Chapter 4

Song accompaniment: Come on up to the House, Tom Waits

Daniel stayed with Rose for a week before returning to the hospital. As soon as he was gone, she missed him terribly—partially because he was Daniel and partially just because he was a person and she was lonely. She returned to school the day after Daniel left. She wasn't sure what else there was to do besides sit home and cry, which didn't seem like a productive use of time. Her modest sized house had begun to feel threateningly vast and she was scared about what lurked behind every corner. It was better to go be useful to someone.

Her fellow teachers had finally warmed to her—or at least had pretended to out of pity. They asked her if they could do anything for her, maybe bring her dinner or swing by her house, "just to chat." She was grateful but always said no. Whenever she spent time with someone, she found it hard to concentrate, often feeling like she was not truly there but rather watching a conversation between two strangers from a far off distance, unable to make out what either one was saying. This made her feel anxious and rude, terrified that her conversation partner would find out that she wasn't really listening, not because she didn't want to but because she couldn't. The only people she was truly present around were her students and they all left at the end of the school day. She felt untethered from the rest of humanity, as if no one else had ever lost a mother or could know what she was going through. This was foolish, of course. She knew this and berated herself for it constantly. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was somehow different from other people now and less able to interact with them as a result. At the same time, she hated her moments of solitude, especially at night when she spent the hours sobbing into her mother's pillow, telling herself to get a grip.

When she was with people, she wanted to get away and when she had gotten away, she wanted to be back with people.

This indecision had rattled her since the funeral reception. Rose hadn't been sure what she wanted when she disappeared that day. She wanted to be alone, but she also wanted someone to find her, someone to make her not want to be alone. She had of course chosen her mother's room to hide in out of a desire to feel close to her again, but she suspected that she had also chosen this first floor room so that Daniel could find her—which he did. She told herself that Daniel knew her better than anyone else, which she knew deep down was true, but less true than she would have liked. There were always small things that he never picked up on. But he was there for her in a way that no one other than her mother ever had been—unconditionally and without hesitation. Rose had always tried to do the same for him and had been, she thought, largely successful, even as a child when her attempts were often inelegant and fumbling.

By the time Daniel's mother died, Rose had been climbing in and out of his window for months. They had also been walking to school together as far as they could before the elementary and middle school paths diverged. At first, Rose had waited by her front door, timing her exit so as to "accidentally" run into Daniel. Daniel had seemed perturbed to have his solitary walk intruded upon, but Rose was convinced that if he just got to know her better, he would grow to cherish her company. And she must have been right because, after a few weeks, Daniel began waiting for her outside her house every morning, often with a follow-up question about an idea she had presented to him the night before or his own contribution to a discussion they had started days ago. She had even told him he could call her Rosie, because "everybody else did." Everybody else meaning her mother. She didn't have any friends and her father hardly called her anything.

Rose knew when Daniel's mother died because the ambulance came to take her body away and both Daniel and his father got in the back with her, only this time no one was hurrying. She and her mother did not attend the funeral even though they knew when it was from reading the paper. Her father would not have liked them going to such a thing and would have been suspicious of how they even knew these people in the first place. He would have jumped to, in this case accurate, conclusions about how Rose and her mother had met these neighbors and would have been furious. Instead, Rose's mother had sent a Mass card and a bouquet of flowers that Rose had picked out. It didn't seem right, though, sitting in her room when Daniel was all alone having to face the masses of people who had streamed into his house following the funeral. Rose thought she could see someone moving in Daniel's bedroom but couldn't be sure.

Rose always spent a lot of time in her room. It was a good place to hide from her father while still hearing everything he said to her mother so that she could intervene if necessary. On the day of Mrs. Sousa's funeral, Rose refused to leave her room period. First she skipped breakfast, then she tried to skip lunch, but her mother brought up a plate insisting that she eat, which she did in a quick cursory manner before lying down and turning away from her mother to face Daniel's window.

"It's not fair," she said.

"What isn't fair, Rosie?"

"That Daniel's mother is dead. That's not supposed to happen now. That kind of thing should happen when you're twenty."

"Hopefully a bit older than that," her mother said, lying down beside her and pulling her into a hug. "You're right. It's not fair. But sometimes life isn't fair."

Rose knew this already. Her mother's life with her father certainly wasn't fair. Rose's own life was probably less than fair as well, but she saw no reason why that unfairness should have to extend to Daniel, or anyone else for that matter. Besides, losing a mother was possibly the most unfair thing of all. Contemplating this, Rose began to cry.

"Oh, honey, don't cry. It's okay."

"Not for them," Rose said.

"No, I guess not. Are you worried about me, Rosie? Because you shouldn't be. I'm not going anywhere."

Rose decided not to tell her mother that she was always worried about her, that that fear had been the defining feature of her relatively short life. "I know that," she said. "That's not why I'm sad. I'm sad for Daniel and his father too."

"Yeah, I know. You're so kind, Rosie."

"I'm not," Rose said, thinking about her inability to make friends with her peers at school, her inability to even be civil to them.

"Yes you are," her mother said, stroking her hair. "Yes you are."

Eventually, Rose fell asleep like that, resting in her mother's arms until the thud of a door woke her. It was her father heading out—where, they never knew, but he was usually gone for quite some time.

"I'm fine," Rose whispered to her mom, knowing now was her chance to slip out as well. "I want to be alone."

Her mother gave her a strange look, but got up without protest, kissing her on the forehead before leaving. Rose counted to fifty before sneaking out the front door, running across the field that separated her house from Daniel's, and scrambling up the tree.

She was right. She had seen Daniel in the window. Now, he was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his knees pulled up to his chest, his head buried in between them. Rose wanted to knock, but wasn't sure it was appropriate. Instead, she just watched, realizing that she had begun to cry again. Eventually, Daniel looked up, his red eyes widening and then narrowing at the sight of Rose outside his window. He stayed seated for a moment, seemingly pondering whether or not to let her in. Finally, he stood up and walked over to the window.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Your mom died," Rose said as if this explained everything, which to her, it did.

"Are you okay?" Daniel asked, looking confused.

"I'm fine."

Daniel reached out a hand to help Rose in from the tree, something he had never done before and that he did not need to do. Rose was nimble enough to climb in without any assistance. Rose took his hand anyway, not wanting to be rude at a time like this.

"Why are you crying?" Daniel asked.

Rose sniffled and wiped at her eyes. "I don't know. I'm sad that you're sad."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Rose practically yelled. "She was your mom." She didn't know what she had expected when she came over, whether she had come in order to make herself feel better or whether she had come in order to make Daniel feel better, but she knew this was accomplishing neither and she was unsure what to do with the feelings of grief and frustration swirling around her head.

Daniel looked even more perplexed. "I don't understand. Are you angry with me?"

"No!" Now Rose was truly yelling.

Daniel stood there, opened-mouthed, trying to speak. He might crumple to the floor at any minute. "Well then, what…" he began. "I mean…" Then he stopped and burst into tears, covering his face with his hands.

Rose rushed forward and hugged Daniel tightly. "I'm sorry," she said through tears. "I'm so sorry. I'm not angry. I'm sorry, Daniel. Don't cry." She released him momentarily and looked up at his face. He looked sadder than she had ever seen a person look before, like he would be this way forever or like he was occupying this present moment only and all future moments—be they better or worse than this—were inconceivable and unreachable. "Actually you can cry," she said.

She took his hand and led him back to where he was sitting before. They both sat down and Rose wrapped her arms around Daniel as far as they would go. "I'm going to be quiet now," she said. "You talk if you want to."

Daniel nodded without saying anything. For almost an hour, they sat there, hunched over themselves and each other. At first, Rose was too consumed by the sound and sensation of her own tears, her own sadness, to notice anything else. Soon, this passed and she became more attuned to what was happening with Daniel. He was crying almost silently now, but Rose could still feel his shoulders shaking up and down, accompanied by the occasional sniffle or muffled sob. Then she became habituated to this too and began to listen to the noise of the people downstairs as it slowly diminished. Eventually, Rose couldn't hear anything at all from below and wondered when Daniel's father would come upstairs to check on him. She leaned her head on Daniel's shoulder, her arms still wrapped around him, almost able to reach all the way around. Neither one of them noticed the sounds of footsteps outside until Daniel's father was in the room.

"Rose?" he asked with the same tone of bewilderment Daniel had met her with.

Rose tapped Daniel on the shoulder in order to get him to look at her and then tilted her head toward the window, a nonverbal "Should I go?" Daniel nodded and she stood up. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Sousa," she said, hugging him quickly. He looked down at her with continued disbelief. His eyes were ringed red, but, unlike his son's, they were incredibly dry, like he couldn't cry if he wanted to. As Rose made her way to the window, he said, "Uh, front door, please. It's safer," but by the time he finished, Rose was already outside, crouched in the tree branches.

"Thank you," Daniel mouthed to her as she left.

Rose's students now were a year younger than she had been then and she didn't want to force them into the confusing situation of having to react or respond in some way to her mother's death, so she had asked that they not be told about it. She also knew some of her students had lost fathers in the war and did not want to stir up old memories. Most of her students simply thought she had been sick.

When she walked into her classroom her first day back, Fred Zimmetti, one of the quieter members of her class, leapt from his seat to greet her.

"Well, hello," she said as she felt him hug her around her legs—he was one of her smaller students too.

"I missed you," he said.

"Really? I was only gone for a week."

"It felt like longer."

Rose smiled. This was the longest stream of words she had ever heard Fred speak.

"You know what, Fred? It felt longer to me too."

On her second day back, Fred came in from recess and gifted her with an interesting rock he had found. On the third day, he asked to spend the break inside with her, which is when Rose became concerned. Fred was often alone at recess, maybe due to his size or maybe his shyness. Rose had thought it best to let Fred and the other children figure this out on their own, although she had often exhorted her class to "include friends who might be left out."

"Fred," she began. "Are you having any trouble with your classmates?"

"No," Fred said, dragging a small chair to face her at her desk. "I just want to stay with you."

"Right. I think it might be more fun for you if you went outside with your classmates, though."

"Do you not want me here?"

This wasn't the case at all. Before Fred waltzed back into the classroom from outside, Rose had been sitting there looking at, but not really seeing, the lesson plans on her desk. It was Mrs. Helm's turn to supervise recess and Rose had chosen not to go outside and speak with her, preferring to hide in the classroom and avoid the long conversations that she couldn't seem to truly be a part of anymore. Nonetheless, she was lonely in the empty classroom, counting down the hours until she'd have to leave and be lonely in her empty house. When she first saw Fred, she had been relieved. It was a few seconds after that teacherly concern kicked in.

"No, of course I want you here," she said. "I'm just concerned about why you want to be here."

Fred sighed deeply, looking much older than his seven years. "My mother's a nurse," he said.

Rose failed to see how this was relevant.

"She works at the hospital. She had to work during the funeral, but she told me about it."

"Oh," Rose said, trying not to cry. "So you know about my mother. And you've been worried."

Fred nodded emphatically.

"Oh," Rose repeated, putting a hand to her mouth to hide the quivering of her lips. "That's very kind but you don't have to…" She trailed off, unable to continue without dissolving into highly unprofessional tears.

"I want to," Fred said, walking over to the closet where Rose stored a collection of books and games. He returned with a black and red checkerboard. "I play this with my mom when she's sad. My father's in the war," he added as a means of explanation.

Rose smiled from behind her hand. "All right," she said. "Red or black?"

Rose quickly lost track of time and she and Fred were in the midst of their third game when the other students filed back into the classroom.

"No fair," one of the girls said. "How come Fred's allowed to play with you and we're not?"

"Perhaps next recess," Rose said. "You can take turns."

There was nothing like a group of enthusiastic seven-year-olds to make a person feel popular.

Rose's spirits were still considerably elevated as she sent her students off at the end of the day, waving to them from the doorway. She returned to her classroom and went about preparing for the next day, not quite ready to leave even after she had finished. She stuck her head out into the hallway. Seeing no one, she shut the door behind her and raised her arms slowly above her head, placing them in fifth position. The music of Swan Lake played in her head. Many of the girls from the boarding house had danced in a production of this ballet and Rose and her mother had attended a performance when her mother visited Rose during her last year of college. It would have been just a few months before her mother's diagnosis. Rose did several clumsy pirouettes, then moved her arms into first position as she bent into a plié. There had only been one other non-dancer at the boarding house with Rose and the two had bonded over their comparative lack of grace.

"I think every little girl wants to be a ballerina at some point," Rose's compatriot said once.

"I never did," Rose said. "But I think I do now."

The two of them would walk around the house, standing on their toes as their arms moved limply and foolishly through the air. Finally, one of the dancers stopped them.

"You are making a mockery of the dance," she said, unconsciously mimicking the unusual speech patterns of the girls' Russian coach in an unmistakably midwestern accent. "I must show you how to move properly."

Through this, Rose learned of the various ballet positions—rules that told you where to put your feet and arms—and the many French terms the ballerinas often threw around at the dinner table. "My jeté is becoming sloppy." "Oh, no." "Yes. Did you hear Ms. Inga tell me I landed like an elephant?"

Rose had never been able to master even fairly simple moves, such as the arabesque, in which a dancer stands on one leg, while lifting her back leg out behind her, at least parallel to the floor—if a dancer could lift her leg even higher, though, all the better. Rose always lost her balance and fell forward or failed to straighten her leg to the satisfaction of her midwestern teacher.

"Weak core," the girl would say as Rose began to wobble.

Still, there was something about the orderliness of the positions and moves that appealed to Rose. Executing them—even fairly poorly—made her feel in control, something she had never felt growing up. When she moved into the boarding house, she had not seen Daniel in over a year. Allied forces were pushing deeper into Europe and his letters became less and less frequent, finally stopping entirely. Even though her father had left for good ten years earlier, she still woke up in the middle of the night dreaming about him, wondering if this would be the week he decided to return to her mother's home and worrying about what would happen if Rose were not there to protect her. Rose was doing well in her classes at Barnard College, but when she stepped foot on Columbia's campus, she often felt belittled by her male peers. Far worse than this were the reports out of Europe of camps that Hitler and the Nazis had set up for Jews and anyone else they disliked. Life buzzed around Rose at an alarming pace, full of everything from minor inconveniences to horrific premonitions that would likely never come to pass to horrific events that had already come to pass, and there was nothing she could do about any of it. What she could control were the way her arms shifted from third to fourth to fifth position, the way her stomach tightened and her shoulders pulled back as she sat in a chair, the way her heels clicked together as she moved into first position. Even if she wasn't very graceful, there was a certain beauty in that.

She thought about this, the beauty of order, as she moved slowly about her classroom, only to be disturbed by a knock on the door that made her jump and drop her arms to her sides. She walked to the door, feeling supremely embarrassed, but that embarrassment immediately faded when she saw Fred standing before her, a look of panic on his face.

"There's something wrong with my mom. You need to come."

"What's wrong, Fred? Does she need medical attention?"

"I don't think so," Fred said impatiently, grabbing her hand. "Just come."

Rose took long strides, following Fred as he ran on his short legs, leading her to his house. They arrived to find Fred's mother sitting on the front steps, wearing a skirt and blouse but no shoes, stockings, or coat. It was mid-March and had been unseasonably warm, warm enough to leave the house barefoot, but only to get the mail or talk briefly with a neighbor, certainly not warm enough to sit outside for a long period of time without a coat or anything on one's feet.

"This is how I found her," Fred said, before running up to his mother to stand beside her. "Mom, mom, I brought someone to help." Mrs. Zimmetti did not respond, did not even turn her head to look at her son.

Her stillness was unnerving, but Fred didn't seem frightened by it, or at least not frightened by her. Rose was, however, and she approached Mrs. Zimmetti slowly.

"Hello, Mrs. Zimmetti," she said, speaking slowly. "I'm Rose Flanagan, Fred's teacher. Are you all right?"

This was a stupid question. Obviously Mrs. Zimmetti was not all right. Rose wondered if she should call a doctor, but there didn't seem to be anything medically wrong with Mrs. Zimmetti and Rose did not want to subject her to the poking and prodding of doctors if it was not absolutely necessary. She continued to ignore the goings-on around her, staring into the street without really seeing it. Her eyes were wide and haunted. The only part of her that moved were her hands, which she kept wringing, crumpling something up and passing it from one hand to the next. After a few passes, Rose realized it was a slip of paper. She began to suspect what was happening, but told herself that she was jumping to conclusions.

"Mrs. Zimmetti, do you think I could see that paper?"

Mrs. Zimmetti turned to look at Rose, startling her. Locking eyes with Mrs. Zimmetti made the spectral quality behind her eyes even more apparent. Mrs. Zimmetti's outfit was carefully put together, aside from the omission of the shoes, her makeup was delicately done, and her dark hair was pulled into a tidy bun, but her eyes made her look as Rose had always pictured Bertha Mason, the unfortunate wife of Jane Eyre'sMr. Rochester, whom he kept locked in the attic due to her dementedness. Rose felt compelled to back away, but stopped herself. Mrs. Zimmetti nodded slowly at Rose, before turning to look at her son and shaking her head. Then she handed Rose the slip of paper and settled back into her previous position, looking out.

Rose carefully uncrumpled the note, smoothing it out between her hands.

IT IS WITH DEEP REGRET THAT I MUST INFORM YOU THAT YOUR HUSBAND SERGEANT FRED ZIMMETTI WAS KILLED IN ACTION ON EIGHT MARCH IN BELGIUM

"What does it say?" Fred asked.

Mrs. Zimmetti did not look up but Rose saw her eyes widen even further and her fist clench.

"I think that's something for you and your mother to discuss when she's ready."

Fred frowned and Rose wondered if he suspected that his father had died, his father after whom he had apparently been named. Eventually Rose and Fred managed to convince Fred's mother to go back inside and lay down in her room. After that, Rose asked Fred what family members—if any—she should call to come take care of him and his mother. Fred said his mother's parents lived a few hours away and Rose dialed several wrong numbers that he supplied before Fred finally hit on the right one. She sent him to check on his mother while she explained to his grandmother what exactly had happened. She could tell Fred was growing suspicious, but it seemed his mother did not want him to know about his father. Not yet anyway. And Rose thought this was a mother's decision to make, not an overly involved school teacher's. As the hours crept by, however, keeping this secret from Fred began to feel cruel. He knew something was wrong and he was growing more and more agitated. He and Rose played several games of checkers and she tried to let him win, but he was too distracted to take advantage of any of her "mistakes." At eight, when Fred's grandparents had still not arrived, Rose rifled through his pantry and fridge, finding a can of beans and a half-dozen eggs. She fried two eggs for Fred and his mother, eating the second one herself when Mrs. Zimmetti refused the food. She then heated up the beans and divided them between Fred and herself. When he had finished eating, Fred stood up from the table and stamped his foot in an uncharacteristically angry manner.

"What's wrong with my mother?" he asked.

"Fred, why don't you sit back down?"

"No! I won't."

Rose sighed. Without speaking, she put her hand on Fred's shoulder and guided him into the living room and onto the couch.

"Fred," she began. "I think your mother wanted to be the one to tell you this, but it's not fair to keep it from you any longer." Rose sighed. "Your father was killed in Belgium. Just recently."

Rose knew from experience that Fred would need time to process this so she resisted the urge to pull him into a hug, even though it took all her self-control.

"He's dead?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry."

"I don't remember him," Fred said. "I was three when he left."

"Oh," Rose said. Her eyes were hot with tears and her nose stung.

"I was looking forward to meeting him," Fred said and now Rose couldn't fight it any longer and pulled him in close to her as he began to sob. She didn't know what to say to him so she merely held him as he cried.

By the time Fred's grandparents finally arrived, it was after ten and Fred had fallen asleep against Rose's shoulder. Fred's grandfather looked especially despondent, but insisted that it was too dark for Rose to be walking home alone and offered to drive her instead. "He was such a good kid," he kept saying as he drove. Then he fell silent for several moments, finally adding, "I suppose he was a man. A good man." Rose wasn't sure what to say so she just nodded. She nodded again when the older man dropped her off outside her house, thanking her for taking such good care of his grandson. Now that the burden of being the only functioning adult at the Zimmetti residence had been lifted, Rose felt herself reverting back to childhood. She could hardly stand to accept what had happened—what was happening—to Fred and so she didn't, hardly interacting with his grandfather, a tangible reminder of Fred's enormous loss.

Rose leaned her forehead against her front door and fiddled with the house key in her pocket. She was not ready to go in yet. As she put her hand on the doorknob, she heard screams and moaning and immediately jumped backward. She clutched her keys more tightly and looked from side to side. There was nothing there. She put her ear to the door and heard nothing more. She had imagined it, had imagined the horror and sadness of that house into audible presences. She couldn't sleep there tonight. Not with the ghosts of her mother and Mr. Zimmetti floating around her head. There was too much space in the house for the ghosts to fill, too many places for them to lodge themselves and hide. A light was on at Daniel's house—or Daniel's father's house, she corrected herself. Daniel didn't live there anymore. This didn't stop her from trudging over there, but this time she knocked on the front door instead of the second floor window. Daniel's father opened the door, bleary-eyed but fully dress.

"Hi, Ed. Do you think I can sleep here tonight?"

"Of course," Ed said with admirable enthusiasm, given the late hour.

"I'm really sorry about this," Rose said, still standing outside the door.

"No, no." Ed shook his head and gestured for Rose to come in.

Once instead, Rose began to cry silently. Ed furrowed his brow and for a moment it seemed that he might ask Rose what was going on. He did not, however, much to her relief.

"It's no trouble at all," he said. "At least you're coming in the front door now instead of the window."

Rose smiled slightly.

"It'll be all right, dear," Ed said, patting her on the arm. "It'll be all right."