Free After the Fog by Kathleen Shoop Page A

ashtray beside him and scratched away on the yellow legal pad he’d kept in his bedside drawer.
    “Get some sleep,” Rose said.
    “Yeah,” Henry said as he continued to write.
    Rose shook her head and toweled off her legs. She was always caught off guard by the way Henry attracted her, zapping away unease or anger or worry for the moments that their sex lasted. Then, like a window snapping shut, the closeness was gone and the hurt that she had closed off was instantly back.
    “You need a day off,” Henry said.
    Rose pulled her stockings and undergarments from a drawer and slammed it shut.
    “You’ll see. With some rest, everything will be fine,” Henry said. He normally pushed Rose to confide in him when she was angry—as much as she ever could—but this time he seemed as unwilling to cross the divide as her. That made her even angrier.
    Rose laid her slip on the bed, pulled on her underpants and garter-belt and sat down, forcing Henry to move in toward the middle. She glimpsed the yellow pad of paper as he shifted. Doodling. He had something to say to Rose, but she didn’t have time to lure it out of him.
    She fixed her bra straps over her shoulders and hooked it in the back.
    “Just one day,” Henry said as he ran his finger under her bra strap and then caressed the back of her neck.
    “One day?” Rose wound the Big Ben clock listening as the gears tightened. “I’ve got a home visit to show the new superintendent’s wife that her money would be well spent in our community health clinic. I should check in on Meanie and Slats before seeing if Big Martha will deliver today.”
    The clock’s heavy ticking set her pace. She lifted her leg and rolled a flawless white stocking over one foot and up her leg. She snapped it to the garter and smoothed the whole stocking from toe to thigh. Henry toyed with the garter and she eased his hand away.
    She rolled on the second stocking. “You fix this with Magdalena and then I’ll feel better.” The sound of paper crinkling drew her attention to Henry who was folding up a yellow, legal pad piece of paper.
    “We don’t need a conversation about how crazy her little announcement was this morning. Neither of us has the time.”
    She stepped into her slip.
    Henry lit another cigarette. “What would you do if you knew something you shouldn’t, but because you knew it, you should do something that may not be the right thing?”
    Rose grimaced. Henry was always spouting philosophic “what ifs” that at one time Rose used to entertain. They’d become background noise to her, well, she wasn’t sure when, but they floated through the air, entering her ears, but not sparking any intellectual interest.
    “You just tell the truth, Henry. That seems to be the best way to avoid stepping into dog-shit, don’t you think?”
    He shrugged, tapping his pencil on the yellow pad. “Like when there’s information you’re supposed to know and facts you’re not…”
    Rose laughed and went to the closet. “Like when our daughter confided in you that she plans to toss away her future like dirty toilet paper?” She removed her uniform from her closet.
    “Don’t ever do that again. Keep a secret,” Rose said, wishing she could wrench the words back into her mouth, knowing that she’d kept secrets from Henry she would never want to have to make up for. But still, this was different.
    “Rose.” Henry appeared to feel all the guilt Rose thought he ought to, having kept such a secret. “I didn’t—”
    A knock on the door stopped Henry from finishing his thought.
    Sara Clara’s voice was muffled behind the wood door. “Doc Bonaroti said, Mrs. Sebastian confirmed, Rose. Don’t be late.”
    Rose groaned. As if she’d ever been late for anything.
    “The Doc said that, not me. Don’t be mad at me,” Sara Clara said.
    “Oh I’m mad, Sara Clara,” Rose said.
    Rose pulled her blue uniform over her fresh, white slip, its delicate lace, immaculate from Rose’s laundry