Compass Rose

by John Casey

  Mary kept on talking blithely while May made tea, but when May set the teapot down, Mary took her by the wrist, looked her in the eye, and said, “I see you’re taken with our Rose, and I’m glad. I can imagine … But this way is for the best—if Rose grows up knowing you, it’ll give her just that much more.”

  May was startled, then embarrassed. It was false credit. She didn’t dare explain—she wanted Rose with an ache that had nothing to do with doing the right thing. She wanted Rose to want to be in her house, to like the smell of her kitchen, to hold her arms out to be picked up.

  She heard stomping and scraping on the front porch. She hadn’t heard a car. Dick came in, said, “I smell biscuits.” He didn’t seem surprised to see Mary, but he stopped short when he looked down at Rose. He looked at the far corner of the kitchen, his mouth set, his head nodding. Certainly not agreeing with anything, more likely moving with his pulse. He turned around and started for the front door.

  It was Mary who was quick on her feet. She darted around Rose and got to Dick in the front hallway. She said, “Oh, no, you don’t!” and wrapped her arms around him, half tackling him, half hugging him.

  He snarled and pushed at her arm. May was terrified they’d struggle their way back into the kitchen. She got down on her hands and knees beside Rose. But Mary laughed and said, “Oh, Dick, for God’s sake—it’s nothing to be afraid of. We all love you, you great lummox.” She kissed the side of his head. “Though I’m sure I don’t know why.” Dick stood still. Mary kept an arm around his shoulder—May hadn’t ever taken in how really big Mary was—and kept on talking. “So you want Rose to grow up thinking Eddie’s her father? She’s about to start saying Da-da—it’s any minute now. So come on, there’s nothing happening here that wasn’t bound to happen sooner or later. And don’t start up with May. I’m the one brought Rose over; you can’t expect me to keep her by myself the whole day without a moment of relief.”

  Rose sat looking up at Mary, holding the teddy bear to her chest with one arm. May thought how easily attentive Rose looked, as if Mary was singing. And it was a kind of crooning, a kind of coaxing that hadn’t ever been heard in this house. It was as if the snowstorm had blown in any number of things May wasn’t used to—Mr. Salviatti’s angels came to mind, mixing up religion and pleasure—and here was Mary Scanlon, another RC, come to think of it, all in one breath scolding and coaxing, strong-arming him and now hugging him front-on, one hand stroking the back of his head, as if she was about to kiss him on the mouth.

  And what if she did?

  Mary and Dick stepped around May and Rose, and Mary sat down and poured herself a cup of tea. Dick sat in May’s chair. Rose looked at them for a second. May was sure that Rose thought to herself, Those two aren’t going to be fun for a while. Rose held the teddy bear out toward May. May put the bag over its head. Rose furrowed her eyebrows. May pulled the bag off. Rose looked only slightly amused.

  May went through all the foolishness she could remember—peekaboo, itsy-bitsy spider, this little piggy—at first through Rose’s socks and then, pulling one sock off, on Rose’s bare toes. She couldn’t resist kissing Rose’s foot, which smelled like carrots with a bit of earth still on them. Rose found her toes of interest, too, and she and May examined each one as if they were leafing through a book together.

  And then Mary was on her feet, bustling Rose into her snowsuit, scooping her up off the floor, holding her face up to May’s to be kissed, then up to Dick’s, and Mary was out the door.

  May sat down at the kitchen table. Dick got up. He put two biscuits on a plate, poured himself a glass of milk, and ate standing up at the sink. He washed his plate and glass and said, “I don’t want you going behind my back like that.”

  May didn’t say the first thing that came into her head. After a bit she said, “All right, now you know. I want Rose to visit here.”

  “Suppose the boys had come in.”

  “I sent them off to Wakefield to the picture show.”

  “So you’re pulling the strings.”

  “I don’t want Rose to grow up not knowing us.”

  “I’ve gone to see her.”

  “I said ‘us.’ And when it comes time to let the boys know, it won’t be so hard on you if they see that I’ve come around.”

  Dick jerked his head and stiffened. Then he sat down and stared at the floor between his feet.

  May was tempted to push him down further. She could still say, “Who went behind whose back?” She also felt sorry for him—just not enough to say something that would make him feel better. She thought of Mary Scanlon, jollying him out of his snarls. Hugging him, teasing him, kissing him. Let him get squeezed by jolly Mary Scanlon if that’s what it took to get Rose over here.

  chapter twenty-two

  Johnny Bienvenue called to say he’d like to talk to Elsie about a couple of things.

  “Okay. Shall I come to Providence? Or are you in Woonsocket?”

  “I’ve got to go to Sawtooth, so I can save you the trip. Are you back at work or still on leave?”

  Elsie thought Jack must have been talking. “No. Another couple of days off.”

  “So you’re okay?”

  “Pretty much. If you want to come during the day, I’ll be at home.” She was about to ask why they couldn’t just talk on the phone. She kept her mouth shut … why miss another chance to get a glimpse?

  He came the next afternoon. She said he could smoke his pipe—Rose was still with Mary. “So what are we talking about?”

  “First off, in a while I won’t be able to help you represent Miss Perry’s interests. I can do it for the next several months, but then I’ll be running for public office.”

  “Well, good. That’s what you’ve wanted. Your visit to Sawtooth have anything to do with that?”

  “Jack wants to have a talk. See if I’d like to have dinner next week with some of his Sawtooth pals.”

  “He gets into everything. Oh. Is it on account of Jack you know about my accident?”

  “This is the hard part. I have independent knowledge. In Woonsocket a lot of people come to me with their problems. A lawyer came to me, said he needed some advice. He chose not to say who his client is. I had no idea this would involve you. It turns out his client is the guy who shot you.”

  “So who is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But this lawyer friend of yours knows. You could find out.”

  “This lawyer of my acquaintance. At this stage, I can’t.”

  “What’s going on here? How does this lawyer of your acquaintance know who I am? How does he know you know me?”

  “Your first question—there’s only one female officer who patrols the Great Swamp and who’s on sick leave. Second question—he doesn’t know I know you. He just knows your name.”

  “So why doesn’t the lawyer come see me?”

  “The client is very cautious, so the lawyer is very cautious. The client is both fearful and wanting to make amends. Up in our corner—au coin—there’s a feeling that really bad things happen to people who get tangled up with anything official. So the client wants to make things right directly—pay your medical bills, something for pain and suffering.”

  “And get off scot-free?”

  “After he pays.”

  “This is like a bribe. This is like hush money.”

  Johnny looked down. He didn’t say anything for a while. He looked up and said, “I can see how you see it. I can also see how he may be seeing it.”

  “What are you doing this for? How do you get involved?”

  “Like I said, people come to me. They know I know people—”

  “You’re like a French-Canadian godfather.”

  “Not in the sense—”

  “You’re asking me to lay off this guy … this gumba of yours.”

  “Look, you’ve been hurt. The guy appears to be willing to come forward—at least part of the way. I don’t know why exactly he doesn’t want a public reckoning. He ma
y have a rational reason, I don’t know. Or he may have an irrational fear. So tell me what you would like to see happen.”

  “I won’t take his money. I’m paid to do my job, and my job is to do something about guys like him. He is a dangerous idiot. I want his hunting license and his gun. I want him banned from possessing a firearm.”

  Johnny said, “Let me think. I’ll go light my pipe outside. It makes a lot of smoke at the beginning. It’s not so cold today. No wind.” He went out the front door.

  She was surprised to see him making his way down to the pond. He tapped on the ice with a stick, shuffled out a few steps. He looked at the trees, the bullbriars at the far side. He looked all around. When he saw her at the window he waved, then beckoned for her to come down.

  When she stepped off the bank onto the ice, he held her hand. He said, “I’m sorry. I forgot it might be hard for you.”

  “I can walk perfectly well. I’ll try tennis next week. You want to know how bad it is? The extent of my injuries?”

  “I’m not representing this man. I’m only asking.”

  “I’ll be fine. But I’m not the point.”

  “Okay. You want this man punished not for wounding you but because he broke the rules. He did something wrong in your woods. I’m impressed by your strictness.” He looked at the trees again. “I honest to God had no idea it would be you. But here we are.” He shrugged. “So are you saying you want a criminal case?”

  “Well, maybe not the whole mess, his lawyers dragging it on and on, probably trying to make me look like a liar.”

  “That might be the only way to ban him from possessing a firearm—to convict him of a felony. Proving criminal intent … that’s a reach. His lawyer says he called a rescue squad from a pay phone. He wouldn’t say that unless there’s a record. So leaving the scene of an accident is maybe not in play. But taking away his hunting license could be an administrative matter …” He let out a long breath that turned white in the cold.

  She said, “You’re not smoking your pipe.”

  “I changed my mind. I like the taste of the air, the air over a frozen pond. I played a lot of hockey on ponds.”

  She said, “I’ve been in an administrative hearing. It was just like a trial. Lawyers digging up every detail. They pulled up a memo that said I was overzealous. And this time … could they make the doctor testify? Make him talk about my subcutaneous adipose tissue? Make him show the X-ray? It’s mostly bones, but it probably has a milky outline of my rear end. No, wait—all those pellets would show up. It’d be a connect-the-dots picture of my bare ass.”

  Johnny’s head popped up an inch or two. He squeezed his mouth shut. He said, “I don’t think …” He stopped. He said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know where we are. I guess you’re asking about the admissibility of medical records.”

  “You think it’s funny.”

  “No.”

  “I saw you trying not to laugh.”

  “Okay. Just for a second there I thought of a kid with a big orange crayon and a Howard Johnson place mat with a connect-the-dots puzzle.”

  “There. I knew it.”

  “But then I thought of how it must’ve hurt and I lost what we were talking about. I was getting angry at this guy for hurting you.”

  Elsie said, “Oh,” and her hand flew to her collarbone.

  She thought, There are people out there who can meet someone and not think of possibilities. She wasn’t one of them.

  Johnny said, “You’re smart and you’ve got a lot of imagination, but I want to be sure you know what you’re doing. You’d be giving up a lot of damages, not just medical bills and pain and suffering, there’s punitive damages …”

  “I have medical insurance with my job. I’ve told you what I want.”

  “Okay. Here’s what I can say to the guy’s lawyer—she doesn’t want money, and that’s a damn good deal. All she wants is for this guy to come to me and promise to give up hunting.”

  “You? He’ll promise you?”

  “Yes, me. His lawyer says the guy is one of us. It’ll turn out I know the guy, probably some of his family, his friends, his priest. If he breaks his promise he might or might not feel guilty, but he’ll be shamed. And his lawyer’ll be shamed, and I’ll be shamed. Shame is a group thing. When a group mistrusts the outside, they have to trust the inside.”

  “So you are like a godfather.”

  “Oh come on,” Johnny said. “This isn’t some Hollywood movie. I’m more like a switchboard operator. If I made a nickel out of this, it wouldn’t work. You think about it, see if you think it gets you what you want. What I’ll think about is how to tell the lawyer and the guy about you. How come you gave up the money part. I guess I’ll say nature is like a religion with you; the Great Swamp preserve is like your church. So you’re like a really strict nun.”

  Elsie laughed.

  He said, “The reason you laugh is you didn’t get taught by nuns. I say ‘nun,’ it’ll make him think about when he was in fourth grade and got caught doing something bad. Sister Margaret Mary with a ruler.”

  “Is that right? Is that what ‘nun’ makes you think of?”

  “Yeah, sometimes.” He looked at her so intently she wondered if he was going to kiss her. He said, “It’s funny. What you know and what you don’t know.”

  She took a step back. “When you say ‘you,’ do you mean people in general? Or do you mean me, the ignorant girl who hasn’t had the benefit of Catholic schooling?”

  “I just meant—”

  “I guess I missed out on those thrilling punishments at the hands of Sister Margaret Mary Dominatrix.”

  “You know, you’re right about one thing—you’re probably better off not going in front of a judge and jury. At least, not in Rhode Island.” Before she thought of anything to say to that, he said, “Okay. Let’s not … Probably my fault. Look—first time we met you gave me a few jabs, but there you were taking care of Miss Perry, and when we talked about her giving her books away, you cried. And just now I wasn’t sure—you got in a couple more jabs. But when you said, ‘I’ll be fine. I’m not the point,’ I got it. I admire how you care for Miss Perry and the way you’re a purist about your job. So think about what you want me to do, and let me know.”

  “Do it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I’ll get you what you want.”

  “Maybe one more thing. How about you bring me his trigger finger? The first two knuckles.”

  Johnny squinted. “How come you got to get in a shock? Does it make you nervous when someone says they admire you?”

  The last question stopped her. It was a relief to be stopped. Miss Perry stopped her. Sometimes Mary Scanlon stopped her. Dick used to stop her. She said out loud, “One of these days I’ll get around to stopping myself.”

  Johnny looked abashed. He probably took what she said for an apology. They both started to say something, then held back so that all that came out were their puffs of breath that turned white and floated away.

  She said, “You go first.”

  “I shouldn’t have—”

  “No. It’s okay.”

  “You got a right to be angry.”

  “I think I was trying to be funny.”

  “Ah.”

  She hoped he wouldn’t say anything else, and was pleased that he didn’t, pleased that he held out his hand for the big step onto the bank, held on to help her up the slope, and let go at the top.

  After he left she worried that she’d made his awkward situation more awkward, worried about his getting involved with Jack. She supposed that that’s what it took to run for office … to have to go to people like Jack with your hat in your hand. She’d ignored politics because she thought that politicians were putting on an act, and not a very interesting one. She didn’t think much of lawyers, either, but here she was worrying about someone who was both, worried at first that he might be too much of a backroom guy, now worried that he might be too
decent for the likes of Jack.

  It surprised her that she was worrying about Johnny Bienvenue. She was naturally pleased that an interesting man had shown up, and happy that she’d poked at him and he’d poked back and that he’d then startled her with plain, fierce sympathy. But she was also surprised that it somehow all felt slow. Because there was something to settle? Because she was still a little gimpy?

  She reached into Rose’s playpen to pick up a bottle. A twinge. A while before she’d be ready for their tennis lesson. No rush. Enough that she could look forward to his attention, to his attentive curiosity about her. And she looked forward to her attentive curiosity about him. The sort of considered courtship Sally had given up wishing for her.

  chapter twenty-three

  Tom had always been the cutup of the family. After Christmas dinner he said, “So where is everybody?”

  It startled May. She hadn’t noticed they’d all been quiet. Tom said, “Okay, Dad’s looking out the window at the weather. No surprise there. Charlie’s daydreaming about his girlfriend. So where are you, Mom?”

  She might have just waved Tom off, but he’d got everyone’s attention. She tried to think of something other than Rose. She said, “I was just thinking how peaceful it is for a change.”

  Tom tilted his head back, about to say more, but Dick turned toward him and said, “Don’t be a smart-ass with your mother.” He said it mildly. May’d been afraid Dick was going to start up with Tom. She was relieved, then touched. She squinted and said, “Oh, Tom didn’t mean anything.”

  Dick and Charlie both looked at her, Dick from far away, the table’s length like a stretch of water between them.

  Charlie said, “That’s right.” May saw him trying to come up with a smart remark. “He’d like to mean something …”

  Before Tom could cut back in, May said, “We should have asked Eddie to eat with us.”

  “I figured he’d be doing something with Phoebe,” Dick said.

  “No. She’s gone skiing with her daughter. But maybe Walt’s with him.”