"Halt," I said, trying to make my voice sound like something a person would halt for. "Who goes there?" I pointed my rifle out toward the bright headlights of the jeep.
"Corporal of the guard."
"Advance and be recognized," I said. I still couldn't see him with the lights in my eyes.
He turned off the jeep and got out and I blinked, trying to adjust to the darkness. "What's your name, marine?" he said.
"Sir, my name is Wilson Abbott, 276559, sir."
"Abbott, what is the first general order?"
I was relieved, 'cause that was the one I could always remember. I told him I'd walk my post in a military manner. I told him the whole thing.
"At ease," he said.
They were the sweetest words in the language back then. It meant that things were going to be all right. I took a step to the side and looked at him.
"Corporal of the guard come to smoke," he said, and tapped a Camel out of his pack and lit it. "Not too bad out here tonight."
"Sir, no, sir."
"Anything to report?"
"Sir, no, sir."
He probably wasn't more than nineteen or twenty, but on that night he was so far my superior that I couldn't imagine we could have gone to high school together. He pulled on his cigarette, leaned back his head, and blew the smoke straight up. Bill Lovell was his name, I remember that. I waited and tried not to watch him, thinking he would finish his cigarette and go on, but he seemed to make it last and when he was finished, he lit another one off its end. He took the one that was done and field-stripped it, flicking off the burning end, scattering the tobacco, and rolling what paper was left into the smallest ball you could imagine.
"You smoke, Abbott?"
"Sir, yes, sir."
"Well then, have a smoke with me." He took a cigarette from his pack, lit it, and handed it to me. I can't describe this so that it would make any sense to someone who hadn't been there, but this was just short of a miracle; the corporal of the guard giving me a cigarette at my post. I took it and thanked him. "Where you from, Abbott?"
"Sir, Ashland City, Tennessee, sir."
"Never heard of it."
"Sir, no, sir," I said. I wanted to ask him where he was from, how long he'd been there, but I didn't want him to think that if he gave me a cigarette I'd take it as a sign that I could do anything I wanted, so I just kept quiet and enjoyed the smoke.
He looked around the camp. It must have been three in the morning. Nothing was moving, nothing awake. Then he looked at me. "It sure would be a shame if you had to shoot anybody with that weapon," he said. "Springfield was fine in the Great War, but you'll need better than that to fight Tojo. I hear his boys have weapons we haven't even thought about yet."
"Sir, yes, sir."
The corporal of the guard stripped his second cigarette. I did the same.
"Seems to me they should be giving everybody side arms, like this," he said, and pulled a gun out of his holster. ".45. Now there's a weapon to fight with."
It was a hell of a gun. If you didn't want to shoot somebody with it you could use it to hit him over the head and kill him just the same. I'd seen pictures of them, but I'd never been up close to one. Right there, in his hand, you could tell it would have nearly the kick of my Springfield. All the power without the size.
"You interested in weapons, Abbott?"
"Sir, yes, sir."
"I figured, you being from Tennessee. Tennessee and Texas, there're two states that know from firearms." He pulled the slide back and forth, ejecting four rounds. They popped out of the chamber and made a dull sound when they hit the dirt. "When you do this," he said, "you're taking off the safety and putting back the hammer. See? Now it's ready to go. Course, there's another safety here, in the grip. This weapon does all your thinking for you." He put the .45 flat in his outstretched hand. "I can't let you hold it," he said, "but it's heavier than you'd think it would be." He moved his hand up and down slowly, like he was a scale. "Nearly five pounds with the clip in. Just right, just enough to really give you something to hold onto."
I would have loved to have that gun.
He put one finger through the trigger bar and spun it around his hand, then caught the gun by the butt and held it still again. "Pretty good, huh? Comes from watching all those Westerns."
"Sir, yes, sir."
"I've been working on my draw," he said, and put the gun back into the holster. He reached down, flipped the top of the holster up, and pulled it out fast in one clean movement. He pointed it down, then put it back in the holster, looked away for a minute, and pulled it out again. "I'm fast," he said, "but not really fast enough. I've seen guys who do this"—he pulled the gun out again, a little better that time—"you can't believe the weapon was ever in the holster, they get it out so fast. The secret"—he pulled it out again, this time tensing up a little—"is just to do it over and over again and then—" He pulled the gun out and it discharged. He had hit the grip safety and the trigger at the same time. I heard the loud crack and smelled the sharpness of the gunpowder before I felt it. The round went into my left knee with such force it knocked my leg clean out from under me. I fell to the ground like a stone and there was a sound of all my breath coming out of my lungs and Billy Lovell looked at me for that second and I looked at him and we knew, that in different ways, it was all over for both of us.
3
MOTHER CORINNE never liked it, Rose staying on and working in the kitchen the way she did, but Rose just wouldn't go. It wasn't three days after Sissy was born that she just bundled her up and took her into breakfast. I went over with her. "You don't need to do this," I said. "You should have some rest, stay home with the baby. You don't need to be working." But she didn't even look up at me. She was putting diapers in her overnight bag and trying to find her scarf.
We went in together through the back door. Once we got there I knew why she was doing it. Sister Evangeline lit up like a Christmas tree. The second she saw Rose and the baby she started to cry, her hands pulling at her rosary. "Lookee," she said. "Oh, Mother Mary, lookee at this one here." She wrapped her arms around Rose and put her head down next to the baby, kissing her. "I never get the babies," she said, not stopping to wipe her face. "All the girls come here and I can see so much promise, but then everybody goes away. I've tried not to mind, but now I can tell you, I do. Every one of them I miss."
"I'm here," Rose said.
"I wasn't sure. I mean, I was sure, everything in me said this baby was going to stay, but then I thought maybe I just wanted it so bad, maybe I was trying to will it so. I got confused." She smiled at me, standing over near the door. "Old women. You know me, Son."
"She wouldn't leave you," I said, because then I knew it was the truth. "I tried to get her to stay at home, but she wouldn't have it."
"Well, you should stay at home." She reached up and slapped Rose a couple of times on the cheek, too hard, I thought. "You should be in bed." But the joy in her voice said very clearly, You're fine, you should be right here. "They sent me a new girl when you left. Penny. Sweet girl, but she's no Rose. I'd forgotten how to cook with you around. All those years of doing everything and now I can't boil an egg. And Penny, sweet girl, she can't do a thing, either. I was starting to think I'd be out on the streets, an old nun looking for work. But you're hungry, all of you. You," she said, and touched Sissy's nose. "Sit down, I'll make you breakfast."
"You sit down," Rose said, and dropped the baby in her arms like she was tossing a handbag on the sofa. Sister Evangeline and I both took on the same panicked look. "I'm going to make breakfast."
"Well, what am I going to do?" Sister Evangeline said.
"Take care of Cecilia, I guess," Rose said, and went to tie an apron on.
"I don't know about babies anymore."
"You know more about them than I do," Rose said. Then she set about her job, just like nothing had happened. She took out the bowls and the eggs and the flour, the cups and spoons. She forgot about us, or at least tried v
ery hard to look like she had. I ate the plate of pancakes she set before me.
"I need you to take the baby over to June," Rose said to me.
"June?"
"She's going to keep her for me, for a while, during the day."
"I thought you'd keep her here."
Rose shook her head. She kept on cooking. With Rose it was always a meal for twenty-five. "I don't want her around here. In fact, I want her out before the girls start waking up. It's too hard for them to see a baby. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about."
"But how's June gonna feel about this?" I said. Sister Evangeline had the baby and was bouncing her up and down.
"I called her and worked it all out. She's thrilled. You know June. She'd love to have the baby around."
"I talked to her, too," Sister Evangeline said. "She can hardly wait."
I stewed for a minute. I didn't like it, the baby not being with Rose. I didn't like not knowing either. I was the father. That ought to count for something.
"You need to get going," Rose said to me. "Girls will be up any minute."
I leaned over and took my daughter out of Sister Evangeline's arm. Such a tiny bundle. Such a little round weight. I wanted to keep her with me but there were so many things to do. I was the one with the paying job in the family. "All right," I said. "But we'll talk about this later."
When I got to the door Rose stopped me. I thought that maybe she couldn't stand it now that she was watching her go. "Son," she said. I turned to her. Sissy was asleep like an angel. "Take the diaper bag."
I carried the baby over the pasture to June's house. It was cold and I kept trying to keep her head covered up without smothering her. Who would have thought I'd be walking across this pasture with a baby? My baby. The bag of bottles and soft clothes swung from my shoulder. My daughter slept and woke, twisting up her mouth as she watched the sky pass over her head. It was early, barely daylight, but when I came up the steps June threw open the door, fully dressed.
"Well, let me see this," she said, and stretched out her arms.
I gave Sissy over to her and she just couldn't get enough of it. I thought she'd push the baby clean into her chest. "Son Abbott," she said. "If I had known the day I met you what good things you'd bring to my life, I would have taken a mind to marry you myself."
"You're smarter than that," I said.
"Not smarter," she said. "Just too old. God, will you look at this one? All my life I thought a baby would come to me. Just didn't count on it taking so long." She stepped inside the house, and I saw a bassinet set up in the living room, right in the center of things where June could keep an eye on her all day. She didn't waste any time getting herself set up.
"This seems like an awful lot of bother for you," I said.
"Don't be a fool."
I sat down on her sofa, made myself to home for a minute. "If you ask me, it's Rose who should be doing this. There's no point in her going back to work."
"The point is that she wants to. If she wasn't meant to stay at home it would only wind up worse in the long run. She told me on the phone, it's only while this one's real little. It's hard for those girls, seeing new babies when they're so close to having one of their own. It's confusing. Once some time goes by and things settle down, she can stay over with Rose during the day."
"I don't like it," I said.
"Well," June said, running her finger along my daughter's cheek. "I do."
I stopped in a couple of times during the day to check on things, but everybody seemed happy as larks. Once I went by and found Sister Evangeline there, changing Sissy's diapers on the kitchen table. "Everything else in the world gets modern," she said to me. "Babies stay just the same."
I thought a lot about the two of them, both past sixty and finally getting to have a baby of their own. I was glad for them. I could see it was no burden. But still, I wished it wasn't my baby they had.
At the end of the day Rose and I went over to June's and took Sissy back. June acted like we were tearing her heart out of her chest.
"She'll be back in the morning," June said.
"First thing," Rose said.
June watched us walk back toward our house beside the hotel. "This isn't right," I said to Rose, Sissy fussing a little in my arms. "Leaving her with someone else, not paying her any attention."
"I feel sure Cecilia got more attention today than most children get in a lifetime."
"I just don't like it," I said.
She stopped in the snow, halfway between Saint Elizabeth's and our house. We looked at each other in the darkness. The stars behind her head looked like a decoration for Rose. "I'm tired," she said quietly.
And I didn't say, see there, I told you; and I didn't say, that's what you get; I said, come on then, let's get you home.
The next morning when I was on the second floor finishing up work on a sink, flat on my back and staring up at the curved underside of a washbowl, Mother Corinne came in.
"Son," she said. "I won't have this."
I sighed, sat up, and wiped my hands. I'd gotten good at being careful not to hit my head on things. "Rose?" I said.
"She's not a resident anymore. She shouldn't be here."
"She's my wife now, Mother."
"Then she should stay at home as your wife. I'm none too pleased about the way all of this went. It wasn't the time to talk to you before, but I'll have you know this is a great disappointment to me. I trusted you, Son. If I'd known you were going to be picking out girls for yourself I would have dismissed you years ago."
I stood up, because Mother Corinne used her size to bully people. "Since we both know that's not so, I think it best we just don't get into it."
She flushed a little bit. "The point of this conversation is your wife's continuing to work in our kitchen, which is unsatisfactory."
The thing you had to do if you were going to deal with Mother Corinne was forget about her being a nun. I used to let her get by with a lot of stuff, took all her guff for years because she was supposed to be a woman of God. You had to deal with her as straight as she dealt with you, or you were dead in the water. "The way I hear it told, the food went downhill fast with Rose gone. Sister Evangeline can't do it anymore. She hasn't been able to for years, and she can't have a different girl coming and going for each meal. She needs someone to look after her, and she wants that someone to be Rose. As for my feelings, I'd tend to agree with you. She's not getting paid and she's working like a horse, which don't make much sense to me. I'd say we should all be thankful for what's set before us."
Mother Corinne mulled on this for a minute. She was not one to set her teeth so far into something that she couldn't let go when presented with the truth. "There will be no salary for her, not if she's not asked to be here, but if she wants to help, for a while," she said, "then I suppose that could be arranged, but her daughter will have to stay at home. This is no place for children. Surely even you would be able to understand that."
"I understand that fine," I said. "Sissy is staying with June Clatterbuck."
"Then this conversation is concluded," she said.
"Except for this: when you want to get rid of Rose, you go tell Rose. Not me." I turned the cold water faucet. Water came out. "Fixed it," I said.
Mother Corinne nodded toward the sink and left me there. I didn't scare her and 1 didn't try to. We'd been around each other for so long and we both admitted, at least to ourselves, that we were dependent, me on the work and her on the worker. But Rose was another story. She didn't need anything from anybody, and if you tried to tell her what to do, chances were she was going to tell you to go to hell.
Sissy was pure joy, as smart and loving a child as God's made. Being around so many people while she was growing up made her friendly.
"Children are like pups," Sister Evangeline told me. "The more people picking them up and playing with them, the more people they'll grow up liking in their life."
By the time she was three she'd started coming over to
Saint Elizabeth's for lunch, and when she was four she was pretty much around all the time. It happened gradually, so that even Mother Corinne was used to her. She still went over to June's every day, but it was almost like she was too busy to spend the whole day with one person. All the girls wanted their time with her. They wanted to brush her hair and read her stories. They wanted a little chance to mother if they weren't going to get to be mothers in their own right. At the hotel she was the center of the world, and it made her sweet, where another child might have turned spoiled.
With all the excitement that came from spending her days at Saint Elizabeth's, Sissy must have found the evenings dull, two quiet parents and a little house. Her mother read cookbooks at the kitchen table, or did a little straightening up. I used to wonder if Sissy would forget who her mother was, with so many mothers. Once or twice I caught the girls trying to get her to say Mama to them. But Sissy knew. If she fell and scraped her knee, it was Rose she ran to crying, and if she painted a picture she was proud of, it was Rose she wanted to see it first. And Rose would always turn down the flame under the pot she was working on and listen to her for a minute or pick her up under one arm to wash out her cut in the sink.
"You know you shouldn't be running in the halls," she would say matter-of-factly, not scolding, but just passing something along. "That's how these things happen."
Sissy would sniff a little and touch her cut lightly.
"Don't touch it," Rose said. "That's why I washed it in the first place." She got out the small first-aid box she kept near the stove and put a Band-Aid on. "Repaired," she said and lifted her off the counter and put her down on the floor, but Sissy held on to her neck like clinging ivy. "Come on now, your mother has to work."
"Kiss."
"Okay, kiss." Rose kissed her. "Now scoot, go scare the nuns."