Free The Girls on Rose Hill by Bernadette Walsh Page B

Rosie, love, I have no one but you."
    "No, I won't go." Tears streamed down my cheeks.
    "Don't make me beg, Rosie." Mama wiped the tears from my face.
    "Your place is with your family, Sister," Mother Mary Ignatius said. "In time, if things settle down with your family, you can return to us."
    I looked hard at Kitty. I'd escaped her once. I knew if I left with her now, I'd never return to my beloved convent in the mountains.
    "Fine," I said. "Let's go."
    With a heavy heart, I climbed the polished marble stairs to the first years dormitory. I fought back tears and I packed my few belongings in the too large empty suitcase Kitty gave me.
    "Please tell me you're not leaving," Sister Elizabeth said from the doorway.
    "My stepfather's had a stroke."
    "Rosie, you can't leave me. I'll never make it here without you."
    I looked over at my good friend who had cried every night with homesickness for our first three months, a concept incomprehensible to me. Lizzie, who constantly fought Sister Mary Michael, our dorm supervisor. Poor Lizzie, who's spirit was nearly broken by latrine duty and endless hours spent peeling potatoes.
    "I'll send you chocolates," I promised.
    "You know those old bats will just eat them themselves. Ah, Rosie, promise me you'll hurry back."
    "I'll try," I choked out, knowing that absent a miracle, I'd never be back.
    Two weeks later, the house on Rose Hill settled into its new routine. Kitty took over Peter's responsibilities at the hardware store and the boys helped out after school. Kitty, who Peter had forbidden to work at the store early in their marriage after he caught her flirting with the customers, was clearly in her element. Like a woman possessed, she scoured the dusty, neglected store from top to bottom. She straightened the shelves, held a sale to get rid of old, outdated merchandise, and graced every customer who walked in the door with a big County Kerry hello and her undivided attention. Receipts had already increased.
    Now I was the prisoner of Rose Hill. Aside from trips to the grocery and the drug stores, I rarely left the house. Day after day I spoon fed the hateful Peter, wiped the spittle from his frozen face, and lifted the dead weight of his body while he relieved himself in a bedpan. "Imagine you are caring for Jesus," Mother Superior had counseled before I left the convent. Giving the old bastard his daily sponge bath, it was hard to imagine Jesus' face in place of the man who'd beaten me senseless more than once.
    As weeks turned to months, my revulsion at washing his crepey flesh only increased. Kitty, the trained nurse, never once took a turn. Kitty, who would stick her head into the small room maybe once a day and shout a "How ya love" at him on her way out the door, had blossomed. My mother no longer had that haunted look. Her hair grew in, luscious and thick, and her cheeks became round and rosy. Me, on the other hand, I was as thin as a wraith. I looked like the middle-aged wreck while she looked like the carefree teenager.
    "Sorry, Rose," the aide said as she rubbed the rough sponge along my back, "I know this can be uncomfortable. I'm almost done."
    "Not at all," I assured her, shaking myself from my thoughts. "I know you haven't an easy job." I knew only too well how washing sick old flesh, day in and day out, could sicken and wither your own soul.
    She turned me over and smiled. "All done now. Feel better?"
    I returned her smile. "Yes, thank you." Ellen entered the room, her face like thunder, followed by the equally agitated Molly. I feigned sleep. After a while I really did doze, but then I, I heard the name Denis Lenihan. My eyelids fluttered. No, I must have misheard. Molly would never tell Ellen my secret. But my head was foggy and I couldn't help but release myself to the comforting oblivion of sleep.

 
     
     
    Chapter 10

     
    Ellen
    I circled the block one more time. A young Indian woman wheeling a baby carriage stared at me. Perhaps she thought I was lost. I smiled