Pray for Us Sinners

by Marilyn L. R. Hall

  Mary Jean pulled a cigarette from a squashed-up package she took out of her skirt pocket, lit it, and then glanced around for an ash tray. “I know she’s got some, Jack smoked like a chimney.” JC was glaring at her by then and Claire was turning around in an exasperated circle while her eyes sought the vile receptacle. “Are you sure she hasn’t thrown all that sort of thing out? That man’s been gone such a long time.”

  “Rose hasn’t ever thrown anything out as far as I know,” she chuckled ominously, “but she could change all that this morning,”

  Cynthia jumped down from her chair and disappeared behind her. Pretty soon she was back and sat a brown glass ashtray on the table beside Mary Jean.

  Mary Jean caught her in her arms and gave her a big hug. “Thanks, honey.” Then, with a satisfied smile, Cynthia climbed back onto her chair.

  “Eat your cereal! Claire ordered. Her sour expression showed how little she appreciated cigarettes at the table, but she didn’t put her opinion into words at that moment.

  “Rose!” Mary Jean called out and almost instantly Rose came out of the bedroom. She was all dressed and her hair was combed. Mary Jean thought she looked much better than she had the day before. “Well, look at you! You look like you had a good night’s sleep.”

  “Actually, she slept hardly at all.” Claire said in a peeved voice, and Mary Jean figured Rose’s restless night must have disrupted Claire’s sleep as well.

  Then Claire handed her a cup of coffee and pulled out a chair for Rose. Mary Jean watched her scrutinize her young sister’s face. “She spent the night having visions.”

  Rose sat down and smiled at Mary Jean. “Did Leo tell you I saw Jack last night?”

  Mary Jean cocked her head at Rose and her brow furrowed, “Leo didn’t mention that.”

  “That’s because he thinks I’m crazy. They all think I’m crazy, Mary Jean. But I don’t care what they think. I know what I saw.”

  Mary Jean sucked on her Chesterfield for a while and studied Rose’s face. Claire snorted and dug her fingernails into the back of Cynthia’s chair and the two children stared at each other.

  “Well,” Mary Jean said thoughtfully, and then she just sat there for want of something to add to that.

  Claire snorted again and admonished Cynthia one more time to finish eating. “Mrs. Turner has better things to do than sit here waiting for you.”

  “Oh, well,” said Mary Jean again. “I’m not sure I should take Cynthia away from her Mama today. Rose? What do you think about that?”

  “Rose needs her rest.” Claire was quick to give her opinion but Mary Jean waited for Rose to speak her piece.

  Rose looked up at her sister. “What will JC do all day if Cynthia isn’t here?”

  “Walter will be here any minute, and he can take JC with him. I think you need your rest and that means you shouldn’t have to worry about anything or anybody.”

  “But maybe Cynthia needs her mama today.” Mary Jean stuck her 2 cents in again. “Maybe the little girl needs the security her mama’s presence can give her.”

  Claire snorted and tossed her head. “Cynthia is just a child. Children do as they are told. Children haven’t any business questioning what adults decide.”

  Rose smiled and reached for her daughter, and Cynthia slipped off her chair to go to her mother. But Claire Louise put out her hand and stopped her. “Obviously, anybody having hallucinations isn’t fit to make decisions about anything. I have decided Cynthia is to go with Mrs. Turner.” And then she turned to face Mary Jean. “If that doesn’t suit you, I will ask Viola to come get her. This is not a matter I intend to argue about. The only question is who she is going to stay with.”

  Cynthia was beginning to get scared and Rose, in spite of her lack of determination, was starting to get upset. JC, who sensed Cynthia’s fear, was also all tensed up but he wasn’t sure who he ought to be angry with. Mary Jean did seem to be concerned about Rose, whom he adored, and that made points for her. Of course, he owed his Ma loyalty and that gave her some points. In the end he was saved the decision when Walter walked into the room and got everything straightened out.

  Walter had a newspaper rolled up in his hand and he tapped JC and Cynthia on the head with it while he walked around the table to where Rose was sitting and stood there for a minute looking her over.

  “You want some breakfast?” Claire asked.

  He shook his head. “I had something at the diner.” Then he bent and kissed Rose on the forehead. “You look a million times better this morning. I hope that means you’re feeling better.”

  Rose shrugged. “I don’t know. I wish I could talk to you about something.”

  “Well, you know you can talk to me about anything, Rose Sharon. What’s the problem?”

  Mary Jean got up then, smashed her cigarette into the ash tray, and announced, “I have to be someplace. Come on Cynthia, we’re gonna go down to Viola’s and get ourselves a candy bar,” and she gave a warning glance to Claire Louise, “and we don’t care if we didn’t finish our breakfast.” Then having caught a look of desperation in the boy’s eyes, she tilted her head in his direction and spoke to Cynthia. “How about we ask JC to come along? I bet he’ll be just plain bored all by himself with nothing but old people to talk to.”

  Walter grinned at JC and nodded his assent, so with a big smile, the boy left his seat and danced across the room to the door. Cynthia wasn’t all that thrilled about leaving Rose and it took some time to convince her it was safe to go away and that her Mama would still be there when they got back.

  Once the door had closed behind them, and Claire was pouring Walter a cup of hot coffee, she looked down the table at Rose and suggested in a cloying manner that she tell Walter everything that happened to her the night before. Rose smiled graciously at her sister and then, as if she wasn’t aware of Claire Louise’s devious intentions, looked deeply into Walter’s eyes and shook her head.

  “No, Sister Claire. Why don’t you tell him?” And Walter watched her smile turn into a smirk as he took his seat on the chair JC had just vacated.

  Claire was so surprised at Rose’s unexpected sass that she wasn’t sure how to handle herself. After a moment of sputtering and glaring, she stomped off in the direction of the bedroom. “I’ll do no such thing,” she snapped and shut the door firmly behind her.

  Rose chuckled, “She has something wicked in mind for me, but I’m not sure what it is and I have to be on guard against her. But Walter! I know you are not one of those superstitious backward people who think everything they don’t understand is of the devil.” Her face leaned closer to his and her eyes poked even further into his, seeking his soul. “You aren’t, are you? We’ve spent so much time together over the years I think I know how your mind works … but maybe I’m kiddin’ myself?”

  Walter returned her stare with bewildered eyes. “What in the world are you getting at, Rose? I feel like I came in at the last scene of the play and I don’t have a clue to what the plot is. Have you and Claire had some kind of serious falling out again?”

  “I guess you might say that, Walter. But it’s not exactly a falling out … it’s more like a regurgitation of all the same old crud she’s been keepin’ in her craw all these years. She never has got it out of her system, I guess. And now that Jack’s back…”

  “Wait a minute, Rose … that last remark. What exactly is going on here?”

  That was when her expression got serious and she sighed. “I feel like I can tell you anything and you’ll not sit in judgment of it, that you’ll understand and you’ll know that I’m tellin’ the truth. I hope I’m right about that, Walter, because if I’m not, then there’s nobody I can trust to understand.”

  “You know that’s all true, Rose. I would never doubt what you tell me as truth!”

  Rose sighed again and nodded her head a couple of times and then she told him about being awakened in the night to find Jack Nash standing in the living room and the feelings she’d experienced afterwards. Whe
n she was finished she just sat there watching his eyes, which hadn’t left her face for an instant. And she really did trust him to believe her.

  Finally Walter broke his silence with a question. “He didn’t speak at all?”

  She shook her head. “He just grinned at me. But he did reach out his arms.” Then her eyes got wide and her mouth made a pretty little “O”. She grabbed Walter’s hand and squeezed his fingers. “‘Course he talked,” she said jubilantly. “He called my name! ‘Rose, Rose Sharon,’ he said and that was what woke me in the first place!”

  Walter was smiling at her. “Of course I believe you, Rose Sharon. There are any number of things in this world that I don’t pretend to understand, but I know they happen so I can’t doubt them. I don’t doubt your experience either. But I can see how Claire would take it. She either thinks you’ve lost your mind or been visited by the devil. It’s not meanness that drives her though, Rose Sharon. It’s real fear and concern for you.”

  But Rose’s smile was scornful. “You might not know her the same way Jack and I do, ‘cause I am pretty sure it’s meanness all right. I was thinkin’ she had changed like she said, and she seemed to really care what happened to me and Cynthia for a while, but after I told her about seein’ Jack last night, she just changed right back to the old Claire Louise. Just like that. And now I want to ask you a big favor.”

  He tilted his head at her in a gesture of sincerity. “Anything, Rose.”

  “I want you to take her home today. I don’t want her to stay here anymore.”

  Walter looked stunned and he cleared his throat a couple of times, but he nodded his head “yes.”

  “I just don’t want to have to deal with her meanness right now. I’ve got lots to think about and her worryin’ over me and bossin’ Cynthia around just messes me up. This ain’t nothin’ personal against her. I mean, she’s my sister and I know she wants to do what’s best for me. She just don’t always know what’s best, and I don’t want to have to argue with her about how I feel. You see what I mean, don’t you?”

  Walter got up from the table and stood looking at the bedroom door. “I understand, but I don’t think Claire will. Still, I’ll get her out of your way, if you’re certain that’s what you want. Just remember, you’ll be alone then Rose, with all the responsibility of taking care of Cynthia on your shoulders. Are you sure you’re ready to handle all that?”

  “Mary Jean’s down the hall. And Viola and Leo are downstairs in the store every day.”

  “But you’ll be alone in these rooms every night.”

  “I’m not afraid, Walter. I’ve been here by myself every night for almost five years already!”

  “Of course you have, Rose. I just want to be certain you’ll be okay.”

  “I will.” She said kind of peevishly and then she reached for the rolled-up newspaper he had carried in with him. She unrolled it and looked at the front page.

  “Maybe you ought to wait a few weeks before you read that,” Walter suggested hopefully as he reached over to touch her hand. But she was already looking at the picture. It was a shot of the sidewalk and steps in front of the funeral parlor and there were still policemen around and dark puddles of blood smeared on the cement—but the bodies were already gone. The picture made her shudder nonetheless and Walter laid his hand on top of hers. “I can put this up for you until you’ve had some time to heal, Rose.”

  “I just want to read what they said really happened.” And so he removed his hand and rose to stand behind her, resting both hands on her shoulders. He could feel her body tensing up as she read the story though, and he was wishing he hadn’t brought the paper up with him. Actually, he’d done it quite absent-mindedly, having read it in the car just before he came upstairs to her apartment.

  “They say the man who got killed was a mobster. Is that the same thing as a gangster? Like they called that man Dillinger?”

  “I guess so.”

  She went on reading quietly but then she rolled it back up and pushed it toward the center of the table. “They said his name was John Nash. That policeman kept sayin’ that too. Jack was never called anything but Jack. I don’t know where they got that John thing.” She patted Walter’s hands that still rested on her shoulders. “But I guess that’s a good thing. At least nobody but us will ever know it wasn’t some guy named John Nash who got shot to pieces on the street and died alongside that big-time crook. Truth be told, nobody else will ever know it was really my Jack.”

  “Yes,” Walter agreed and walked around the table to pick up the paper. “I guess I’ll tell Claire now that I want her to come home with me and JC. I’m sure she’ll put up a fuss, so we have to hang together in this.” Then halfway to the door, he bowed his head, sighed and asked her again. “If you’re really sure you want it this way?”

  Rose took a deep breath and gazed across the living room and out one of the windows there. There was a faraway look in her eyes as if she was seeing something besides the cloudless blue sky. Walter waited for her to reassure him of her decision and when she remained silent he turned around and searched her face. He saw her rub her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t want to cry anymore. I think what I want is to go away somewhere. I don’t mean forever … I just mean for an hour or two … just a long walk maybe … or a run. I feel like I need to run down our old dirt lane back home, like I used to do when I was a little kid. And I could feel the dust under my feet, and the wind pushin’ against me and blowin’ my hair around.” Then she made a little moaning sound and sagged against the table. Walter took a couple of steps toward her.

  “Rose? Are you all right?”

  “I cain’t be brave, Walter. I cain’t be strong. I wish dyin’ could come just because you wanted it to.”

  Then all of a sudden she was on her feet and shouting, “Damn you, Jack Nash! How could you do this to me? All I ever did was love you! You wasted all these years … you wasted me! And now you’re dead! Dead! Walter, can you help me get through this? Please, please, please.”

  And that was when Claire Louise burst through the bedroom door and bounded to her, sideswiping Walter along the way. “See?” she was crying. “See what I mean? She’s lost her mind. She’s out of her head. We have no choice but to put her in a hospital.” She tried to subdue her sister and get her down in a chair, but her efforts to calm Rose were having the opposite effect—she was driving Rose into an hysterical fit. In the end, panting and her chest heaving, Claire cursed the man she detested most in the world. “And every bit of the blame for this lies at the feet of that heathen sinner, Jack Nash!”

  Shocking everybody, including himself, Walter came cursing and raging against his wife, leaving no room to doubt with whom his sympathies and interest lay. And that was not lost on Claire Louise, who had the first inkling ever that something greater than family ties linked her husband and her sister. Her mouth opened to protest his interference, but she said nothing. Instead, the air went out of her like a spent balloon and she staggered backwards to slump onto one of the kitchen chairs.

  It was Walter who managed to calm Rose and to lead her to a more comfortable seat on the sofa in the living room. Then, because he did not yet realize his wife had finally seen through all those years of feigned marital fidelity, he ordered her to run down to Leo’s and get a can of soup to heat for Rose Sharon. “She needs something nourishing, some kind of cream soup.”

  But Rose started retching at the mention of food and ran off to the bathroom. “Don’t fix me anything, Sister Claire,” she called from there after a few minutes. “I cain’t eat anything right now.”

  And then Walter walked back to the kitchen table and spoke very quietly to Claire. “I think we should take Rose and Cynthia home with us tonight. It’s much more comfortable there, and there aren’t any memories to plague her so she can get some sleep. And during the day she can go outside and walk in the garden, or sit on the porch and not be bothered by anybody. She can rest and get well there.”

  Cl
aire Louise stared at her hands on the table in front of her. She turned them over and studied her palms and then she turned them back and studied her short neatly manicured nails. But she didn’t say anything.

  Walter scowled at her. “Well, Claire? What do you think about my suggestion?”

  Claire looked up finally and stared into his eyes but still she waited awhile before she spoke. Rose had come out of the bathroom by then and was at the sink getting herself a glass of water.

  At long last, Claire spoke wearily, “I want you to take me and the boy home now.” And without waiting for an answer, she stood up and walked into the bedroom leaving Walter to stare dumbfounded at her empty chair.

  So Walter approached Rose with his suggestion and she shook her head. “I really appreciate what you and Claire Louise have done for me … takin’ care of me like you are. But I don’t want you to put your own life aside for me and Cynthia. We’ll be fine. Really!” She spoke through dry, cracked lips that split every time she spoke so she tried not to talk any more than she had too.

  “Rose, but you’re not taking care of yourself. You’re not eating at all. Have you eaten since ….?”

  She shrugged. “I haven’t been hungry. But I will eat.”

  “You’re going to get sick and then who will take care of Cynthia? You have to pull yourself together, Rose Sharon.”

  And Rose nodded agreeably. “I know, Walter. I will. It’s just hard, that’s all.” Then as an afterthought she added softly. “Jack Nash was a big man. He left a big hole in my heart. It’s gonna take some time to fill that up, is all.”

  “We want to help you, honey. Please let us do this for you. Let us take you into our home and pamper you for a while. That’s all. Surely you can’t object to that.”

  “You have helped me. You’ve helped me every day since it happened. How long have I been like this? How many days has it been?”

  “Two. Only two.”

  Rose’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. “Just two days? O Sweet Jesus! It seems like a week! Are you sure it’s only two days?”