After the Fog

by Kathleen Shoop

  Father Tom excused himself saying he would take a few minutes to walk the dog and check in at the church with Father Slavin.

  Father Tom shook Bonaroti’s hand and the doctor turned his attention on Rose. “I need you now,” he said. “Out and about. We’re having real trouble getting people to talk about the fog. I put together a force of twenty housewives—twenty and they can’t get reliable information! Even the mills and the union are putting ads in the paper to get people to open up their doors. That’s how much pressure there is to collect this data.”

  Rose shrugged.

  “This is what you’re good at Rose. We need your help. Please Rose, these fumes, this murder in the mills—”

  Rose stared into space, thinking about the ads in the paper and what it must have taken to get the mills and union to place them. Yet, citizens still weren’t talking?

  “Sebastian will never fund the clinic if I help collect information that links twenty deaths and seven-thousand illnesses to his mill, now will he?” Rose said.

  Bonaroti waved his hand through the air as though erasing a blackboard. “That ship has sailed. He’s made it clear he wants no part of funding anything right now. The missus had her baby and is confined and they’re talking about moving. There’s no money with the Sebastians.”

  Rose flinched recalling the night she breathed life back into Theresa. She had done something well, something right for Theresa, but in doing so she put off going to her son. She could not find a way to feel comfort in saving one child when she may have contributed to the pain of another.

  Bonaroti straightened his bow tie. “There’s a new government agency looking into the effects of industry on the environment. People are still dying, Rose. Another twenty so far. More will succumb. And the non-killing exposure the rest of us have had? Who knows what the rest of us will face in years to come,” Bonaroti said.

  Rose nodded but didn’t speak, numb, unable to feel moved by what the doc was saying.

  Bonaroti leaned against the sink, his hair flopping over one eye. “The People. People like Unk and all the rest. Four hundred people have been evacuated to North Carolina to recover, Rose. It’s staggering.”

  He rifled through his bag for his notebook and read from it. “Sara Clara from the South’s father agreed to find spots for all of them in Wilmington. Thousands—seven thousand people in this town have received care for the effects of that smog. Some scientists are saying these fluoride emissions, worked like nerve agents. It’s why we couldn’t hear wheezing in people who were normally healthy. It compromised those who already had problems, yes, but even formerly healthy people were affected. We’re thinking the trapped chemicals simply paralyzed their lungs.”

  Rose grimaced.

  He squeezed Rose’s shoulders and she looked away.

  “I need you to help interview the residents of Donora,” he said. “The nurses and doctors from Washington need interpreters for the Slavs. You could do that for them. Half the town is afraid to talk. They’re acting like nothing even happened. Others are angry and exaggerating facts. I’m hearing that the mills are gearing up to blame the weather, saying this temperature inversion alone is the reason for the deaths, not the chemicals from their mills. They might go so far as to say our own coal furnaces killed us if they’re pressed, but they don’t want to admit it could be gasses from their mills. If you go to their houses, people will listen to you. Please. We need all the data we can get our hands on to make a strong case.”

  “I’m not really feeling well, Doc.”

  “You have to help yourself, Rose. Help the people of Donora. Help Theresa. After all these years…”

  Rose stiffened.

  Bonaroti exhaled his frustration. “I’m the one who blacked out your name in the file, Rose. You told me the story about the orphanage, that you began your nursing studies at Mayview, well, it didn’t take much for me to figure it out.”

  He sat across from her at the table. Rose’s mouth quivered as she tried to control her body, her thoughts, her words. He couldn’t have figured it out from the file. She wanted to tell him he didn’t know what he was talking about, that there was nothing she could do, but couldn’t get the words out.

  She looked up at him, and felt a breeze from the open side door. Father Tom yelled that he was heading to the church. Rags the dog sauntered into the kitchen, went to Rose and sat by her feet. She dropped her hand and scratched the spot where his skull met the top of his neck.

  Bonaroti picked up the dog’s water dish and filled it. “John’s accident didn’t have to happen. He’s your son. Do it for him.”

  Rose shook her head. Getting a bunch of townspeople to discuss the killing smog wasn’t going to help her son.

  Rose cleared her throat, “How did you figure it out? Theresa?”

  “Since the first day you came here. I talked to Sister John Ann. She didn’t pull punches, that one. Your secret’s safe with me, Rose. Always has been.”

  Rose turned toward him. “You and I have shared a secret for twenty years?”

  “Seventeen or so. That’s what friends do, Rose.”

  Rose dropped her chin. She couldn’t believe someone knew she was such an awful person and never held it against her. Bonaroti had done something for her and she would have to do something for him.

  She owed him that much.

  Chapter 21

  For the first time in a week Rose washed. The simple act of bathing lifted her spirits and loosened the cobwebs that veiled her life. Rose would not start nursing again, even if there was clinic funding, but she would follow through on her promise to Bonaroti.

  On a typical foggy day, Rose set out, feeling this was one way she could repay the town that had opened their doors to her as a visiting nurse. She pushed on toward the Stewart home, though her mind kept returning to thoughts of her bed, the way she had hidden there, and wanted to be back there right now.

  By collecting data for the government, she told herself, she could help ensure that the killing smog never came again. Then, her reward would be jumping back into her bed until she could muster the energy and will power to make a second set of rounds.

  The Stewart home was on Sycamore. Tiny, bent Mrs. Stewart answered the door and smiled, accustomed to Rose’s home-care visits for her husband’s chronic bronchitis. But as soon as Rose said she was there only to interview her and to gain her help interviewing other citizens of Donora, the woman slammed the door.

  Rose drew back and shuddered. Rose glanced around to see Mr. Bratchy watching her from his door. He narrowed his eyes and threw his hand into the air at her. She buttoned the collar of her coat tight and started down the sidewalk, glad the clanging mill, train, and boat chorus drowned out Mrs. Stewart’s words and the slamming of the door for anyone other than Mr. Bratchy.

  Rose stood at the corner staring at her list of homes to visit. She ran her finger down the names, shaking. Her breathing quickened, coming in shallow bursts. She couldn’t do this. She loosened her collar. She’d had plenty of doors slammed in her face before, but everything had changed. She could not try to behave as if no one in town knew her family were frauds, that no one had heard she had failed everyone in every way she had once imagined to be successful. She wrapped her coat tight against the wind, and moved half jogging, half shuffling through the cold, back to the safety of her home.

  Once inside the house, she went to the kitchen and sat having coffee with vodka mixed in, waiting for the alcohol to calm her. She couldn’t sit still, but yet, wanted to hide. She went to her bed and burrowed under the covers without even removing her uniform. Her bed had once been her sanctuary, but no longer held peace or refuge.

  She threw back the bedspread and reached into her pocket for the list Bonaroti had given her. She stared at it, crumpled it then smoothed it as straight as possible. She made a deal with herself to do just two homes on the list today. She wanted not to care, but something would not let her give up completely.

  She redid her hair, brus
hed her teeth and smoothed out her uniform, telling herself she could do what was required of her. So, back out into the late morning, now clear of fog, Rose went.

  At the Horvat home, Alma allowed Rose inside the door. Rose cleared her throat, but nearly left when she couldn’t remember what she was supposed to say. She unfolded her paper and scanned the backside of it for the information she was supposed to convey.

  Alma Horvat stared past Rose at first, giving her the impression that she agreed that talking about the events surrounding the five days of fog would benefit everyone in town including the Horvats. But, Rose wasn’t far into her mechanical spiel when Mrs. Horvat threw her hands into the air.

  “No, no. I thought you come to discuss baby. My baby. We don’t talk about mills.”

  Rose’s eyes widened. “Oh.” Rose looked down at her paper as though there would be something there to help her through this. “I didn’t know you were—”

  Mrs. Horvath began shoving Rose out the door. “We can’t talk. I promise not to talk about mills.” Rose stepped through the doorway as the belt of her coat caught in Mrs. Horvat’s closing door.

  Rose opened the door and pulled back her belt, securing it around her waist. She felt the shallow breathing return and shoved the paper into her pocket, wanting to run back home. Two homes that day were plenty. But, as Rose headed back home, she began to pass some of the homes she had promised to visit, feeling a heaviness grow in her gut with every step. Rose stopped. She turned back to the Miller home and stared at it.

  If she didn’t do it now, she would have to do it later. She promised herself that after helping Bonaroti she never had to leave her home again if she didn’t want to. But, putting off what needed to be done wouldn’t make that come faster. So Rose trudged back to the Millers, talking to herself, reminding herself that she’d been yelled at, pushed out of homes and cursed at before. What difference did it make that now the insults seemed to penetrate her?

  And so she went, and at the twenty-third house on her list someone actually took the time to talk to her. A burly, unshaven, unkempt man raised his hands to grasp the doorjamb, his sweat ringing his underarms. Rose cringed at the odor.

  “No one’s making yunz stay here, Rosie. Yunz don’t like the mills, leave.”

  Rose pushed her shoulders back and raised her chin to make full eye contact. Part of her wanted to move away, but not because of the mills. “I know the mills afforded plenty of people a good life—”

  The man leaned forward, smothering Rose with his breath. “Exactly,” he said.

  Rose stood tall, refusing to be intimidated. The man smirked. “Rosie, yunz and those government blowhards can get the hell out of town.”

  Rose took offense to being lumped in with government officials. She’d nursed nearly half the town at one time or another and seeing her as the enemy was not acceptable. “You can’t just tell people to leave town because you don’t like what you’re hearing,” Rose said.

  “Then why don’t yunz mind yer own beeswax and start minding yer own family. Maybe yunz daughter wouldn’t be knocked up and Johnny a cripple.”

  Rose flinched. “Johnny’s not a cripple.”

  The man leaned close and Rose smelled the booze, kielbasa and his perspiration all at once. “Yunz are snobby, Nurse Pavlesic and it’s finally come back to bite you in the ass. Yunz ain’t no better than any of us, with all that education and shit. Everything always has to be yer way, doesn’t it? I don’t know how your people put up with yunz.”

  Each word he spoke pierced Rose’s heart. She’d heard a different version from her own family. But it never hit her so hard.

  Three small children ran up behind the man and hugged his legs, grinning as though their father was the greatest man.

  He patted one child’s head. “When’s the last time one of yunz guy’s kids did this to you? Go on, mind yer own ass and get away from us and the mills.”

  Rose watched the man lift the three kids up at once, and swept them into an embrace. “We’re happy. Steady checks, roast beef, mashed potatoes every night. That’s good enough.”

  Rose backed away from the door, and walked in a daze to the sidewalk.

  Rose stood there, heaving for breath. Neighbors crossed the street as soon as they saw her. News must have traveled she was attempting to coax people to be truthful about their experiences with the smog. She felt lightheaded, dizzy. Black and silver dots formed in front of her eyes. She rubbed her temples. She would not let herself pass out.

  A voice inside her head. Forgive yourself.

  She clasped her hands over her ears. “Shut up!” She looked at the house she’d just left, the crumbling stoop, the rotting eaves and rafters, such disrepair. Inside the doorway, she could still see the man with his children, their laughter reaching Rose’s ears. Even though the house was shabby, the home was alive with love. The opposite of Rose’s.

  And, she realized for the first time, she’d neglected the children who lived with her for seventeen years for the one that’d only lived inside her for nine months. Rose understood exactly what she needed to do to make her life whole.

  She could do it. She’d been a nurse, stitched enough flesh to know that even the deadliest wounds can heal.

  A family was the same, Rose told herself heading back home. Surely she could make amends. And not like she did in the past. She would do it a new way.

  When Rose reached the side door of her home she could hear an argument between the Saltz’s. The cries escalated to screams. Rose dashed across the street to find Mr. Saltz dragging Mrs. Saltz down the block by the hair.

  Rose could see her scalp pulling from her skull. Rose yelled for him to stop, and took Mr. Saltz by the shoulders and hit him in the kneecaps with her foot, throwing him off balance and he dropped onto his back.

  Rose kicked the man until he let go of Mrs. Saltz’s hair. “If you ever touch her again, Mr. Saltz, I swear to God I will kill you. Understand? I will kill you.”

  He struggled to his feet and Rose thought he would rail on her. But he stumbled away, as much from being drunk as from being shocked.

  In Mrs. Saltz’s kitchen, Rose examined her. Remarkably, the woman was no longer crying. She was shaken, but mostly, she was disappointed her husband had discovered the money she’d hidden for Joey’s warm springs therapy, money that would get them away from him.

  Mrs. Saltz shook her head in disbelief, “That man been in washroom only five times in twenty-two years. Of course, I think money is safe in laundry box.” She raised her hand and let it fall back into her lap. “One time he decides he need detergent to wash himself in face. Stupid Kraut. Don’t even know what soap is.”

  She winced as Rose dabbed at her bloody cheek. “But money now gone. Kaput. He drink it. Then he tell me he find it. He show me it gone. He no believe my lie about money, say it was gift for him, for us, for a house. He know better.”

  Mrs. Saltz shifted her feet. “All these people die, my boy he lay helpless in bed with the polio. In God’s sweet name, is this the way life should be?”

  Rose felt the weight of Mrs. Saltz’s words, the sensation of a woman who’d given up hope.

  “You have to leave,” Rose told her. “You have to do something for the sake of your children.”

  Mrs. Saltz shrugged. “Do what? You think I have place to go? Go where? Beach like your Sara Clara from South always tell me? What I do there? Sell sea shells to sea gulls?”

  Rose went to the sink and ran the tap, a corner of a towel under the water. She returned to Mrs. Saltz and wiped dirt from her chin and neck.

  “Yes. That’s exactly what you do, Mrs. Saltz.”

  With Mrs. Saltz cleaned up, Rose left the house. The police had called saying they had Mr. Saltz in jail for at least one night for public drunkenness and resisting arrest. They agreed to keep him as long as possible and Rose knew she might be able to help. She left the Saltz’s hearing Mrs. Saltz laughing at Rose’s suggestion to move away with her children. Like that would ever hap
pen, she had said.

  Rose crossed the street to her home and thought of the money she’d found in the house. She considered turning back and telling Mrs. Saltz that she had the answer to her problems. But she couldn’t. Deciding to give Mrs. Saltz the money, and put her on a train that night seemed like an easy one, but too much planning was needed. Joey couldn’t travel like a healthy child. There were so many reasons not to give Mrs. Saltz money.

  Rose’s heels clomped across the front porch, drawing her attention to how alone she was now that it were only she who made any noise at the house. Rose entered the house, shedding her coat and bag right onto the floor near the door. Rose certainly did not want the money to go down the throat of Mr. Saltz. She stripped off her uniform as she headed to her bed. Nothing good would come of Rose giving Mrs. Saltz the money.

  Rose pulled the bedspread over her head and curled into a ball. Exhaustion from having been active that day had settled in and Rose knew she could not properly decide how to help Mrs. Saltz right then. She crossed herself, but did not pray. Instead she hoped that somehow she would wake and find solutions for all that had happened.

  Chapter 22

  After her shower Rose put on the only clean clothes in the house—Magdalena’s fitted sweater and wool slacks and toweled off her hair as best she could. She decided to wear it down hoping it might dry before seeing her son. She ran into Johnny’s bedroom and grabbed his football. Maybe he would want it. Maybe he didn’t hate football as much as he claimed.

  She tucked it under her arm and stopped as she passed Johnny’s bed. The crumbled photo she’d found in his drawer was on the floor, peeking out from under the hem of the bedspread. She stared at it from the doorway, tossing the football up and down in one hand. She ran to the side-door and punted the football out the door, watching it roll out of sight.

  She grabbed her purse, the letter from Julliard and Johnny’s trumpet. She stood by the door waiting for Father Tom.