Twillyweed

by Mary Anne Kelly

  “Neither am I,” Jenny Rose said, relieved, although she loved mornings, but she didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot.

  They sat together and waited for the pot to boil. A collection of white seashells rimmed Patsy Mooney’s workspace and her jars of wooden spoons. Jenny Rose studied her with her artist’s eye: the woman’s arms short and hairless, the skin of a beautiful woman stretched like a balloon over a sly face. Stupid, but sly. A taste for the flashy. This morning she wore a dress of cherries dancing over cotton cream. Her chubby wrist strained under a bauble of red and white poppets and her eyes strayed back to the paper. Jenny Rose realized she’d destroyed the woman’s happy solitude and decided from now on to bring a book to the table so as to restore her peace. She knew she’d been staring at her, but kept memorizing her just the way she was so she could draw her later. There was no eye like that of a first glance.

  In an odd, falsely cheery voice from left field, Patsy Mooney pried suddenly, “Didn’t like things at home, huh?” It was like she’d heard it from someone else and had been saving it up. “Nowhere else to go?”

  Jenny Rose didn’t see why she always had to be so cross. She extended her spine and settled her most forbidding look on the older woman.

  Catching on to this new restraint, Patsy stirred her coffee counterclockwise. “Seems to me”—she spilled a little and sucked a tooth, revising her approach—“most young girls stay close to home …” She let that hang in the air.

  “It’s true,” Jenny Rose said pleasantly. The woman was just being friendly. “I like to travel, though. Are you from New York, then?”

  “That’s me. Born and raised in Oceanside.” She paused. “That’s the South Shore. You won’t see much of that.” She nudged her chin, indicating the rest of the house. “This here is the fancy North Shore. The gold coast, they call it. They think anyone lives on the South Shore ain’t worth the time of day.”

  Jenny Rose laughed politely and inquired, “When will I see the little boy?”

  “Look at that! Almost forgot what I was supposed to tell you! Dear diary, I’m thick as a post! Now. Wendell’s adopted. They told you that, right?”

  “No,” she answered simply, delighted. Now she liked him even more. But she wasn’t about to tell busybody here that her reason for coming to the United States was to find her own birth mother. She smiled pleasantly.

  “Right. Well, he is. But that’s neither here nor there. He goes to school every day, see. I get him off to the bus and that’ll be your job.”

  “School? Isn’t he just four?”

  “Almost five. You wouldn’t want him to yourself the whole day, believe me. He’s a job. You’ll find him sleeping on the floor with the cat. You can tuck him in good as you want but come morning, there he’ll be curled up like a dog on a rug at the window and the window wide open. Don’t ask me how he gets it open but he does. And not a word out of him! That’s seven twenty, now, remember. They pick him up here at the end of the drive. He’s a cinch to get up so you won’t have to be worrying about that. Opens his eyes and he’s up. It’s just getting his shoes on that’s the problem. Takes a long time. Once you get that done, he’ll be ready and waiting, smart as a pin. All dressed and teeth brushed. Not talking. And we know he can. But he won’t. Stubborn, he is, that’s all. That’s what I say. You’ll see.”

  “What do you mean? He can’t talk?”

  “Oh, he can, all right. Ungrateful. He just won’t.”

  “Who’s been putting him to bed?”

  “He goes by himself.”

  At four? Jenny Rose felt a rush of outrage.

  “Now, I’ll help you out at first—being there’s a time difference in your system—but after that, you gotta be up at six thirty to check on him. Here’s your tea.” She scowled and plopped a decrepit tea bag into a mug and crashed boiling water over that.

  Jenny Rose made a note to buy some loose tea and a pot, if there was none. “Mrs. Mooney, what will I be expected to do today?”

  “It’s Patsy Mooney, dear. Just Patsy Mooney. No ‘Mrs.’ anymore.” She raised her eyes dramatically and crossed herself. “Thank God that’s over. Mooney’s my maiden name and please God I never have to lay eyes on that man again! You’re free as a bird for the morning. At two forty, you gotta be here to meet the bus. Make sure you’re not late. The driver won’t let him off the bus if no one’s there and then there’ll be hell to pay.” She glanced to the side. “It’s just the kid’s never easy.” She shrugged. “He don’t want to get on the bus and then he don’t want to get off!”

  Jenny Rose paled. Seven hours off on his own! A child that age. Of course he was confused.

  “Mostly the driver yells at him loud enough and off he comes.”

  “I’ll make sure to be there,” Jenny Rose promised, her eyes out the window, hungrily taking in the spectacular view. “And when will I meet Mrs. Cupsand?”

  Patsy Mooney stood with her cup stopped before her mouth. “Nobody told you that part?”

  “Sorry? What do you mean?”

  She lowered her voice. “Nobody told you what happened or nothing?”

  Jenny Rose regarded her attentively.

  Patsy Mooney sat back down. “Annabel Cupsand took off with another man, hon. That’s the honest truth of it. There’s no other way to put it. Well, that’s why you’re here!” She winked. “Made off with plenty of the family loot, too, from what I heard.”

  “Oh! Really? Gee, I’m sorry.” Jenny Rose stretched to reach for the honey and the green satin sack tumbled out of her side pocket. Guiltily, she slipped it back in.

  Patsy Mooney narrowed her eyes. “What’s that?”

  Jenny Rose reddened. Now was the moment to say something, surely. But some reservation held her back. “Just a little private thing I like to keep close.” She smiled. “My rosary,” she lied.

  Patsy Mooney leaned conspiratorially closer. “Keep your private stuff on your person, like I do.” She pulled her collar aside and revealed three silver chains around her neck. A locket, a little key, and a golden heart dangled there. She gave a sly wink.

  “Ah!” Jenny Rose smiled. “Faith, hope, and charity.”

  “Not really.” She looked over her shoulder and moved her tongue into her cheek. “The heart’s from my father, rest his soul, the locket’s got my mother’s strand of hair, and the little red key’s just for the clock. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. So, like I was saying, good riddance to bad rubbish, when it comes to Annabel Cupsand, her and her long, showy red hair! He’s better off without her if that’s the sort she was.”

  “Was?”

  She stopped, seeing something far off Jenny Rose couldn’t. “It’s just sad. You know. For the little boy.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And she wasn’t such a bad person. … It’s just … she didn’t hardly have Wendell here and she goes and takes off …”

  There was something about the two of them sitting together that opened some intimacy. Jenny Rose inquired carefully, “What exactly did happen with Mrs. Cupsand?”

  “Annabel?” Her face softened and she relaxed. “She always had me call her Annabel. The day she left … it was snowing. I remember exactly. It wasn’t three weeks ago, and snow covered the cliff. The wind was moaning and carrying on! In the morning, the sun was shining and everywhere clean and white as a marshmallow. And cold! The town was covered and there was icicles everywhere. Cars are sliding off the road. It’s so treacherous because Sea Cliff is nothing but these steep hills, see?” She leaned in close. “It was early, before breakfast even. I come down … Mr. Cupsand was standing in the great hall. I thought that was funny, like, because he’s not one to use that way. He comes through the kitchen mostly. But there he was holding a pink letter in his hand and I thought, what’s that sound?” She leaned in close to Jenny Rose. “Well, dear diary, there’s Mr. Cupsand, h
owling like someone’s cutting off his foot! I come running in and it’s like he don’t even see me. He just stands there crying out loud and his sister, Paige, come running in and she couldn’t do nothing with him, neither. Then she picks up the letter out of his hand and—I’ll never forget it—she reads it and then she says to me, she says, ‘Patsy, go call Mr. Donovan. Mrs. Cupsand has left us. Tell Mr. Donovan to come here straightaway.’” Patsy gave a knowing nod, relishing her tale, “It was like she was afraid he was gonna shoot himself, see? Oh, it’s been bad days, let me tell you. Like someone died. And the little boy, well, he don’t seem to get that she’s gone. He don’t talk no more, neither. Not a word since that day! And he was a regular little chatterbox—had a way with words, he did!” She gave a mighty shiver. “So sad, what people do to people. And after all the trouble she went through to get him, too.”

  “Yes, that is dreadful.”

  “Well, she knew he’d be taken care of. It wasn’t like she dumped him in a garbage bin or nothing.” She made a face. “Took off with a doctor from St. Francis right over here in Roslyn. Her doctor, you know. Fertility.” She cocked a brow meaningfully. “Woman’s doctor.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “I knew she liked him from the very start, the way she’d come back from seeing him all aglow. Talking what a wonderful doctor he was! I smelled something fishy right from the start.” Her fat face crumpled. “She isn’t a bad woman. Just … silly, you know? Likes pretty things.” She leaned in and gave a scornful snort. “Oliver—Mr. Cupsand—he likes them, too. Anything beautiful he likes. That and the Red Sox. He thinks art is the end-all, see? That’s what sold him on you as an au pair, if you want to know. It was my friend Darlene at the rectory told him you was an artist from her village in Skibbereen.”

  “Oh, I must go and see her.”

  Patsy’s face grew thoughtful. “Sometimes I think she felt like she failed him somehow, you know? Annabel? Because she was content all along just to be a housewife. Trouble was, all she ever did was spend money and fancy the place up. Shop, shop, shop. And she’d drag the kid! Americana Mall. Home Goods.” She licked the cream cheese from each finger with a smack. “’Course his sister’s supposed to be filling in and all. Mr. Cupsand’s sister, Paige. You’ll meet her soon enough.”

  “Oliver and Paige.” Jenny Rose scoffed. “Nice, that is. Shame on their parents naming them British, like that, and them being Irish! But that’s typical of your self-loathing Irish, naming their kids what they think are the King’s English highfalutin’ names. Disgusting.”

  Patsy Mooney eyed her carefully. “You should know. Jenny Rose isn’t what you’d call an Irish name, is it? Eh?”

  “Oh. Well. You’re right there. My adoptive mother was utterly enchanted with anything at all Italian.”

  “Anyways, like I was saying, Paige—the sister—just moved right in after the wife, Annabel, took off. It’s only she …” She hesitated. “You can’t say she don’t try with the kid. The truth is the kid just don’t take to her. Like he don’t warm up to her. … She don’t have no maternal instinct, if you get my meaning?”

  But this was running too close to gossip. “When will I meet Mr. Cupsand, then?”

  “Maybe not today. He stays in Manhattan some nights. More often than not he’s on the boat. Got a fancy sailboat right here in the port.” She shivered demonstratively. “They race them things, too, now spring’s here. Fly like the wind!” Patsy Mooney chattered on and Jenny Rose tuned out, wondering how to throw away the ghastly tea without offending her.

  “You won’t get me on one of them, though. Not me. ‘Come along,’ he’ll say sometimes, ‘Come have a ride on the boat.’ But I won’t. Not me. Things go wrong in life. Well, they do. And I’m no swimmer.” She leaned her head in confidentially. “That was the last straw for the missus, if you ask me. He took her out on that boat of his and she didn’t want no part of it. She told him time and time again but he would insist …”

  “Me, I’m a great swimmer,” Jenny Rose bragged.

  “All that money.” Patsy Mooney shook her head, ignoring Jenny Rose’s remark. “Hundreds he spends on gas when there’s no wind! Brings trouble along with it, spending like that, you mark my words. …”

  This reminded Jenny Rose of the stones in her satin sack. She wasn’t keen on hiding something. She’d report them to Mr. Cupsand straightaway. That’s what she would do, she decided, present the stones to him the moment she met him. Suddenly, at the thought of a morning all to herself, she had no jet lag at all. She walked her plate to the sink, shooting the tea down the drain. “Mind pointing me in the direction of town? I’d like to buy some things.”

  “Buy?” Patsy Mooney frowned disapprovingly. “Before you get your first paycheck!”

  “Just necessities. I’ll have a jog. And I must find the rectory and thank Mrs. Lassiter.”

  “Darlene?” Patsy Mooney gave a guilty look. “She was here yesterday, bringing the soda bread for you. I forgot to mention it.” She made a sullen, cud-chewing face, having finished it off herself late last night. “Pretend I told you right away. She won’t know the difference.”

  Jenny Rose looked her steadily in the eye. “She’s a pen pal of my adoptive mother, Mrs. Lassiter is, if you must know.”

  “I know that. We play bingo together Wednesdays. Who do you think told her we needed someone here?”

  “Oh. Then it’s you I should be thanking.”

  “Not me. I just put the word out.” Patsy Mooney laughed then turned away. “Don’t thank me yet. Plenty of heartbreak in this house.”

  “Is it right or left when you come to the end of the drive?”

  “Well, it’s left. Town will be east of us. Not more than a ten-minute walk.” She stood with her hands backward on her hips. “Stores won’t be open yet, though.”

  Jenny Rose washed out her cup and placed it on the drainboard. “I’ll be back well before one.” She smiled and took hold of her red jacket and was out the back door and whistling before Patsy Mooney could object.

  Patsy Mooney lifted the white lace curtain and peered out the sink window at the departing figure. Hmmph. Not much to her. Washed-out little thing. Pretty smile, though. Light up the room. You had to give her that. She sat back down at the table and buttered her toast, then went back to reading the paper. Where was she now? Excitedly, she rode her pointer finger down the column to where she’d left off. Here it was, that doity business down in Broad Channel.

  Claire

  At Salerno’s appropriately dark and red Italian restaurant, Enoch stirred his coffee. It’s an old-fashioned, Fellini movie–look of a place in Queens, tucked away under the Montauk Line trestle. The local politicians come here, judges from the Kew Gardens courthouse, detectives with two hours to kill between hearings. In celebratory debacle, Enoch and I—who’d both long ago switched to green tea in the afternoons—drank fierce espressos today. I was miffed and tight. He was not, I thought, sufficiently contrite for the occasion. I began, “Look. I can’t believe this. My children have just let you into their hearts!”

  “Claire,” he said, “your children are grown. They’re both away at school. It cannot have harmed them to have had a decent human being in the house after their father’s drinking and gambling knocked them off their hinges. I gave them nothing but encouragement and support. Be honest, all they ever saw from me was decency.”

  I flinched. It was true. “How am I supposed to be engaged to you and then find out the truth about you and just let you, let you—”

  Enoch smiled a sad old smile. I realized I couldn’t hate him. It was my ex-husband I hated. I couldn’t hate the both of them. It would be overkill. I slumped, exhausted, in my seat. Enoch was supposed to have been my refuge. I’d thought we were settled. I didn’t want to start all over again. I was tired of trying, tired of paying all that money up on Austin Street for highlights. This was all such a jolt. And yet,
heaven knew Enoch had never asked to be gay. I slithered down still farther in my seat, abandoning all attempts at good posture.

  “Claire …” He frowned, reaching across the table in his concern.

  At that moment, it occurred to me that maybe I was overreacting. He was a nice man. He gave the most wonderful backrubs. And he didn’t scrimp the way some people I knew did. He kept on, kneading and plowing through the stress knots. We’d had such fun together. Really. Staying up late eating rosemary, garlic, and olive oil popcorn and watching Bette Davis movies. And he’d enjoyed it just as much as I. Oh. Yes. I see. I should have seen.

  “You know,” he was saying, “I could keep Jake with me while you look for a place.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “Thank you,” I said, “but Jake is my dog and I’ll figure out—”

  “Claire,” he interrupted harshly. “You can’t just take a dog Jake’s size to your mom’s house. He’s just too big. It’s not fair to her. And not fair to Lefty.”

  Lefty is my parents’ dog. He is so named not because he is southpawed but because he was always to blame whenever someone left it. I know. It’s crude. We’re crude. “It’s a little inappropriate for you to be telling me what is and isn’t fair, okay?” I asserted. “And what makes you so sure I’ll go to my mom’s?”

  “Where else would you go? He can come to the firehouse with me. He’ll love it. And he might be your dog, but I gave him to you,” Enoch said in a tit-for-tat tone of voice I’d never noticed. I realized what was happening. He was letting his guard down. No reason not to now. And the truth was, Jake would be fine with him.

  What had happened to me? At one time I was thought to be the next Diane Arbus. True, I was the only one who had thought that, but my photography had taken me around the world and given me access to the flow of easy money. For a while I had been flush, but both these advantages, my career and the money, had withered early on the vine. What was wrong with me that caused husbands to betray me, houses to burn down around me, boyfriends to change entire sexualities on me, and people to get themselves murdered while I visited their towns?