Free The Collected Stories by Grace Paley

good one. My husband doesn’t shop in bargain basements or January sales.
    Still and all, in spite of the quality, it was a mean present to give a woman you planned on never seeing again, a person you had children with and got onto all the time, drunk or sober, even when everybody had to get up early in the morning.
    I asked him if he could wait and join the army in a half hour, as I had to get the groceries. I don’t like to leave kids alone in a three-room apartment full of gas and electricity. Fire may break out from a nasty remark. Or the oldest decides to get even with the youngest.
    â€œJust this once,” he said. “But you better figure out how to get along without me.”
    â€œYou’re a handicapped person mentally,” I said. “You should’ve been institutionalized years ago.” I slammed the door. I didn’t want to see him pack his underwear and ironed shirts.
    I never got farther than the front stoop, though, because there was Mrs. Raftery, wringing her hands, tears in her eyes as though she had a monopoly on all the good news.
    â€œMrs. Raftery!” I said, putting my arm around her. “Don’t cry.” She leaned on me because I am such a horsey build. “Don’t cry, Mrs. Raftery, please!” I said.
    â€œThat’s like you, Virginia. Always looking at the ugly side of things. ‘Take in the wash. It’s rainin’!’ That’s you. You’re the first one knows it when the dumbwaiter breaks.”
    â€œOh, come on now, that’s not so. It just isn’t so,” I said. “I’m the exact opposite.”
    â€œDid you see Mrs. Cullen yet?” she asked, paying no attention.
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œVirginia!” she said, shocked. “She’s passed away. The whole house knows it. They’ve got her in white like a bride and you never saw a beautiful creature like that. She must be eighty. Her husband’s proud.”
    â€œShe was never more than an acquaintance; she didn’t have any children,” I said.
    â€œWell, I don’t care about that. Now, Virginia, you do what I say now, you go downstairs and you say like this—listen to me—say, ‘I hear, Mr. Cullen, your wife’s passed away. I’m sorry.’ Then ask him how he is. Then you ought to go around the corner and see her. She’s in Witson & Wayde. Then you ought to go over to the church when they carry her over.”
    â€œIt’s not my church,” I said.
    â€œThat’s no reason, Virginia. You go up like this,” she said, parting from me to do a prancy dance. “Up the big front steps, into the church you go. It’s beautiful in there. You can’t help kneeling only for a minute. Then round to the right. Then up the other stairway. Then you come to a great oak door that’s arched above you, then,” she said, seizing a deep, deep breath, for all the good it would do her, “and then turn the knob slo-owly and open the door and see for yourself: Our Blessed Mother is in charge. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.”
    I sighed in and I groaned out, so as to melt a certain pain around my heart. A steel ring like arthritis, at my age.
    â€œYou are a groaner,” Mrs. Raftery said, gawking into my mouth.
    â€œI am not,” I said. I got a whiff of her, a terrible cheap wine lush.
    My husband threw a penny at the door from the inside to take my notice from Mrs. Raftery. He rattled the glass door to make sure I looked at him. He had a fat duffel bag on each shoulder. Where did he acquire so much worldly possession? What was in them? My grandma’s goose feathers from across the ocean? Or all the diaper-service diapers? To this day the truth is shrouded in mystery.
    â€œWhat the hell are you doing, Virginia?” he said, dumping them at my feet. “Standing out here on your hind legs telling everybody your business? The army gives you a certain time, for godsakes,