Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [103]
No, it wasn’t my next-door neighbor who told him that she’s rolling in it. Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is Father Mickey. And my sister. Their heads together up at the rectory. I don’t have to wake snoring Troo up to tell her, You told Father, didn’t you? You promised you wouldn’t, but when you were having one of those chatty visits, you bragged about what Mr. Gary told us last summer. How his mother was a huge moneybags. I know you. You were trying to impress Father with how you’re friends with somebody rich, and you did. He never gave a hoot about visiting Mrs. G until recently. Ethel told me it’s only been the last few months that he’s been coming by. That’s how long you’ve been getting your extra religious instruction.
I’m getting surer by the minute that one afternoon when Ethel needed to do her grocery shopping or make a trip to the drugstore, Father Mickey told her, Go right ahead. I’ll be happy to watch Bertha until you get back.
Ethel would be so grateful for the help. She wouldn’t think twice about leaving her patient in his trusting priest hands. She’d even ask him if he’d mind giving Mrs. Galecki her special medicines if she left around two o’clock.
Father Mickey probably had joy in his heart and dollar signs in his eyes when he poured that poor old lady a tall glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade and told her, “Time for your pills. Open wide, dearie,” and gave her too many of one or not enough of another or maybe some other awful poison that he brought along with him. That’s why she’s in that coma. It’s not her heart and it’s not her tummy and it’s not my imagination. Mrs. Galecki has been tottering on the edge of death for quite some time. All it’d take is one good push from the executioner of her will to knock her off.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Mother’s got on a yellow dress and her hair is pulled back in a bow that matches when she sets the laundry basket down on the backyard grass. With her pinched-in mouth, she looks like a buttercup about to bloom. Even though Dave bought her a new dryer to replace her old wringer, she still hangs sheets on the line in the summer, thank goodness. When I put my head down on them in the dark, the smell of sun and sweet-smelling clover reminds me that the night won’t last long; tomorrow is another day.
Troo and me are down on our hands and knees weeding the vegetable garden, which has always been one of our chores even out on the farm.
Mother slips the last clothespin into place, glances over at Mrs. Galecki’s house and says, “O’Malley sisters, I need to talk to you.”
Troo gets up to her feet and grumbles to me, “She’s got on her dog butt look. She’s probably gonna start complainin’ about the bench again.”
Mother wasn’t happy about Troo lugging Daddy’s and my bench over here from the zoo. It’s not new enough for her taste. Troo told me she almost didn’t let her hide it in the garage. That’s why our mother sits down on the white glider with the hearts cut out on the back. When Troo and me go to either side of her, I can tell she’s been to Doc Keller’s office for her checkup because not even perfume from gay Paree can cover up the stink of tongue depressors.
Mother doesn’t look at either one of her girls head-on. She hardly ever does. She is twirling her diamond engagement ring round and round on her finger. “I want you to hear this from me before you hear it from somebody else.” She pauses like she doesn’t know where to go next and that’s not like her. She is usually very sure of herself, very full-steam-ahead. “They took Ethel away early this morning to question her about Mrs. Galecki’s illness.”
I say, “No!”
The only reason I haven’t fainted right off the glider is because I was already afraid something like this might happen. I imagined the subject around every table this morning in the neighborhood went something like—I heard that Negro woman who was supposed to be taking care of Bertha Galecki mixed