The Daughters of Erietown

by Connie Schultz

  Did Rosemary lose control of her car, or did she drive off the bridge? He’d never know.

  Brick hadn’t found out about her death until the following afternoon, in the plant locker room. Gus Fazio’s wife worked in the kitchen at Sardelli’s and knew Rosemary well. She called Gus at work to tell him.

  “Ginny’s hysterical,” Gus said, combing his wet hair.

  What about the boy? Brick wanted to ask, his heart pounding. Did the story say anything about her son? He zipped up his pants and didn’t bother combing his hair. He had to get out of there. He had to know. He was barely halfway to his car when he bent at the waist and vomited in the parking lot. “Roe,” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Jesus Christ.”

  He drove twenty miles over the speed limit to the nearest gas station to buy a copy of the paper. His hands shook as he stood by the rack of Hostess pies and Ho Hos and stared at the front-page photo of Rosemary’s car dangling from the tow truck’s hook, its grille skimming the water.

  He threw a dollar bill at the cashier and didn’t wait for change. He drove to his son’s elementary school a block away and parked in the empty lot before opening the paper. He read quickly through the first part of the story. When he found it, he read the entire paragraph out loud:

  Mrs. Russo was 29 years old and lived with her 2-year-old son and her aunt and uncle, Elizabeth and Daniel Martinelli. Mr. Martinelli said in a telephone interview that they were “heartbroken,” and would raise the boy. “Family takes care of family,” he said.

  Brick pressed his forehead against the top of the steering wheel. The boy was alive. He stepped out of the car and this time made it to a rusted trash barrel before emptying what was left in his stomach.

  He had to see Ellie. Sam always fetched their copy of the Times from the porch and set it in his recliner so he could read while Ellie made dinner. Maybe his wife didn’t even know yet about Rosemary. He should be the one to tell her.

  He parked on the street in front of their house to avoid looking like he expected to be invited to stay. He walked into the house through the back door. Ellie was standing at the stove, stirring something in a pot. She turned to look at him, and didn’t seem at all surprised to see him. “Our paper didn’t come today,” she said, pointing to the rolled-up newspaper in his hands. “Sam checked.”

  “El, let’s go to our bedroom,” he said. She started shaking her head, and he held up his hand. “Not for that. We need to talk about something. Away from the kids.”

  When he said, “Rosemary is dead,” Ellie slowly sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “How?”

  Brick unfurled the paper and held it up. “She drove off the Clayton Valley Bridge.”

  Ellie stood. “Wait for me here,” she said, walking out the door. Brick could hear her talking to Sam. “Give Reilly some of the leftover stew on the stove, and let him watch TV for a while before putting him to bed. No later than eight-thirty.”

  Ellie returned and eased the bedroom door closed. “What do we do now?”

  They talked and cried through the night. By dawn, they had reached an agreement. Paull was not Brick’s son, and neither of them would ever mention him again.

  “We can forget this ever happened,” he said, the newspaper still lying open on the bed between them. “You always say you believe everything happens for a reason.”

  Ellie pointed to the photo of Rosemary with Paull in the birthday hat. “I feel sorry for that little boy,” she said. “Whoever his father is, he’ll never know him.” She rolled up the paper and handed it to him. “Burn it.”

  It was necessary, Brick told himself over the years, whenever he thought about Paull. He had to walk away. He owed it to Ellie and the kids to cobble their marriage back together and get on with their lives.

  Pretending didn’t mean forgetting. Every time he read about Paull in the newspaper, his stomach roiled. So much guilt, so much unearned pride.

  In some ways, he knew Paull better than he did the son he had raised. Reilly wanted little to do with him these days. “He’s given up on me,” Brick had recently told Ellie after another empty, pained exchange on the phone with Reilly, who had called to talk to his mother. Ellie had shrugged. “He took the other option,” she’d said, with no malice in her voice. “He needed to find out who he is away from the shadow of you.”

  Brick realized he had tried too hard to mold his son into the man Brick always imagined he himself could have been. Get the sports scholarship, be the first male McGinty to go to college, be everybody’s hero as a coach. Reilly wanted nothing to do with his father’s worn-out dreams. He was five inches shorter than Brick, so basketball was out. He had no interest in football, and he quit baseball midseason in his junior year.

  “You don’t just quit a team,” Brick had yelled at him the night he found out.

  Reilly had reached for his jacket and refused to yell back. “Every game, I’m on the bench,” he’d said calmly. “I wish you’d accept what I already know, Dad: I’m not a star athlete. I’m never going to be you.” Reilly had pulled the brim of his ball cap low over his eyes. “I don’t blame you for being disappointed.”

  Why didn’t he say something to Reilly in that moment, something good about his kind and gentle son? Why did he just stand there and watch Reilly walk out the door?

  Weeks later, Reilly had announced his plans at the dinner table. “I’m getting out of Erietown,” he said. “Jimmy Cannon says the carpenters’ union is training a new round of apprentices the same month I graduate.” He turned to look at his mother, who was sitting next to him. “You always said I’m good with my hands, Mom. That I remind you of your grandpa. It’s in my blood. I want to be like him.”

  “Sweetie,” Ellie said.

  Brick pushed his plate away. “The plan was for you to go to college.”

  “That was your plan,” Reilly said, tossing his napkin onto his plate and standing up. “I’m going to be eighteen in a few months. You won’t be able to tell me what to do anymore.”

  “Goddammit,” Brick said. “Wait’ll your sister hears about this.”

  “Sam already knows,” Reilly told him.

  Ellie stiffened. “What? What did she say?”

  “Assistant Principal McGinty thinks my life is up to me,” Reilly said. “She’s glad one of us is getting out of Erietown. ‘Don’t be late to your own life,’ she said, whatever that means.”

  Ellie stood up and started stacking plates.

  The week after Reilly graduated from high school, he moved to the west side of Cleveland and started his apprenticeship with Carpenters Local 435. Reilly was married now, to a teacher, and well on his way to making good money in construction. Brick was glad for that, but he’d never felt more like a failure for his son than the first time he saw Reilly’s metal lunch pail in the backseat of his truck.

  Brick had read that Paull Russo got married the year after he graduated college, to a bank teller. Had a son barely a year later, and had recently been promoted at the accounting firm. Brick pictured him walking into work each day wearing a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase, and nodding at secretaries who called him “sir.”

  In the summers, he read that Paull played in the same softball league as Brick had, nearly twenty years ago. At Smitty Field, too. The first time Brick saw the black-and-white team photo for Sardelli’s Ristorante, he knew without checking the caption which man was his son. Paull Russo, broad-shouldered and tall, stood in the back row, just like Brick always had. His hair was light, his face sunburned and freckled. He played right field, just like Brick.

  Paull was not the best hitter on the team. For the rest of his life, Brick would tell himself that was why he went to Paull’s game at the beginning of the second season. He knew how to help him become a power at the plate. He was doing what fathers do.

  In May, Brick clipped the summer softball
schedule from the back of the sports section and folded it until it fit in his wallet between the kids’ high school graduation pictures. He studied the schedule to figure out the best evening to show up. He settled on game seventeen, a Tuesday evening in July when Ellie came home from work, served a quick dinner, and headed to church for her monthly Women’s Guild meeting.

  Just this once, he told himself as he pulled out of the driveway. It was the least he could do.

  * * *

  —

  Brick sat in the bleachers behind home plate, fourth row from the bottom. He wore sunglasses and his old Mickey’s ball cap, the brim pulled down. The sun had given up for the day but left the heat behind, with little breeze to move it along. Brick’s shirt stuck to his sweaty back in the still air. A perfect night for softball.

  Paull was the sixth batter, a spot in the lineup foreign to Brick, who’d usually batted cleanup. He leaned forward and winced both times the ump called a strike on Paull. On the third pitch, Paull popped up to short left. Brick studied his son’s face after he pulled off his cap and threw it at the bench in frustration. His red hair was damp and gleaming under the lights, his freckled face screwed into a grimace.

  Paull struck out the second time at bat, and popped again to short on his third try. After the game, Brick waited for people to clear out before he moved. Every inch of him ached as he slowly rose and stretched his back. He pulled off his cap and slipped his sunglasses into his breast pocket before slowly descending, never taking his eyes off Paull, who had lagged behind to gather up his stuff and shove it into his duffel. Brick walked to the edge of the backstop. He shoved his hand into his pocket and jingled his coins a few times to collect himself.

  Paull shoved the folded bill of his cap into his back pocket and glanced at Brick. He grabbed the duffel and threw it over his shoulder. He took three steps, looked at Brick again, and stopped. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Nah. Just another fan,” Brick said. “It’s a great game. I played for a lot of years.”

  “It is a great game,” Paull said, “but you’d never know it by how I’m hitting.”

  “Don’t try to pull everything.”

  Paull stepped closer. “What?”

  “I said, don’t try to pull everything.”

  Paull stood in front of him and grabbed the shoulder strap of his duffel with both hands. “Is that what I’m doing?”

  Brick nodded. “You’re a good line-drive hitter. If you try to pull it, you’ll pop up. If the pitch is outside, go with the pitch. Go to right field.”

  “But all my power is to left field.”

  “You’ll get singles and doubles hitting it to right. Better than a pop-up to short, right?”

  “Yeah. Right.” Paull held out his hand and smiled. “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks a lot. I’ll try it.” He tilted his head. “What is your name?”

  Brick shook his hand again. “Good luck to you, kid.” He pulled on his cap and walked toward the parking lot. A thin older woman in sunglasses was standing by the car parked next to Brick’s. She leaned against the passenger door as Brick approached, her hands wrapped around a camera.

  “A Canon AE-1,” Brick said, pointing to it. “I’ve always wanted to get one of those.”

  “My husband bought it for me,” she said. “He always wanted me to have the best.”

  He pointed at Paull, who was walking toward them. “That boy of yours is quite the athlete.”

  She nodded. “Just like his father.”

  Brick pretended to look around. “Oh, I didn’t see him.”

  She pointed toward the ball field. “He was just here.”

  Brick stopped breathing as the sound of Paull’s cleats grew louder against the gravel. He pulled open his car door and touched the brim of his cap. “You have a good evening.” She raised her camera to her face.

  * * *

  —

  As soon as Brick saw the headline at the top of the sports page, he rolled the paper and stuck it under his arm before walking to the toolshed in the backyard. He strolled past the open window and the sounds of Ellie cooking dinner and nodded to Mrs. Atkins, who waved from her yard next door with a hand cloaked in a garden glove.

  He lifted the pot of geraniums and picked up the key, unlocked the shed door, and pulled it shut behind him. He reached up and tugged on the string to flick on the bare lightbulb, then locked the door before unrolling the newspaper on the top of his workbench. He smoothed the page and stared for a moment at the headline:

  PAULL RUSSO’S HITTING SLUMP GONE FOR GOOD

  In paragraph eight, he found it:

  When asked about his new strategy at the plate, Russo wasn’t giving up any secrets. “Let’s just say I got some really good advice,” he said. “From a real pro. I hope he sees this, so he knows I listened. I wish I could thank him in person.”

  Brick read the paragraph several times, rubbing his finger across Paull’s name.

  I wish I could thank him in person.

  Brick reached behind himself for the stool and sat down. He pulled on the string and bent over the bench, his hand over his mouth as his shoulders heaved in the dark.

  Sam glanced at her mother in the passenger seat. “What is it, Mom?”

  Ellie turned her head away. “Nothing.”

  “You were staring at me. You obviously have something on your mind.”

  Ellie shifted to her chirpier voice. “Do you think you’ll ever marry?”

  “Not this again.”

  “I asked a simple question,” Ellie said.

  “What you’re really asking is why haven’t I married.”

  “Well,” Ellie said. “Is there something you might want to tell me? Over lunch?”

  “Sounds like you’ve already heard,” Sam said, looking at her mother. “I’m not ready to talk about that yet. We’re going to lunch because I thought it’d be a nice thing to do on your day off.”

  “Interesting,” Ellie said. “Well, keep in mind, you’re only thirty-seven. That’s not too late these days to have children.”

  “I have four hundred and twenty-three children.”

  “You sound like Aunt Nessa.”

  Sam smiled. “I loved hearing about Aunt Nessa when I was growing up. I think all those stories you told me about her helped me decide to major in education. I’ll bet she would have made a wonderful principal.”

  “They wouldn’t let her do that back then,” Ellie said. “They couldn’t stop you.”

  “Principal Samantha McGinty,” Sam said, smiling, “coming to a school near you this fall.”

  “How Aunt Nessa would have loved that,” Ellie said. “You know how proud Dad and I are of you. All that responsibility. Makes me wish all the more you had a man who loves and cherishes you. Surely there’s one good man out there. They’re not all like that Henry.”

  “He’s not why I’m not married, Mom. That was a long time ago, and he wasn’t right for me. It’s not like I’ve been a nun. There are parts of being with a man I like very much.”

  She glanced at her mother, who simply nodded, waiting for Sam to continue. “There are too many things that can go wrong in a marriage. Most of my friends are married, and it seems a married life is never an extraordinary one.”

  “I never expected to have an extraordinary life,” Ellie said. “I have tried to live my ordinary life in nonordinary ways. I’m fifty-six years old, and I’m working in a job I love. I know that you, Dad, and Reilly just see me as a nurse’s aide, but I make a difference in people’s lives.”

  “Of course you do, Mom.”

  “Here’s what none of you understand. These people, my patients, they’re so scared. So fragile, sometimes—even the most important men in town. Just last week I met that man who—” She shook her head.

  “What man, Mom?”

  “I
can’t, Sam,” Ellie said, sitting straighter. “Patient confidentiality.”

  “Sometimes I wonder.” Sam tightened her grip on the wheel. “You have such a full life now, but—”

  “But what?”

  Sam sighed. “Mom, why did you put up with it? Why didn’t you leave? After she showed up at our door with that little boy.”

  Ellie looked down at her lap for a moment, then turned to face Sam. “We want to think there are rules in life. That as long as we follow them, everything will be all right. And then God blows up your plans. Blows them to smithereens. And you’re left picking up the pieces and putting your life back together as best as you can, because it’s not about you. It’s about your children, and the life you’ve built, and not giving everyone a reason to see you as damaged goods for the rest of your life.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “No, I’m glad you did,” Ellie said. “This has been hanging over us for years.” She turned to face the front and took a deep breath. “I need to say something else, Sam. It might help you, I think.”

  Sam looked at her. “What is it?”

  “It’s what I’ve learned about grief,” Ellie said. “Not just grief after a death, but the grief you can feel after something rocks your world. Grief is that monster that bangs at your door until you let it in and sit with it for a while. When you get bored with each other, the monster leaves.”

  Sam relaxed her foot on the pedal, and the car started to slow. “I never thought of it that way. How long does it stay? The monster.”

  “That’s not the question, honey. It’s how long does it take you to answer the door and let it in. That’s where the pain is. You have to open the door. You can always tell the people who won’t. Shows up in their faces over time. The longer they wait, the longer the monster stands in their way, blocking all the good trying to find them.”

  “How’d you get to be so smart, Mom?”