Garden of Lies (18 page)

a pretty good mood then. Besides, she hasn’t seen the baby.”

Marie frowned. “What’s the point? We’d just get into a fight, like always. Nothing’s changed.

If anything, she’s worse since she got sick. Jesus Christ, I don’t know how you stand it.”

Rose wanted to scream out,
I don’t know how I stand it either. It’s worse than you can possibly

imagine. But who else is there?

But she held herself in. No use unloading on Marie. She shrugged, and said quietly, “I have

to.”

Rose held her sister’s gaze. She stared into eyes the same odd [98] pale blue as Nonnie’s, but

more human, a glimpse into the heart that lay beneath her tough brittle shell.

“I always envied you,” Marie said in a voice that was softer, more earnest than her usual one.

“You’re stronger. Smarter. Not like Clare and me. We took the easy way out.” Her hand shot out,

thin cold fingers gripping Rose’s wrist. “Don’t let her beat you, Rose. Don’t ever give up.”

Rose drew back, thrown off balance. She was astonished. Marie? Envious of
her
?

“Shit.”

Pete’s cry tore her attention from Marie. Rose turned, saw him staring angrily at his car, a

battered green Valiant speckled with rust. A ticket flapped under one windshield wiper.

He ripped it free, then turned to deliver a savage kick to the red-tagged parking meter. “Two

minutes, those bastards. They couldna give us two more fuckin’ minutes.”

“C’mon, Pete, no sense gettin’ all worked up about it now,” Marie cajoled wearily. “There’s

nothin’ we can do.” She turned back to Rose, giving her hand a quick little squeeze. “Hey, listen,

thanks, for the ... you know. Every little bit helps. Come see us sometime, anytime, I’m always

home. Hell, where else would I be?” She jerked her head toward the church entrance. “Say

goodbye to the Blessed Virgin for me, will you? I’m not up to it. One more minute of staring into

that halo of hers and I’ll go blind.”

Like an alleycat landing on its feet, Marie was her old self again, leaving Rose wondering if

she had imagined the other Marie of a moment ago.

Rose couldn’t help but laugh. It
was
true about Clare. Yet she felt ashamed somehow, having

such uncharitable thoughts right here on the steps of Holy Martyrs.

“I will,” Rose promised. She kissed Marie’s cold cheek, and waved to Pete, who was already in

the car, gunning the engine.

She felt torn between loving her sister, and wanting to throttle her.

Now to deal with Clare, as if she didn’t already have enough to handle. Sweet, saintly, helpless

Clare. She watched her sister emerge from the church, screwing her face against the harsh light

like a baby, her petulant child’s mouth rounding in a small
O
of disappointment when she saw

that Marie had gone.

[99] “Marie couldn’t wait,” Rose told her. “She was in some kind of hurry.”

“Oh, my fault,” Clare answered cheerfully. “Father and I got so caught up, we lost track of the

time. I’m afraid we had a little disagreement. Father thinks it’s bad for the Church, this Vatican

Council of Pope Paul’s. I didn’t think so at first, but I suppose Father must be right. ...”

Rose felt a prickle of irritation. Why didn’t Clare ever hold out for her own opinions? They

should have taken some of the starch from her wimple and put it in her backbone.

She checked her watch. “We have plenty of time before your bus. Why not come back to the

apartment? Nonnie would like that.”

“Nonnie, yes.” Clare nodded. “You know, Rose, I say a rosary for her every day, and I’ve

asked Father Laughlin to include her in the daily blessing.”

A foul taste came into Rose’s mouth, as if she’d eaten too many sweets. How easy it was for

Clare, with her rosary beads. Rose could almost hear their gentle clicking in her head. How nice,

to kneel in the cool quiet of a church, ticking off your worries one by one, while others sweated.

Rose, resentment simmering inside her, strode down the steps, up the sidewalk, not looking to

see if Clare was following, not caring.

Then Clare’s voice was beside her, a bit out of breath, wafting on a cloud of white steam like

the Holy Ghost. “God is with you, Rose. He hears your prayers. He won’t forget you.”

Suddenly Rose felt the urge to hit her sister. “Did you hear what happened to Buddy

Mendoza?” Buddy used to live next door, an old schoolmate of Brian’s.

Clare’s face, pink with cold, turned a slapped-looking red. It was no secret she’d had a crush on

Buddy once—until Nonnie’d found out, and put an end to it.

“Buddy? He ... he went into the Army, didn’t he?”

“He was in Vietnam. They shipped him home last month ... what was left anyway. His face

was blown away, I heard. And most of his brain. They keep him alive with machines.”

Rose heard the sharp intake of Clare’s breath, saw her make the sign of the cross. And was

instantly ashamed. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling unbearably guilty. Ugly, that’s what

she was becoming. Ugly and mean, just like Nonnie.

[100] Avenue K now. They were passing Suds ’n’ Duds, where she washed Nonnie’s soiled

sheets every Saturday, and Eva’s beauty shop next door, with its row of dusty plants in the

window, where she took Nonnie for a wash and set while the laundry spun in the big blue dryers.

God, deliver me from evil,
she prayed silently.

Then, turning up the brick pathway to their apartment building, into the dark lobby smelling of

pine disinfectant.

Trudging up the long flights, Rose imagined the worst, as always, Nonnie dead, another stroke.

She felt a moment of dizzying hope, followed by crashing guilt. How could she
wish
her own

grandmother dead?

Rose turned her key, and held the door open to let Clare in ahead of her.

Then suddenly Clare was screaming, a shrill piping sound.

Rose pushed ahead of her into the living room, dark, lit only by the ghostly glare of the

television set, a nauseating smell rising up, gagging her, like the stink of an overflowed toilet.

Mother of God, what
—
?

Then she saw. Nonnie. Sprawled face down on the plastic runner that ran diagonally across the

living-room carpet, her quilted pink robe flapped open to reveal the thin white sticks of her legs.

Dead? Oh God, no. And she’d
caused
it, by wishing it.

Rose knelt, light-headed with a mixture of fear and wild hope, as she grasped the wrist that was

no more than a shank of bone draped in loose, sliding flesh.

Then Nonnie stirred, moaning. The horrible swamp smell was stronger now, making Rose want

to vomit.

Swallowing hard, Rose thought:
Oh Lord, she couldn’t make it to the bathroom so she went in

her pants. She must have fallen trying to get there. Damn Mrs. Slatsky for leaving her alone.

The squawking of the TV seemed suddenly too loud, as if the volume had been turned up all

the way, making Rose’s head throb. Some stupid game show. A lady in a gorilla suit jumping up

and down and screaming over the refrigerator she’d won.

Rose wanted to scream too, or to laugh madly. This was
her
prize, the rubber chicken behind

Door Number Three. A mean old lady lying in her own shit.

She twisted to look up at Clare. “Help me get her up.”

[101] But Clare just stood there, fidgeting with the rosary beads that dangled from her waist,

blue eyes wide and blank. Her round baby face frozen in disgust.

“Clare!”

“Do ... do you think we should move her?” Clare fluted anxiously. “Suppose something’s

broken.”

Nonnie was stirring now, trying to sit up. Rose slid an arm under her shoulders, and managed

to hoist her to her feet single-handedly. She wasn’t heavy; it was like lifting a bundle of dry

leaves, damp and rotting underneath. Saliva dribbled from the sunken corner of her mouth, as

Nonnie wrestled with the guttural sounds in her throat, struggling to shape them into words.

Damn Clare and her rosaries. Why didn’t she help?

Anger fueled Rose, made her strong. Supporting the old woman, she managed to drag Nonnie

to the bathroom. She wrestled her out of her robe, and somehow got her into the tub. She cranked

on the water, and reached into the cupboard for a washcloth. Now came the disgusting chore of

washing her.

Just don’t think about it. Thinking makes it worse.

Rose imagined a giant hypodermic needle filled with Novocain, numbing her from head to toe.

She would go through the motions, but in her mind she would be somewhere else.

With Brian. Tonight. They’d planned to spend it together, and she would let nothing interfere.

Not even if Mrs. Slatsky couldn’t stay with Nonnie.

Brian had said he needed to talk to her about something. Something important.
Dear God, let

him say he can’t wait, that we should get married right away, not in a year. I need him so much.

A horrible noise roused Rose from her longings.

“Gaaarraghhhh.”

Nonnie was trying to say something. Rose felt warm spittle spray against her cheek. Nonnie’s

pale eyes rolled frantically from Rose to the open doorway.

“Gaaaaarrrrraaagghhaa.”

Finally, Rose understood. Clare. Nonnie wanted Clare.

Rose stared down at her grandmother’s withered, gray-white body floating in the dirty

bathwater. She felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach.

Nonnie didn’t give a damn for all the backbreaking times Rose [102] had carried her, the

grinding routine of feedings, and this ... cleaning up her disgusting messes.

She only wanted Clare.

And where the hell
was
Clare?

Rose found her sister on her knees on the plastic runner where Nonnie had lain, her lips

moving in silent prayer.

Rage then, so fierce, like a gale blowing through her, a roaring in her head, a burning in her

chest. She wanted to slap Clare, slap her senseless right there where she knelt.

Then, as quickly as it had come, the anger drained away. “She wants you,” Rose said, too tired

to fight, sinking down on the sofa, hearing the sigh of the plastic slipcover.

Clare blinked her eyes open, and smiled, as sweet and blameless as a baby awakening from a

nap. “Yes ... of course.” She rose, smoothing her skirt, moving soundlessly into the next room on

her thick crepe-soled nun’s shoes.

Think about Brian,
Rose willed herself, dropping her head into her clenched hands, struggling

to shut out the smells and the wild shrieking laughter of the television.
Soon it’ll be just us.

Always ...

Rose was floating.

Far from her grandmother, and the hellish apartment on Avenue K. Far from anything and

everything that caused her pain.

In the warm hollow their bodies made under the covers, Brian’s long frame stretched loose

alongside her, she felt herself drifting on the gentle swells of his breathing, the pumping of his

heart. Safe. Peaceful.

Brian, sweet Brian. Her lover. How strange it had seemed in the beginning, thinking of him

that way. She remembered her pleasure the first time, her sickening guilt, then bursting into tears.

And Brian, distraught, thinking he’d hurt her. Each of them reassuring the other, and then

somehow they were doing it all over again.

Nine years ago. Mother of God, had it really been that long?

Rose had stopped going to Confession after that. What was the use? No point in telling God

she was sorry, when she knew perfectly well she was going to keep right on doing it. And how

could she stop? Loving Brian was the only thing that kept her alive.

[103] She could only hope that God, in His infinite mercy, would somehow understand and

forgive her.

Rose shifted, propping herself up on her elbow so that she was facing him. Over the ridge of

his shoulder, she could see out the window, a street lamp glowing in a fairy ring of mist, islands

of snow dotting the South Field green. And off to the right, the brick and slate hulk of Butler

Library.

How many times had she lain just so, looking out the second-floor window of Brian’s Hartley

Hall room? Dreaming of the day when they wouldn’t have to sneak time to be with each other.

Soon,
she promised herself.
Another year at the most. Then we’ll be together, just like we

promised each other. I’ve waited this long, so I can wait a little longer, can’t I?

Her gaze returned to the room. A narrow closet-sized cubicle, its walls pocked with thumbtack

holes, and lined with board and cinderblock bookshelves, all jammed with books. The books she

herself dreamed of having the time someday to read. Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Joyce,

Baudelaire. And in the corner, on the scarred oak desk, sat Brian’s ancient Underwood, a pile of

typewritten pages spilling from a box lid. The novel Brian had been writing before he got buried

in the dissertation.

She had read the novel, and it was good. Better than good. Pride swelled inside her, warming

her. It didn’t matter that this bed sagged terribly, and neither of them had two cents. He would be

famous someday, she was sure of it. His books on shelves in student rooms like this one, beside

Joyce and Faulkner.

She studied his face. All planes and hollows in the shadowy half-light from the street. Sweat

gleamed on his forehead, the blade of his nose. She licked a bead from his temple, savoring the