him but … and Mamma saw her get out of the …Wilhelm is a nice man. He has gentle brown eyes and hairy arms and his hands are tender, even comforting on her neck and shoulders, or up and down her legs. He promises to help her open a store, promises to help Rosa. Her friends are excited that she will be the first among them to get married. One even said it’s smart of her to get out of the whole college and university mess by plunking herself right into a family business. And maybe it is, though it’s weird to think that many of her friends will be in school when she’s married and washing restaurant dishes, chopping vegetables, buying cakes, and then, later, having babies. How will she be able to do the things in the restaurant or her store plus all the things Mamma does: cleaning, cooking, changing, gardening? For now, at least, she is just the helper with the wash, her papa’s little girl.
“Good girl,” Mamma said when Teresa produced the silver ring with the small diamond, warm from clutching it tightly in her pocket. “Just make sure you’re not showing before the wedding.”
“Mamma! I’m not pregnant.”
Mamma looked surprised, but obviously believed her, the expression on her face changing from stern practicality to a wan hope.
“Then we can wait, Tera?”
Teresa agreed.
And Teresa can wait, too, wait as long as she has that ring tucked away: her promise. Wilhelm won’t betray her. She visits him every day at the restaurant, and he is, by all accounts, a man in love. “Family first,” he said, when she told him about waiting for Papa. “So many young people don’t understand that anymore. I’m glad you do.” Now she can still go to school, to the dances, shopping with friends, and take Rosa to the park or help her with sewing. And she knows her mother is happy she won’t be going to college or university to make a career for herself. “Girls are silly to want to act like men. They have no idea what men go through. The wars,” Mamma told her, “the wars could happen again, and then who will watch out for the children?” Teresa likes some of the old ways. Yes, she likes the idea of marriage and doesn’t want to be one of those girls, but there are also so many rules: the rule that makes Rosa stay in the house and take care of Mamma after Papa dies, the rule that Mamma can’t put Papa in a hospital, the rules about babies, the many babies she will be expected to have, unless she has one like Rosa.
When Teresa dreams about the wedding, she dreams about how everyone will dance, even Rosa, and the machinations behind her turn into music, the soaked sheet into a massive tablecloth. Mamma will smile, clap her hands, and grab on to a chair, thinking Papa beside her. Then a tall white cake rises to the front of her mind, along with frilly decorations, and proud invitations, especially the ones to Mamma and Papa’s families back in Portugal who won’t be able to come. Her hair will be worn up, in a twist, and she’ll carry white lilies in her hands. Sure, they will have to skimp on a few things, there has never been a lot of money and Wilhelm wants to put money aside for the future clothing store, but traditions are still traditions and the nice thing is she knows she will have all the necessities no matter what happens. Mamma says so and when Papa is gone …
“Look, Tera!”
Shaking herself from her dream, Teresa pulls off her rubber laundry gloves. Rosa offers up a skirt for her inspection, a green paisley pattern with wide swirls that Teresa recognizes as the old coarse fabric from the basement curtains.
“Look at the stitches, Tera!”
Teresa examines the cloth, turning it over and inside out. The stitches are firm when she tugs. Obviously nervous, humming to herself and tapping her good leg, Rosa beams when the stitches hold.
“Very good. Really good,” Teresa tells her, the spin cycle rolling on behind them, and it is. Rosa is good with her hands, learns quickly if you show her exactly how. There are times Teresa thinks that Rosa has the most talent, and could make a wonderful wife, if she just wasn’t the way she is. In a certain light, Rosa appears almost grandmotherly, her thighs loose like after childbearing, her breasts down to her stomach if she isn’t wearing a bra. It makes Teresa wonder what kind of children she will have, if she might resemble Rosa more afterwards.
“I made it for you to dance in. Put it on.”
Smiling, Teresa slips the skirt over her pants. Rosa’s firm hands zip it up in the back. The skirt is a little formless for Teresa’s taste, and the pattern is faded lime in a couple of spots, but it fits and rests pleasantly at the knee.
“Thanks, Rosa,” Teresa says, taking it off and placing it in the laundry basket she will use later to carry the clean clothes.
Rosa sways her arms and pounds her foot on the ground to the thumping of the washing machine until the strap on her brace comes off. Grimacing, Rosa bends down to fix it, the canvas strip tight in her fist like rope.
“I’m not too good at dancing.”
“Sure you are, Rosa. You’ll dance soon.”
When Rosa has retied the strap securely, Teresa picks up some wooden pins. “You did a fine job, Rosa. Now Mamma could use some help outside.”
Rosa accepts the pins as they drop into her hand. Teresa waves her on and Rosa obeys. Mamma’s worn running shoes pass by the window.
The washer goes into a fit, the little shelf holding the cleaners suffering a tiny earthquake. But Teresa knows the routine. It always does this moments before resting. Coughing and spitting up water, banging against the concrete wall, it sweats itself dry. Then there’s the silence that means it’s all over. But this time, when the silence arrives, Teresa abandons her dreaming and runs upstairs to check on Papa.
The Boy Next Door
If I told you my mother ran away with the boy next door, I wouldn’t be lying. Except that he was a man, not a boy. And a priest, not my father. But he did live next door. And my mother did run away with him. Although it was more like walking, very calmly, an organized exodus.
I had thought my mother’s keen interest in church was a direction of her energies toward my soul. My first confession was coming up in the next few months and as with any big Catholic event I believed she wanted to make sure I would perform it properly in front of the neighbourhood. She had been a regular churchgoer before then and wrote for Our Faith, the church bulletin, articles about bake sales and ads for seniors who were looking for companions to take them grocery shopping. She wrote her pieces at night, pulling out the extension of the dining-room table, laying her typewriter on top. She was a valued member of the congregation and we attended every Sunday, sprinkling ourselves with holy water and kneeling on the smooth pine floor. Then, over the course of that spring, she started to take on extra parish duties: helping clean the pews, baking cookies for the prayer group and the choir, passing out flyers, and arranging rummage sales. She didn’t seem to pray more that I knew, but she started spending more time in church than at home. I assumed Father Marcus approved of her as a good neighbour, or concluded that she had felt the good grace of God between the hedges separating our houses from one another.
Father Marcus was not the pastor. That was Father Brown. He had been the main pastor at Resurrection for thirty years and was well-liked by the parishioners, especially the older ones, who seemed to see him as a direct link to the heavens. The other priest had only been preaching for two years before he left for another town, to be closer to his family we were told. His job was to take over the lighter times of worship and help the children at my school with catechism. Father Marcus replaced him and moved next door because Father Brown liked living in the church. He had gotten used to it, though a church widow had died and left her house for him. That’s how the story goes and how he came to live
