We bury her two days later. Inside the churchyard. My father says nothing about this decision, but stands crumpled beside us.
Afterward, wearing borrowed black dresses from the Abbotts, we serve an angel food cake Mary had baked for the parish bazaar to Father Coghlan and his assistant, the O’Donnells, and a host of hush-speaking women from church. So many people. So many dirty dishes.
That evening, Ethel and I stand shoulder to shoulder at the sink late into the night. The next morning, we pack up the dresses and say good-bye to Mary and Nan, as they need to return to their jobs. And just as if it were any other day—and strangely, it is—we prepare the lunches for work and school.
“Don’t worry about mine,” Ethel says.
“I’m making yours,” I tell her. “You should go.”
Ethel sits down at the marble-topped table, too tired to move, while I wrap up potato bread and cold ham. I want her to go. I want them all to go. I want to be alone here, at least alone with my own thoughts, as Arly is going nowhere.
Ethel staggers off to school with Clio and Richard, while Joseph and Thomas head out to the factory. Father remains in his chair, where he stays for weeks.
He is inconsolable. Although none of us try. Because there are groceries to buy, meals to prepare, boys to feed, trousers to mend, and laundry to wash. As there always is. And I throw myself into these things. Even going well beyond the usual cleaning by washing the windowpanes, dusting the mantel, greasing the knives, trimming the lamps, and polishing the silver.
I spend my days in the same filthy dress, my braid pinned up and under a scarf, for what feels like months. I don’t bother to wash, but simply sleep in my dirt. The more he sits with his face in his hands, the harder I work. I want someone to stop me. Someone to tell me to wash myself. To rest. Of course, no one does. So, I keep cleaning. Feeling empty inside. The lightness of it making it easier to whisk around the house.
He does not return to the factory. He makes camp in his chair. Irritable and demanding. Whatever I do, it can be done better. Ethel, as well. We work harder and harder, giving him more to complain about, more to criticize. We attempt to keep Clio, Richard, and Arlington away from him, sending them off to help Joseph, or on some errand . . . even early to bed.
We settle into our new life, Ethel and I a team—a tired and beaten team—and my father against us, growing stronger every day in his discontent. This is the way we mourn her. Through anger and despair.
Is there any other way?
* * *
When summer comes and school lets out, Ethel is home, and my team is fortified. We throw the boys out of doors every morning with Clio to watch out for his younger brothers. They often bring back a bucket of pike, or a few freshly killed hares, and I amaze myself at how easily I can now crack the legs of a rabbit and rip its skin from its back. When I describe these successes to Amelia, Esther, and Minnie through my letters, I can almost hear their horrified laughter through the post. Although when I describe my successes to Mary and Nan after Sunday Mass, Mary shrugs. “Anyone can skin a rabbit, Maggie.”
Minerva couldn’t. Ever.
“Allow her some pride in her work, Mary,” Nan says.
“I’ll be proud when she skins her first bear.” Mary snorts.
“Mary!” Nan gasps.
“She’s joking, Nan,” I say.
It’s been months since Mother died, and I haven’t missed a single Sunday . . . it’s the only time I’m able to visit with Mary and Nan.
In these small moments with my sisters we talk about cooking, the little dramas up the hill at the Abbott house, speculating on how John is getting along out west, or how annoying Clio can be. We never mention Mother. We never mention Father. And we never mention becoming actors or writers or doctors, or even speak the word “school.” Until Mary finally mentions it, but in context of Arlington, not me.
“I’ve registered Arly at St. Mary’s for the fall,” she says.
With this single line, I know. My education is over. This is it. This is as far as I go. And I should have known this already. Of course I should have known. I’m so angry at myself for not knowing. For not seeing.
I need to leave. To be alone. Or at least to be with just Ethel, which is almost as if I’m alone, we’ve been together so long.
“She’s always running off somewhere these days, isn’t she,” laments Nan, without much thought.
Nan’s right. Ethel has been running off lately.
“Well, I’m finished waiting for her. Tell her I’ve left.”
Nan recognizes my anger . . . my pain, and grabs my arm. But I can’t look at her. I remember her moment, on the way home from school, when she realized that was it. That was where it ended for her. Where it ends for every one of us. My mother, Mary, Nan, Emma . . . and now me. The moment we realize our life has become someone else’s laundry.
“Maggie,” she says.
“I have to go.”
This is my moment. And I want it alone. I squeeze Nan’s hand and walk off. She deserves at least this.
Neither of my sisters will chase me down, burst out in emotion, tell me I’ll make it, that I’ll become the doctor I’d always thought I’d be. There is no reason now, anyway. My only reason to study medicine is dead. We’d both lost our battles.
“Maggie!” Ethel calls.
At the sound of my little sister’s voice I stop and turn. I’m a couple of blocks ahead of her. I wait for her to catch up, thankful she’s here.
“Where were you?” I ask as we turn and continue walking.
“I’m seeing someone,” she says.
“What?” I say. “You’re only twelve.”
“I’m almost sixteen, Maggie.”
“Almost.”
“It’s Jack Byrne,” she reports.
I stop walking and stare at her. “Jack Byrne!”
“Oh, Maggie. You know it doesn’t matter whose name I say; you’re just horrified because he’s a Corning boy.”
The truth stings. I quickly bury it under further outrage. “But Jack Byrne? Ethel!”
“He’s got a nice . . . smile.”
I roll my eyes while I attempt to remember Jack Byrne’s “smile” from Mass. “What could you possibly talk about with that boy?”
“We don’t do much talking.” She laughs.
“Ethel!”
“Maggie, you’re behaving just as Nan would. I swear, I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“I am acting like Nan. And I am happy for you.” I smile.
“Oh my,” she says. “Now you’re not behaving like Maggie.”
We laugh, and she takes my arm and we start for home. Ethel and I, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow. I sigh and lean in to her. If I am to be chained to Corning, I am chained in good company.
“Maggie?”
“Hmmm?”
“I’m going to elope.”
I let go of her arm and back away.
“Maggie?”
I shake my head, willing her to be quiet. She’s leaving me. She’s going to get married. Ethel. Married.
And I’ll be alone.
She throws her arms around me. I don’t hug her back, but I allow her to hold me. I need her to hold me.
“Why?” I ask, my question muffled by her embrace.
“I have to get out.”
I nod against her shoulder.
“When?”
“Soon.”
“Does Mary or Nan know?”
“Just you.”
“And Jack,” I add.
“And Jack,” she says.
“Maggie,” she whispers. She knows. She knows she’s leaving me. Alone. With him.
“I’m all right.”
But I’m not. I’m not all right.
Somehow, though, I manage to look like I am all the way home—then on through to the night, and into the next day. One moment at a time. One day at a time. One disappointment at a time. I manage to pretend everything is all right. I manage. To not think about how slowly, slowly, slowly this is all becoming quite normal.