“She still won’t answer the phone?” Gina asked from beneath the pink and white quilt on her bed. She was already tucked in for the night.
I shook my head as I sat down on the spare twin bed in her room, still in my dungarees and cardigan. I’d been at Gina’s house for two full days and nights, trying to call my mother every few hours, but she refused to answer the phone. I was hurt and angry and scared. I’d certainly known my mother would be upset. I’d known she’d be furious with me. But I never thought she would actually kick me out.
“She’ll come around,” Gina assured me with a yawn. “She’s your mother.”
“I don’t think she will come around, Gina.” I remembered my mother’s words: I don’t know you anymore. “I think I’ve lost her,” I said. “I’ve lost everyone I love.”
“You still have me, honey.” She propped herself up on her elbow, her nightgown slipping over one shoulder as she leaned across the space between the beds to touch my denim-covered knee. “You’ll always have me,” she said. “I understand how she feels, though. I don’t want you to leave either, but I know you don’t have much choice. If you get lonely or scared when you’re down in North Carolina, I’m a phone call away.”
I barely heard her, I was so lost in my gloom. “I think she actually loves Vincent more than she loves me,” I said. “Maybe she always has. She kept calling him ‘my Vincent.’ She adores him.” I leaned back against the headboard and lit my fourth or fifth cigarette of the evening. I remembered the obstetrician telling me ten cigarettes a day was fine. I seemed determined to smoke them all in a row tonight. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay here a while longer?” I asked.
“It’s fine,” she said, stifling another yawn. She had to get up early to go to work in the morning and I felt guilty I was keeping her awake with my chatter. “My mother loves you,” she added, “though if it turns out you’re here for a long time, we’ll have to make up some good reason you can’t go home.”
“I don’t know if Henry’s going to call me in four days or four weeks,” I said. “Or if he’s changed his mind altogether,” I added, giving voice to my latest worry.
“He’ll call,” she said, as though she knew him better than I did. The truth was, neither of us knew Henry Kraft at all.
The Monday after I’d arrived at Gina’s, I’d called the factory in Hickory and asked for him. I needed to let him know where he could reach me—that I was no longer at home—but the switchboard operator told me he wasn’t in. I left Gina’s number with the operator, then began to worry. Maybe he was having second thoughts. He’d certainly been impulsive, asking me to marry him. Had he been leading me on, humoring me while he waited for the train to take me away from Hickory? Away from him? The twenty-four hours I’d spent in Hickory were taking on an unreal quality in my mind and the craziness of his proposal was setting in. It was probably setting in for him as well. And there was that Violet Dare girl. The one who fancied herself his fiancée. Who was she? Did Henry tell her about me? How he asked me to marry him? Were they both laughing about me now?
“Get some sleep, honey,” Gina said with a yawn. “You need it. Your baby needs it. You can resume worrying in the morning.”
I stubbed out my cigarette and stood up from the bed, heading for the bathroom where I’d left my nightgown and toothbrush. I would go to bed as Gina had advised, but I doubted very much that I’d be able to sleep.
* * *
A phone rang. In the darkness, I lifted the receiver to my ear.
“Hello?” I said.
“This is Violet Dare,” a woman hissed in an angry whisper. “What the hell do you think you’re doing with Henry?”
“Tess?”
I opened my eyes, groggy and confused. I looked over at Gina, thinking she’d spoken, but she was burrowed under her covers sound asleep.
“Tess, wake up.”
I sat up and saw Gina’s mother standing in the doorway, illuminated by the streetlight outside the bedroom window. Her hair was tied up in rags beneath a hairnet. I stared at her blankly, still lost in my dream.
“Your fiancé is on the phone,” Mrs. Farinola said, then added, “He says it’s urgent, honey.”
Vincent? Calling me at Gina’s in the middle of the night? My mother must have gotten in touch with him. Talk some sense into her, she’d tell him. I only hoped she hadn’t told him about the baby.
I got out of bed, pulling on my robe and stepping into my slippers, and followed Mrs. Farinola to the kitchen. My brain still felt muddy with sleep and I half expected Violet Dare to be on the line when I lifted the receiver to my ear.
“Vincent?”
“Thank God you’re there,” he said. I hadn’t heard his voice in a week and a half and the sound of it filled me with heartbreaking love. “We didn’t know where you were,” he said, “and it finally occurred to me to try Gina’s.”
I was confused. If he’d called my house, wouldn’t my mother have told him I was at Gina’s? “I’ve been here a couple of—”
“It’s your mother, Tess,” he interrupted. “Mom hadn’t heard from her in a few days and she went over there and found her on the floor in the living room.”
My mind snapped into focus, my heartbeat suddenly pounding in my throat. “Oh no,” I said. “She fell?”
He hesitated. “She passed away, honey,” he said finally. “I’m so—”
“What?” I nearly screamed the word. I felt Mrs. Farinola’s hand on my shoulder as if to hold me up, and I knew Vincent must have already told her why he was calling. “How could she … pass away?”
“They think it was either another stroke, or possibly a seizure from the diabetes. Either way, she hit her head on the coffee table. Mom is devastated that she didn’t go over there sooner. They think it happened two days ago. Have you been at Gina’s all this time?”
Two days ago! I couldn’t answer him. Tears slipped down my cheeks and over my trembling fingers where I held the receiver. “I … yes,” I finally managed to say. I couldn’t tell him my mother kicked me out. “I should go home. Right now.” I looked through the kitchen window into the dark night. “But the bus doesn’t run till morn—”
“I’ll drive you home,” Mrs. Farinola said quickly.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Vincent said. “There’s no need for you to rush home in the middle of the night. She’s … she’s not there, honey. She’s at the funeral home. Cito’s. They’re waiting till we could find you to make arrangements.”
Cito’s. Oh my God. That made it all so real. I lowered myself onto one of the kitchen chairs.
“I’ve been trying to find a train home,” Vincent continued, “but they’re all booked up and I’m out of gasoline coupons because of my job, plus we’re so short staffed right now, that I…” His voice drifted off for a moment. “I’m driving all over town during the day, making house calls,” he continued. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get home, Tess. They’re moving troops around right now, and the trains are full. I’m sorry. I hate to leave you alone to deal with this. Go see Father Longo tomorrow. He’ll help you with arrangements. And my parents will help. You know they’ll always be there for you. I’ll do my best to get on a train, all right?”
I barely heard him as he spoke. Mom. “I just can’t believe it,” I said. I remembered my last conversation with her. The argument. The anguish in her face. The shame and disbelief. I stood up abruptly. “I need to get home,” I said. I had the irrational feeling that I would walk in the house and find her sitting in her favorite chair in the living room, the floor lamp illuminating a magazine in her lap.
“All right,” he said. “Go. I’ll call you tomorrow and give you an update on the train situation. Okay, darling?”
I nodded as though he could see me, then stood up and set the receiver back in the cradle on the table. I was dazed, unaware of anything around me. Gina’s mother may have offered condolences. Gina herself may have come into the kitchen to ask what was wrong. I didn’t know or care. I stood there numbly, feeling sick, my heart as heavy as an anchor. My mother was gone. And it was my fault.