The Truth about Mary Rose

by Marilyn Sachs

  Uncle Stanley came back with them.

  “I never saw a baby like this one,” said my grandmother. “He’s the image of Stanley, and has the most beautiful, little face you ever saw. All those people looking in the nursery window, you could just see they couldn’t take their eyes off him.”

  Uncle Stanley laughed. “Oh, Mama, you know that’s not so.”

  “Now, Stanley, it’s not because he’s mine. You know I’m not like that. I always say what’s true, and I tell you I never saw such a gorgeous baby in my entire life.”

  “And when Margaret was born ... ?” Uncle Stanley said.

  “Well, it was true. She had a head of curls on her, Veronica,” said my grandmother. “I wish you could have seen her. And I know newborn babies aren’t supposed to smile, but I tell you that Margaret was smiling.”

  Uncle Stanley laughed some more. He was very happy. My mother got up, and hugged and kissed him, and he didn’t seem at all embarrassed.

  “I’ll get a few things together, Stanley,” my mother said, “and we’ll go. Come on, Mary Rose.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Stanley’s baby-sitter can’t stay tonight or tomorrow. She’ll come back on Saturday, and I thought we’d go along and fill in. There’s plenty of food here, and both Manny and Ray are planning to be home tomorrow. Manny can cook— I know he’d enjoy staying with Grandma—right, Manny?”

  “Right,” Manny said, in a low voice with a tight smile.

  “And Ray too,” said my mother. “Right, Ray?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Ray.

  “I could stay,” I said. “I like to take care of Grandma.”

  “That’s all right,” said my mother. “I know how much you look forward to seeing Pam, and how much she looks forward to seeing you. The boys can manage, and Daddy will be in and out too.”

  “I’m so lucky,” my grandmother said, reaching out, and taking Manny’s hand. He kept smiling, but he wasn’t exactly looking at her. She turned and smiled at Ray, and reached out a hand for him too. So he came over after a minute, and took her hand, and stood sideways near her chair.

  “I’m a very lucky woman,” my grandmother said. “My children are good to me, and my grandchildren can’t do enough for me.” She started crying. “I’m so lucky ... if Mary Rose could only have lived ...”

  I put Mary Rose’s box in my overnight bag. Sooner or later, Pam was going to have to know, so I might as well get it over with. I just hoped she wouldn’t stay mad. I couldn’t live if she stayed mad.

  Jeanette was not playing her violin when we arrived. All the girls were in the kitchen putting blue frosting on a cake.

  “It’s for you to take to the hospital tomorrow for Mom,” Jeanette said.

  “We’re going to put blue sugar over it,” Olivia said.

  “And the baby can have a piece too,” said Margaret.

  She really was a very pretty little girl, and did have a wonderful head of dark, shiny curls.

  My mother picked her up, and hugged her. “And who’s going to be a great big sister, and take care of her little baby brother?”

  “Me!” said Margaret, looking shy, and laying her cheek down on my mother’s shoulder.

  “And me too,” said Olivia. She’s six, and not as pretty as Margaret, but everybody says she’s brilliant. She can read any book in the house, and knows all the multiplication tables. She’s very jealous of Margaret, even though Margaret doesn’t seem at all smart —just pretty. She pulled my mother’s arm, and pushed at Margaret’s feet.

  So Uncle Stanley picked Margaret up, and my mother sat down, and took Olivia into her lap.

  I looked over at Jeanette. After all, she’s only eight. But she was busy sprinkling blue sugar over the cake, and didn’t seem at all jealous.

  “Congratulations,” I said to Pam.

  “For what?”

  “For having a baby brother.”

  “Oh that!”

  “Aren’t you happy?”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t look happy,” I said as we started upstairs.

  “Oh, it’s all right,” she said. She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “So what’s so special if it is a boy? They’re all acting like they never saw a boy before in their lives.” She kicked one of the steps.

  She was hurting. I loved my cousin, Pam, so much I could feel the hurt inside me too. “It’s not that he’s a boy,” I told her. “It’s just that he’s different. I mean, they have four girls, so naturally they wanted a boy. I mean, if they had four boys, they’d want a girl. I mean, it’s nothing personal.”

  She nodded, and her mouth shook a little bit. Then she said, “Mary Rose, I’m so glad you came.”

  “Me too,” I said, “and you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I brought something.”

  “What?”

  “Mary Rose’s box.”

  “No kidding,” she yelled. “You found it? Where?”

  “Well, it actually was in the storage closet in the attic, just like Grandma said,” I told her. “And you know she said it was behind the drapes?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well it was underneath them. You know, depending on how you look at it—underneath is really behind —in a way.”

  “How wonderful!” Pam said, “and we can open it today, and lock the door, and not let anybody into my room, and we’ll be the only ones who know. Right, Mary Rose?”

  “Oh—right, Pam!”

  I wasn’t going to tell her that I already knew what was in the box, and so did my mother, and our grandmother too. She was feeling so good now, I didn’t want to remind her about having a brother and feeling so lousy. So I just didn’t say anything. What was the hurry? I could tell her another time. When she was feeling better.

  Pam locked her door, and then we opened the box. We spread the rings and bracelets and necklaces and watches and the diamond tiara all over Pam’s floor. They didn’t look right on Pam’s floor. They didn’t look right either when Pam tried them all on herself. And laughed, and said what corny looking things they were.

  I didn’t like the way she made faces at herself in the mirror, and I didn’t like it when she said that “Me” over the red-headed woman meant that Mary Rose wanted to look like that when she grew up.

  I think I would have said something even though I was trying to be careful, but somebody knocked on the door.

  “Stay out!” Pam said.

  “It’s me, Pam,” said Uncle Stanley. “May I come in for a minute?”

  “Sure, Daddy, just a second,” Pam had slipped one of those cigar bands on each of her fingers, and was wearing two bracelets on her arm and a string of copper-colored pearls.

  She got up, opened the door, and Uncle Stanley came into the room. He was still smiling. “Mom wants me to bring her pink slipper socks, but I can’t find them. Do you know where she keeps them?”

  “They’re in the third drawer of her dresser—where she keeps her tights and stockings.”

  Uncle Stanley kept smiling at Pam. He looked at me, and smiled at me too. Then he turned back to Pam, and smiled some more at her. “What are you two doing?” he asked. “Dressing up?”

  Pam put her hands up, and patted the string of copper-colored pearls. Uncle Stanley smiled at the string of pearls. Then he looked at the cigar rings on Pam’s fingers, and when you read in books about a smile fading, that is just what happened on Uncle Stanley’s face. It started fading in the middle. The center of his mouth came straight before the ends. It was all gone finally, but he still kept looking at those cigar rings.

  “Where did you get them?” he said finally.

  “Out of Mary Rose’s box,” said Pam. “Isn’t it all right? Grandma told Mary Rose she could look for it, and she did, and she found it. We were just looking at what was inside. Is it all right, Daddy?”

  “Oh sure, sure,” said Uncle Stanley. “It’s fine.” He smiled again, but it wasn’t like the
other smile. “I’ll go get Mom’s slipper socks now,” he said.

  “I think it reminds him of her,” I told Pam after he left. “I notice he never likes to talk about her.”

  “Maybe so,” Pam said, slipping off the rings and putting them back in the box. She took off the bracelets and the string of copper-colored pearls, and put them back in the box. “Grandma was right. There really is nothing special here—just some faded old cutouts. It gives me the creeps.” She handed me Mary Rose’s box. “Let’s do something interesting,” my cousin Pam said. “Let’s play with the Mouse House.”

  Chapter 9

  The house was very quiet when I woke up, with that heavy kind of quiet you hear when people are sleeping. But there was a stirring inside the quiet so that I knew somebody was talking.

  Pam was asleep, lying straight and important-looking in the middle of her canopied bed. I opened the door, and tiptoed out to the landing and listened. They were downstairs in the kitchen. Somebody laughed—my mother, and somebody else laughed too—Uncle Stanley.

  I came down the stairs, resting on each step until my movement became part of the quiet. They were in the kitchen, and the laughing and the talking began to shape up as I moved down the stairs. First it was only separate words, “... car ... hurry ... drop ...” Then groups of words, “... she said to me ... I don’t know where ... check with the nurse ...” And then sentences, “Don’t forget to call Mrs. James,” and, “The first time it was different.”

  They were talking about Aunt Claudia and the new baby. I stood on the bottom step, and knew it wasn’t safe. They couldn’t see me from the kitchen, but if one of them was to come out into the hall, I’d be exposed.

  Under the staircase was a large clothes closet. The door was slightly opened. Good! I moved toward it, hugging the side of the staircase. When I reached the closet, all I had to do was expand the opening and slip inside. It was a very glamorous closet with a fancy pink phone on a lavender table, and a matching bench with lavender and white striped cushions. It was the first time I ever listened in such comfort. I sat down, and pushed the door open a little more. Both my mother and Uncle Stanley have loud voices, even when they speak softly.

  “... was surprised,” Uncle Stanley was saying, “because I really didn’t think I’d be able to stand there without getting upset.”

  “Luis wouldn’t,” my mother said.

  “I didn’t want to either, but Claudia wanted to take the course, and then it meant so much to her that I went along too.”

  “Natural childbirth is the best thing for the baby, and I really do think it’s important for the father to be part of the birth too,” said my mother.

  “It was beautiful,” Uncle Stanley said, “and Claudia was wonderful. It didn’t take very long, and she did everything the doctor told her—no fussing at all except when they were wheeling her into the delivery room. She started yelling suddenly. Naturally, I thought it was from the pain, but no, she was yelling, “My glasses, my glasses! I left my glasses! Hurry, I need my glasses! Hurry!“

  My mother laughed.

  “She wanted to see it all,” Uncle Stanley said, “and it was worth seeing. I tell you, Veronica, when they held that baby up, even before I knew it was a boy, and he was kind of blue, and moving in a sleepy way—I never felt anything like I felt when I saw that!”

  It sounded like Uncle Stanley was crying, and for a while, nobody said anything. Then my mother said, “I’m happy for you, Stanley. I’m glad you have a boy. I guess you really wanted him.”

  “And how!” from Uncle Stanley.

  “Like Luis and me, before Mary Rose was born. We wanted a girl so badly, we wouldn’t even admit it to each other. We both kept saying how we really wanted another boy, and how girls were such a pain to bring up.”

  I patted myself on the head, and grinned.

  “She’s a beautiful girl,” Uncle Stanley said, “and so bright. And your boys! Such wonderful boys! Manny is brilliant, and that Ray—I just hope my ... my son grows up to be like your Ray.”

  “And Mama’s so happy,” my mother said.

  “Oh, Mama!” Uncle Stanley said, and the two of them laughed like they knew something nobody else did.

  “She’s really pleased you named the baby Ralph.”

  “Papa was wonderful,” Uncle Stanley said. “How could I name him anything else?”

  “He certainly was wonderful,” said my mother. “And he was so good to Mary Rose and me. We never felt left out. He was like a real father.”

  They were quiet again, and then my mother said did he want some more coffee, and he said yes, and she said she would too. There was some clinking and clattering, and I began feeling very sleepy. Then he said, “You never felt left out.”

  “What?”

  “I mean you never felt my father favored me over you.”

  “Oh, Stanley, you were so little and so cute. You were the baby. Remember I was eight when you were born, and Mary Rose was six. So it was natural that everybody was going to make a little extra fuss over you. We did too. We didn’t mind.”

  “You didn’t mind.”

  “No, and neither did ...”

  “She did, she did!” he said, and he sounded like a little kid. Something fell on the floor, and my mother said watch out, she’d sweep it up. Then there were some sweep-up noises, and him saying how clumsy he always was, especially when he was upset. I started feeling hot and uncomfortable. I had this feeling like I ought to go upstairs now. Like whatever I wanted to hear, maybe I’d heard it already.

  “You’re excited,” my mother said softly. “It’s natural. And then you didn’t sleep last night at all, and you have a new son to think about. We’re all excited.”

  Uncle Stanley said, “After each girl was born, I knew she was going to be unhappy.”

  “Who?”

  “Mama.”

  “I don’t know why you say that, Stanley. She loves the girls. Of course, she wanted you to have a boy too, but she’s always talking about Jeanette and ...”

  “I mean she was unhappy because we didn’t name any of them Mary Rose.”

  “Well, don’t worry about that. You know Mama when it comes to Mary Rose.”

  “She thinks it’s because Claudia didn’t want to.”

  “And why should she?”

  “But it wasn’t Claudia. As a matter of fact, when Olivia was born, she even said, ‘Why don’t you make your mother happy and name her Mary Rose?’ It wasn’t Claudia. It was me.”

  My mother said slowly, “You were so little when it happened. Something like that will always stay with you. I guess it hurts too much for you to want a constant reminder. I understand, Stanley, and I think Mama would too if you explained it to her.”

  I was nodding inside the closet. Of course that was it. Of course. The way he never wanted to talk about her. The way he always avoided thinking about her. The way, before, he couldn’t stand looking at the cigar rings on Pam’s fingers. Now go upstairs, I told myself. Don’t listen anymore. This is what it’s all about. Go upstairs!

  But I didn’t.

  “Each time,” he said, and you could hear that he was beating a spoon on the table, “it was a girl, I’d think about how she was going to be unhappy, and each time I knew I couldn’t do anything about it.”

  “Stanley, I know you’d feel a lot better if you told her.”

  “No, Veronica, you don’t know. You’re wrong. Even before—upstairs—Pam and Mary Rose were playing with—those things from her box. I couldn’t stand it. I remembered all over again.”

  My mother laughed, but it wasn’t a comfortable laugh. “My Mary Rose has this thing about Mary Rose. She’s been searching for that box since she heard about it. She thinks poor Mary Rose was some kind of Joan of Arc figure—a great and wonderful heroine. She’s always at me to tell her stories about Mary Rose, and I try to tell her what she was really like. But Mary Rose has a way of listening only to what she wants to hear. I guess it’s not good, but children ar
e going to idealize someone, and they grow up soon enough.”

  “Pam was wearing those cigar rings from Papa’s cigars.”

  “Poor boy!” my mom said. “I guess you’ll never forget that night.”

  “I’ll never forget Mary Rose,” Uncle Stanley said. “She hated me so.”

  “Hated you!” my mother cried. “Mary Rose hated you? Stanley, what are you talking about?”

  “She did!” Uncle Stanley said. “I remember. She hated me.”

  “Stanley, you know how kids fight, and the three of us were no different from other kids. You were too little when she died to remember, but she didn’t hate you. Sure, sometimes she whined and fussed—I do remember, but she was so—so weak and defenseless. She really was a very delicate, dreamy child.”

  “She hated me,” Uncle Stanley said. “And when you or Mama weren’t around, she’d tease me and pinch me and tell me horrible stories about how I was going to die.”

  “Stanley, you can’t remember ...”

  “She used to say that Mama loved me the best, and you loved me the best, and Papa loved me the best, and nobody loved her. She said it all the time, Veronica. You’re the one who doesn’t remember.”

  My mother didn’t say anything.

  “Papa used to smoke those cigars sometimes, and if I was around, he’d give me the ring to put on my finger. It didn’t mean anything special. I guess he figured I was the only one young enough to want to play with them. I didn’t even particularly want them, but then she’d come after me, and try to get them away from me. She’d wheedle and threaten me, or hit me, or scare me, and sooner or later, I’d give them to her.”

  “I didn’t know,” my mother said, “but kids fight, and older ones are jealous of younger ones. Look at Olivia. You can see she’s jealous of Margaret. But they grow out of it.”

  “If they live,” said Uncle Stanley. “But when they die, they die with it.”

  “So it’s over with ...” my mother started to say.

  “No, it’s not over with,” Uncle Stanley said. “I’m not over with it. I’m thirty-six years old, I have a wife and five children, and I’m still afraid of Mary Rose.”