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Authors: Eileen Goudge
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there, feeling a dart of ashamed pleasure. Blessed Virgin, where had
all of this come from? Marie and Clare had cornflower-blue eyes, and beautiful wavy hair the
color of ginger ale, like their father’s. Even Nonnie, withered now and freckled with liver spots,
had once been blond and almost pretty in a solid, Germanic way—the proof, however
unbelievable, lay in the brown-tinted photo in a pewter frame perched on the knickknack shelf
over the sofa. Nonnie’s parents, Rose had been told, had come [41] from Genoa, where Teutonic
blood had mingled with the Italian to give Nonnie her fair coloring and pale blue eyes.
Dizzy with a kind of horrified pleasure, Rose had gone on touching herself, exploring the moist
cleft buried beneath the springy black hair, then moving her hands up to cup the weight of her
heavy breasts against her palms, watching her nipples stiffen like two raisins. Ugly. I’m so ugly.
No one will ever want to marry me, touch me like this.
Nonnie said it was “bad blood” that made her so dark, hinting that it had come from Rose’s
mother. But how could that be? Mama had been fair, with light brown hair, and—judging by an
old winter coat of hers, which Marie wore now—she’d been small-boned, too.
Rose had found an old snapshot of her parents tucked in the back of Nonnie’s photo album.
And it was that picture—not their stiffly posed, artificially tinted wedding portrait—she carried
inside her head. The fuzzy image of a young woman in an old-fashioned dress with boxy
shoulders, leaning against a ship’s rail, her head tilted back to look up at the tall man beside her,
handsome in his sailor’s uniform. Laughing, obviously in love, her gloved hand held up as a
shield against the sunlight, throwing a shadow across her eyes. All you could see was her bright
windblown hair, and the happy slash of her lipsticked mouth.
Bad blood. If I didn’t get it from Mama, then who?
The gloominess of the confessional then seemed to creep in through her pores, filling her with
despair. Like the nightmare she’d often had of falling through a black space full of shooting red
stars, of hands that would reach out to catch her, then evaporate like mist as soon as she tumbled
into them.
Then Rose remembered something. Brian telling her that all that bad-blood and evil-eye stuff
was just an old wives’ tale.
He says I’m good and smart. That he never knew anyone who could do crossword puzzles and
card games as good as me, or could think up things, like when I figured out a way to get free
tickets for my fifth-grade class, even for Sister Perp, to see the Yankees cream the Red Sox.
In her mind, Rose could hear Bri’s admiring voice— -Jeez, Rose, who would’ve thought to
write Casey Stengel a letter saying the Yanks could use all the extra prayers they could get after
last season?
[42] “Are you certain, my child?” Father Donahue broke into her thoughts.
She bit down on her lip. Should she tell him? Now?
The hot weight of her sin felt as if it were burning a hole in her stomach.
“I took the name of the Lord in vain once,” she confessed, chickening out at the last moment.
“Only once?”
“Yes, Father.”
She’d lost her temper at bossy Marie—she was always after Rose to tuck her blouse in, stop
slouching, do something about that hair, and for heaven’s sake, pick up your half of the room.
Rose had exploded. “If you want the room looking like a goddam army barrack, you pick it
up!”
Nonnie, in the kitchen, had overheard.
Rose winced at the memory of being forced to kneel on the kitchen linoleum, saying rosaries
and begging the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and anyone else who would
listen to please forgive her most grievous sin. God, all those hours. The pain shooting up from her
bruised knees. The humiliation. And afterwards, not being able to stand up. But Nonnie would
never see her cry. No, that Rose would not let happen. That
all of this come from? Marie and Clare had cornflower-blue eyes, and beautiful wavy hair the
color of ginger ale, like their father’s. Even Nonnie, withered now and freckled with liver spots,
had once been blond and almost pretty in a solid, Germanic way—the proof, however
unbelievable, lay in the brown-tinted photo in a pewter frame perched on the knickknack shelf
over the sofa. Nonnie’s parents, Rose had been told, had come [41] from Genoa, where Teutonic
blood had mingled with the Italian to give Nonnie her fair coloring and pale blue eyes.
Dizzy with a kind of horrified pleasure, Rose had gone on touching herself, exploring the moist
cleft buried beneath the springy black hair, then moving her hands up to cup the weight of her
heavy breasts against her palms, watching her nipples stiffen like two raisins. Ugly. I’m so ugly.
No one will ever want to marry me, touch me like this.
Nonnie said it was “bad blood” that made her so dark, hinting that it had come from Rose’s
mother. But how could that be? Mama had been fair, with light brown hair, and—judging by an
old winter coat of hers, which Marie wore now—she’d been small-boned, too.
Rose had found an old snapshot of her parents tucked in the back of Nonnie’s photo album.
And it was that picture—not their stiffly posed, artificially tinted wedding portrait—she carried
inside her head. The fuzzy image of a young woman in an old-fashioned dress with boxy
shoulders, leaning against a ship’s rail, her head tilted back to look up at the tall man beside her,
handsome in his sailor’s uniform. Laughing, obviously in love, her gloved hand held up as a
shield against the sunlight, throwing a shadow across her eyes. All you could see was her bright
windblown hair, and the happy slash of her lipsticked mouth.
Bad blood. If I didn’t get it from Mama, then who?
The gloominess of the confessional then seemed to creep in through her pores, filling her with
despair. Like the nightmare she’d often had of falling through a black space full of shooting red
stars, of hands that would reach out to catch her, then evaporate like mist as soon as she tumbled
into them.
Then Rose remembered something. Brian telling her that all that bad-blood and evil-eye stuff
was just an old wives’ tale.
He says I’m good and smart. That he never knew anyone who could do crossword puzzles and
card games as good as me, or could think up things, like when I figured out a way to get free
tickets for my fifth-grade class, even for Sister Perp, to see the Yankees cream the Red Sox.
In her mind, Rose could hear Bri’s admiring voice— -Jeez, Rose, who would’ve thought to
write Casey Stengel a letter saying the Yanks could use all the extra prayers they could get after
last season?
[42] “Are you certain, my child?” Father Donahue broke into her thoughts.
She bit down on her lip. Should she tell him? Now?
The hot weight of her sin felt as if it were burning a hole in her stomach.
“I took the name of the Lord in vain once,” she confessed, chickening out at the last moment.
“Only once?”
“Yes, Father.”
She’d lost her temper at bossy Marie—she was always after Rose to tuck her blouse in, stop
slouching, do something about that hair, and for heaven’s sake, pick up your half of the room.
Rose had exploded. “If you want the room looking like a goddam army barrack, you pick it
up!”
Nonnie, in the kitchen, had overheard.
Rose winced at the memory of being forced to kneel on the kitchen linoleum, saying rosaries
and begging the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and anyone else who would
listen to please forgive her most grievous sin. God, all those hours. The pain shooting up from her
bruised knees. The humiliation. And afterwards, not being able to stand up. But Nonnie would
never see her cry. No, that Rose would not let happen. That
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