The Grave of God's Daughter (21 page)

“Nothing.” I headed toward the library, forcing Martin to trail behind me. “Hurry or I’ll be late.”

“You had to have done something or else—”

“It was nothing,” I interrupted, raising my voice. I couldn’t tell him what I had said or why I’d said it. It would have hurt him far more than my hands hurt me.

Martin ran ahead of me and stood in my path, blocking my way. “You’re not telling me something. I know you’re not.”

“Then you know enough.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “Give me your books. I’ll carry them.”

Gratefully, I lumped the books into his arms. The overflowing weight was almost too much for Martin, yet he held fast, juggling the books into balance.

“How are you going to make deliveries if your hands are hurt?”

“I just will. Now don’t leave the library this time,” I instructed, changing the subject. “Stay in there and don’t leave.”

“I won’t, believe me. I don’t even know if I’ll go to the bathroom.”

A different nun was at the desk in the library that day. It was Sister Anne. She wore thick glasses and normally worked in the front office. I’d have to tell her the story I’d made up about helping my mother at the rectory in order for her to let Martin stay late. I would have to lie again.

“Excuse me, Sister Anne,” I began, and the lie flowed from there. Martin was unfazed. He’d become accustomed to my lying and I hated myself for that. While I recounted the fictitious tale of working with my mother, my hands seemed to hurt more than before.

“That’s fine,” Sister Anne replied. “I’ve got plenty of shelving to—”

She cut herself off, squinting at my hands. Even the thick lenses of her glasses couldn’t soften her scrutiny. I put my hands behind my back.

“The boy can stay,” Sister Anne added, her tone clipped.

I went to say good-bye to Martin. “She saw,” he whispered, and I nodded. “Too bad she had her glasses on. If she hadn’t, she probably wouldn’t even have seen that you were a girl.”

“Martin.”

He shrugged in his defense. “It’s not a lie.”

It was a distinction Martin made often. Now it seemed like the only distinction there could be. Something was either a lie or it wasn’t. Like Mr. Beresik’s dog pen, either you were on the outside or you were on the inside with the pit bulls. There were no two ways about it.

M
R
. G
OCELJAK WAS
in the curing shed when I arrived. The door was propped open with a brick. He came out holding two buckets, each filled with kishke, and the heavy load was testing his arms to their limit.

“Get the door, would you?”

I darted ahead of him and grabbed the doorknob, momentarily forgetting about my hands. A lash of agony leaped up each arm and left me dizzy. Still, I managed to open the door for Mr. Goceljak, who set down the buckets with a groan. “I would’ve made you carry one of these, but I bet it weighs more than you do.”

When I didn’t answer, Mr. Goceljak looked at me curiously. “What’s the matter with you?”

That question was all I ever got from my mother and father and now Mr. Goceljak. I was too exhausted to come up with an excuse. I showed him my hands to avoid explaining, then he let out an impressed whistle. “You must’ve done something real good to get ones like ’at.”

I dropped my head, unwilling to disclose what I had done to earn them. Mr. Goceljak guessed as much and didn’t wait for an answer.

“I remember getting the ruler,” he recalled with a chuckle. “So many times I lost count. Nothing to be ashamed of. Some say it builds character.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

“Me neither. Sounds good, though. I got a few deliveries that need making, but I’ll understand if you can’t.”

“No, I can do it.”

“You sure?” I nodded. “Then that’d make you tougher than most of the boys that came before you. Once one of ’em came to work with just his left hand beat and claimed he needed two days off for it to heal up.”

Mr. Goceljak patted my shoulder, then left me to change into my outfit in private. Because of my hands, I couldn’t tie the rope belt, so the pants kept dropping to the floor.

“You all right?” Mr. Goceljak called, poking his head through the curtain.

My faced bloomed red. “I can’t tie the belt.”

Mr. Goceljak wiped his hands on his apron, more out of courtesy than necessity, then stood in front of me and looped the rope into a knot. “Too tight?”

I shook my head. He was standing so close to me that I instinctively lowered my gaze. My father wouldn’t even come that close, yet Mr. Goceljak thought nothing of it.

“There you go,” he said. “You still want to do this?”

“I’ve got the pants on. Might as well.”

“True enough.”

Mr. Goceljak stacked the packages on the counter. “Not too many today. God must be smiling on you.”

The comment singed. I tried, with difficulty, to collect the packages and Mr. Goceljak stopped me. “Hold on. I’ve got an idea.” He went to the front of the store and came back with a used paper bag. “We’ll put ’em in here, then you can carry the bag in your arms.”

“Would that be all right with you?”

“Why not? How were you carrying ’em before?”

“In the pants,” I confessed, pointing to the waistband.

“Then this’ll be a definite improvement.” He shook his head, amused. “Let me pack ’em for you.”

Mr. Goceljak loaded up the paper bag and gently set it in my arms.

“There’s one in there for her today,” he added. He meant the woman in the house on River Road. “Figured I’d better tell you beforehand,” Mr. Goceljak said, lowering his gaze just as I had when he was tying the belt for me. “She’s not due, but I thought it might, well, I thought she might try talking again if it was you who came round.”

T
HERE WERE ONLY FIVE
deliveries that day, and though it was hard to run with the bag in my arms, I ran nonetheless. I wasn’t willing to leave Martin at the library any longer than necessary.

The first delivery was to a woman whose house I’d been to before. She’d been smoking when she’d answered the door the first time and she was smoking when she answered it this time, as if it were the very same cigarette. The only difference was that she was dressed in a housecoat rather than day clothes. She coughed hoarsely as she opened the door. Her hair hung in droopy pin curls that bobbed with each cough.

“Thanks,” she said hoarsely, then another fit erupted from her throat. I could still hear her choking even after the door was closed.

I made the next two deliveries, then hurried to Mr. Beresik’s house. I was relieved to hear the dogs barking as I came up the hill. Before I got to the porch, I ditched the paper bag under a bush and put the last delivery into my coat pocket. The bag didn’t seem boyish enough and might have raised questions from Mr. Beresik, who was opening his front door as I reached the porch steps.

“Afternoon,” he said. He had a knife in one hand and a stick in the other. I was so taken aback by the knife that it took me a moment to realize Mr. Beresik was only whittling, killing time until my visit.

“Afternoon, sir.”

“About yesterday. It was an unplanned thing. Some of the guys came round and we put a game together at the last minute. I would’ve asked you, but like I said, it was last minute.” He seemed to think he’d hurt my feelings by not inviting me.

“It’s okay. I mean, I’m sorry too,” I stammered. “I should’ve put the delivery in your icebox.”

Mr. Beresik waved me off. “It’s not like you’re the maid,” he chuckled. “Anyway, I used those shanks up right away. My dog took this other one down in under eight minutes. That’s a good time. Good thing too ’cause there was a lot of money riding on mine. It was a tough match, but my dog took the bites, biding his time and tiring the other one down. It was smart like, real smart. Like a person smart. It was a good match. You should’ve seen it.”

“Sounds good,” I said, for lack of a better answer.

“There’s another one tomorrow. You should come. It’ll be a good time.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, boy. Must’ve made some money off of old Goceljak by now. A little money can turn into a lot if you play it right.”

The thought of the money and my mother’s painting waiting in the pawnshop swirled together in my mind.

“Here,” I said, handing Mr. Beresik his delivery and changing the subject.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

He was marveling at the welts on my hands. “Give ’em here,” he said. “Let’s have a look.” I reluctantly offered them for inspection.

“Both of ’em, eh? You must’ve been something other than quiet for the nuns today.” Mr. Beresik surveyed the wounds, examining them closely, then he turned my palms up, revealing the blisters from the burns. His expression darkened. “Nuns do this to you too?”

“No, sir. It was just an accident.”

“Accident?” He wasn’t convinced.

“Yes, sir,” I said and began to unspool another lie. “I was helping my mother and I picked up the pot for her, but it was hot and I didn’t know to use a rag. That’s girl stuff,” I added for good measure.

“Girl stuff or not, we got to bind these up or you’ll get an infection faster than you can blink.”

“Oh, no, it’s all right. I—”

Mr. Beresik was already ushering me inside. “Seen it happen in the dogs plenty of times. A tiny scratch’ll turn ugly if it don’t get washed up properly. Dogs don’t like ’em bandages much. Try to lick ’em off even. But I can’t have no sick dog going in the ring.”

He led me to the kitchen, which was spotless compared to the previous day. All of the beer bottles were placed neatly in a box on
the floor. A pile of empty tin ashtrays was stacked on the icebox. The muddy footprints had been mopped away.

“Got to wash ’em hands up first,” Mr. Beresik said, wringing a rag out in the sink. He brought the wet rag to the table along with a basin of water and a cigar box, then he laid another cloth on the table in front of me and smoothed it out. “Okay, put your hands on this.” I did as he told me. “Now this is just soap and water for cleaning, but it’s going to sting some.”

I fought the instinct to pull away, reminding myself that, to Mr. Beresik, I was a boy, and a boy wouldn’t do that. He lightly dabbed the wet cloth across the tops of my hands, then flipped them and did the same to the blisters.

“You said it was an accident?” he said, mulling it over. “You know, you can say if it was otherwise. Like if it was your father, say, thinking this was the way to give you a licking for something you done.”

There was no doubt I was afraid of my father, but he had never spanked me or backhanded me the way I’d seen other children get beaten. He had never raised his hand to me or touched me, never in anger, but never in love either.

“It was an accident,” I attested. “Really, it was. I did it myself.”

“Good then,” Mr. Beresik said, taking me at my word. “A beatin’ is one thing, but these,” he sighed, gazing at my palms, then he let the subject drop. “Well, I’ll see what I can do.”

He opened the cigar box, displaying its contents—bandages and wraps and jars of ointments. He dug through and picked out one small tin in particular as well as a roll of soft bandaging cloth. “You should see the way I got to wrap ’em dogs sometimes,” Mr. Beresik began in a lighter tone. “Looks so funny with all of ’at tape
on ’em. They hang their heads, even walk different. It’s like they know they look silly.”

Mr. Beresik dipped the tip of the wet cloth into the tin, which held a yellowish salve. “Top first,” he said, then he dotted the ointment into the skin. “Am I pushing too hard?”

I shook my head, unable to answer because of the pain, and Mr. Beresik could tell. He turned my hands over and began to dab the ointment onto the blisters. The coolness was a relief, but even the slightest pressure on the burns brought tears to my eyes. Though Mr. Beresik’s hands were massive compared to mine, he moved them gracefully and with a surprisingly gentle touch. He finished with the salve and capped the tin. “Now comes the hard part.”

“I thought that was the hard part.”

“Wish it was. Wrapping hurts worse. But it’s got to be done.”

I knew I would have to remove the bandages later so my mother wouldn’t see them, but I didn’t stop Mr. Beresik from putting them on. I didn’t stop him from taking care of me.

“If you were older, I’d give you a drink. Dull the pain.”

“Then I wish I was older.”

“Try to think about something else,” he suggested. “Think about something good.”

Mr. Beresik wound the bandage around my right hand and the pressure of the thin gauze was excruciating. My breath came faster, chugging audibly through my nose. I raked my mind in search of something to think of, something good, but all that materialized was the Black Madonna. I could envision it hanging on our wall, the Holy Mother gazing down at me, the baby Jesus looking off into the distance, not at me, not at anyone.

Once Mr. Beresik had finished both hands, he secured each bandage with a safety pin. “You’re a pretty good patient,” he said. “With the dogs, I got to worry about them biting me while I wrap ’em.”

“At least I didn’t bite you.”

Mr. Beresik laughed as he closed up the cigar box. “Nope, you didn’t.”

“Well,” I began, unsure of what to say next. Part of me didn’t want to leave. “Thanks. I mean, thank you, sir.”

“Just don’t go doing it again. That’ll be thanks enough.”

“I should get going. I’ve got another delivery left to make.” I stood and tried to push in my chair, but recoiled before my fingers met the wood. Mr. Beresik pushed the chair in for me.

“Boy with manners. That’s something you don’t see much. Least of all around here.” Mr. Beresik nodded approvingly. “You should come tomorrow. It’ll be a good match. A good time. I always save the best matches for Saturday. There’s real money to be made at a dogfight,” he added. “Money to be lost too. But you put down a one-dollar bet and you could make double your money back. Never hurts to try.”

Mr. Beresik wanted me to come to the match, wanted it enough to tempt me with the promise of winning, winning money I desperately needed, and it was working. He wanted me to see what he did, to see what he’d spent all his life training his dogs to do. He wanted to show off to me and I was genuinely flattered.