John Casey - Compass Rose

After a bit May said, “We’d better haul her up. No telling when they’ll be back.” May stooped and got hold of the stern. Elsie got the bow. When May nodded they lifted her and carried her to a set of slings. She lolled onto her beam end on account of the skeg but lay steady. She looked awkward showing her white belly. May kept on up the path. Elsie lifted the stern and moved the sling forward so that the boat sat upright. May came back. Elsie said, “I just thought …”

May took hold of Elsie’s wrists. She looked straight into Elsie’s eyes. She said, “I’m not sure what I’ve lost on account of you. I suppose Dick might have gone off altogether. For a while I blamed Charlie’s staying away on you, but it’s not just you. All that’s as it happened. But Rose … Dick asked me once. He said, ‘Don’t you think it’s unnatural how you care so much for Rose?’ ”

There was a silence. Elsie took a breath and asked, “What did you say?”

“What do you think I said?” May held Elsie’s wrists together.

Elsie said, “You probably didn’t have to say anything.” Elsie lowered her eyes. “You love Rose.”

“That’s right. It’s no harm to Dick, it’s no harm to you. I love Rose as much as I love Charlie and Tom. As much as if I gave birth to her.” Elsie’s arms jumped. May loosened her grip but didn’t let go. “Don’t worry. I’m not asking anything more. I’m not out for anything. You and Dick got her, and you bore her, and when I got through feeling terrible, I felt empty. I wished you would go away. Then I asked for Rose to come to my house. I didn’t know and I don’t guess you knew how it would turn out. I don’t feel empty now. I get along with Dick. I can see you. It used to be the sight of you stung me. But right now I can see you and talk to you and touch you. I heard you get worried and tender for Dick just now. It doesn’t matter so much now. On account of Rose. She grew up around me.” May let go of Elsie’s wrists.

“Yes,” Elsie said. “And Rose loves you, too.”

But May had drawn back. May said, “And now we’re all going to watch Rose grow up and go away. Charlie and Tom are like Dick and me. Charlie may go to sea, Tom may go here and there, but they won’t settle anywhere but around here. You and your sister are different. You’re both good mothers, but you raise children so they can go anywhere. It’s not just money. It’s not books, either. Charlie and Tom have books. So what is it? When I drop Rose off to see Mary Scanlon, Rose goes up the front steps, says hello to the people on the porch. I don’t know how I know, but all of them sitting at those tables — they could go anywhere. It’s true what I’m saying, isn’t it? Rose is one of them.”

Elsie said, “I don’t want Rose to go away any more than you do.”

“Maybe you don’t. But you’re not saying I’m wrong.”

Elsie couldn’t argue that she herself had given up all that. Not with May. She said, “Rose just turned fourteen today. She’s not going anywhere for years. Rose loves it here.” Elsie couldn’t bear another minute of May’s looking at her. Elsie said again, “Rose loves you.”

May said, “Let’s go see if Dick’s pulled himself out of that hole he dug.”

Rose said to Elsie that if Elsie didn’t stop being cross all the time, Mary might go away.

Elsie said, “Mary and I have a solid friendship — a complete adult friendship — something I hope you’ll have when you grow up. Because you’re sure as hell a long way from it now.”

“Like you’re a grown-up. You still fuck your boyfriend in the backseat of a car.”

Elsie didn’t slap her. Elsie wanted to do something more painful and long-lasting. She said, “I can’t wait till you’re going to the Perryville School. And not just because you’ll be out of my hair. Mainly because I can’t wait to see you try being a spoiled brat over there and some of them will be smarter than you and better than you in so many ways, and you can be sure of this, too: some of them will be just as poisonous as you.”

Rose laughed. “You can’t afford to send me to Perryville.”

“You’re going as a scholarship kid. It used to be that some of the other kids thought that was cool, but nowadays that’ll be just one more thing for them to needle you with.”

“You mean along with me being a bastard.”

“That’s right. A poor pudgy bastard who isn’t good at games and hasn’t ever been to Europe.”

“I’ll go live with May.”

“May and Dick are with me on this. And your aunt Sally and uncle Jack.”

“I’ll ask Captain Teixeira to adopt me and send me to Portugal.”

“That’d work.”

Rose walked out.

Rose was calmer the next day, still hostile but her hostility was patchy, maybe clearing. At supper she ate salad and a few bites of fish and string beans. When Elsie offered her an oatmeal cookie she said, “What? You want the thin, rich girls to laugh at me?”

Elsie said, “I was mad. I’m sorry.”

“And you’re sort of a liar.”

“Yes, you’re not a pudge.”

“Not that. I talked to Aunt Sally and Uncle Jack, and Perryville isn’t like what you said. Uncle Jack said it’s got all kinds of kids. He’s on the board of governors, and he knows stuff you don’t. He said trips to Europe and being rich don’t count as much as character and … other stuff.”

“I guess by ‘other stuff’ you mean he said not to forget you’re Jack Aldrich’s niece.”

“Not just that. He said you and Aunt Sally going there counts, and so does our being friends with Miss Perry. Uncle Jack said she’s giving the school her house and everything. I mean, when she dies.”

Elsie stared at Rose. Rose took a step back.

“What?” Rose said. “I’m just saying what Uncle Jack said.”

“No,” Elsie said. She wasn’t sure what she meant by it. She couldn’t name what Rose had done.

“What?” Rose said again, turning one way and then the other as if looking for help.

Yesterday Rose had fought her to a standstill. Now Elsie could crush her, whether she called Rose the names that began to occur to her or whether she stared at her in silence.

“All right,” Rose said. “I talked about Miss Perry dying and she’s like your religion.” Elsie held still, was relieved by this note of rebellion. Rose took a breath and let it out. She was close to tears. She said, “You love her more than me.”

“No,” Elsie said. She touched Rose’s shoulder, and they stumbled into each other. We’re drunks, Elsie thought. We’re drunk on fighting.

For a while Elsie thought there wasn’t much left of Miss Perry. Miss Perry’s day started late and ended early, and most of it was subdued. Then one day she watched Miss Perry make her way to the bathroom with small steps. Miss Perry paused at the door, one hand splayed across the grooves in the doorjamb. Out of nowhere — not from anything in Miss Perry’s face, which was turned from her, not from any sympathy for Miss Perry’s effort — in fact the feeling came during the moment Miss Perry paused, it came into her and rose in her all at once: This is Miss Perry, whom I love now.

Everything was easier after that. Gathering up the skirt of Miss Perry’s nightgown, holding Miss Perry’s upper arms to lower her onto the toilet seat after making sure that Miss Perry had closed her fingers around the bundled hem. Even the conversation with her boss when he furrowed his brow over Elsie’s application for “compassionate leave” and said, “I don’t see how …” Elsie saw that he was bracing himself. She’d flared up enough over the years. She put her hand on his desk as though she was putting it on his hand. She said, “I know. I know it doesn’t quite fit.” She spoke to him in a voice she hadn’t ever heard from herself. “Just so you’ll know, and then maybe something will occur to us — I love my daughter, and I love Miss Perry. I know it’s a funny sort of family tree …”