Rosy.
I go over to the window for the third time and peak out through the blinds. No sign of her yet.
I have no idea what to expect. Though I know all about her, aside from school pictures her mother had sent us over the years, I hadn't seen her in the flesh since she was an infant. I'd even held her back then. I can still remember the feel of that.
She was my wife's niece, her brother's daughter, and since I no longer desired any connection with her family I really hadn't considered myself related to the girl until she insisted on calling me Uncle Mike.
When Annie died I had taken her phone and informed everyone on her call list of her passing. It hadn't really dawned on me that Rosy was on that list though Annie had mentioned several times that they were in contact. If I'd been thinking, since the connection was through Annie's family, I probably wouldn't have bothered informing her. I felt no obligation to let the in-laws know. I didn't like them. They were scum.
But I knew Rosa, Rosy's mother, and she wasn't really one of them. And neither was I. Rosy probably knew that. I first met Rosa the summer after my first year of college. I applied for a job at a factory one town over not realizing that my wife's brother Charley worked there. He and Rosa were both fork truck drivers charged with keeping each machine's hopper filled with plastic beads. Though there were other Hispanics working there, she was the only woman. I didn't realize at first that she and Charley had something going on. After all, he was married to Gloria Jean who was home taking care of Charley III. But one night (we were working afternoons) I walked outside to get away from the noise and heat of the machines and caught them leaning against Charley's truck mugging it up hot and heavy.
I reported it to Annie next morning and we both laughed because we always found Charley's adventures with women amusing. When I think back they still make me laugh. Once out of the blue we started getting letters addressed to him from Florida. They were packed thick with photos. When Annie finally got him on the phone, he asked her to open them and read them to him. He hadn't gone far in school so reading was a problem for him which is probably why he had them sent to us. Anyway, the letters were declarations of love and the pictures nude poses of the sender. When we described them to him he had a good laugh and explained that the blond bombshell he'd been getting it on with was the wife of a friend of his. That was Charley.
I finished out the summer and returned to school. One Saturday morning in October Charley and Rosa showed up at our front door, he with a big grin on his face, as usual, and a can of beer in his hand, she sporting a prominent baby bulge.
The purpose of the visit wasn't to announce the impending birth of still another offspring (Charley had two already by two different women, maybe three though he disavowed any responsibility for the third; it was Rosa's first.), it was to inform us that Pine Tree Plastics had gone out of business and they needed a place to stay.
Of course we let them stay with us though having cohabited with Charley before, we had to insist on a few ground rules, one being he wasn't getting a key and had to be home at a decent hour, the other that they had to be gone before the baby was born. The main roadblock to having our peaceful home restored to us was Charley and Rosa's employment situation which I believed could be remedied pretty quickly.
Not that either of us minded the company, Charley had stayed with us a few times when his relationships had soured, but over time his presence could wear thin.
I knew Wings Inc, a big aerospace plant just east of town, was hiring. They'd had a big display ad in the employment section of the local paper for a couple weeks. When I mentioned it to Charley he said flat out that they wouldn't hire him. Like I've already mentioned, he hadn't done well in school, probably because of a learning disability that no one ever bothered to investigate. Anyway, I knew despite his reading difficulties he was as smart as the next guy and I convinced him that having worked at the plastic plant for seven years he was exactly the kind of employee Wings was looking for.
We didn't waste any time. I drove him down to Wings to pick up an application. We worked on it that night and he returned it next morning. I told him he might have to wait for them to call him back for an interview but I was wrong. They interviewed him right away and hired him on the spot.
When Rosa said she wanted to get a job at Wings, too, I wasn't sure it was a good idea on account of her condition but both she and Charley insisted so, next morning, we went down to pick up an application. Though she didn't need as much help as Charley, we filled it out together. When she returned it, wearing as Annie had suggested a loose-fitting sweater, she was interviewed on the spot and sure as hell got a job, too.
They were making pretty good money, Rosa and Charley, but they still hadn't managed to find a place by the time Rosa came due. Not coincidentally, it was around this time that Annie's older sister, Molly, started visiting more often than usual. I knew why – she was scouting for her mother, a conniving old bitty who would like nothing better than to get her claws into Rosa's baby. I say “Rosa's baby” because Charley didn't act too excited about the impending birth.
Sure enough, when the baby did come, Molly volunteered to watch Rosy during the day while Rosa was working. Since they lived twenty miles up the road, it soon became the case that Rosy would spend the night with Aunt Molly and Grandma because it didn't make sense for Rosa to do all that driving.
Then, one day, they announced that Rosy would be better off with them and they wouldn't give her back. When Rosa showed up one day to visit, the cops were waiting for her. They threw her in a car and took her down to Immigration even though she kept telling them she was legal. “I am Puertorican.”
Charley was willing to stand by and let this all happen. That's when I realized he didn't feel much attachment to Rosy or Rosa.
This was one of Annie's finest hours because she didn't waste any time. She made her brother drive her to their mother's. She charged into the house, grabbed the baby and brought her back to our place.
Meanwhile, I was on the phone with immigration, explaining what my crazy in-laws had done, and trying to find out where I could pick up Rosa. Turned out it was in Newark on Monday morning.
“My baby?” was the first thing she asked.
“Your baby's fine,” I said. “She's with Annie.”
“Charley?”
“He went to work this morning.” I didn't add that he didn't seem to give a shit about her and her predicament.
She sat quietly for most of the ride. I could tell she was doing a lot of thinking.
“Look, Rosa, you and the baby can stay with us as long as you want. We like having you. But I don't think that's the best thing for you.”
She just nodded.
“I think Charley knew what his mother and sister were going to do and he did nothing to stop them. It's like he doesn't care about little Rosy or what happens to her. His family is crazy.” Here I held my finger up to my head and moved it in a circle to illustrate what I had said.
She nodded.
I continued. “They are no good for your baby. If I was you, I'd get as far away from here as I could. Know what I mean?”
“Chicago,” she said. “When I first come to this country, I live there.”
We couldn't see Rosa taking a bus or train to Chicago with the baby, so I drove. I was happy to see the warm welcome she received from her family headed up by her Tia Maria. I ate some plantain and other Puertorican food and headed right back home. She called a couple weeks later to tell us she'd found a job and that a cousin was looking after Rosy during her shift. Then she thanked me. We didn't hear much from Rosa after that aside from the annual Christmas card and Rosy's school photos. Then a couple months ago I received a message from little Rosy on facebook.
No sign of her yet. She may be having a hard time finding the street; this development is like a maze. I walk out onto the porch in case I have to flag her down. No cars but I do see a young girl, her pony tail swinging, walking down the street with a back pack. She stops to hike up the back pace and then, to my surprise starts crossing the street toward me, a big smile spread across her face.
“Uncle Mike?” she says.
“Rosie?” I reply, stupidly.
She nods, joins me on the porch and wraps her arms around me so tightly I'm afraid I might fall over. She lets go and looks up ate me. I see Rosa in her face and, thank goodness, not a trace of Charley. My Annie was the only good-looking one in that whole family. I used to tell her she was like the Marilyn Munster of her clan.
“You're crying,” Rosy observes before I'm aware of it myself.
“I'm just happy you came to see me.” She squeezes me again. I pull back to look at her. “You're so beautiful,” I say through the tears. “I just wish your Aunt Annie...”
I'm inconsolable now. What must this poor girl think of me?
“Uncle Mike, let's go in the house.”
I stop in the doorway and ask, “Where's your car?”
She ignores me.
“Do you have a Kleenex?”
“Uh, I have a handkerchief,” I said as I pull a white one from my back pocket.
“Good! Wipe your eyes. You look too sad.”
“I'm not sad. I'm happy to see you. Very happy.”
“Good. I'm happy to see you, too. Now smile.”
Suddenly we're cheek to cheek and she's taking a picture with her phone.
“One more,” she says.
She starts tapping on the screen with her thumbs then announces “I sent it to my mom.”
“That quick?” I ask.
“Look,” she replies, showing me a big heart on the screen. “She loves it.”
I was about to ask about her car again when her phone starts warbling like an ambulance.
“Mommy,” she says, then comes a rapid fire exchange in Spanish marked by an occasional “Mom-my.” I got the impression that Rosy wasn't happy with whatever her mother was saying. Suddenly, she thrusts her phone at me. “Here, my mother wants to talk to you.” I bring the phone to my ear but she grabs my hand and positions it in front of my face. She pointed at the screen and said, “There's my mother.”
I moved the phone closer then farther away all the time hearing Rosa's voice repeating “Mr. Mike, Mr. Mike.”
“Say something,” says Rosy.
“Rosa, is that you?”
Rosy rolls her eyes. I just shrug.
“Yes! Es me. How are you doing?”
“Pretty good. Rosy came for a visit. I'm very happy about that.”
“So sorry to hear about Miss Annie.”
“Thank you. I got your card. It was nice of you.”
“She was a good person... like you. Two very good persons.”
“Thanks.”
“You saved my life, me and Rosy. I never forget that. We pray for you every day.”
“Well...” The idea of someone praying for me brought me close to tears again.
Rosy took back her phone and they start speaking Spanish again. She walks into the kitchen as she speaks.
“I got some lunch for us at the grocery store,” I say pointing at the refrigerator where the cold cuts and rolls are sitting.
She looks inside still speaking a mile-a-minute. A few words I recognize, like almuerzo and Publix. She's talking to me now. “Thanks, Uncle Mike. That looks wonderful.”
Their conversation is winds down when Rosy says, “Mama says good-bye.”
“Good-bye Rosa. Nice talking to you.” Rosy severs the connection.
“Hungry? Want a sandwich?”
“Yes, thank you Uncle Mike.”
I pull a chair out from the kitchen table and ask her to sit.
“Let me help,” she says.
“Nothing to it,” I say. “Just sit.”
We have a nice lunch. I'm about to ask about her car again when she interrupts me. “Uncle Mike, do you have someone to help you with the house work?”
I look around. “Why, is it messy? I suppose it is. You know, your Aunt Annie was a nonstop cleaner. Every day she was cleaning something. She'd probably be very angry if she could see how I've let this place go. I just don't... I did try to clean a little for your visit.”
She smiles. “I can tell. It looks very nice. I was just wondering, you know, if you had any help.”
“No, no help. No visitors, really. Just me.”
“And me, now.”
“Annie would've been so happy to see you. I just know she would've loved you.”
I'm close to tears again but I remember something.
“Just a minute. I have something for you.”
I go to the bedroom and emerge a few seconds later with my wife's kindle.
“This was your Aunt Annie's. Can you use it.”
“It's a kindle,” she says excitedly.
“A kindle fire,” I say.
“You can read books, watch videos and movies and do all kinds of stuff with this. I can't take this. It wouldn't be right.”
“Why not?”
“Too expensive. Way too expensive. You should use it yourself.”
“I don't need it. I have my own.”
“No, no. I'm sorry Uncle Mike. It's not right.”
“Call your mother and ask her.”
She looks at me, her brow furrowed. “Okay, I'll call her. But,” she adds. “I know what she's going to say.”
Like before, they start rattling off a bunch of Spanish so I assert myself. “Give me the phone.” She hesitates. “NOW!” I say.
“Rosa, I don't know what she's telling you.”
“She say very expensive and...”
“Familia!” I interrupt. That stops her. “Did I say that right?”
“Familia. Yes, familia. Family.”
“Hold on.” I take out my wallet and open it to the picture section. One window has a picture of my Annie. The others are filled with overlapping school photos of Rosy that Rosa has sent us over the years.
“Tell your mother what I've got here.”
They swap some more Spanish, then I take the phone back.
“Understand, Rosa?”
“Um, I no –.'
“Listen, I go out for breakfast every morning. When I pay the people around me, my friends, see those pictures. Sometimes they ask 'Hey Mike, when we gonna meet that niece of yours' and I say 'maybe one of these days. You know what? Tomorrow's gonna be that day. They are gonna meet my niece. They are gonna meet my family. And that's that. So quit worrying about Annie's kindle because she would want Rosy to have it. Okay?”
“Si.”
“Good. Maybe someday you'll come to breakfast with me so they can meet you, too.”
“Oh...”
“Someday, I said, not tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she chuckles. “Someday.”
We eat our lunch on paper plates, as was my habit, but was amusing to Rosy. I told her I usually took a walk after lunch, so she joins me on my jaunt around the block. We stop to chat it up with a few neighbors and I proudly introduce Rosy as my niece. When we get back to the house, as we are walking up the driveway, she tells me she had been in contact with her father.
As I follow her inside, I ask, “How did that work out?”
“Not so well, Uncle Mike, to tell you the truth.”
“Why? What happened?”
We go into the living room and sitt on opposite ends of the sofa. I ask if she wants a drink. She says no, then tells me the story of her meeting with Charley.
“He didn't want to spend time with me. It was like he was afraid I wanted something from him. Then he took me to his mother's house to meet her and his sister who I weren't interested in meeting since my mother had filled me in on the crap they tried to pull when I was a baby.” She scooted over toward me, wrapped her arms around me, and gave me such a squeeze I thought my ribs would crack. “She also told me what you did for her. She says you saved our lives. You're good people, Uncle Mike, and we really do pray for you every day. I just want you to know that.”
“Well, I'm not that good, really. Except for Charley, I didn't like Annie's family at all. And they didn't like me.”
“You drove us all the way from New Jersey to Chicago. That makes you good. Anyway, I had to sit there and listen to them tell their stories while my father just sat there drinking beer. Finally, I asked him if he still worked at the airplane factory 'cause that's what my mother always called it when she told me how you got them jobs there. Only thing was his mother said it was a great thing that Mollie got him the job there.”
“That's par for the course,” I say.
“Yeah, but listen to this, Uncle Mike. You would've been proud of me. I spoke right up and said my mother always said it was Uncle Mike who got her and my father the job.”
“What'd they say to that?”
“Nothing. Not one of them, even my father. They just shut up. I think they figured out that my mother must have told me other things, too, about how they tried to steal me away from her. She told me they were bad people and now I know for myself. I couldn't get out of there quick enough and told my father it was getting late and I had to catch a bus. So, we left. To be honest, I'm sorry I went there. They are not my family. They are sick people.”
“And me?”
She broke into a big smile. “You are my hero. You are my Uncle Mike.” I couldn't help smiling with her.
For dinner, we go out for pizza, something I do too often according to my cardiologist but what the heck – it's a special occasion. When we get home, Rosy, who decided she was going to spend the night and head home Sunday afternoon, announces she was going to take a shower and asked me where the towels were. Well, I had long since run out of clean towels and was in the habit of hanging them over the shower rod to dry and then reusing them. At her insistence, I led her to the laundry room explaining that Annie had insisted I not touch the washer and drier for fear I would somehow destroy them. She assured me she knew how to operate the machines and did a load of towels and wash cloths. While we waited, we watched one of my favorite movies, The Intern.
She comes out of the shower all clean and fresh wearing an orange t-shirt three sizes too big the way kids do, her hair, which had been in a pony tail all day, now down past her shoulders. I smiled.
“You okay Uncle Mike?”
“Yeah, I'm fine.” I couldn't keep from tearing up.
“You look sad,” she observes as she kneels down before me.
“No, not sad at all. In fact, I was just thinking that this has been the best day I've had in quite awhile. And, I have to thank you for that.” The tears are flowing freely now.
She gives me a hug and kisses me on the cheek. “It's been a good day for me, too.”
As she heads back to the spare bedroom, I call out to her. “Rosy.”
“Yes?”
“You don't have a car, do you?”
“No, Uncle Mike.”
“You came up here on a bus?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” I say. “We'll talk about that tomorrow.”
I'd only known her a day but I was quickly learning Rosy was a headstrong young woman, something I suppose she got from her mother who took flight from Jersey to Chicago to insure the safety of her and her baby. No sooner had we returned from breakfast at the diner, where she charmed the pants off a dozen or so of my friends with her youthful exuberance and wit, than she starts tearing the sheets off the beds, hers and mine.
“You don't have to do that,” I say as she skirts my bed.
“When was the last time you changed them, Uncle Mike?”
I reflect for a few seconds. “It wasn't that long ago.”
“Every week! You should change the sheets once a week,” she says shaking her head. “Don't you know anything?”
“Well, Annie used to...”
“But she never showed you how? Like the washing machine? You have to take care of yourself, now.”
“I suppose I should do a better job. Or, hire somebody.”
“You're going to waste your money paying somebody to do a half hour's work when you're perfectly capable of doing it yourself? I'm not mentioning this to Mommy but, believe me, she'd give you an earful.”
“I have the money.”
She stops what she's doing and puts her hands on her hips. “Save it for something else. Give it to charity.”
I follow her around, watching what she's doing, feeling guilty and more than a little embarrassed. “You really don't have to do this, Rosy.”
“It's okay. This is what I do every day.”
“Every day?”
“Yes, I work part-time at a motel to help pay for my tuition. Change beds, clean bathrooms, vacuum – that's my job.”
“Well, you shouldn't have to work when you visit me.”
“Maybe next time I won't have to if you find time to do the laundry.”
“Okay, okay, I'll work on that.” I know I won't, but I'll make it my business to find somebody not named Rosy to do it.
I go into the living room plop my butt on the sofa and started watching Sports Center, my interest in news and politics having dissipated over the last few years. Rosy plops down beside me.
“So, you don't have a car?”
“No, too expensive. Gas, insurance, all that is too much.”
I stood up. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
I lead her into the garage and switch on the light revealing Annie's little SUV which hasn't been getting much use, lately, not since her passing.
“This is your Aunt Annie's car. I don't need two cars and I've been meaning to get rid of this one so I can put my car in the garage. What do you think?”
“It's very nice,” she said, “like new. You should sell it.”
“I thought of that but it's more of a headache than I want to go through.”
“Bring it to a dealer. Let them sell it for you.”
“I thought of that too, but they'll rob me. What I really want to do, and I've given this some thought, is give it to you. I think your Aunt Annie...”
“Oh no, Uncle Mike, you can't do that. You are talking crazy, now.”
“You won't have to worry about insurance – I'll take care of that – or gas, or any other expenses that come up.”
“You've only known me two days. What will people say?”
“I've known you you're whole life and you really shouldn't argue with me because my heart doctor says it isn't good for me.”
“But Uncle Mike – I have to call Mommy.”
“Dial her up. Let me talk to her.”
I ask Rosy to leave the room while I talk to Rosa. After we get everything settled to our mutual satisfaction I find Rosy in the garage examining her new car. She runs to me and wraps me in a bear hug. “Thank you, Uncle Mike. You don't know how much I love you.” I have no answer to that and settle on kissing the top of her head.
“Well,” I say between sniffles, “you can't take it home today, but we can get started with the paperwork.”
It's hard to believe that a pint-sized young woman from Chicago can turn your world upside down after only a few days of knowing her, but she has. I spend the next week running from the insurance agency to the bank to the DMV to the notary then back to the bank and who knows where else. But, I don't mind it a bit – I have a family to look after.
The End
(Just a rough draft but I thought I'd put it out there before it got lost.)
