“What are you doing?” my mother demanded. “Light the match.”
“I’ll do it,” Martin repeated, restlessly moving in his chair.
“Sit down,” my mother told him.
“I am sitting down.”
“Then stay there.”
“It won’t light,” I said, still desperately dragging the match over the pack.
My mother mumbled a few words. All I could make out was something that sounded like, You will be the death of me.
“Give it here,” she ordered.
I was about to hold out the pack to her but she would have seen my hands.
“No, I can do it. Really, I promise I can.” I pulled out another match, held my breath, and flicked the match head along the pack. It ignited with a tiny spark. “I got it.”
“Hold it up to the burner.”
I tilted the match to the stove and a lick of flame sprang into the air, sending me backpedaling.
“You left the burner on. That’s why it caught so high,” my mother stated flatly. “Won’t make that mistake again.”
I shook out the match and put the kettle on. “Anything else?” I asked.
“You sound like somebody’s maid,” she said.
Martin folded his lips in to keep from defending me. My mother was staring off at the other end of the apartment, as if her eyes were jammed, her neck stuck in place.
I stood at the stove, behind her and out of view, until the water in the kettle rattled, then I took the kettle off the burner before it could blow. I poured her a cup of water and dropped in a tea bag so I wouldn’t have to do it at the table, then slid the cup toward her elbow so she wouldn’t notice my hands.
“A spoon,” she said, as she sifted in a tiny bit of sugar from the bowl on the table.
I did the same thing with the spoon, setting it down slightly behind her.
“And the milk.”
She dunked the tea bag in and out of the cup, wound it around a spoon, then poured a few drops of milk into the tea, precise despite her exhaustion.
“Put the milk away or it’ll get warm.”
Hour after hour, Martin and I sat with her at the table as she drank the whole kettleful of tea, repeating the same process of preparation, time and time again, as though trying to hypnotize herself.
Night fell and we waited for my father to arrive. I was steeling myself for the moment when I would have to see him. He hadn’t recognized me at the Silver Slipper, but I had seen him and I had seen what he was a part of. I reread the same sentence in my grammar text over and over, unable to understand it and unable to move on.
Footsteps sounded outside the door, then singing. It was my father. He was belting out a song and fumbling for his key.
“Mariska busia dac,” he sang.
Mary give me a kiss!
He rattled the key in the lock clumsily, bolting it, then stumbled into the apartment.
“Momusha nie pytac.”
Don’t ask your darling mother.
He struggled to take off his coat, thrashing himself out of the sleeves and singing all the while. His work clothes were more soiled than usual. He hung his coat on the hook, but it fell and he left it where it lay. When he realized we were all staring, he ceased his song.
“What? What is it?”
“Your clothes are filthy,” my mother said.
“No, the Germans—” Martin began and I elbowed him under the table.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” my mother sneered.
The mill was an easy place to get hurt. Men had their fingers crushed and wrenched their backs regularly. Injuries were a daily occurrence. Going to work drunk only made the mill more dangerous.
My father bristled at the word killed and appeared to sober up momentarily. “Feet up. Must be nice,” my father shot back at her. “I’m hungry,” he said, slapping his stomach. “You hungry?” he asked Martin and me.
With a jerk, my mother pushed out the chair she had been resting her feet on, almost toppling it. The chair legs raked across the floor and came to a groaning stop right in front of my father. He grinned as if it were a magic trick and plunked down in the chair, far from the table or Martin and me, and I was grateful for that small distance.
My father tried kicking off his boots, but the laces were too tight. Each attempt sent sprays of dried dirt raining down on the floor. He tried shaking off the boots, yet they wouldn’t budge. His frustration grew and he growled under his breath, furiously pulling at his boot. My mother refused to turn away from the sink to witness the commotion. To compete, she made a racket of taking out the stew and putting it on the stove. She knocked the pot heavily against the burner and clanked the dishes as she took them down from the shelves. The cacophony made the apartment quake.
“Damn it,” my father snapped.
Martin hopped up before I could grab him, knelt at my father’s feet, and picked the double-knotted laces loose. My mother glanced back to see what had quelled the noise, in time to watch my father patting Martin’s head as he freed one boot, then the other.
“Wash your hands again before you come back to the table,” my mother said, addressing Martin.
My father slid off his boots and left them where they lay. “You’re a good boy,” he slurred as Martin got up to go to the washroom.
“You too,” my mother said, reminding me to wash my hands as well.
When Martin and I were safely inside the washroom, he whispered, “Close the door.”
“I can’t, not all the way. They’ll think we’re up to something.” I left the door slightly ajar. “Why did you want me to close it?”
My father’s voice sprang up. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he yelled, responding to something my mother must have said to him softly, so we wouldn’t hear.
“That’s why.”
The hiss of my parents’ hushed voices, barely restrained, seeped through the crack in the doorway. I turned the faucet on high to muffle the sound, then Martin lowered it, trying to listen in, but all we could make out were a few curses from my father. Martin and I took turns at the sink. At first, washing my hands made them feel a little better, yet the cold water soon hurt more than it helped.
“I don’t think my hands can get much cleaner,” Martin said.
“Mine neither.”
“Do you think they’re done? I can’t hear them anymore.”
Our parents’ voices had blurred with the rushing water. Then came another staccato curse from my father.
“No, I don’t think they’re finished, but we can’t stay in here forever.”
“You want me to go first?” Martin asked.
“No, I’ll go. Just sit down as quick as you can and don’t say anything.”
The second I opened the door, my parents halted their argument. My mother spun back to the stove and my father, who had stood up, sat back down. Martin and I pulled our chairs in close to the table and my father followed suit.
“Don’t you think you should wash your hands too?” my mother sniped.
Fury flexed in my father’s cheeks. In one swift motion, he stood up and pushed back his chair, nearly hurling it to the floor, then stomped to the washroom. He paused at the door.
“Leonard Olsheski is dead,” my father announced, eyes tight on my mother. “Didn’t know if you’d heard.” Then he slammed the door to the washroom.
My mother blanched, her eyes glazed and she wavered on her feet. She was about to faint. Her knees buckled and both Martin and I jumped from our seats, but she caught herself on the icebox and went sliding down a few inches before the sleeve of her dress snagged on the handle, dragging her to a stop.
“Are you all right?” Martin asked, frightened by what he’d seen.
She steadied herself on the sink, putting her back to us, then nodded and straightened her dress.
Martin glowered at me. My lack of surprise at the news had given me away. He’d figured out that I’d lied to him earlier. Angry, he f
olded his arms and dropped into his seat, angling his chair away from me.
I mouthed the word sorry to him, but he wouldn’t acknowledge me.
My mother set the dishes out with trembling hands. She kept her head low. “Put your school things away,” she muttered.
Martin snapped his book closed and snatched up his pencils, making a show of how hurt he was. I nudged my books together with my knuckles, trying to keep my hands inconspicuous as my mother continued to lay out the knives and forks.
“I’ll do it,” Martin snorted, grabbing my books as a favor to me, but mad nonetheless.
My mother leaned over to put out a plate of bread, then paused. The tips of my fingers were resting on the table’s edge, leaving the purplish mounds of bruised flesh in full view. She blinked at the welts, trying to comprehend them, then she must have realized how I’d gotten them.
I inhaled, anticipating her admonishments, but my mother continued to set the table, taking out the jug of milk, a coffee cup for my father. I waited, hands exposed. Though she’d seen the bruises, I was tempted to lift my hands into the air and present them to her again. I wanted to get whatever she was going to do over with. However, my mother went about preparing supper without comment. She seemed unwilling to look at me rather than unable.
Martin returned to the table and pulled his chair even farther from mine, closer to my father’s.
“Did you wash your hands?” my mother asked him. She was frying two eggs for my father’s breakfast.
“I already washed them.”
“Oh. Right.”
My father came out of the washroom shaking water from his hands. He hadn’t shaved as usual. He was too drunk to remember to do so. He hauled his chair up next to Martin’s, then fumbled at his shirt pockets in search of his cigarettes.
I jumped up from my seat, saying, “I’ll get them.”
I came back with three single cigarettes to keep him from noticing the missing money and quickly dropped them onto the center of his plate, then slipped my hands behind my back to keep him from seeing the welts as well. My father gazed at the plate full of cigarettes, bewildered.
“That’s how many you usually have at dinner,” I said.
He was puzzled but not sober enough to care. The matches remained on the table from when I’d used them to light the stove. They were closer to Martin, who handed them to my father.
He struck one of the matches with ease and lit his first cigarette. He took a hearty drag and patted Martin on the head again for getting him the matches. “You’re a good boy.”
SUPPER WAS A MUTE EVENT. While the rest of us poked at our food, my father ate fast and ravenously. In one hand he held his fork, in the other a slice of bread, which he used to sop up the eggs and shovel them into his mouth. When he’d finished each piece of bread, he’d pause to take a drag off his cigarette then resume eating. He was done in minutes. My father lit his last cigarette and headed for the outhouse. He tracked two muddy footprints on the floor on his way back in.
“I’ll get your lunch,” Martin offered, grabbing the tin from the icebox.
“’At’s a good boy,” my father said in a singsong as he pulled on his coat, still very drunk. “You sleep well,” my father told Martin. “And say your prayers. Don’t forget. You won’t forget, will you?”
Martin eagerly shook his head.
“’At’s a good boy. Never forgets to say his prayers.”
My mother folded her arms, a sign for my father to leave. He took the hint and was gone. Afterward, Martin spotted the muddy footprints and put his feet next to them, happily comparing his small feet to my father’s.
My mother got up from the table, went into her room, then came out in her nightdress and robe. She strode into the washroom, then the water began to run.
If she draws a bath, this time she’ll do it.
I found myself being drawn to the door. I pressed my ear to the wood.
This time she’ll do it.
“What are you doing?” Martin said, reprimanding me. “What if she opens the door?”
I hushed him with my finger, a gesture he took as an insult.
“Get away from there,” he said, both warning and pleading at the same time. Martin came over and grabbed my hand to pull me away from the door and I hissed in pain.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I forgot. I’m sorry.”
I held my palm to my chest but kept my ear to the door. For a few seconds, the pain was deafening. I strained to hear if the water was still on, then came the distinctive creak of the faucet being shut off. I hurried away from the door just as my mother drifted out of the washroom. Her cheeks were dewy with water. Wet tendrils of hair clung to her forehead. She had merely been washing her face.
She slipped into her bedroom in a fog. After she closed the door, Martin called out, “We won’t forget to say our prayers. Don’t worry. We won’t forget.”
Before bed, we said our prayers sitting instead of on our knees. I held my hands together as close as I could without them touching while we perched on the edge of the cot, hastily humming the prayers in unison. Afterward, Martin pulled the blanket back so I could crawl in, more out of habit than courtesy.
“The bandages,” I said, remembering. I retrieved the roll from my coat and checked on the money. When I’d changed into my nightdress, I slipped the five-dollar bill out of my skirt and into my coat pocket, hiding it with the quarters Mr. Goceljak had given me. Together the money remained safely hidden.
I held out the bandages to Martin. “Can you do it for me?”
“I said I would.”
He took to the task with adult diligence. I explained to him how Mr. Beresik had wrapped my hands, and Martin followed my instructions, winding the bandage on in small passes, lining each layer up as closely as he could.
“Is it my fault?” he asked softly.
“What?”
“Leonard?”
“No,” I told him, though I couldn’t be sure. “It’s not.”
Martin was gauging my tone, hoping to believe me. “I don’t know.”
“There’s nothing to know.”
He started on my other hand, then the roll of bandages slipped and unfurled out along the floor in a white line, carving the apartment in two.
Martin leaped up from the bed to collect the bandages. “Did I ruin it? Is it ruined?”
“No, it’s not ruined.”
“But now it’s dirty.”
“It’s just a little dust.” I shook out the bandage. “See, it’s all better.”
Relieved, Martin set back to work, carefully tucking each of the ends in when he was finished. “Did I do it okay?”
The bandages looked as good as when Mr. Beresik had applied them, tight and precise, perhaps even better. I admired my hands, proud of what Martin had done.
“Better than okay.”
“Really?” He was pleased.
“Maybe you could be a doctor someday,” I said, then I recalled what Mr. Goceljak had told me about the priest, how he could have been a doctor, how he could have gotten himself out of Hyde Bend.
Martin warmed with the compliment. “Maybe.”
He held the blanket open for me, then bundled it around us and tucked me in. “She’s different still,” he sighed.
“I know.”
“Is it going to be like this from now on?”
“I don’t know.”
“I hope not. I don’t like it like this.”
I wanted to tell him that things would change, but my voice would betray me. Martin would hear my lack of conviction. At least, that was what I told myself.
MORNING CAME, ARRIVING with an impatient sun. Even with the blanket pulled up over my face, the sun streaming in the window was unrelenting.
“Are you awake?” Martin asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“He should be home by now.”
“Uh-huh.”
He huddled closer and made a tent out of the blanket. We lay there with the shee
t touching the tips of our noses and curving around our foreheads. “She’s usually awake by now,” he huffed, sending up a stream of air that fluttered the sheet.
“Uh-huh.”
“Should we wake her?”
“No.”
“What should we do?”
Mr. Beresik would be expecting me. I had to get ready. I had to leave. “I have somewhere I need to go today.”
“Where? It’s Saturday.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t take you.”
Martin gave a little snort because it was another one of my vague excuses. “Then what are you going to do with me? Leave me here?”
“Why not?”
“Then I’ll be alone.”
“No, you won’t. She’ll be here. She doesn’t have to work today.”
He rolled his eyes. “You can’t leave me here with her. What if she doesn’t wake up?” He meant if she didn’t wake up for a long time. Martin realized what he’d said. “You know what I mean.”
“Martin, please. I can’t take you.”
“I won’t have anyone to talk to or any food or anything. It’ll be terrible.”
“You have the lamb book to read and I’ll make your breakfast.”
He folded his arms sullenly. I didn’t want to take him with me to Mr. Beresik’s, but I didn’t want to leave him with my mother either. I couldn’t be sure which would be worse.
“All right, you can come.” Martin clapped and I shushed him. “But you have to do exactly what I tell you. Understand?” He nodded emphatically.
We hurried into our clothes and I made us sandwiches and put them in one of our school tins.
“We’re having lunch for breakfast?”
“Martin.”
“I like lunch. Lunch is fine.”
I retrieved the balance of the quarters from behind the sink. In total, I had one dollar in change, plus the five-dollar bill, which made six, six whole dollars. Holding the money in my hand felt dangerous, risky. The quarters slid over one another, clinking, sounding their presence. I put the coins in my pocket with the bill. That tiny weight seemed as if it could have thrown my whole body off balance.
The Grave of God's Daughter Page 21
