard, digging her nails into her palm.

  “When I pulled him back,” Dottie said as she demonstrated how she hitched Johnny toward her. “He stumbled and caught his footing and then, like a switch going off, his feet left him as though he had none. They just went out. He collapsed right there, like, well, I won’t insult you by spelling it out.” Dottie pointed toward the hallway.

  Rose shook her head, unable to fathom what the woman was saying, thinking Dottie was a worse nurse than she suspected.

  “He hurt his ankle in the game,” Rose said. “That’s what. I mean, you said you found him after the accident and he was walking around. Was he drunk? He sleeping off a fifth or something? You called me here to deal with that?”

  The harder Rose gripped the straps of her bag, the more her hands shook. What was Dottie, saying?

  Dottie looked down the hall and pulled Rose with her. Rose kept babbling, her mind unwilling to piece together the evidence, as she entered the bedroom where Johnny lay. Rose stormed to the bed and screamed at him. “You get up, Johnny! Yo
u get the hell up and go home.” Johnny turned his head, but didn’t open his eyes. Dottie had given him a sedative. Rose ripped back the blanket over his legs and she couldn’t deny it any more.

  The way his legs lay. No life in them, too still. She shook her head. Jesus, God, no. Rose reached to touch his knees, to move them around and see him respond, but she stopped herself before she did. Something kept her from touching him.

  Johnny can’t be paralyzed. As though she had the ability to scan his body, her body slumped at the realization his back was broken, that his spinal cord must be severed. That’s why they were all so panicked. She spun on Dottie. “You did this.”

  Dottie stepped back from Rose, shaking her head.

  Rose moved closer. “You’ve spent your entire life trying to force your way into my family. And when you couldn’t do it, you took the one thing you could. My son. What kind of nurse are you? You should have made him lay still.” Rose stalked toward Dottie, nose to nose.

  Henry tried to pry them apart.

  “She saved John’s life, Rose—” Henry said

  “Quit calling him that! His name is Johnny!”

  Henry stepped in between the women and stood in front of Rose his back to Dottie, shielding her. “The rest of the boys were unconscious, if Dottie hadn’t been there, he’d be dead right now.”

  Rose dropped her head back and wailed before her legs gave out and she fell to her knees. Henry stepped toward her and she batted him away. Henry looked over his shoulder at Dottie, just a glance, his body shifting slightly toward her in a silent offer of support. Rose saw it all as though God dropped the information right into her brain.

  “I see what’s happening here.” Rose looked up from the floor, eerily composed, so quiet that she scared herself.

  Henry bent toward Rose, his arms open. “I knew you’d understand,” Henry said. “Dottie was only helping.” He brushed Rose’s hair back from her face and tucked loose strands behind her ear. “Let me help you up.”

  Henry kissed Rose’s forehead and she pulled away, crab-walking backward.

  “Get out,” she whispered. She pulled her legs to her body, balling up. She looked between Dottie and Henry.

  “What?” Henry stepped forward, gripping Rose’s shoulders. She pulled away and kicked him, catching his thigh. Dottie went to help him up. “Well that’s the picture right there. The happy couple together at last.”

  “Rose, no,” Dottie said.

  “Get out. Both of you.”

  Rose could hear Dottie crying as she left the room. Henry stood, wide-stance, arms across his chest. His voice was tight and raspy when he told Rose he would not leave. He said she had no right to be cruel to Dottie or to him. Rose didn’t challenge him. She would not make Henry leave his son. Still she noticed Henry didn’t deny having a relationship with Dottie.

  For Rose none of it mattered anymore. That night she cut the tie that joined her heart to Henry’s as though snipping a thread from a cotton shirt. She was there, with her son, but utterly, fully alone. Neither Dottie nor Henry left that night. There was nowhere to go in the choking, wheezing fog. And Rose came to see she did not need them to leave in order to wipe them from her mind.

  * * *

  The hours crept past as Rose knelt at Johnny’s bedside praying. She didn’t have her rosary but she mimicked the process, sliding her thumb against her finger mumbling her soul’s greatest pain, desperate for relief.

  “It was my fault.”

  Rose jerked upward and turned toward the voice. Dicky stood at the door, Dottie and Henry beside him. Rose searched Dicky’s body for signs of an accident. Blood, ripped clothing, anything.

  “We were driving down Norman,” he said. “Heading to drop off that stuff to the Notre Dame fella. Johnny said he had to do that before we went to Webster to play. Said he’d promised you.”

  Rose flinched. No. She felt her head shake as she looked back at her broken son.

  “We were driving too fast, for the fog and all. We couldn’t be late for the show. Two fellas from a record label and the Julliard guy were going to be there. And, we cut over to pick up Pierpont and twisting around, near Highland Avenue, you know how that bend is.”

  Rose stared, wanting to comfort Dicky, tell him it wasn’t his fault, but her anger kept her where she was.

  “We couldn’t see a thing. The fog was thick as cement, the headlights reflecting the light right back at my face.” Dicky’s chin quivered and he broke down.

  “John’s yammering about some science concept,” he said between sobs. “Why the lights did that. He wanted to walk in front of the car to guide us with the lights off. Said we’d do better to go slowly. He’d guide us. You know John and we were already late. He didn’t want to blow his shot with the scout or the band.”

  Dicky wiped his nose with his sleeve. “So I, we…we let him do it. And another car came up, lights high and John ended up between both cars…” Henry pulled Dicky into his chest, holding him as he wailed.

  Rose covered her ears, she couldn’t listen, her own voice too loud in her head. Do what I say, Johnny then get your ass back here so I can…how had she phrased it? Tell you exactly what to do with the rest of your life? What had she said? But looking at Dicky, she couldn’t let him shoulder this burden alone. “No, no, no, sweet Dicky. It wasn’t your fault.” Rose’s gaze went behind Dicky, to Dottie standing at Henry’s side.

  Dicky pulled away from Henry, lumbered toward Rose and fell into her arms. Rose buckled under his weight, but she shushed him, smoothed his hair as if he were five. He curled onto her lap beside the bed, sobbing into her chest. She didn’t want him to feel guilty, but she didn’t know what to say to take away his pain.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Dicky. Don’t think that,” Rose said. She wanted to scream at them all. At Johnny for being the one to volunteer to walk in front of the car, at Dicky for being so stupid to allow him. At Dottie. At Henry. But mainly, she wanted to holler at herself.

  * * *

  “Johnny.” Rose’s lips brushed his ear. No response.

  She lay her cheek on his, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. He didn’t respond. She felt for his pulse. It was steady. She exhaled. He was breathing, but the sedative was doing its job.

  “Neck and back,” she said, her voice cracking, her head going light. Her hands shook as she touched his head, without moving his neck, but checking as best she could for blood or head trauma.

  “Johnny,” Rose said. She could barely fight the urge to scoop him up off the bed, to hold him. She clenched her teeth and began saying her invisible rosary, yet again.

  Henry stepped in and reached for John’s legs.

  Rose slapped back his hands. “Don’t touch him.”

  Henry squeezed his eyes closed.

  “Go do something,” she said. “Find us a way to a hospital.”

  Henry glared as if his gaze could strip her mind of all the events except the one that Rose had forced John out into the night to deliver the booze and food to the scout.

  Hours passed as everyone took turns dialing the phone to no avail.

  Rose paced beside Johnny’s bed, watching to be sure he kept breathing. She hated herself for not coming here first. How could she not have sensed the danger? Had she been that angry at him for disobeying her? Nothing she could do would fix this. In her gut lay heavy regret, knowledge that Johnny’s accident was her fault. And for the first time in well over a decade she realized she was not the person she had wanted to be.

  Chapter 18

  Sunday, October, 31, 1948

  By 5:30 am Rose had fallen asleep, kneeling at Johnny’s bedside. Johnny stirred and wakened her. She pushed up from kneeling, feeling as though her joints had been welded into that folded position, and noticed Henry asleep beside her. Rose patted Henry on the arm, wakening him.

  “Mum?” Johnny’s scratchy voice sounded. She turned and bent over, hands on knees, resisting the urge to move him or encourage him to move. Johnny tried to st
raighten his body.

  “No, no, no, no…don’t move anything, Johnny. We’ll give you more sedative.”

  Johnny squeezed his eyes shut; his face contorted in what was clearly unbearable pain.

  “Shhh, shhh, shhh. Now, Johnny Pavlesic.” Rose bent her head down and gripped Johnny’s hand. She began to talk to herself. He would be fine. Just because he hadn’t moved his lower body all night didn’t mean he couldn’t. Rose would not be dolly doom, she would wait to hear what the doctors said.

  “Lay still,” Rose told him. “It’s morning. Dicky’ll run for the Doc and we’ll get a truck and get you into Pittsburgh or Charleroi. Something…just don’t move.”

  Johnny’s forehead wrinkled up as his breathing quickened and grew shallow. She realized he didn’t understand the extent of his injuries.

  Rose tried to focus on her nursing protocols. How much sedative could he tolerate? She’d forgotten to ask Dottie what she gave him. She didn’t want to overdose him. But, she couldn’t process anything useful in terms of alleviating her son’s pain.

  A barrage of feet barreling down the hall drew Rose’s attention.

  Bonaroti stood in the doorway with Henry and, of all damn people, Adamchek. Why? Rose spread her hands in front of her, signaling she was ready for information.

  Adamchek stepped into the room explaining he rigged his truck. Rose searched his face for some malice, for some reason for wanting to see the Pavlesic family at its worst. Instead, Rose saw concern in his eyes. She would take his offer of help, even if he had accused Johnny of throwing a game just the day before.

  They quickly removed a door from the Witchey’s bedroom and in smooth, balanced moves, used the bed sheets to hoist Johnny onto the door. Everyone in the house removed his belt and used them as rope extensions to strap Johnny to the makeshift stretcher.

  Rose opened the front door and poked her head into the darkness, the usual mill sounds mixed with groaning tugboats. As they exited the house, Rose noticed the smog had grown even coarser since the night before, as if it contained sand. Rose moved her tongue over the roof of her mouth, feeling the moist, graininess fill her nose and lungs.