Read Online The Flaming Corsage by William Kennedy - Free Book Online
Authors: William Kennedy
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rocking chair was the only covering on the wide pine-board floor.
Edward moved the wicker rocker into the sunlight for Katrina, and took three tintypes off the otherwise bare white mantelpiece: individual studio shots of his father in a suit and derby, his
mother in a full-length flowered skirt, white blouse, and black bonnet tied under her chin with a ribbon; and one photo of them sitting together, with little boy Edward on Emmett’s lap.
“This is what we no longer look like,” he said, handing Katrina the pictures. “I’ll be right back.”
He went to find his father, bring him out of hiding. Emmett had said he would go to no wedding, nor would be hear any argument aimed at changing his mind. Edward had revealed this fact to
Katrina and vowed he’d confront his own parents as he’d confronted hers.
Katrina said her mother thought him “a rude social climber” and was furious at his suggestion that
her family had committed violence against the Irish; and her father, baffled by Edward’s “babbling about atrocity and slavery,” wondered, “What world is that overeducated
maniac living in?”
“But what did they say about the marriage?” Edward asked.
“They disapprove but they honor my choice, and they certainly won’t stay away from the wedding, as your father threatens to do. My father wouldn’t abide anyone but him giving
me away, and Mother will insist on buying my dress and shoes and choosing the flowers and decorating the church. She lives for such things.”
Decorating the church. Which church?
Emmett was a different problem.
“I’m thinking of marrying Katrina Taylor” was all Edward had said, and Emmett exploded: “Any kin of Jacob Taylor has to be poison . . . that polished fool . . . that
felonious rodent . . . a family of pretenders . . . merchants without souls . . . They aspire to nothing but money . . . It’s traitorous marrying one of them after what he did to Davy . . .
smashed his mind because he pushed for a better wage . . . I dream of seeing them in rags and clogs. No good can come of it, boy, it’s a wrong idea.”
“It’s not an idea, Papa. She and I, we’re a matched pair. We’ve a great love and she’s as bright as any woman alive. She’s a woman you only dream of
knowing.”
“Marry your dream, then,” Emmett had said. “I’ll not witness it.”
Edward now climbed the stairs and glanced at the framed tapestry of the Daugherty crest (a leaping
stag) hanging on the stairway wall. The Pittsburgh chapter of the molders’ union Emmett helped establish gave it as a going-away gift when Emmett left Pittsburgh to come back to Albany. The
family name was stitched under the crest in the Irish: docararch. Emmett was fond of explaining that it translated as either “unfortunate” or “disobliging,” take your
pick.
Edward found his father shoeless, in a fresh shirt and his everyday pants, sitting in his bedside rocker, cleaning his fingernails with a six-inch knife. His hair was the color of granite now,
and as wild as the mind beneath it.
“So you brought her home,” Emmett said.
“She’s in the parlor.”
“You know what I think about this.”
“Nobody could know what to think about Katrina without talking to her. You don’t even know what’s going on in my head.”
“I won’t argue,” Emmett said. He closed the knife, pocketed it, and bent over to pull on a shoe.
“You won’t hear me out? You, the one who’s always fighting for the right to be heard?”
Emmett leaned back in the rocker and stared at his son. “What is it, then?”
“It’s me, it’s what I’ve become,” Edward said, and he felt the same energy rising that he’d known in delivering the Manifesto. He could not taunt his father
as he’d taunted the Taylors, for the man wouldn’t sit for it. So, then, he would neither pace nor gesticulate. He would keep his energy leashed. He sat on the bed and faced Emmett.
“You raised me and Lyman educated me,”
Edward moved the wicker rocker into the sunlight for Katrina, and took three tintypes off the otherwise bare white mantelpiece: individual studio shots of his father in a suit and derby, his
mother in a full-length flowered skirt, white blouse, and black bonnet tied under her chin with a ribbon; and one photo of them sitting together, with little boy Edward on Emmett’s lap.
“This is what we no longer look like,” he said, handing Katrina the pictures. “I’ll be right back.”
He went to find his father, bring him out of hiding. Emmett had said he would go to no wedding, nor would be hear any argument aimed at changing his mind. Edward had revealed this fact to
Katrina and vowed he’d confront his own parents as he’d confronted hers.
Katrina said her mother thought him “a rude social climber” and was furious at his suggestion that
her family had committed violence against the Irish; and her father, baffled by Edward’s “babbling about atrocity and slavery,” wondered, “What world is that overeducated
maniac living in?”
“But what did they say about the marriage?” Edward asked.
“They disapprove but they honor my choice, and they certainly won’t stay away from the wedding, as your father threatens to do. My father wouldn’t abide anyone but him giving
me away, and Mother will insist on buying my dress and shoes and choosing the flowers and decorating the church. She lives for such things.”
Decorating the church. Which church?
Emmett was a different problem.
“I’m thinking of marrying Katrina Taylor” was all Edward had said, and Emmett exploded: “Any kin of Jacob Taylor has to be poison . . . that polished fool . . . that
felonious rodent . . . a family of pretenders . . . merchants without souls . . . They aspire to nothing but money . . . It’s traitorous marrying one of them after what he did to Davy . . .
smashed his mind because he pushed for a better wage . . . I dream of seeing them in rags and clogs. No good can come of it, boy, it’s a wrong idea.”
“It’s not an idea, Papa. She and I, we’re a matched pair. We’ve a great love and she’s as bright as any woman alive. She’s a woman you only dream of
knowing.”
“Marry your dream, then,” Emmett had said. “I’ll not witness it.”
Edward now climbed the stairs and glanced at the framed tapestry of the Daugherty crest (a leaping
stag) hanging on the stairway wall. The Pittsburgh chapter of the molders’ union Emmett helped establish gave it as a going-away gift when Emmett left Pittsburgh to come back to Albany. The
family name was stitched under the crest in the Irish: docararch. Emmett was fond of explaining that it translated as either “unfortunate” or “disobliging,” take your
pick.
Edward found his father shoeless, in a fresh shirt and his everyday pants, sitting in his bedside rocker, cleaning his fingernails with a six-inch knife. His hair was the color of granite now,
and as wild as the mind beneath it.
“So you brought her home,” Emmett said.
“She’s in the parlor.”
“You know what I think about this.”
“Nobody could know what to think about Katrina without talking to her. You don’t even know what’s going on in my head.”
“I won’t argue,” Emmett said. He closed the knife, pocketed it, and bent over to pull on a shoe.
“You won’t hear me out? You, the one who’s always fighting for the right to be heard?”
Emmett leaned back in the rocker and stared at his son. “What is it, then?”
“It’s me, it’s what I’ve become,” Edward said, and he felt the same energy rising that he’d known in delivering the Manifesto. He could not taunt his father
as he’d taunted the Taylors, for the man wouldn’t sit for it. So, then, he would neither pace nor gesticulate. He would keep his energy leashed. He sat on the bed and faced Emmett.
“You raised me and Lyman educated me,”
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