Mary Clark - The Shadow of Your Smile

The couple who owned it were both writers who worked at home. The reason they liked to have their apartment cleaned on Saturday afternoon was because by noon they were on their way to their country home in Washington, Connecticut.

Sophie continued at the job for only one reason; they paid her double to give up her Saturdays, and with fifteen grandchildren that money made it possible for her to do all the little extras for them their parents couldn’t afford.

Even so, it gets harder and harder to work here, Sophie thought, as at one o’clock promptly, she put her key in the door of the apartment. Those two are nothing like Ms. Morrow, she told herself, not for the first time. A few minutes later she started to empty overflowing wastebaskets, pick heaps of damp towels off the bathroom floor, and clear the refrigerator of half-empty cartons of Chinese food. There’s a word for them, she sighed: slobs.

At six o’clock, when she left, the apartment was spotless. The dishwasher had been emptied, the laundry folded in the linen closet, the shades drawn exactly halfway down in all five rooms. They tell me how nice it is to come home on Monday and find it like this, Sophie thought. Why don’t they try keeping it like this?

Ms. Morrow’s apartment, she sighed. People would be going through it. It’s such a nice one, a lot of people will want to buy it. Ms. Morrow had told her that Dr. Hadley would take care of everything.

As Sophie pressed the button for the elevator, a thought occurred to her. If Ms. Morrow had bled on the pillow when she bit her lip, the soiled pillowcase would be in the laundry bag. And what about the bed? When they took away poor Ms. Morrow’s body, I bet nobody bothered to make the bed. I don’t want strangers to go into her home and see it with an unmade bed and a soiled pillowcase in the laundry bag, she thought.

The elevator came. She pushed the button to go up to the fourteenth floor. I have a key to her apartment, she thought. I’m going to do the last thing I can ever do for the poor soul-change her sheets. Take that soiled pillowcase home, launder it, make her bed and put the spread on, so that whoever goes into her apartment can appreciate what it looked like when she lived in it.

Comforted at the thought that she could offer one final service to a lady who had been very kind to her, Sophie got off on the fourteenth floor, took out her key, and opened the door of Olivia Morrow’s apartment.

With mixed emotions, but believing that she was genuinely concerned, Monica took Susan Gannon to Sally’s crib. Sally’s eyes were open, and she was holding a nearly full bottle of water. The oxygen mask had been replaced by tubes in her nostrils. At the sight of Monica she struggled to her feet and raised her arms. “Monny, Monny.” But when Monica picked her up, she began to punch at her with her small fists.

“Oh, come on, Sally,” Monica said, soothingly. “I know you’re mad at me, but I couldn’t help hurting you with those needles. I had to make you get better.”

The intensive care nurse held the chart for her. “As I told you when you phoned, Doctor, Sally had a pretty good night. She hates the IV of course, and fought it until she fell asleep. She did drink her bottle this morning and ate a little fruit.”

Susan had been standing a few feet away. “Does she still have pneumonia?” she asked quietly.

“There’s still some fluid in her lungs,” Monica said. “But thank God, she’s off the critical list. When the babysitter brought her in on Thursday morning, I was afraid we were going to lose this little girl. We couldn’t let that happen, could we, Sally?”

Sally’s fists stopped flailing and she laid her head on Monica’s shoulder.

“She’s the image of her father,” Susan said softly. “How long will she be in the hospital?”

“For another week at least,” Monica said.

“Then what?” Susan asked.

“Unless some relative comes to claim her, she’ll be put into a foster home, at least temporarily.”

“I see. Thank you, Doctor.” Abruptly Susan Gannon turned and walked quickly down the corridor. It was clear to Monica that she was becoming very emotional and was eager to get away.

After Monica examined Sally and put her back in the crib, wailing in protest, she reconnected the IV, and then checked her two other young patients. One of them was a six-year-old boy who had a bad strep throat. He was surrounded by his parents, big brothers, and grandmother. Books and games were piled on the windowsill. “I think I should keep you here for a couple of more days, Bobby, so you can read all those books,” she told him, as she signed his discharge papers.

At his alarmed look, she said, “Just kidding. You’re out of here.”

Four-year-old Rachel, who had been admitted with bronchitis, was her other patient. She, too, was recovered enough to go home. “And you two had both better get some rest,” Monica told the weary-looking parents. She knew that neither one of them had left Rachel’s side since she’d been brought to the hospital four days ago. Bobby and Rachel were never really in danger, she thought. Hospitalizing them was only a precaution. But Sally almost didn’t make it. The other kids have families who haven’t left them alone for one single minute. Sally’s only visitors have been her babysitter, who knew her for only a week, and the ex-wife of her father, who is now suspected of murdering Sally’s mother.

In the hospital lobby, Monica bought the Post and the News, and on the way home in the cab, she read the stories behind the headlines about Peter Gannon. The large gift bag Gannon claimed he had given Renée Carter had been found crumpled in his wastebasket. One hundred thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills, the money that had been in the gift bag, was hidden in the false bottom in his desk drawer.

He’s guilty as sin, Monica thought. No one in that family will ever want Renée Carter’s baby. According to these stories, Peter Gannon has never even laid eyes on her. Oh, God, with all the people who yearn for a child, why did Sally have to be born to these people?

But Sally would not be Sally if she were not the offspring of Peter Gannon and Renée Carter. No matter what kind of people they are, or were, she is a beautiful, sweet little girl.

“We’re here, Miss,” the cabby said.

Monica looked up, startled. “Oh, of course.” She paid the fare, tipped generously, and went up the steps, key in hand. She opened the outer door, used the key for the inner door to the vestibule, and walked down the hallway to her apartment. It was only when she was inside, and had dropped her shoulder bag and the newspapers on the chair, that the events of the past few days flooded through her mind.

She stared at the worn shoulder bag she had been using in place of the new one that had been crushed by the bus. She felt the panic of that awful moment again when the bus was rushing at her. Then she thought of her intense disappointment that Olivia Morrow had died only hours before they were to meet, of her futile attempt to find a possible confidante of Morrow’s at the funeral Mass, and finally of the emotional pain of learning that Ryan was involved with another woman. A feeling of intense sadness enveloped her.

Close to tears, she went into the kitchen, put on the kettle, and looked in the refrigerator for salad makings. I’m more banged up than I realized, she thought. My back and shoulders are sore and aching.

There’s something else, she told herself. What is it? It has to do with Sally. Something I said this morning. What was it?

Let it go, she thought. If it’s important, it will come back.