me? You make it sound like I’m going to be riding on the inside of the train.” Rory ran his hands through his hair.
Joe’s family ran a bakery on Baldwin Street, and although they weren’t putting much butter on their bread these days, at least they had bread, and some assurance that they’d ride out the Depression without finding themselves on the street. Rory swallowed the words threatening to bust out. Fine for you, you’ve got a roof over your head. You won’t end up with a train bull’s nightstick up your ass.
“The thing is, I gotta go and tell my sister and her family I’m leaving. She’s been kinda squirrelly lately. I ain’t looking forward to it.”
“Best get it over with quick as you can, then,” said Joe, and Rory figured he was right.
Margaret stood at the sink, wiping the same plate over and over again with the red-and-yellow tea towel. Her eyes were swollen with crying, and now and again she wiped at her face with the inside of her wrist. Irene stood near the sink, scuffing her shoes on the tile floor. Douglas had excused himself to the living room, where he listened to some radio play.
“Irene, stop that! You’re leaving marks on the floor.” Margaret put the plate down and tossed a sponge at her daughter. “Wipe those scuffs off.”
Rory watched his sister and niece. There it was again, the weird similarity between them, the mirroring of emotion. Margaret turned to him and put her hand up to her mouth.
“I can’t bear to lose you.”
Rory sat at the kitchen table, leaning forward on his chair with his elbows on his knees. He wrung his hat in his hands. His sister was making him crazy. He’d expected her to be sad and worried and all that, but she was carrying on like she was the one with no job and no place to live and a long hungry journey ahead of her.
“You could stay here. You could get another job. Douglas, come here!”
Rory slapped his hat down on the table. “There aren’t any jobs. I’m not going to go around with a bucket and a rag like some of the guys do, asking if they can clean windows for a few slices of bread. I ain’t gonna stand on the corner with a sign around my neck: Will work for food. I won’t do it.” He would not, of course, tell her that he had a job with the Party, even if it paid no more than a living allowance that wouldn’t feed a cockroach and often not even that. For her sake, the less she knew the better.
“What is it, Margaret?” Douglas stood in the doorway.
“Take the car and drive Rory over to his room. Get his things. He can sleep in the solarium for the time being.”
“You could stay, Rory, if you’d like. We could make the room.” Douglas said, somewhat hesitantly.
“Now you listen to me, Sis. I know you mean well and I appreciate it. But I can’t hang around here.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do if you go,” said Margaret. “I’ll be all alone.”
“What’re you talking about? That’s a fine thing to say. You’ve got Douglas and Irene here. You’ve got your family.”
“You can’t go. You don’t even have any money, I’ll bet.”
“I have a few dollars, and you don’t need much, a man alone.”
“I hear terrible stories about what happens to young men riding the rails.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me, and it won’t be forever. I’ll land some work. Things here will change in a year or so. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“You haven’t even tried to get other work here. You don’t care about me.”
“Now you know that’s not true.”
“Do I?” she said. The tone of her voice put a knot in his stomach.
Irene watched them from the corner of the room, pressed up as far away as she could get.
“I want to do this,” said Rory.
“And what you want is all that counts, of course.”
“Come on now, Peggy. Let a guy sow some oats before he settles down, eh? See some of the country?” He put his arm around her and she didn’t move away, but he could feel how stiff she was. She looked up at him with such desperation he wanted to shake her.
“You’ll come back, won’t you?” she said. “And you’ll write? And come home for holidays?”
“’Course I will. In the spring things are bound to pick up and I’ll be back home. In the meantime, think of it as me going off to camp.”
“I don’t like it, Rory. I don’t want you to go.” She had taken to wringing the dishtowel again and scratching at the back of her hands. He took her hands in his to stop their restless movements.
“Let’s make this a going-away party. Send me off in style, eh?”
“That’s a good idea. Yes, a very good idea,” said Douglas. “How about drinks all round? Little celebration, indeed.”
“When are you leaving again?” said Margaret.
“Tomorrow.”
“I see,” she said, and then, “Bastard.” She pulled her hands away. She walked out of the room, and they listened to her footsteps on the stairs and the slam of the bedroom door.
“Goddamn it!” said Rory. He looked at Douglas. “What the hell’s wrong with her?”
“She’s just upset, is all.”
“She’s not just upset. She’s not goddamn normal! You’re her husband! What the hell are you doing about it?”
Douglas went over to Irene and gave her a quick hug. “She’ll be fine. Just fine.”
Rory had almost forgotten Irene was in the room.
“Yeah, course she will.” He smiled at his niece and she smiled back. “I’ll go see if I can talk to her.”
He knocked on the bedroom door and opened it without waiting for an answer. Margaret stood looking out the window, but she turned to face him. She was crying again. He went to her, sat on the edge of the windowsill and took her hands. He swung them back and forth like when they were children.
“Jesus, Peg, what’re ya making such a fuss for?” She tried to pull her hands away but he wouldn’t let her.
“I should have gone with John. I’d be in New York City now. The big life, you know what I mean?”
It took Rory a moment to figure out who Margaret was talking about. Christ! Was she still pining over him?
“Peggy, I didn’t know John had asked you to go with him.” More than that, Rory knew he had not asked his sister, had never had any intention of taking her with him.
“He didn’t, not in so many words, but then he wouldn’t have, would he? He thought I’d say no, that I’d have to be married, that I just wouldn’t run away with him. But I would have.” She looked at Rory. “Are you going to New York? Could you find him?”
“No, Peggy, I’m not going to find him. We don’t know where he is. What do you want to find him for, anyway? After the way he treated you?”
“Maybe I could go with you.”
He looked into her face to see if she was joking, to see if there was something he was missing.
“Gee whiz, Peg. I can’t take you with me. I’m travelling rough. Sleeping in freight yards, riding the rails. You don’t want to go with me.”
Her shoulders sagged and she dropped her head.
Rory tried to laugh,