The Daughters of Erietown

by Connie Schultz

  He threw the rag into the sink. “Mommy thought of everything, didn’t she?”

  Sam opened the fridge and turned to look at him, but he did not return her smile.

  The lupines behind his mother’s headstone were limp and brown. Brick felt a silent reprimand in their lifeless stalks shuddering in the wind, as if demanding to know, Where have you been?

  He hadn’t visited the cemetery since last fall, when he planted the row of seeds for his mother’s favorite flower. He had planned to see them in full bloom, a blue and purple halo over her head, proof of his devotion. He’d let so much get away from him.

  He crouched on the grave and stared at the headstone. Specks of dirt had settled into the grooves of his mother’s name. Brick pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and dug out the dirt in the letters.

  ANGELA MCGINTY

  OCTOBER 12, 1898—APRIL 20, 1957

  Lillian had paid for the gravestone, but gave in to their father when he insisted she not include their mother’s family name, O’Reilly. So like Bull McGinty, pissing to mark territory that wasn’t his to claim.

  Brick wiped the front of the stone from top to bottom, and shook his head at the blackened handkerchief. Ten older sisters, and not one of them could be bothered to tend their mother’s grave. No wonder Ma was ready to die. Everyone she loved had let her down.

  It had been an unusually warm day for November, but the setting sun was no match for the wind. He sat cross-legged on the grave and pulled up his collar around his ears. He looked around to make sure he was alone.

  “Well, Ma, we have a boy now. I have a son. We named him Reilly, for you. His middle name is Paull-two-els. For your brother. His hair’s red, just like yours and mine. You should see him.” He looked up at the moon. “Well,” he said, his voice less steady. “Maybe you do see him. I like to think that.”

  He reached out and traced the date of his mother’s death. Less than three months after he married Ellie, Angie was gone. Seven years later he was still waking up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat from the same dream. He’s chasing his mother down a road. She is young, no older than Brick is now, but he knows it’s her. She looks so happy, her feet barely touching the ground as her long red hair flies behind her. She glances back at him and laughs, always just beyond his reach as he calls out to her. “Ma! Ma!” So often, he wakes up with a jolt, his legs tangled in the soggy bedclothes, tears rolling into his ears.

  About two months before Reilly was born, Ellie had shaken him awake from the dream, and tried to make him feel better about it. “Maybe your dream is your mother’s way of letting you know she’s happy now, and free. She’s telling you we don’t have to worry about her anymore.” He was hungover, and still felt guilty about Kitty. He felt like shit every time Ellie made an effort to be nice to him.

  God, he’d been an asshole that night. “You know what, El? Life isn’t a goddamn fairy tale, okay? And it doesn’t always ‘work out.’ Not for people like us. Every mistake comes with a price tag, and we can’t pay to fix it.”

  She had looked stunned, clutching her swollen belly. He’d later worried that she’d thought he was talking about her pregnancy. He’d been excited when she told him, but he was also heartsick to learn that she’d waited to tell him until she was almost five months along. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” she’d said, “in case something went wrong again.” Had he known, he never would have laid hands on Kitty McKenzie.

  He had thought Ellie was gaining weight. Letting herself go, he’d told himself. Going to bed earlier, too, leaving him alone with his beers and TV.

  He touched his mother’s tombstone. “My biggest mistake, Ma, grew out of that lie I told myself.”

  He’d started lingering longer at Flannery’s, and Kitty was always there to greet him when he walked through the door. She worked in the front office at the rubber plant up the road, and she’d always had an eye for Brick. Rushing up to give him a hug and then swirling around to yell at the back table of girlfriends. “I’ll be back in a minute, girls. Just saying hi to my boyfriend here.”

  At first, he’d pry her hands from around his neck. “You know I’m married, Kitty,” he’d say or “C’mon, that’s enough.” But he was the kind of guy who loved the attention, and she was the kind of woman who knew it.

  One night he came home from work and Ellie started bitching at him, first thing, about how she needed more money for groceries. How maybe if he spent less money on beer and bars she could afford to make something other than fried Spam and hamburger goulash every second and fourth week of the month.

  “Goddammit,” he yelled, slamming his lunch pail on the counter. “Like I’m not working my ass off, day after day. While you’re sitting here at home.” He heard a whimper and turned around to see Sam hovering in the doorway, staring at him—blue eyes wide, chin quivering.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” he said, glaring at Ellie as he pointed at Sam. He grabbed his car keys off the counter and left.

  As usual, Kitty ran up to him when he walked into Flannery’s, but this time he pulled her in for a hug and buried his face in her hair. “How ’bout we get out of here?” he whispered. She stepped back slowly and studied his face. “Go sit at the bar,” she said.

  He sat down on his usual stool. A few minutes later Kitty slid up behind him and slipped him a folded paper napkin. He waited until she walked away to read her note.

  1801 Stone Road, Apt. #3

  That’s how it started.

  It helped that Kitty didn’t look anything like Ellie. Kitty was a good six inches taller, with a waist so small he could circle it with his hands. He liked the way her breath fluttered at his touch, and how she writhed under him, arching her back and calling him the dirty names that Ellie would never say. Kitty let him shower at her place after, too, without saying a word about why. Finding Ellie asleep in bed when he got home was all the evidence he needed that she didn’t care.

  The morning Ellie told him she was pregnant, she apologized for how tired she’d been, how “chunky” she’d gotten. “You must have thought I was getting fat on you,” she’d said with a nervous laugh. Brick rushed to her and held her tight, afraid to let Ellie see his face.

  He broke it off with Kitty that evening, during a quick stop at the bar after work. “We always said we were just having a little fun,” he said as they stood in the back parking lot.

  “Did we? You prick.”

  Brick looked around the lot. “Don’t make a scene, Kitty.”

  She screwed up her face and started talking in a whining voice. “Poor, pitiful Brick. ‘My wife ignores me.’ ‘You make me feel like a real man.’ And now I find out you’ve been screwing both of us all along. So what if your wife’s pregnant? You think I’m just going to fade away?”

  “Don’t do something you’re going to regret,” he said, slowly.

  “You mean that you’ll regret.”

  “No,” he said, leaning in. “I definitely mean you.”

  She stepped back. “Fine,” she said. “You’re a loser, anyway.”

  Two days later, the hang-up calls started coming to the house at suppertime.

  Sam answered the first two nights. Brick winced at the sound of her innocent voice. “McGinty residence. May I help you?” Pause. “Hello? Hello?” Each time Ellie smiled at her and shrugged. “Just hang up the phone, sweetie. It’s obviously a wrong number.”

  On the third night, Sam answered again, but this time she turned to Ellie and said, “Mommy, I can hear breathing, but the person won’t say anything.” Brick started to push away from the table, but Ellie beat him to it. She grabbed the receiver. “Pervert!” she yelled, and slammed it down. She looked at Brick. “When did you start wanting to answer the phone?”

  From then on, Ellie answered the phone every time it rang during supper. Every time, she slammed
it down. “Who the hell is doing this to us?” she said after the sixth night.

  That evening, Brick opened the fridge as Ellie washed the dishes. “I’m going to make a beer run,” he said. Ellie looked at him. “We’ve got at least six bottles in there.”

  “It’s all Stroh’s,” Brick said, shutting the door and reaching for his jacket. “I feel like Schlitz tonight.”

  Ellie started scrubbing a pot. “I always buy what’s on sale.”

  Brick drove first to Flannery’s. When he found that Kitty wasn’t there, he drove to her apartment. “Go to hell, Brick,” she yelled from behind the door.

  He looked around to make sure no one was in the stairwell and pressed his forehead against the door. “You call my house one more time, and I will tell your boss that you’ve been stealing from petty cash. He’ll believe me, too. I’ve known Freddy since grade school. That cheap bastard will have you arrested.” He didn’t wait for a response. On the way home, he stopped at Cal’s Corner and bought a six-pack of Schlitz.

  The calls at suppertime stopped, but the damage was done. Brick was too nervous at dinner, too edgy. He started volunteering for overtime most weeknights and worked a few weekends, too. “I’m going to have another mouth to feed,” he told Ellie when she complained that he was never home. “We’re going to need the money.”

  On the day Reilly was born, Brick walked into Ellie’s hospital room and saw Kitty’s sister Lavelle in that nurse’s aide uniform. The look on Ellie’s face told him he was about to pay for what he’d done.

  He’d been prepared for Ellie to hate him for a while, and that she might even take the kids and stay with a friend for a few days. Never did he think she would see a divorce lawyer and send a deputy to the house. Brick spent that first night away at the Wigwam, but returned home the next evening to talk to Ellie.

  “You don’t have grounds,” he told her. “You can’t get a divorce without grounds. And you can’t even afford a lawyer.”

  Ellie was eerily calm, her voice empty of emotion. “I’ve got proof of your adultery,” she said. “Lavelle and Kitty said they’ll testify against you. And my lawyer says the judge will make you pay my legal bills.”

  He packed two paper bags full of clothes and left that night; now he was staying in the basement at his sister Gloria’s house, across town. “I’m still in shock, Ma,” he said. “Ellie always said most people were inherently good, despite the evidence. I’ve never seen her give up on anyone. Until now.”

  Brick had lost almost twenty pounds in the last five weeks. His work clothes hung on him. Whenever one of the guys asked why, he tried to make a joke of it. “Getting ready for next season,” he’d say, patting his shrinking gut.

  Some of the guys had to know about the divorce papers. Three of them were married to women in Ellie’s coffee klatch, and Jack Connelly’s wife sang in the choir with her at church. Even if she hadn’t told anyone, take one look at Ellie and you knew something was wrong. She’d lost a lot of weight, too, way beyond the baby pounds. Her face was gaunt, and her big blue eyes were rimmed with dark circles. Last time he’d picked up Sam after supper to take her for ice cream, Ellie stood in the doorway like a tiny ghost, avoiding his gaze. He felt like his chest was going to explode.

  He had to talk to somebody. It couldn’t be Coach. If he told Sam Bryant that Ellie wanted a divorce, he’d also have to tell him why, and the thought of that made Brick’s gut roil. He surely couldn’t talk to anyone at work. To confide a weakness would compromise his image as a tough shop steward for the union. You lose your power as soon as people find a reason to pity you.

  And so here he was, talking to the one person who had never judged him. He looked up at the darkening sky and blinked back tears. “Patch is gone, Ma. Did I ever tell you? Died a year ago in his sleep, right before Christmas. He had a good, long life, thanks to you.” He wiped his eyes with the dirty handkerchief. “You should have seen him with our Sam, hovering like a cattle dog. God, I miss him.”

  He shivered and pulled his collar tighter. “I’ve screwed up, Ma. I don’t know what I’m going to do if Ellie goes through with this. I don’t want to live without her. Without the kids. I’ve been so hateful, Ma. I get so angry. I’m afraid I’m—” He buried his face in his hands and started to sob. “I’m afraid I’m just like him.”

  He rocked back and forth for a while, his forehead against his knees until he could stop crying. He touched her name. “I love you, Ma. I wish I’d told you that more when you were still around.” He shivered and waited for another gust of wind to pass. “I know you’d say I should be asking God for help, but I think he gave up on me a long time ago. Maybe you could put in a good word for me? I’ll bet he listens to you.”

  Another memory bubbled up, from the day his mother died. Before Brick and Ellie walked into the house, Lil had pointed up to their mother’s window and said, “There’s nothing we can do but keep her comfortable. She’s in God’s hands now.”

  Brick spit on the ground. “Here we go again. God, God, God. Where’s God been all this time? Why didn’t God help her when she needed it? Why’s God taking her instead of that maggot she married?”

  Ellie grabbed his arm, but he yanked it free. “No. No, I won’t treat her nice because it’s what God wants. I’ll be nice to Ma because she deserves a better life than the one your God gave her.”

  Brick touched his mother’s headstone again. “I’m sorry I said that, Ma.” He leaned in and flattened his palms against the stone. “I just didn’t want you to die.” He stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants, and walked to his car.

  That night, for the first time in months, he slept through the night. Once again, he dreamed of his mother. She was still young and happy, still laughing as she ran in front of him as he yelled, “Ma! Ma!” This time, though, she stopped, her face turned away from him as she held out her hand and waited for him to catch up. “Ma,” he said, grabbing her hand. When she turned to look at him, it was Ellie who returned his smile.

  Mrs. Babcock closed the door and dragged the piano bench to the front of the classroom.

  “Children,” she said, her voice trembling. “I want you to put down your crayons and pay attention, please.”

  Sam had already stopped coloring the moment she saw Mrs. Babcock sit down on the bench. Her teacher had never done that in the middle of the day before, and Sam had a sense of things. When grown-ups do something you’ve never seen them do before, it’s because something’s wrong.

  She slipped the Forest Green crayon into her new box of Crayolas and eased the lid closed. Her father had bought the crayons for her three days after he moved out of their house. Six days after the deputy knocked on our door was how she thought about it, and she thought about it every day. Five weeks and two days later, Sam still had no idea why Daddy wasn’t living at home, and her mother just cried whenever she asked. If Mommy didn’t know why Daddy was gone, they were really in trouble. Every night, Sam asked God to please help Mommy figure it out.

  Sometimes Sam woke in the middle of the night to the sounds of her mother crying. Sam knew what she had to do. She’d tiptoe past Reilly’s crib in her parents’ bedroom and crawl into the space on the bed where Daddy used to sleep. Mommy still slept only on her side of the bed, facing the wall. Sam would cling to the curve of her back and hold on to her until she fell asleep. In the morning, Mommy always acted surprised to find Sam lying next to her. Sam never reminded her why. She just got ready for school, which was the only place where life still felt normal.

  Until this afternoon. Now Mrs. Babcock was sitting on the bench with her head in her hands. Sam loved Mrs. Babcock. She had been extra nice to Sam ever since Day Eleven, when Sam started crying for no reason and Mrs. Babcock asked her to stay behind during recess “so that we can have a little chat.” As soon as Sam told Mrs. Babcock about the deputy at the door, Mrs. Babcock had pulled her into the longest hug i
n Sam’s six years of life.

  “You poor, poor child,” Mrs. Babcock said. “You deserve so much better.” It was the nicest thing anyone had said to her since her father moved out.

  Sam hated to see Mrs. Babcock so unhappy. She glanced around the room and raised her hand. Her teacher looked at her with damp, red eyes. “Yes, Sam?”

  “You can talk now, Mrs. Babcock. Everybody’s paying attention.”

  “Thank you, Sam.” Mrs. Babcock crossed her arms over her bright green sweater and leaned slightly forward. “Children, I have very sad news.”

  Sam sat up straighter and resolved to be strong, no matter what. As long as the bad news had nothing to do with Mommy or Daddy, she could be brave. “Or Reilly,” she whispered, and silently apologized to God for forgetting him.

  “Children, an awful thing has happened today,” Mrs. Babcock said. “A horrible man has shot”—she clutched the single strand of pearls around her neck—“has killed our president.” She pulled a hankie out of the sleeve of her sweater and dabbed at her eyes. “President John F. Kennedy is now with our Lord and Savior.”

  Several of Sam’s classmates gasped. Sam was silent, thinking of President Kennedy’s picture in their house, and how Jesus was always looking at him on the wall. Maybe he knew something like this was coming.

  Mrs. Babcock waved her hankie. “I know this is a shock.” Sam blinked a few times, thinking of her father as she nodded her head. “Principal Ryan asked all of us teachers to tell you now because we don’t want you to hear this news from strangers on the way home. Our country is in shock, just like you. You may see Mr. Sawicki looking upset in his barbershop, or Miss Dunham crying behind the counter at the newsstand. Your parents might cry today, too. Give them hugs, and be extra good tonight.”

  Silently, the children collected their artwork and crayons and opened their desktops to stash them inside. They waited, staring at Mrs. Babcock, who had run out of words. Sam looked around the room. Her classroom was divided equally between black and white students, and she was not surprised to see her black friends so upset, too. If only Daddy could see how sad they were about President Kennedy. Maybe he would change his mind about black people. She would tell him. Might make him feel a little better, knowing how much everyone loved President Kennedy.