No Harm Done Jean McGarry (bio) Dolly was born first, then Joan, Claire, John, Mary Madeline and Francis, all in ten years, and starting not even one year after Ellen and Frank were married. They celebrated their cloth anniversary in the second-floor flat with their whole brood in attendance, Francis still in arms and the older girls in charge of little John and Mary Mad, getting them dressed in the tiny bedroom they'd shared with the "half-pints." The full pints, all girls, moved to the big bedroom when Ma and Dad transferred to the parlor couch, where Francis was conceived; dividing up, shortly after, with Ma joining the half pints on a rollaway bed near the cribs, and Frank left to the couch. Ellen and Frank loved kids, they loved each other, but they had enough now, and had learned how one thing led to another. The tenth was a grand celebration: cases of beer standing in a cold bath, chips and dip, pot-luck casseroles, hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill, lemonade, and a big pink bakery cake: Frank & Ellen, June 14, 1948. And no neighbors to complain about the racket of the all-day affair, because the neighbors were there, as the party spread from the Halloran's tenement to the Reilly's and over to the McDevitt's, even lapping onto the immaculate white gravel yard of the Corselli's, the one Italian family. It would have spread further if the Corselli's hadn't abutted the avenue, with the rectory and church just across the way. Father Walsh, St. T's curate, had said the anniversary Mass and was sitting on the porch steps with a cold one in his hand and another beside him. He'd been in school—the school behind the rectory—with Ellen (Frank was from St. Pius's, half a mile away). Ellen's father, the old undertaker, had lent the limousine for his ordination twelve [End Page 516] years ago June. Fr. Joe had baptized each child and given the last rites to Ellen's ailing mother, now deceased. They were all up in the Mt. Carmel Cemetery with a patch of high ground reserved for the religious order who taught at St. T's grammar. It was a hot day, not a cloud in the sky, but none of the babies napped for the noise, and the toddlers got loose when Dolly and her sisters cut down the clothesline for a game of Double Dutch. John, 3, broke his arm toppling off the rock wall onto the sidewalk, and Mary Mad swallowed a diaper pin. Two runs were made to the emergency room but only one, for the broken arm, was really necessary: the pin had been closed and would come out in a day or two, as did everything that Mary Mad swallowed: the pennies, jacks, marbles and cracker-jack prizes. No harm done was the order of the day, as it was the order for every day in the life of this easy-going couple, married ten years that Saturday. While they were all having a hell of a time in the kitchen, parlor and back yard, Joannie was under the porch, nursing a doll. The rest of the kids had formed an army for games and foolishness; Dolly was supposed to be in charge of the brats, Claire was spinning her hoop for the eyes of Fr. Joe, so Joannie made her way to her favorite spot, where she could see but not be seen. She had her baby doll, Ruth—Baby Ruth, as her father called her—a deck of cards, a pink ball, and a book about flowers. She had hauled it all out while the adults were filling the bathtub and setting out plates and cups—slapping faces, too, as olives, nuts and chips were snuck by grubby fingers. Claire saw her go, but no one else. She even had a dishcloth to sit on, to preserve the party dress from the dirt. There was a good smell down there and a thousand spy holes. But, once under, with her cloth spread and herself on it, she felt funny. Party...