Mrs. Costello sat, slump-shouldered. “Sorry,” she said. And then grunted softly, pushing out another splash of urine and foul air.
Sally wiped Mrs. Costello’s pale bottom quickly, holding her breath, nearly bursting into tears herself when the rough paper broke and the wet feces streaked her fingers. She swatted at the mess on her hand with more paper, and then, not gently, stood the woman up, brushed down her skirts, and again guided her back into the chair, holding her breath all the while. She returned the chair to its place before the window.
She wanted only to flee. To plunge her fingers into a bowl of bleach.
“I’ll just go clean myself up,” Sally said. “Then I’ll bring you some broth.”
Mrs. Costello was reaching into her nightgown, pulling at the cloth Sister Aquina had made.
“Empty the commode first,” she said. Her chin was raised—it made her seem haughty. She was pulling up the sodden cloth, hand over hand. When she had freed it from her dressing gown, she put the limp flannel to her nose and then disdainfully dropped it on the floor beside her chair. Sister Aquina’s kind attention.
Then Mrs. Costello pulled the lapels of the dressing gown back up around her neck and said regally, “Don’t leave that mess in here.”
*
THE DOG—in this telling there was only one of them—got hold of her skirt, and when she tried to pull it from his jaw, he nipped her hand. She gave him a good kick and was turning to get away when he caught her foot. She cried out and struck him on the head and—snap snap, she said—he had hold of her ankle, her calf. She cried out again, falling into a pole, scraping her face, her poor cheek, she said, against the rough wood, but holding on to it for dear life as the dog tried to pull her down. She heard the women in the street come running. Shouting from the apartments above. A man in shirtsleeves and suspenders picked up a plank—the yard was a mess of junk—and threw it at the dog. Lifted her. All these years later she remembered his strong arms.
In her wheelchair by the window, Mrs. Costello began to cry again.
He carried her home, this man, jostling her raw cheek against his suspenders. Her stockings were soaked with blood. Her shoe was gone. A rush of women with towels and aprons followed them, they surrounded her in her own place. Linen tea towels and aprons of cambric and rough calico, a box of sterile cotton from somewhere. They tore off her stocking. The flesh was swollen and oozing, blood everywhere. The cotton sticking to her wounds. Someone fetched a basin. Someone poured peroxide from a bottle, and she howled. The marks foamed and flamed.
“That’s old news,” Sally said softly. “Let’s talk of something pleasant for a change.” The bowl of broth, grown cold, was on her lap.
Mrs. Costello shook her head. The leg throbbed, she said. Throbbed and throbbed. When her husband came home, he fell on his knees beside the couch where she lay. There were still a number of women in the room. They told him to leave it be, the bandaged leg. They swatted him away with their towels and aprons. The leg throbbed and throbbed and swelled up against the bandages made of torn rags. Swelled up like baking bread. Green pus oozed. The bandages darkened. Her toes grew black. The women flew about the room.
Early one morning, her husband lifted her, carried her downstairs. The milk cart was in front of the door. He put her on the seat. A stream of neighbors following, drawn by her cries of pain and humiliation.
When her husband brought her home again, he wheeled her through the streets in this very chair.
Sally knew Mrs. Costello’s moods. Sometimes the tale of her catastrophe caused her to flatten her lips against her teeth in bitter anger. Sometimes, as now, retelling the tale merely made her weep. Sometimes it was the neighborhood women she condemned. Sometimes it was her husband’s fault for standing back when they admonished him. Sometimes she shook her head in sympathy and called him a good, unfortunate man—it was the doctors who cut off her leg without so much as a by-your-leave who were to blame. Sometimes there was only her seething humiliation that he had taken her to the hospital in a milk cart.
On this afternoon, Sally recalled Sister Lucy saying that if that dog had been drowned as a pup, still Mrs. Costello would have found an excuse. She had married without knowing the duties of married life. Duties, Sally knew, her own mother understood. Perhaps relished.
And there was some confused pride in this for the girl—another indication of her mother’s power, her endless expertise.
“Whose yard was it, where you found the dog?” she asked. The boredom and lethargy of these long hours was in her voice. She planned to repeat Sister Lucy’s taut reply: You should have minded your own business.
Mrs. Costello waved her hands. Sally saw that she had not resettled the woman’s clothes as neatly as the nuns would have done. Her dressing gown was twisted about her thighs. “I don’t know whose yard it was,” she said impatiently. “Some woman was looking for a man—a man who had beaten a child, tied a child to a pole and whipped him good. She and some others were on the street when I came along. We all went looking into the yards. But only I got bit.”
“Too bad,” Sally said. “But you’re better now.”
Mrs. Costello looked at her. That small, finely shattered face. “Better?” Mrs. Costello asked. “How?”
Her nose was running. Sally put the bowl of broth on the dresser and stood to collect another handkerchief from Mr. Costello’s drawer. “How am I better?” Mrs. Costello called after her. “Sitting here all alone day after day.”
“I’m here,” Sally said, returning. “You’re not alone.” She put the handkerchief to the woman’s nose.
“Abandoned and alone,” Mrs. Costello said beneath it. And then, whining, “I have a pain.”
Sally folded the handkerchief, wiped at her face again. She had a sudden impulse to stuff it into the woman’s mouth.
“I know you do,” she said dully. “I know.”
Mrs. Costello’s troubles were endless. The care of her was endless.
Sally took the bowl of broth from the dresser. The two balled handkerchiefs, full of snot, the yellow towel soaked in linseed, were still on the floor around her. There was straightening up to do. There were still hours to go before she could leave for her shift in the tearoom.
Mrs. Costello squirmed in her chair, broke wind, coughed delicately.