On very rare occasions, when she had dared refer to this subject, Michael would speak almost exactly those same words; more often, he would silence her with a look.
And now in this grand house, with a wonderful son upstairs and another baby in the oven, Annie considered herself complied in whatever her husband and their patriarch did. What was the word, in the newspapers and magazines? She was an accomplice. She prayed for forgiveness, but she never spoke of her conflicted feelings to any priest — how do you confess to things you don’t know about?
And don’t want to know about?
Yet, the notion that her reserved husband was a “gangster” seemed an absurdity. Surely the whispered stories, the awful rumors, which she heard only the edges of, were gross exaggerations if not outright falsehoods.
This was a man who did not swear. Who did not smoke. Who did not drink (in a rare candid moment, he had admitted to her... when she wondered why they couldn’t have a simple glass of wine now and again... that his father had been a good man who showed a bad side when he drank, and Mike’s mother had suffered because of it).
And Annie had a deep and abiding faith in his faithfulness, where their marital bed was concerned, despite the loose women in the world of John Looney.
The smell of corned beef and cabbage emanated from the kitchen — her recipe, but not her doing. Mike had hired help for them, a Greenbush girl. Mary Jane Murphy, a sweet, crude slip of eighteen, cooked indifferently and cleaned lackadasically, but was gentle, even loving with the child.
And in her condition, Annie could not even bend over and pick the boy up.
The girl was skinny, almost scrawny, and looked like a child playacting in maid’s cap and costume. Mike quietly suggested Annie be tougher on the lass, but Annie could not bring herself to do so: she had been a maid herself, for several of the wealthy families, the Baileys with their lumber, the Greggs with their factories.
She had suffered cruelty at the hands of these “upper class” people, overhearing vile remarks that she recalled to this day... as when one of Rock Island’s wealthiest socialites cattily commented to another that Mrs. Bailey “could surely do better than a little Shanty Irish wench” like Annie.
The socialite said she herself preferred colored help, acknowledging that their service cost more than Irish girls.
No, Annie would not be a strict mistress where Mary Jane Murphy was concerned... at least as long as the wench stayed faithful to Annie’s recipes...
Mrs. Michael O’Sullivan did particularly love to cook, but she also took pride in her housework; still, like many women, the enforced relaxation of pregnancy provided a blissful vacation. Mike was insistent that she take it easy — she’d lost a daughter, by miscarriage, last year — and assured her that this time, she’d deliver “right and proper,” having been conveyed to the hospital “in good time.”
When the labor pains for their first child had come, Annie had been carried by her husband like a bride over the threshold up the hill to St. Anthony’s on Thirtieth Street. They had no car at that time, nor phone, and no neighbors did, either. Despite the pain she’d suffered, her memory of the event was a warm one — held in the loving arms of her husband, as he stepped gingerly over the railroad tracks, and strode up the hill, to save her and their son.
John Looney had paid off their doctor’s bills. Rumor had it that Mr. Looney, shortly thereafter, contributed to the hospital’s new wing, in gratitude for the hospital’s policy of never turning away the residents of Greenbush.
Certainly John Looney had been kind to their little family; he was like a grandfather to Michael, Jr. (much of the train set had been Mr. Looney’s doing), and looked upon Annie with affection, always with a wistful remark about how she reminded him of his late wife. From time to time, they had entertained Mr. Looney in their home, and the patriarch’s praise for her cooking was effusive and apparently genuine.
Annie always made a point of inviting Mr. Looney’s son, Connor, but never had Connor accepted. She had noted a certain tension where Connor Looney was concerned, and suspected the man resented his father’s regard for her husband. Mr. Looney’s son, a little older than Michael, had a snake’s smile and awful dead eyes. That he and Michael often worked together gave her many an uneasy night.
Definitely, the pages of her storybook life were frayed, here and there. Just last month, her son had sat in his short pants on the couch, bouncing, kicking his feet up, looking across his trains at his mother, who was seated with a novel by Gene Stratton Porter, her feet up on the ottoman.
“Papa has a gun,” Michael said.
“Yes, he does, dear.”
“Why does Papa have a gun?”
“He protects Mr. Looney.”
“What is ‘protects’?”
“Keeps him from harm.”
“Mr. Looney’s nice.”
“Yes, dear.”
“Nice man.”
“Yes, he is, dear.”
The boy bounced. “At church? Tommy said his mama said Mr. Looney’s the boogeyman.”
She managed not to smile. “Well, he’s not, dear.”
“Boogeyman can’t be hurt.”
“I suppose not, dear.”
“So why does Papa need a gun?”
“Play with your trains, dear.”
Though amused by this exchange, Annie had also been troubled. She’d spoken about it, after supper, to Mike, who said he would talk to the boy, and make sure his son knew the gun was not a toy.
“You keep that thing under lock and key,” she said, in a rare scolding tone, “when it’s not on your person.”
“I will,” he promised.
Mike had been as good as his word, talking to their son, showing him the weapon, comparing it to a toy gun the boy had; and had been extremely discreet about the pistol, thereafter. He wore it to work, and then removed it and locked it away in a bedroom drawer, when he got home.
Occasionally Mike traveled; sometimes he was gone for as much as a week. Nothing was said about why, save for possibly, “A friend of Mr. Looney’s needs help.” But in his absence, flowers would be delivered to her, the message always the same: “To Annie from your loving husband.”
When Mike got home, Annie was still seated in the living room. Tall, broad-shouldered, somber, Mike bestowed a tiny smile upon her — but she could read something in it. A tiny sign of something, if not wrong, then... out of the ordinary.
He removed his topcoat and hat, hung them in the front closet. He motioned upstairs, meaning that he was about to proceed with the ritual of disposing of his gun and shoulder holster in their bedroom, and she nodded.
Soon, in his shirtsleeves but with his tie still on, looking like a shopkeeper in his suspenders, Mike deposited himself on the couch where not so long ago his son had been, brimming with questions about “Papa’s gun.”
Sitting forward, eyes earnest, clasped hands hanging between bowed knees, Mike said, “I’m asking Miss Murphy to stay with you, this evening.”
“Is that necessary?”
“I’m afraid I have to go out.”
“It’s not your poker night, is it?”
“Mr. Looney business.”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “No need, Mike. We’ll be fine, alone. As long as you’re not gone long.”
“I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone. Could be late. You never know with these things.”
She knew enough not to ask for a definition of “these things.”
“Well,” Annie said, “perhaps we would be better off with Mary Jane here. Just in case.”
“With you due so soon, I hate not to be here.”
“I know, darling.”
“If I ever thought I’d let you down...”