but like you always say, timing is everything and I just couldn’t find the time.” I hunched up in my shoulders and sunk down farther into the brown chair, getting ready for her to yell at me. I figured out too late that was a bad idea, telling her Daddy forgave her, because she was not smiling or acting at all like this was good news. In fact, Mother did the most amazing thing. I had heard it at night, but I had never seen it. She started to cry. And it wasn’t just a little sobbing… it was a great big gully washer. Right into her hands. The wedding ring that Hall had given her was gone, but there was a little green mark on her finger where it used to be.
I placed my hands on her knees, which felt like two tennis balls, and just said, “Shhh… shhh… shhh.”
Mother cried for a long, long time, her tears sliding down all over her face. But finally, she sort of sputtered out,
“Thank you for telling me. That makes all the difference in the world.” I was so relieved she wasn’t gonna start hollering at me that I dug around in my pocket and found one of Troo’s Kleenex carnation flowers and gave it to her.
“I’ve got a secret, too. This might be a big shock to you, Sal. A big shock. So be prepared.” The clouds had let loose and the rain was attacking the windows and dying in squig gly lines. “I’m going to tell you why Officer Rasmussen has a picture of you in his wallet.”
Oh no! Now I was going to have to tell her my suspicions about Rasmussen and she had already made these plans that we would go live with him and it was going to ruin everything when I told her I still thought, not as much as before, but it was still a very good possibility, that Rasmussen, her high school friend, had turned into a murderer and a molester.
She grabbed for my hands like I was an edge of a cliff she was falling off and said, “Dave Rasmussen is your father.”
I waited for her to say something else, but she was just looking at me with her blue crater eyes and white, white face. “Oh, Mother, that’s silly.” I laughed even though I didn’t think it was a very funny joke.
She opened her eyes wider and gave me the look where her mouth goes into a straight line. Her deadly serious look.
“Mother?” I got really afraid then and slid off that plastic-covered chair.
“Sally Elizabeth…”
Mother said real fast now, her words chasing each other out of her mouth, “I’m so sorry. I should have told you a long time ago… but for the longest time I wasn’t even sure myself. It wasn’t until you got a little older and… started to look so much like Dave… you have green eyes… but so did your aunt Faye… but then your blonde hair and dimples and… your daddy suspected… he didn’t know for sure but…” She took my hands and pulled me back down into the chair and said in a whisper like it hurt her so bad to talk, “Paulie must’ve told Donny on the way home from the baseball game, the day of the crash… he must’ve…”
“When Daddy was in the air force, Officer Rasmussen and I… well…” Mother gave me a sorry smile. “We just fell in love again. Do you know what that means?”
I stared at the window, at the rain starting and stopping and changing direction. Yes, I knew what it meant. Mother and Rasmussen sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage… then comes Sally in a baby carriage. I wanted to run down the hallway into the elevator and out of the hospital and onto the street and throw myself in front of that number 23 bus.
“But…,” I tried to say. Mother had to be wrong about this. The staph infection must’ve gotten into her brain and hardened her arteries.
“No buts about this, Sally. That’s what your daddy meant when he told you that he forgave me.” She looked right into my rare green eyes. “He forgave me for falling back in love with Dave and having you.”
I started to cry and Mother pulled me into her lap. I lay my head on her chest.
“I know this is hard for you and you’ll need some time to think about it, Baby.” She hadn’t called me Baby since Daddy died and that was nice to hear, like coming home after a long day and seeing her in the kitchen leaning over a pot stirring chicken noodle soup with those extra-fat noodles and fresh carrots. “We’ll talk about this some more when I get a little stronger, but I wanted you to know. It’s important that you know.” Her heart was beating so hard that I wanted to reach in and pet it. “And I’m glad that I didn’t die or you would never have known because Dave… I mean, Officer Rasmussen, he would never have told you because he is a gentleman in the truest sense of that word.” She said this so sweetly, with so much kindness. That was the detail that had changed. Mother was happy now. Even after almost dying, she was smiling like that picture that I had of her down in the hidey-hole. “Now, I don’t want you to start up with your worrying,” she said. “Everything is going to be okay now.” She rested her head on the top of mine. “I’m so very tired, Sal. Please take me back to my room.”
I wheeled her down the hall and handed her off to the old nurse, the same one who took care of Daddy. She looked at me like she didn’t remember me when she helped Mother back into bed.
I was afraid to go near Helen, so I stood in the dark corner of the room. Maybe she wasn’t my real mother either. Maybe Troo wasn’t my sister or even Nell.
She called over to me in a weak voice, “Come closer.” She sounded so desperate, I couldn’t resist. “Forgive me,” she whispered and then fell right asleep.
I sat down next to her while the rain streamed down her window, the white sheets gliding up and down with her slow breathing. Now I knew what that sad look was that she’d always been giving me. Mother loved Officer Rasmussen and I was part of that love. Forgive her? Not in a million years.
But then I remembered Daddy and how I’d sat in a room just like this one after his crash. And how he sounded when he told me he forgave Mother. It was with true love in his heart. So I sat there for a while and thought about it all. And then I surprised myself, and did the most charitable thing I had ever done while I watched Mother sleeping, maybe dreaming. I decided to forgive her for gettin’ some from Officer Rasmussen. Forgive her like my Sky King had. After all, I knew what it meant to be lonely for someone you loved. I’d been so lonely for Daddy and in some funny way I had always been lonely for Mother. She might not look at me anymore with those sad eyes if I just forgave her. Let bygones be bygones because everybody knew that forgiveness was divine. So I leaned down and placed my cheek on hers and breathed in her breath. And when I whispered, “I forgive you,” I smelled her Evening in Paris and finally understood why Troo wanted to run away to France.
CHAPTER THIRTY
On the ride home from the hospital the windshield wipers were going back and forth and back and forth like that metronome Mother kept on top of the piano to help you keep time when you couldn’t keep it yourself. When we pulled up in front of our house, Nell said, “Sally… we’re here.” She did not say, “Sally… we’re home.”
Mrs. Goldman was in her front window like she was keeping an eye out for somebody. I looked over at Troo, who was looking back at me like she had something on her mind. Whatever it was, I knew she would wait until we were alone, when it was just the O’Malley sisters, because Troo still thought Nell was a drip even if she was getting married and we got to be flower girls.
“I’m gonna head over to Kroger and get some boxes,” Eddie said.
Nell yelled to us, “Run between the raindrops, O’Malley sisters,” as we dashed for the porch. That was what Mother always said on days like this. Nell was becoming more like Mother by the minute. Like an ugly old caterpillar with horrible-looking hair, Nell was turning into a butterfly that could be on the Breck shampoo bottle.
When Nell took her key out to unlock the front door, because everybody had been told to lock their doors now because of the dead girls, Mrs. Goldman said through her screen door, “
