Come, Josephine

Chapter 57

1928
Josephine
The room was stifling. The curtains were drawn, the fire lit, and the red walls throbbing against the suffocating heat. Everything was too dark, too claustrophobic. The room, which had once felt large, now seemed to be too small for the bed. In it, Ruth lay.
Her head was propped up by pillows, as if to gaze up at us, or out of the window. Her eyes remained shut, and for a moment, I was undecided on wether she was dead or merely sleeping. At last, I saw the slow rise and fall of her chest.
   Mamma went to her bedside, sitting on the edge of the bed. She beckoned me to the chair beside her, as if to say, there's no reason to be scared.
   But her eyes told me otherwise.
    I sat down as quietly as I could, careful not to disturb Ruth. I eased myself down, biting my lip as the chair groaned. Ruth opened her eyes.
   "Josephine?"
    Her voice was raw, hoarse, as if she had lost every morsel of strength. I fought to keep my face neutral, "yes?"
   "Why are you here?" Her voice wasn't as sharp as it had once been. For some reason, that made my heart ache.
   Mamma interjected, "she's here to see you, mother."
   "Oh, so because I'm finally going to die, you visit me?" Her laugh was hollow, "how pleasant."
    "I didn't think you wanted to see me," I admitted, "I thought you only wanted to see mamma-"
    "You're still family-"
    "And I'm still the daughter of a man you view as beneath you," I snapped.
   Mamma raised a hand to silence me, but I was already finished. Instead, Ruth spoke once more, "Jack might be an unsuitable match, but the damage is done. You are still my granddaughter, and by that logic, my equal."
   We sat in an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Mamma, her face drawn and unusually pale, looked down at her feet for the longest time. Ruth frowned, "you should rest, Rose, in your condition. Why don't you retire to your room for a while?"
   "All I do is rest, mother-"
    "Your face tells me otherwise. You should go to your room and lie down, or else I'll get that husband or yours to make you."
   Mamma sighed, "Josephine, will you get me if mother needs anything?"
   I said that I would, and she went outside.
   "Now that we're alone," Ruth said, "why don't you tell me about what you've done with my necklace?"
   "I've kept it safe, like you told me to," I said, "do you want it back?"
   "No, what use will I have for it?" She said grimly, "you might as well keep it; it's valuable, and I doubt your father will leave you much of a legacy."
   "My father-"
   "Is a good man, yes, I know," irony laced her voice, "but he's hardly rich."
   I didn't argue. She looked at me, eyebrows raised, and continued, "And I doubt that boy of yours will be of much use either."
   "Nick is a hard worker," I paused, "how did you know?"
   "Please, no one blushes over "the help"... and I heard you arguing with your father- I'm not deaf, you know."
    I had forgotten how easily I had heard every noise from Ruth's room, "you should be resting."
    "For what? So I have energy to die?"
   I didn't respond, but she did lean back and close her eyes, for a while. By the time she was awake, mamma had returned.
   "How are you, mother?" She asked, only to receive a displeased grunt. She ignored it, and went to the side of the bed, taking my place. She motioned for me to leave, so I followed through on her request.
    As I went out, I shut the door behind me. It was then that I went into my room, keeping my footsteps light, and took my position by the thin wall between Ruth's room and my own. I leant in, my ear pressed to the partition.
   "Can you forgive me, mother?" To my surprise, it was mamma's soft voice.
   "I didn't suppose you saw anything wrong in your actions."
   "I didn't then. I don't think I do now- I love Jack, and if I had to do it again... but, no, I was wrong for leaving you that way."
   "So you admit it? You abandoned me?" 
   "Mother..."
    "Rose-"
    "I don't want to be angry with you!" A heavy sigh sounded, "mother, you abandoned me first."
   There was silence for a brief second, "I know, Rose, but I wasn't the maternal sort... not like you."
   I recalled the way mamma had taken care of me; the long nights she spent holding my hand and rubbing my back when I was sick, or scared, and the way she would scoop me up in her arms when she came in from work. The way she took my hand when we crossed the street, or how, on the darkest of nights, she took me into her bed and held me close, so that neither of us would be scared.
   I pictured how, even now, she rested her hand on her stomach and smiled down at her bump. The way she beamed over at Jack whenever his eyes fell there, or how she spoke about the baby with such certainty, such hope. I saw how she always put us first, as if she would give her life for ours- after all, Jack had so willingly done the same for her. Mamma, for as long as she had walked the Earth, had only experienced love in the manner of self-sacrifice. In turn, she loved in the same, passionate way.
As the night progressed, I could hear mamma's gentle voice soften and mellow with exhaustion. She murmured her word, and drew each syllable out, but refused to stop talking. It was as if she was afraid that with every passing minute, Ruth moved closer to the edge of existence, her position increasingly precarious.
So mamma talked long, long into the night.