After the Fog Read online

  “Oh come on, old man.” Rose said and stood. She couldn’t shake off the feeling that Unk was confused as expected, but maybe not completely off in what he was getting at. And, as her twenty minutes tending to Unk turned into forty, she decided transforming the living room into a convalescence room might not be such a bad idea after-all.

  * * *

  Sara Clara from The South. That’s what they called her. It shouldn’t have bothered her. But the way they said it, spit from clumsy Western Pennsylvanian tongues, it stabbed and mocked her, endlessly reminding her and everyone else she was an outsider. There in her shoebox-shaped bedroom she would burrow under her covers, taking shelter from the list of things to do that blitzed her at every turn once she left it.

  Sara Clara ran her fingers down her throat and forced a cough to be sure she was still alive. Suffocating. The town, the family, the mills, the house—all of it recalled the dirty wool socks her brothers used to stuff in her face when they crammed her into the clothes hamper for the fun of it.

  The difference was her former clothes hamper was gilded and she knew deep down, her brothers loved her. Nothing in Donora was gilded. And though everyone acted as if the glittering steel that belched from one end of town to the other was gold, Sara Clara knew the truth.

  She lay in her husband’s childhood bed naked except for a pair of yellowed underpants, and pulled the thin sheet to her chin and flung one arm above her head, the other draped out to the side, clawing at the mattress. Sara Clara wished Buzzy was beside her instead of slaving away all night then sleeping all day while she tried to make Rose and Henry like her, make friends with anyone, and raise a son in a town where no one had the time for her.

  Years back, when Sara Clara had met Buzzy at a North Carolina bar full of airmen, Buzzy had gushed about his home. Oh, how all of the Pavlesics would love her, Buzzy had said. Everyone would. His face flushed with the tales of the way money was forged from the earth, ripped right from the ground the town was built upon. Like money grew on trees—it was the same thing, he told her.

  But, it wasn’t just the idea that Buzzy might make a fortune once they went up north that attracted her. It was the way he looked at her, as though she were a prize, as though he’d never seen a more beautiful, perfect woman in the world. That was what kept her up at night as she replayed every moment of their time together before they were married.

  The love for her that she saw in his face and felt in his touch was like nothing she’d experienced. That and the possibility of money, to have the type of life she was used to, but in a new place, was enough to make her leap at the chance to follow love, to make a change.

  She closed her eyes and tried, yes, there it was—the memory of that tender, glowing sensation that accompanied the smile when she agreed to marry Buzzy. Alone in his bed, lost in memories, she could feel Buzzy pull her into a kiss, his hands working their way down her body, bringing their marital promises to life. She was filled with longing, love and hope.

  Then they arrived in Donora. All that thick desire was squelched like a coke oven dowsed by cooling water. She might as well have been from Siberia for all western Pennsylvania had in common with North Carolina. Sara Clara’s finishing school education and refined Southern manners were simply not appreciated in a place where people (young, old, rich, poor, immigrant, native) allowed filthy mill shifts to shape their calendar.

  It’s not that she wasn’t familiar with mill-life—her family owned three in Wilmington. But Donora’s steel mills didn’t just churn out the materials that built the country; the mills took lives in exchange—sometimes totally, sometimes just slices of your soul. She couldn’t figure out how to live like that, to be content. Half dead, nothing could make you happy.

  She shoved her hand inside her underwear. Usually, that simple act comforted her and allowed her to drift back asleep. But that morning was different.

  Her mind wouldn’t stop, fueled at first by anxiety. She thought of her plans to move Buzzy and their son, Leo, back to Wilmington. There was a time when she wouldn’t have considered it after the way her own family had treated her. Disowning her, throwing her out simply because she married a Catholic Yankee. As if it were 1863. As if Buzzy were colored or something.

  The radiator kicked on and blanketed Sara Clara with scratchy heat. She threw the sheet to the side and dangled one leg over the edge of the bed. Her fingers in her panties shifted, moving under the cotton to bring on that feeling she liked so much. If only Buzzy had a professional job. His hand would be down her pants.

  She wove memories of loving Buzzy into sweet fantasies. She felt his lips on her belly, the erotic sensation of his hairy legs tickling when he spread her thighs apart with his. She moaned as if he were right here.

  The sound of feet coming down the hallway broke Sara Clara’s reverie. Before she could cover up, the bedroom door flew open. She shot up to sitting, mouth gaping at the sight of her sister-in-law standing in the threshold.

  Rose held up her hand. “I’m sorry. I thought you were…”

  Sara Clara pawed at the sheet, not managing to pull it up until the third grope.

  “Holy mother of Pete,” Rose said. She looked back toward the hall then started to leave.

  Sara Clara felt herself blush. “Don’t shout at me as though I burst into your bedroom when you were dealing with a nasty bout of insomnia!”

  Rose turned back and narrowed her eyes.

  Sara Clara was not about to let Rose get the best of her this time. Rose was always screaming at her about this and that. Not this time. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be awake let alone to fly into my bedroom,” she said, leaping out of bed and snatching her robe from the bedpost. She shoved her arms through the armholes hard and heard a seam rip.

  “That’s it.” Sara Clara said, twisting her hair into a bun. She glared at Rose. “What does a girl have to do for some privacy? I’ve tried for the sake of Buzzy and Leo. I’ve had it with this grey town and its black-hearted people!”

  Rose wiped off a speck of Sara Clara’s spittle that landed on her lip. She shook her head, unusually speechless.

  Sara Clara smiled. She couldn’t hold it in any longer, her hands flailed through the air. “I never see the sun. Everything’s filthy. A cesspool! All I get is yelled at all day by you and—”

  Rose crossed her arms. “If this cesspool’s too much for you, you could start by simply picking up this room.” She tossed a lump of Buzzy’s dirty work clothes to the side with her foot. Under the pile were Unk’s clothes, Leo’s, and Henry’s, too. Sara Clara swallowed hard. Her secret was out.

  “You told me you finished the laundry yesterday,” Rose said. “I should have known. Today’s ironing day. How are you going to iron when there’s nothing to iron?” Rose rubbed her forehead. “Everyone has to do their part.” She shook her head, fist clenched at her side. “Just go back to bed. Or redd-up this mess. Just cut the bullshit. All that moaning. I thought you were crying again, that’s why I came in. I was being sweet.”

  Like weather that snapped from stormy to cloudy with no warning, Sara Clara felt her anger evaporate into worthlessness. She had tried so hard to make Rose like her. Sara Clara dragged toward the bed, her shoulders hunched and feet shuffling, as though she were suffering from flu. This was Rose’s idea of sweet?

  Rose stepped over the clothing, bent and snatched something from the floor and stretched it in front of Sara Clara’s face. “A guest towel? There’s goddamn lipstick on this thing. Unk bought these…I asked you not to do that…I told you where we store your linens.” Rose’s jaw clenched and Sara Clara thought she saw tears welling in her sister-in-law’s eyes.

  Rose met Sara Clara’s gaze. “You’re not wiping your ass with these, are you?”

  Sara Clara flopped back on the bed.

  “Stop blubbering,” Rose said.

  Sara Clara sat cross-legged, tossing her hands upward, letting them fall and lifting them again. “I’m turning into a vampire bat, a rodent! In the mirro
r yesterday I swore my teeth were bucking out like a rat! This mill shift business is a little hard. Yes! I’m a little bazooka right now.” She dabbed her tear-drenched cheeks with the bedspread and sniffled.

  “I’m lonely, Rose. You get to run all over town being a nurse and I’m stuck here. Don’t you see? I’m sorry it’s so hard for you to understand what it feels like to live with people who don’t even like you, don’t want you there. To have no one who cares you’re alive?”

  Rose looked away and kicked a dirty sock to the side. Sara Clara thought she might have actually hit a soft spot, a point of entry into the heart of Rose Pavlesic—if she had one at all. Maybe Rose could understand? Sara Clara leaned toward Rose, waiting for an apology; just a whisper of commiseration would have meant a lot.

  Rose finally met Sara Clara’s gaze. “Pull it together. You’ll waken little Leo. You’re not a child.”

  Sara Clara leaned forward on the bed, wishing Rose would mother her. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  Rose drew back. “Scared of what? Sleep? Cleanliness?”

  “Every time Buzz goes into the mills, I think he’s not coming out.”

  Rose ran the guest towel through one palm and then the other. “He’s fine. He’s got nine lives. At least. No, he’s roach-like. He could live through Hiroshima.”

  Sara Clara’s shoulders drooped.

  Rose stepped closer. Sara Clara leaned in, expecting an embrace.

  Rose squeezed Sara Clara’s shoulder then patted it. “Everything’s fine with Buzzy. He’s fine.” She stepped backward toward the door, stumbling over clothes.

  Sara Clara felt as if Rose was taking the oxygen in the room with her.

  “Look,” Rose said, stopping. “You have to block out the fear. Just do what you need to do and don’t think about what might happen if the worst comes along.”

  Sara Clara should have felt comforted by Rose’s words, but instead she grew more angry. “If the mills are so safe then why are you forcing your son to live a life he doesn’t want just so he doesn’t ever have to set foot in one of them?”

  Rose threw the guest towel to the ground. “That is none of your business. And that’s the end of my sweet-act. You’ve pushed me over the line.”

  Sara Clara jerked her shoulders in defiance.

  They stared at each other.

  “Can’t you just help me Rose? Please. Like I’m one of your patients, please. I feel so alone.”

  “This is me helping you,” Rose said.

  “You’re mean.”

  Rose stood motionless. The corner of her mouth pulled tight, as if she were trying to hold back words. She headed for the door and then turned back.

  “You have a job to do in this house. The rest of us depend on you to do your end of things. If you did that then you’d have less time to bellyache.”

  Sara Clara sat back up. “We are moving back to civilization!” she said. “Right after Christmas. We’re headed back to North Carolina!” Sara Clara whipped the pillow, and it hit Rose in the chest and dropped to the ground in front of her.

  Sara Clara thought she saw Rose smile under her scowl. Sara Clara drew her knees to her chest.

  “You’re not going anywhere until you pay us back, Sara Clara. So toughen the hell up and do the chores you’re supposed to. I can’t do one more task at home and still do the work I’m paid to do. So shut the hell up and do your part.” Rose looked as though she had something more to say, but was silent. She closed the door and Sara Clara fell back on the mattress, hands over her face.

  She had never felt so frustrated and helpless. She wondered if there was a way to make her life better, but no ideas came. She had made a vow to Buzzy. She was forever lodged inside a stifling life, in a town that sucked out all that was good, and she wondered if she’d live to see another sunrise. She decided that in Donora, home of the endless cloudy day, it was plausible the sun might not rise. And, she wondered, would she care if it didn’t?

  Chapter 3

  On the edge of town a sign reads: Donora: Next to Yours, the Best Town in the USA. Donorans mean it, proud of the life they’ve built here, but they wouldn’t begrudge someone else their dignity either. That said, they don’t have time for lazy, arrogant fellas hiring on a mill crew. Those jobs required strength and skill and humility even though those attributes were not part of the job description.

  Donora’s heart beat inside the chest of sturdy immigrant bodies, forged from stock so nimble and willing that not even loss of limb or consciousness would keep a person floating in his own melancholy long. When things were really rough, before the war and unions, when the men worked the mills in twelve hour shifts then were stiffed for pay, Donora’s steel workers refused to strike.

  And it was this coarse, stubborn existence that seeded the life that Henry and Buzzy Pavlesic lived. The habits of their existence and the expectations of the town trapped them. They were lured into ruts, forced down the same path they’d already traveled and known to be wrong, as though they lacked the ability to simply lift one foot out of the muddy furrow and then the other.

  When the two men reached their home, Henry sighed. He needed one hour to think of something other than their trouble.

  Buzzy yanked at Henry’s arm. “Christ almighty, Hen.”

  Henry had been hoping to avoid this conversation. Henry turned to see Buzzy shuffle his feet nervously.

  Buzzy flexed his bicep trying to be jovial.

  “I ought to use your head for a ram-rod and shove you through that door,” Buzzy said. “What’s with the fast-as-a rabbit routine this morning? You’re not trying to dodge your little brother, now are you?”

  Henry lit a cigarette and shoved his pack toward Buzzy. Buzzy drew a cigarette, put it to his cracked lips and Henry lit it.

  “‘Course not.” Henry dragged on his cigarette, standing next to the side door that led into Unk’s home—the house they all shared. Henry winced as he brushed his boot over the welcome mat.

  The back of his heel smarted, scorched from the slag that had splashed onto his leg that morning. It would heal quickly, and he hoped to get enough soot off the soles of his boots. He didn’t want Rose to bawl him out before he had his first cup of coffee. Still, that was the least of his worries this morning.

  Buzzy thrust a forearm into Henry’s chest, jostling him like they were still kids fighting over their only baseball mitt.

  Henry shrugged Buzzy off. They weren’t little boys anymore.

  “You’re gonna make me beg?” Buzzy said. “Please. I will, I’ll do anything.”

  Henry could feel Buzzy’s hot breath hit his chin. He couldn’t bear to hear his brother’s voice crack, see the panic well in his eyes.

  “I can’t ask Rose for money,” Henry said. “The last time ran us about three hundred we didn’t have. Not this time, not after everything else.”

  Buzzy clenched his jaw in response, stepped back, and slipped on a crumbling cement step. He caught himself, his playful mood changing to angry. He leaned back into Henry.

  “I know what this is about. Rose hates me. She won’t give me a chance. Never has.” He picked up a pebble and whipped it down the hillside. “Thinks she’s so much smarter than the rest of us, your kids are fucking geniuses. She runs this house like she’s Henry Clay Frick and we’re non-union steel workers in 18 fucking 92.”

  He grasped Buzzy’s coat collar, the fabric, scratchy in his palm. “Don’t ever talk about Rose like that. She’s a little rough around the edge. Maybe a little nuts, but she loves this family as if it were her own.”

  Buzzy swallowed hard, but wouldn’t meet Henry’s gaze.

  Henry thrust the coat back into Buzzy’s chest. “I’ll think of a way to get the money. It’s not like these fellas are gunning for you, right? Give me time. And understand this. Rose has given us everything, never done anything but be herself. She’s honest. That’s more than I can say—”

  “It’s not like you’re perfect either,” Buzzy said. “If you recall a cer
tain dame—”

  “Shut the fuck up. I’ll do what I can. For the brother you were before you turned into this heap of…I’ll figure something out. I owe it to Dad. I promised him I’d watch over you.”

  A voice blasted from the sloped yard in the alley. Buzzy hearing his name called, pushed past Henry and bolted up the small hill toward Murray Avenue, the sound of his feet grinding over the barren dirt they called a yard. Henry craned his neck to see who was yelling but although it was morning, the fog was still grainy, heavy like pillow-fill.

  Henry sighed. It was probably one of Buzzy’s card-playing pals. What could Henry do? Fix the damn problem. He knew that was the answer, Henry rubbed his temples, acid gathering in his belly. The real question was which problem to solve first.

  * * *

  Henry lifted the door on its hinges and pushed, alleviating that horrific whine he meant to get around to oiling away but never did. With the door shut, dread cloaked him. He hadn’t kept many secrets from Rose. Maybe he’d been afraid to. Or was he really the good guy he wanted to be all along?

  Now, his fear of the truth—what Rose would make of the facts—had turned everything backward. He told himself he could get away with it, that he had time to sort things out. Denial and hope were two wonderful states of mind for Henry.

  He stood in the shadows of the hallway, collecting his thoughts, watching his wife comfortable in the kitchen. He’d hoped long ago to have put her in her own home, make it “her” kitchen, but every time they were close, something snatched the money out from under them.

  Sometimes Rose heard him come into the house, but this morning she must have been deep in thought. She didn’t bark an order or wrap him in a hug or plant a kiss on his cheek. Henry watched her cooking and wondered what she’d do if she found out.

  With one hand Rose cracked eggs into her favorite green Corning bowl. With the other she flipped hot cakes. Her lean forearms belied her power, both physical and mental. Her backside was round, but small, and the blue robe fell over her form like a fine dress, exquisitely highlighting her shape.