Part 21 (1/2)

”I think she'll become a nun,” said Joseph, looking daringly at Dr. Meyers.

Sadly, Dr. Meyers shook his head. ”Think of how she is. There is no convent that would have her.”

Joseph felt his throat go hot like melting gla.s.s. It could not be that what his mother said was right. It could not be that they knew the same thing, his mother and Dr. Meyers, knew this thing he and Maria did not know.

Why did they know and never tell their children? They were cruel, the both of them. The cruelty he thought was just his mother's, Dr. Meyers shared. He might have thought that he kept silent out of kindness, but it was not kindness. It was fear.

But Joseph knew what he would do. He would get Dr. Meyers to send him away to school. He would not see Maria. He would write to her. And his letters would make her think of him in the right way. Make her think of him so she would love him, want to live with him, the body life, and not the life that rose up past the body, not the life of Sister Berchmans and the white-faced nuns. He would make her feel that only with him could her life be happy. He would make her want to marry him before they went to college. He would do that so that she would never know that they would never let her have it. He would marry her before she could find out that because of her blood they would keep back from her her heart's desire.

”I would like to go away to school,” he said to Dr. Meyers.

”Of course, Joseph,” Dr. Meyers said. ”We can arrange anything you want.”

Delia.

People talked about how difficult it was to say which of the O'Reilley girls was the best-looking. Kathleen had the green eyes. She came over by herself at seventeen. She worked as a seamstress and married Ed Derency The money that she earned, even with all the babies- one a year until she was thirty-five- was enough to bring over the three other girls. Bridget had black hair and a wicked tongue. She married a man who was only five feet tall. She had no children for seven years; then she had a red-haired boy. Some believed he was the child of the policeman. Nettie was small; her feet and her ankles were as perfect as a doll's. She married Mr. O'Toole, who sang in the choir and drank to excess. She had only daughters. Some thought Delia the most beautiful, but then she was the youngest. She married a Protestant and moved away.

In defense of her sister, Kathleen pointed out that John Taylor looked like an Irishman.

”He has the eyes,” Kathleen said to Nettie and to Bridget. ”I never saw a Protestant with eyes like that.”

”Part of the trouble with Delia all along is you babied her, Kathleen,” Bridget said. ”You made her believe she could do no wrong. What about the children? Is it Protestant nephews and nieces you want?”

”He signed the form to have them baptized,” said Nettie.

”And what does that mean to a Protestant?” Bridget said. ”They'll sign anything.”

”He's good to the children. My children are mad for him,” said Kathleen.

”Your children are mad entirely. Hot-blooded,” said Bridget. ”It's you have fallen for the blue eyes yourself. You're no better than your sister.”

”He's kind to my Nora,” said Kathleen.

Then even Bridget had to be quiet. Nora was Kathleen's child born with one leg shorter than the other.

”There was never any trouble like that in our family,” Bridget had said when she first saw Nora. ”It's what comes of marrying outsiders.”

John Taylor would sit Nora on his lap. He told her stories about the West.

”Did you see cowboys?” she would ask him, taking his watch out of the leather case he kept it in. The leather case smelled like soap; it looked like a doll's pocketbook. When Nora said that it looked like a doll's pock-etbook, John Taylor let her keep it for her doll.

”Cowboys are not gentlemen,” said John Taylor.

”Is Mr. du Pont a gentleman?” asked Nora.

”A perfect gentleman. A perfect employer.”

John Taylor was the chauffeur for Mr. du Pont. He lived in Delaware. He told Nora about the extraordinary gardens on the estate of Mr. du Pont.

”He began a poor boy,” said John Taylor.

”Go on about the gardens. Go on about the silver horse on the hood of the car.”

Delia came over and put her hands on top of her husband's. Her hands were cool-looking and blue-white, the color of milk in a bowl. She was expecting her first baby.

”Someday you must come and visit us in Delaware, when the baby's born,” she said to Nora. She looked at her husband. Nora knew that the way they looked at each other had something to do with the baby. When her mother was going to have a baby, she got shorter; she grew lower to the ground. But Delia seemed to get taller; she seemed lighter and higher, as though she were filled, not with a solid child like one of Nora's brothers or sisters, but with air. With bluish air.

Delia and John Taylor would let her walk with them. She would walk between them and hold both their hands. Their hands were very different. Delia's was narrow and slightly damp; John Taylor's was dry and broad. It reminded Nora of his shoes, which always looked as if he were wearing them for the first time. They knew how to walk with her. Most people walked too slowly. She wanted to tell them they did not have to walk so slowly for her. But she did not want to hurt their feelings. John Taylor and Delia knew just how to walk, she thought.

After only two weeks, they went back to Delaware.

”She's too thin entirely,” said Bridget.

”She's beautiful,” said Nora. Her mother clapped her hand over Nora's mouth for contradicting her aunt.

Delia never wrote. Nora sent her a present on her birthday, near Christmas. She had made her a rose sachet: blue satin in the shape of a heart, filled with petals she had saved in a jar since the summer. She had worked with her mother to do the things her mother had told her would keep the smell.

Delia sent Nora a postcard. ”Thank you for your lovely gift. I keep it in the drawer with my linen.”

Linen. Nora's mother read the card to her when the aunts were to tea at their house.

”Fancy saying 'linen' to a child,” said Bridget. ”In a postcard.”

”She has lovely underthings,” said Nettie.

”Go upstairs. See to your little brother, Nora,” said her mother.

”When they came back to New York, he gave her twenty-five dollars, just to buy underthings. Hand-hemmed, all of them. Silk ribbons. Ivory-colored,” said Nettie.

”Hand-done by some greenhorn who got nothing for it,” said Bridget.

Now Nora knew what Delia meant by linen. She had thought before it was tablecloths she meant, and that seemed queer. Why would she put her good sachet in with the tablecloths? Now she imagined Delia's underclothes, white as angels, smelling of roses. Did John Taylor see her in her underclothing? Yes. No. He was her husband. What did people's husbands see?

She was glad the aunts had talked about it. Now she could see the underclothes more clearly. Ivory ribbons, Nettie had said. Delia's stomach swelled in front of her, but not as much as Nora's mother's. And Nora's mother was going to have a baby in May, which meant Delia would have hers first. March, they had said. But Delia's stomach was light/hard, like a balloon. Nora's mother's was heavy/hard, like a turnip. Why was that, Nora wondered. Perhaps it was because her mother had had five babies, and this was Delia's first.

When her mother wrote to Delia, Nora dictated a note to her too. She asked when John Taylor's birthday was. She thought it was in the summer. She would make him a pillow filled with pine needles if it was in the summer. In July, the family went to the country for a week, and her mother would give her an envelope so she could fill it with pine needles for her Christmas gifts.

March came and went and no one heard anything of Delia's baby. Nora's mother wrote, Nettie wrote, even Bridget wrote, but no one heard anything.

”She's cut herself off,” said Bridget. ”She hasn't had the baby baptized, and she's afraid to face us.”

”First babies are always late,” said Kathleen. ”I was four weeks overdue with Nora.”

”Perhaps something's happened to the baby. Perhaps it's ill and she doesn't want to worry us,” said Nettie.

”Nothing like that used to happen in our family,” said Bridget, sniffing. ”Or anyone we knew in the old country.”