Pete Hamill - North River

“Okay, now just rest,” Delaney said. “I’ll bring some ice in a cloth to stop the swelling.”

She took a breath and slowly exhaled, as if calming herself, and then whispered, “I can’t rest. I gotta feed this boy. You too.”

Delaney went past her and drew the window shade.

“We’ll manage, Rose. Today, we feed you. ”

She turned her head. The boy touched her face, wiping at tears. His own face was confused and sad. Rose was hurting and he didn’t know what to do about it.

They managed. Delaney used his best physician’s tone to tell Rose to stay off her feet. Angela sent over sandwiches from the restaurant, along with copies of the Daily News and Il Progresso. Rose read the newspapers and applied ice to her feet and dozed. In dreams, she mumbled in Italian. The boy kept watch. The rain slowed and then stopped.

That first evening, Delaney placed a water jug and a glass beside her bed, talked with her for an hour about what they had seen in the morning in the great cathedral. He said he was sorry for putting her through the ordeal of the trip to St. Patrick’s.

“We could have listened to it on the radio,” he said.

“No. It was like a show. ”

“That’s exactly what it was.”

“Except for those goddamned women. And my shoes.”

Now the boots were wasted, she said. They cost money and they were a waste. He said there was a shoe repair store on Ninth Avenue that specialized in stretching shoes and boots. Run by Mr. Nobiletti, the shoemaker.

“He gave me the olive tree,” he said. “I was going to call him anyway.”

She said she didn’t want to see the boots again for the rest of her life. She waved a dismissive hand and cursed in Sicilian. Delaney smiled, and then she did too. He changed the dressing again, caressing her wounded feet. Both were awkward in the intimacy of the small room. Several times, Rose began to say something then stopped herself. Delaney realized he was doing the same, but was smoothing the silence with his practiced bedside manner. He felt that Rose was afraid to go past certain boundaries. And so was he. Then he went into the bathroom to run water for Carlito’s bath. By the time the boy was clean and dressed, Rose had fallen into sleep.

While she slept, Delaney moved the radio to the hall outside Rose’s room. Around seven, he heated one of Angela’s sandwiches in the oven and poured a glass of water, and then he and the boy went to the top floor. When they arrived, she reached over and switched on the bedside lamp.

“Dinnertime,” Delaney said.

“Hey, come on, I can’t —”

“Eat,” Delaney said.

“A samich for you, Rosa,” the boy said.

She sighed and sat up with the tray on her lap and her feet hidden beneath the blankets. He laid the radio against a wall and plugged it in. Verdi played on the Italian station, and he turned down the volume.

“God damn you, Dottore,” she whispered. And bit into the sandwich and smiled.

Over the next few days, a new routine took over. Delaney and Carlito brought Rose her food. Delaney explained certain mysterious words that she had found in the Daily News. Carlito entertained her with paddleball and conversations with Osito. When Delaney moved through the warming parish, attending to patients, Angela came by to visit with Rose, and Monique swallowed her resentment or irritation and visited for a while too. Bessie, the cleaning woman, told jokes and made Rose laugh. They all somehow ate, although the house had lost the aroma of garlic and oil. Each night Delaney changed the bandages and told tales of some of the patients.

Alone in his bedroom, he read the newspapers, all about La Guardia and what Roosevelt was planning and what Hitler was doing. The numbers of the unemployed were beginning to stall, and that was mild good news. Maybe the goddamned Depression would be over soon. He leafed through the stack of medical journals. He filled in the records of patients. He heard opera descending from the upstairs rooms and the sounds of Carlito running and bursts of his laughter. The boy was taking care of Rose too. Delaney wrote to Grace, saying little about Rose, and a lot about Carlito’s presence at McGraw’s funeral. He addressed an envelope to Leonora Córdoba at American Express in Barcelona and enclosed the letter and five ten-dollar bills. And spoke in his mind to Grace the words he could not write on paper.

Find your goddamned husband. But don’t worry. We are fine here without you. Just be careful. I don’t like what I’m reading. About tensions in Spain, about rumors of revolt. Stay away from barricades, those new castles in Spain. Your barricades are here, daughter. Your son is here. Rose is hugging him in your place. And the sentence he could never write: Don’t come home.

Have no fear, Delaney told himself. Spring is almost here.

SPRING CAME ON SUNDAY, BUT NOT IN THE MORNING HOURS. IN the gray chilly darkness of morning, Delaney prepared coffee, found a tray, and carried a cup to the top floor, with a plate of crisped Italian bread and a slab of butter. Rose laughed, sat up, and slammed the pillow. “Breakfast in bed,” she whispered, savoring the words. “Just like the movies.” There was no sound from Carlito’s room.

“You can get out of bed now,” he said. “Just don’t wear the new boots until we get them stretched.”

She swung around on the bed and placed her feet on the floor. She moved her toes up and down then slid her feet into the slippers.

“The truth? I been up already. I go to the bathroom, of course. I look in the boy’s room. I sneak downstairs if nobody’s here and see if everything is okay.” She smiled. “Otherwise it’s like jail.”

She reached for a piece of bread and held the plate under her chin while she bit into it. She flipped off the slippers, then sat up in bed, still moving her toes. She looked up at him. Delaney smiled.

She joined him in the kitchen, carrying the tray, with its still full coffee cup and empty plate. The belt of her bathrobe was pulled tight. She was walking easily now, and he could see that the bandage was gone.

“Everything’s normal again,” she said. “I hope.”

“And a normal Sunday for you is a day off,” Delaney said.

“No, no,” she said. “I miss a couple days, I gotta make them up. I owe you, Dottore.”

“Rose, I already made plans,” he said. “So make this really normal with a normal Sunday.”

She looked relieved. “Okay,” she said.

Delaney told Rose that he planned to take the boy on a long walk. He would tire him out, and then they could all sleep a long time. Then he realized that her cup remained full. He made a sour face.

“You’re right,” he said. “That’s pretty lousy coffee.”

She glanced at the clock. “Want me to make a fresh pot?”

“It’s your day off, Rose.”

She smiled and then Carlito entered in his pajamas, holding the bear and grinning in a sleepy way. He hugged Rose’s hips. Then he walked into the light that was now streaming through the backyard windows and hugged Delaney, who hugged him back.

“Good morning, big fella.”

He remembered Big Jim calling him big fella from the time he was the size of this boy. This boy that Big Jim didn’t live to see.

“ ’Lo, Gran’pa.”

“Let’s eat.”

Rose started to place the warm loaf of Italian bread on the table, but Delaney took her elbow, moved her aside, and said: “It’s Sunday.”

“Okay,” she said. “I better get dressed. Carlito? When you finish come up and get dressed.”

“Okay, Rosa.”