The Daughters of Erietown

by Connie Schultz

  Ellie shrugged. “I’ve opened my share of doors, I guess.”

  The back of Sam’s neck started to tingle. She would never have predicted this, the mother she’d always tried to protect showing her what she had to do. Long after Rosemary Russo had banged on their front door, Sam’s monster was still knocking. It was time to let it in.

  Lizzie Martinelli smoothed page seven of the Erietown Times on the kitchen table and stared at the two-column photo of Samantha Joy McGinty. She was dressed in a suit, smiling over the heads of a group of young children. A pretty girl, Lizzie had to admit; looked a lot like her mother, only taller. Same dark hair and pale skin, with big, almond-shaped eyes sloping ever so slightly, just like her Paull’s.

  HOMETOWN GIRL PROMOTED TO PRINCIPAL, FIRST WOMAN TO HOLD TOP JOB AT SCHOOL

  Lizzie tapped the tip of the scissors on Sam’s photo. “My Rosie was braver than you. She didn’t have a father at home, didn’t have much of anything. Got on that bus all by herself and moved far away to start a new life. Without your fancy degrees.”

  She stared a bit longer at Sam’s photo and started clipping out the story. Time to tell him. Time for Principal McGinty to know, too.

  Lizzie folded the clipping and carried it upstairs, hesitating in the bedroom doorway. Finally she could look at her husband’s side of the bed without wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole.

  She had only recently packed up her husband’s clothes, but Danny’s bedside table remained untouched except for her weekly feather dusting. The leather strap of his unbuckled watch was curled in the shape of his wrist, right where he’d left it on the evening of Paullie’s wedding. He was so happy that morning as he buckled on his watch and tapped his fingers on the crystal.

  “In three hours, our Paullie is going to be a married man. How ’bout that, Lizzie?” He was weak and rail thin by then, but liver cancer was not going to stop Danny Martinelli from watching the only child he had raised become a married man.

  A week later, Danny was gone.

  Paullie had a five-year-old son now, Charlie, who was about to start kindergarten at Westwood Elementary School.

  Lizzie sat on her side of the bed and pulled open the drawer of the bedside table. She lifted up the address book and pulled out the letter-size envelope tucked under it. She flipped it over: Aunt Lizzie.

  She opened the envelope and pulled out the two photos tucked behind the letter. She studied them for a moment before picking up the phone receiver and dialing. “Charlie?” she said, forcing her voice to sound cheerful. “It’s Aunt Lizzie. Has your daddy left for work yet?”

  * * *

  —

  Paull Russo walked into the bar and smiled at the old man shuffling toward him. “Hi, Mr. Sardelli.”

  “Vinny,” the man growled. “How many times I gotta tell you, call me Vinny.”

  Paull laughed. “Okay, okay. Vinny! It’s good to see you.”

  Vinny pulled him into a hug. “I knew you when all you could do was eat and poop.”

  Paull patted Vinny’s bony back with both hands and laughed again. “Thanks for that memory.” He stepped back. “So, have you seen my aunt?”

  Vinny tilted his head toward the back corner. “I can hear her.” They both turned to look at Lizzie, who was half-standing out of her chair and waving her arms. “Vinny! Vinny! Jesus Christ. Get your hands off my Paullie and send him back here.”

  Paull waved at her as Vinny leaned in. “Just a warning. She’s been here a good hour already. That’s her second gin and tonic.”

  Paull nodded. “Thanks, Mr. Sardel—”—he held up his hands in surrender—“Vinny. Thanks for letting me know.” He walked toward the back of the room. He kissed Aunt Lizzie’s cheek. “To what do I owe this rare invitation for lunch on a weekday?”

  She pointed to the approaching waitress. “Hi, Joanie.”

  “Hey, you two,” the waitress said, smiling. “You know what you want?”

  Paull raised his eyebrows at his aunt as he sat down. “The usual?”

  “Sure.”

  He smiled at the waitress. “Joanie, we’ll have two meatball subs, with extra sauce.” He looked at his aunt’s glass. “And we’ll both have Diet Cokes, please.”

  “Got it,” Joanie said. “Back in a wink.”

  Paull sat down, and Lizzie pulled the envelope out of her purse, setting it facedown on the table. “I have to talk to you about something.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Paullie, first I just want to say that your uncle Danny and I did what we thought was best for you. At the time, I mean.”

  “I know that. You and Uncle Danny were wonderful to me.”

  She ran her hand across the envelope. “What I mean is, we told you what we thought we were supposed to say. What your mother wanted us to say.”

  Paull leaned in closer. “Aunt Lizzie, what is this about?”

  Lizzie slid the letter across the table. “Your mother wrote it the day she died.”

  The lines on his forehead deepened as he silently read:

  Dear Aunt Lizzie:

  I’m so sorry. As Vinny would say, I’ve played my last hand. I thought Brick and his wife might take Paullie and raise him so that he could know his father. I was wrong. It’s Brick’s fault, not hers. I met her once before, but never mind that. She was nice to Paullie when I showed up. I think she might have done it, raised him. She couldn’t have any more children.

  When I was pregnant you asked to adopt Paullie and raise him as your own. I was selfish. I wanted him all for myself. I’m sorry I didn’t give him to you. But I’m doing it now. I’m not good for him. I know it now, and Paullie knows it, too. That’s why he always runs to you.

  I have $27.17 in an envelope in my drawer by the bed. I’m sorry it’s not more. You were right, I overdid it when I spent all that money from Brick in the beginning. I was just excited to be able to buy things for my boy, but I got that out of my system. Brick has stopped giving me money. I was hoping to start saving some of the money he gave me for Paullie to go to college, but now Brick says Paullie isn’t his. To my face, he said that. He knows Paullie is his. Even his wife could see it, I could tell.

  I love you. And Uncle Danny, too. I’m so sorry. I know this will make you sad, but I don’t have anything left in me, and I don’t want to ruin the only good thing I ever did. Having Paullie, I mean. If he never knows me, maybe he can picture me in his mind when he gets older, and he’ll like me a lot and wish I was there. Wouldn’t that be nice.

  Thank you for everything you did for me. Without you, I would of died in Foxglove. I would of wasted away there. I know you would say, well then Rosie just move away from Erietown and start over but I couldn’t live knowing I had a son in this world who didn’t even know I was his mother. I’m all played out. Please tell him I loved him so much which is why I had to leave.

  Love,

  Your Rosie

  P.S. When Paullie grows up could you please tell him that when he was 2 his sister Sam held him in her arms + sang him to sleep? She is a nice girl. Maybe someday she’ll want to know Paullie.

  P.P.S. Also, please tell Paullie it was an accident.

  Lizzie studied her nephew’s face as his eyes darted back and forth, line by line. “I don’t understand,” he said, setting down the letter.

  “Which part, honey?”

  “Your part,” he said. “Why have you never shown me this letter before now? And who is Brick? I thought my father was Anthony Russo. He died in Vietnam before I was born.”

  “Brick is your father,” she said. “Russo was our maiden name. Your mother’s and mine. Her father was my brother, as you know.”

  “And Anthony Russo?”

  “She made him up. So many boys around here were dying in Vietnam by the time you were born.”

 
Paull pressed his palms on the table. “Wow.”

  “I loved your mother like a daughter,” Lizzie said. “I warned her to stay away from Brick. But she had her eyes on him from the moment she saw that picture of him in the newspaper.”

  “Was he famous?”

  “No,” Lizzie said. “But he was a big ballplayer here in Erietown. Softball, like you.”

  “Do I look—”

  “Just like him,” she said. “It’s uncanny, really, right down to your freckles and red hair.”

  “How did they meet?”

  “Your mom tended bar here. Lived in the apartment upstairs. The way she told it, he came in one night in a funk and she cheered him up. But she’d been waiting for him to show up for a long time.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “So was she, honey. The one guy she couldn’t have was the one she wanted. He was married. Already had two kids.”

  He pointed to the letter. “She says here, ‘Please tell Paullie it was an accident.’ What did she mean by that?”

  “As you know, your mother’s car drove off that bridge.”

  “Yeah,” he said, slowly. “It was raining hard, her tires slid, and she lost control of the car. It crashed through the railing.”

  “No, honey.” She tapped the letter. “Your mother had reached her end. She wasn’t thinking right. I didn’t know it at the time, but she had given up. She thought she had failed you. The day she died? She had showed up at Brick McGinty’s house with you in her arms.”

  “Because he had stopped helping her with money.”

  “Yes. As she says in the letter, she thought maybe Brick and his wife—Ellie’s her name—would agree to raise you. But he kicked her out.”

  “What a prick. But what did she expect? He’d already denied I was his son. She says it right here.”

  “He knew you were his,” Lizzie said. “He gave Rosie money every payday to help support you. A guy doesn’t do that unless he thinks the kid is his.”

  “What changed?”

  “Who knows? Maybe he loved your mother, but he didn’t have the guts to leave his wife. Maybe he was afraid his wife would find out.”

  “So, I met my father?”

  “Three times. At the park by the lake, near the plant where he worked. Erietown Electric. He drove there to meet you.”

  “And then at their house.”

  Lizzie nodded.

  “When was the third time?”

  She pulled the photos out of the envelope. “Many years later. You were in your early twenties. Charlie had just been born.” She tossed one of the two pictures onto the table. “It was after one of your games. I had my camera with me. Don’t ask me to explain why, because I can’t, but I held it up and took this picture while the two of you talked.”

  Paull picked up the photo. In it, Paull was holding the duffel strap over his shoulder with both hands, leaning in to listen to Brick. They were smiling at each other.

  “I remember him. He’s the guy who told me how to hit better. I thought he was just somebody’s fan, a player’s dad, maybe.”

  “Right on both counts,” Lizzie said.

  “Why didn’t he introduce himself?”

  “My question’s different. Why was he at Smitty Field that day? Obviously, he wanted to see his son.” She slid the other photo across the table.

  Paull’s eyes widened as he picked it up. “How did you get this picture?”

  “I was standing by our car, waiting for you. He was parked next to us. He knew I was onto him, and he didn’t seem to care. I held up the camera, and he just looked at me. Like he wanted you to have this picture of him.”

  Paull continued to stare at the photo. “What happened to him?”

  “He’s still around. The newspaper printed a list of utility workers taking the buyout at Erietown Electric. His name was on it.”

  “Do you think he knew?” Paull said, holding up the photo. “Did he know my mother was going to kill herself that day? That she was going to drive over that bridge?”

  Lizzie looked up at the ceiling and exhaled. “For the longest time, I wanted to believe he did. That he was just that awful. And did nothing to stop her.” She looked at Paull, blinking back tears. “But if I didn’t see it, living with her every day, how could he have known it? I missed the signs. I feel so bad about something I said to her, just a few days before she died.”

  “What was it?”

  “Rosie had just put you down for the night, on her night off. She sat down next to me on the sofa and said, ‘This sure isn’t the life I planned when I took that bus to Erietown.’ ”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told her, ‘Oh, honey, nobody gets the life they planned. We get what God plans, and we spend the rest of our lives trying not to hold it against him.’ ”

  “Sounds pretty wise to me.”

  Lizzie shook her head. “No, no. If I’d been paying attention, maybe I would have heard it in her voice. The desperation. I thought she was just tired.”

  The waitress walked up to their table. “Here you go,” she said, smiling at Paull. “Two meatball sandwiches, extra sauce.”

  “Thanks, Joanie.” He slid the plate to the side as soon as she walked away. “Is that true, Aunt Lizzie? About me and this—this sister?”

  “I know she exists. And that she has a brother. Another brother, I mean. I don’t know about her singing to you, but maybe she was used to doing that because of him.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Lizzie reached into the envelope. “That’s why we’re talking about all this today.” She opened the newspaper clipping and handed it to Paull. “That’s her. Samantha McGinty, the new principal of Westwood Elementary School.”

  He leaned back in the chair. “Charlie’s school.”

  Lizzie pushed her plate away and waved her empty drink glass to the waitress. “Yep. When you and Megan walk your son into that school next Monday, your sister will probably be the first person to welcome you to Westwood Elementary. As I said, God’s plans.”

  He studied Sam’s face. “I know this sounds crazy, but she looks a little familiar to me.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that.”

  He looked up at his aunt. “What is it?”

  “First, I need to know you’re going to forgive me for all this. For not telling you everything sooner.”

  “This changes nothing, Aunt Lizzie. If there’s one thing you’ve taught me, it’s that resentment will eat you alive while the people who hurt you do just fine.” He slid Rosemary’s letter back into the envelope, and tucked in the two photos. “Now I understand why you harped on that. Because of what happened to Mom, right?”

  “Yeah. Well.”

  He held up Sam’s photo and returned it to the envelope. “Why do I know her?”

  “You were eight,” Lizzie said. “She was a teenager working at the old Otto’s Tavern. She gave you some crayons and you drew a picture with her. She had no idea who you were.”

  “Butterflies,” he said. “We drew butterflies.”

  “It was a long time ago, sweetie. Don’t expect her to remember.”

  “Well, I was only eight years old,” Paull said, tucking the envelope into his breast pocket. “And I remember.”

  Sam pulled off her pumps and continued to race with Lois Johnson toward the gym. “All right, Mrs. Johnson, tell me again, please, how this happened.”

  “As I tried to warn you, Ms. McGinty, not every family was happy about having to bring in their children’s doctors’ records and show them to Dr. Marino.”

  “We’ve seen an uptick in lapsed immunizations,” Sam said, “particularly in the poorer neighborhoods of Erietown. You know that. Children must be up-to-date with their vaccines to attend school in Ohio. That’s why I accepted Dr. Marino�
�s extremely gracious offer to come here in person and meet with each family, regardless of income. To avoid singling out anyone.”

  “That’s not our problem here, Ms. McGinty, and you know it.”

  Sam stopped to catch her breath. “What do you mean?”

  Mrs. Johnson frowned. “Please don’t make me say it.”

  “We’ve known each other for ten years,” Sam said. “I wouldn’t come to this school unless you could still be my secretary, you may remember.”

  “You have to admit it. You love it. Your father shows up and I tell him, ‘She’ll be with you in a minute.’ ”

  Sam smiled. “I do enjoy that, probably a little too much.”

  “And you wanted me, at least a little, to raise the quota here.”

  Sam stopped in her tracks and laughed. “Because you’re black? No, because I’m Lois-dependent. Nobody knows how to keep a school on track like you. And, yes, you’re a wonderful role model for most of these kids here who have never talked to a black person. So, you see, we all need you.” She pointed toward the gymnasium. “And now, it appears that Dr. Marino needs both of us, thanks to Jimmy McGraw’s dad.”

  “He doesn’t want a black man touching his son. That’s what he said.”

  Sam started walking again. “Dr. Marino is half-white.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Mrs. Johnson said. “I’m sure that’s what everyone sees when that dreamy root beer float walks into the room.”

  Sam stopped again. “Do you know, I’ve never had a root beer float that can walk?”

  Mrs. Johnson smiled wryly. “Give him time. That man’s got eyes for you.”

  “Mrs. Johnson, this is me ignoring you.”

  They rounded the corner and walked into mayhem. The line of parents with children stretched down the length of the hallway, their voices echoing off the walls. “Ms. McGinty,” Lilah McCormick’s mother yelled as she pointed up the line. “What on earth is going on up there?” Three huddled mothers turned to look at her. “You didn’t say we were going to be here all day,” Jeffrey Lovett’s mom said as she held on to her wriggling son’s collar.