Dawn of a New Day (25 page)

“Y'all come on in!”

Prue stepped inside and saw a huge marine seated at a desk working a jigsaw puzzle. He stood up at once, and his white teeth gleamed against his black skin as he said, “I'll bet you're Miss Prue, ain't you now?”

“That's right.”

“I'm Oscar Tatum. I try to keep this here fella straight.” He waved over toward Mark, who was standing beside an open window. He had turned, and for a moment Prue could have sworn he was seeing her. He seemed to focus on her, but he did not move. Quickly she moved over to stand in front of him, saying, “Mark, it's so good to see you.”

“Hello, Prue.”

When Mark did not move, Prue felt a moment's panic. Then she stepped forward, took his hand, and squeezed it. “I wish I would have been here before, but I was out of town.”

“That's all right.” Something in Mark's voice was different. Prue could not identify it, but there was an adamant, harsh quality to it. His eyes were open, and although he wore dark glasses, she felt somehow that he was seeing her, though she knew this was impossible.

“Well, I'll just step outside and let you folks do your talkin',” Oscar said. He winked at Prue, saying, “You ought to stay over for supper tonight. I done talked that cook into givin' us some good ole turnip greens. Now I'll go tell him how to cook 'em with some salt meat.”

“He seems very nice,” Prue said as the door closed.

“He's all right,” Mark responded. “You want to go for a walk?”

“Yes. That would be nice. It's so pretty outside today.”

Five minutes later the two were walking along the sidewalk, and Prue was finding the conversation very difficult. She had run through all the news she had of her family, and he had commented only briefly.

“How's the painting going?” he asked.

“Oh, very well! I had another show in Philadelphia. That's where I was.”

“Sell lots of paintings?”

“A few.” Prue proceeded to talk for a time about her work, and finally they came to a large grove of oak trees that were in full bloom, the leaves stirring in the breeze above them. “There's a little bench there,” she said. “Let's sit down. My feet hurt. I have on some new shoes.”

“All right.”

Prue took Mark's arm to lead him to the bench and felt the muscles tighten under her grip. Still, there was no other way for her to lead him there, and she was relieved when they sat down. “I talked to Doctor Pennington,” she said.

“Have you? So have I.” There was a bitterness in Mark's voice, and he kept his head down as he said, “He says there's nothing wrong with me. That's a little odd since I can't see a thing.”

“He thinks maybe—” Prue hesitated, not knowing whether it was wise to repeat what Pennington had said. At last she said, “He's very concerned about you.”

“He wants me to see a shrink. I guess he thinks I'm crazy. Maybe I am.”

Prue laid her hand on Mark's arm. “Don't talk like that,” she said urgently. Her eyes searched his face. For a long time she sat there not knowing whether it was wise to repeat Pennington's words or not, and finally Mark said, “I guess you better be going, Prue. We'll be going in to supper pretty soon. You wouldn't like it.”

Mark stood up abruptly, and Prue followed suit. The grounds were empty except for a man trimming a hedge over by the main building. Quickly she said, “I thought about you every day that you were in Vietnam, Mark, and I prayed that God would bring you back.”

Mark turned to face her. “Well, I'm back,” he said, his voice clipped. And then he felt her arms go around his neck and felt her lips touch his with a soft pressure. He immediately reached up, took her arms, and stepped back. “It's time for you to go, Prue. I can find my way back.” He turned and left, leaving Prue standing there staring after him with tears in her eyes. She turned slowly and left, making her way back to where she had parked her car.

“He's so—shut off!” she murmured. “And he's gotten bitter. He was never that way before.”

Kent Maxwell knew something was troubling Prue. He had been working with her on a new technique, and at last he said, “What's wrong, Prue?” He put the brush down and shook his head. “You're not listening to a word I say.”

Prue was wearing a smock that had been washed many times but contained all the faded colors of the rainbow. She shook her head abruptly and moved with a discontented air to the window of her studio. She had moved out of her expensive apartment and rented a place that served both as an apartment and a studio. Now she looked down on the neighborhood below, saying nothing.

Maxwell came over and turned her around. “Is it trouble? You've been out of sorts for a week.”

For some reason Prue had never found it right, or fitting, or convenient, perhaps, to talk to Kent about Mark. She had gone back to the hospital day after day but was getting no encouragement. She had talked to Mark's parents and to Jake; everyone was at their wit's end about Mark.

Seeing that she was not about to speak of what was on her mind, Maxwell said, “When are you going to marry me and let me take care of you, Prue?”

“I don't know. I can't talk about it now.” Frustration swept across Prue, and she turned away from Maxwell's intense gaze. “Why don't you give up on me?”

“I'll never do that,” he said.

That evening Prue went to the Taylor house and was relieved to find Jake gone on a story. After the kids were in bed, she sat down and told Stephanie everything that was on her heart. “It's so hard, Stephanie,” she said, wringing her hands, squeezing them hard. “Mark will hardly talk to me. He's bitter, and I don't know what to say to him.”

“What about Kent Maxwell? Is he still after you to marry him?”

Prue shifted and looked up quickly. “How did you know that? I never told you.”

“Yes you have,” Stephanie said. “In everything but words. What are you going to do about it?”

“I don't know. He's done so much for me. I owe him so much.”

“You can't marry a man because you're grateful to him.”

“I know, but—”

“Look. You know how some dogs have to have their tails bobbed—cut off?”

“Why, yes.”

“Jake tells a story about a man that loved his dog so much he hated to hurt him. The tail had to come off, so the first day he cut off an inch of it, the next day another inch. He cut off an inch at a time until the tail was gone.”

“Well, that's awful!” Prue said, and then she laughed ruefully. “I see what you mean. It would be better just to make a clean break.”

“If you don't love him, that's what you should do. You're not doing him any favors, Prue, by dragging the thing out.”

Prue stayed until Jake came in, then went home but did not go to bed. She walked the floor thinking of Mark, of Kent, of herself, and finally said bitterly, “I'm going to write a book sometime about how to dump an unwanted lover.”

At last she went to bed and had barely drifted off into a sleep when the phone rang.

Groping for the phone, she picked it up and said, “Hello?”

“Prue?”

“Who is this? Is it you, Mother?”

“Yes. I have bad news.”

Instantly she thought of Mark and could not breathe or speak for a moment. Finally she controlled herself and said, “What is it?”

“It's Logan—he passed away to be with the Lord this afternoon at two o'clock.”

A great emptiness spread through Prudence Deforge. She had loved her grandfather, and now the thought that she would never see him again on this earth seemed unbearable. She spoke to her mother for a while about the arrangements, then hung up the phone. Knowing she would not go back to sleep again, she went over to stand by the window and looked down on the neighborhood below. She prayed for a long time, and as she prayed a peace seemed to come to her. She had no direct word, but somehow she knew that her grandfather's death was tied to the salvation of Mark Stevens.

A
pril passed, bringing with it the warm, clear, sunny skies of May. Mark spent hours walking in the warm sunshine until he learned every walkway in the vicinity of the hospital. He hated to stay inside. The television was a deadly bore—even worse because he could not see it. The comedy shows he had once thought at least mildly amusing now seemed stupid and vulgar, and the obvious laugh tracks that blasted from the set drove him from the recreation room.

The time got even harder when Oscar Tatum said one afternoon, “I'll be leaving you tomorrow, Mark.”

The words jolted Mark. Although he had been surly with his fellow marine, he had grown deeply fond of him. He knew Oscar wanted to help, but since no one could give him his sight back, he had been short with him. Mark finally said, “I hate to see you go.”

“Well, when you get back to Arkansas, I'll be in Mississippi. They butt up against each other, you know.” Oscar came and put his huge hand on Mark's shoulder and squeezed it almost fiercely. “I'm leavin' my phone number with you, and you get in touch as soon as you get back home. You hear me?”

Oscar's departure left a vacuum in Mark's life. The other patients seemed occupied with their own problems for the most part, and to those who did try to make conversation, Mark found he could not respond.

Prue came daily, and Mark would walk with her, listening as she spoke. She brought him cassette tapes and a machine to play them on, which was his biggest consolation. He was sick of the Beatles, and Elvis, and the whole rock scene, and the radio either offered that or country western music, which he did not like. It reminded him of Oscar, and despite himself, when the country western music came on, he thought of the gentle giant who had offered friendship—which he had turned down.

Doctor Pennington gave up all pretense of being able to help Mark, and at one appointment said bluntly, “There's nothing wrong with you physically. I've told you that all along, Mark.”

“Don't be ridiculous! Seeing is a physical thing, isn't it?”

“Well, yes, but in your case there's no reason physically, scientifically, why you can't see. Something's blocking your sight all right, but it's something in your heart.”

The words had jolted Mark, although he had not responded to Pennington.
Something in your heart
. The words echoed in his mind day after day, and during the long nights when he lay awake listening to his tape player with an ear microphone so he would not disturb his new roommate—a silent man named Jack Mackenzie who did not say a dozen words a day—he thought of them again.
Something in your heart—something in your heart.

As the days passed, he did not improve in his ability to perform even the simplest functions. The physical therapist, an ex-medical student before he joined the Corps, said in disgust, “You haven't ever accepted the fact that you can't see, Stevens! That's the reason you don't learn to do things better!”

Mark could not argue, for deep down he knew that the therapist was right. He could not bring himself to face up to the fact that he would never be able to see again. Somehow, despite the hardness that had come upon him, he nurtured a hope that one day his sight would return. He clung to this hope as a man in a lifeboat out on an endless sea hopes for the sight of a ship, or an airplane, anything to bring relief.

And so the days and nights passed. Sometimes he thought that all was hopeless and he wanted to end it all, but that was no answer. When his family came, or Prue, he sat silently as they talked. Once his father urged him to come home, and he had said bitterly, “What am I good for?”

“Hey, man! It's me, Bobby!”

Mark pulled the earphone from his ear and had to smile. “It couldn't be anybody else. Come in and sit down.”

Bobby Stuart shut the door and slumped across the room, dropping down on the bed where Mark was sitting up listening to his tape player. “How you doin'?”

“Great.”

“Yea,” Bobby said. “Yea, I bet. I should have been here before, but you know me. I never do what I'm supposed to do.”

“You're not in jail. That's good news.”

“I will be if that judge has her way,” Bobby said. “You know what they done to me, don't you?”

“Prue gave me a blow-by-blow description. If you make a single misstep, you're in jail.”

Bobby snorted and moved his hand across his face. There was a nervousness to his manner that Mark could sense although he could not see. “That's right, man. That's right,” Bobby said, his voice in a shrill staccato. “Man, I'm afraid to spit in the street anymore! You know what she's got me doin' for community service?”

“What, Bobby?”

“Pickin' up trash down on the east side. Can you dig that? Bobby Stuart pickin' up trash!” He got up and walked nervously around the room, speaking rapidly. “They got somebody watchin' me all the time. You know what it's like down there. There's dope everywhere. Why, I've been offered everything from a joint to heroin, and I think some of the Feds may have put somebody up to it. They want to put me behind bars. Make an example of me, you know?”

“Stop pacing around. Sit down and take a load off your feet.” Mark waited until he heard Bobby collapse into the chair next to the wall, and said, “It's pretty bad. Worse for you because you had more to lose.”

Bobby blinked and said, “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean you had it all, Bobby. Money, cars, fame. Everybody wanting to meet you. Pretty hard to lose all that.”

Bobby again moved his hand across his face. It was as if he was trying to brush cobwebs away, and he leaned forward and said, “I'm off dope, and it's about to kill me! I don't even smoke cigarettes anymore. They'd find out, and when they did they'd put me in jail. I couldn't stand that, Mark.”

Mark sensed the tension in Bobby and asked, “Do you perform any?”

“Perform? Man, I can't even whistle in the shower! It's all gone!”

“I can't believe that.”

“You better believe it, man. I don't know whether it's because I quit cold turkey and I got the shakes all the time, or because that female judge wants to see me back in jail. I don't know what it is. I know I'm losin' my mind. Sometimes I wake up and don't care what happens to me.”

“I know what that's like.”

Instantly Bobby shot a glance toward Mark, who was sitting quietly on the bed dressed in fatigues. “Hey,” Bobby said, as he reached over and tapped Mark's shoulder. “Here I come with all my troubles, and you got the real problems. I can't believe it. You can't see nothin'?”

“Not a thing.”

“Aw, they got ways of helpin' people in hospitals. Why, I'd give a million dollars, I guess, to hospitals. It looks like they could do
something
!”

“I don't think they can. They'd like it if they could, but so far zero.” Mark swung his feet over the bed and said, “Come on. Let's go for a walk.” He picked up his cane and the two men left the hospital.

They walked for over two hours, Bobby talking in a spasmodic fashion. Once they sat down on a bench, but after ten minutes he said, “Come on. Let's walk. I'm losin' my mind.”

“Sit down, Bobby. You have to learn to live with this. Just like I have to learn to live with what I've got.”

“Look,” Bobby said, “I know it's bad for you. A thousand times worse than it is for me. You got yours in an honorable way. All I've ever done—” He halted and slumped on the bench. He said nothing for a long time, and Mark simply waited.

Finally Bobby said, “Well, some visitor I make. I come out to cheer you up and don't do anything but cry in my beer—wait a minute. Not real beer in case I'm bein' bugged. That's how bad off I am, but I don't want to bother you anymore.”

“Come on back to my room. We'll talk some more. Maybe play some tapes. Do you have to be anywhere?”

“Not today. Tomorrow I've got to be pickin' up gum wrappers.”

The two men went back to Mark's room. Word got out that Bobby Stuart was in the hospital, and soon men started finding excuses to come by and visit.

Bobby whispered, “Get 'em out of here, Mark. I just don't feel like talkin' to anybody.”

Mark said, “All right, fellas. A little privacy, if you don't mind.” He waited until the room was cleared, and then went to sit down, but had no more got there when he heard a knock on the door and Prue's voice saying, “Mark?”

“Come in, Prue.”

As Prue stepped inside, Bobby rose up and tried to grin at her. “Hi, Miss Prudence,” he said. “Good to see you. You're lookin' great.”

Prue came over and looked at Bobby, whose eyes had dark circles under them. “You look terrible, Bobby,” she said.

“This is my
good
day. You ought to see me when I really look bad.”

Prue shook her head, reached up, and laid her hand on Bobby's cheek in a maternal gesture. She seemed cool and collected, but there was an excitement in her that both men sensed.

“What's going on, Prue?” Mark said. He was still standing and had turned to face her, turning his head slightly to one side to catch her words.

“I came over to talk to you.”

“I'll just fade on out,” Bobby said, but as he turned to go Prue's voice stopped him.

“No, Bobby. Now that you're here, I think it might be good for you to stay too.”

“Are you sure about that?” Bobby asked, lifting one eyebrow.

“I'm sure,” Prue said. “Sit down. I've got something to say that may take me a while.”

Bobby grinned suddenly. He was thirty-five now, but he still had his boyish grin. “Don't tell me you have bad news,” he mocked. “Why, I haven't had anything but good news for so long I don't know how I'd take it.” Nevertheless, he went over, plopped himself down in a chair, and waited. Mark sat down on the bed, saying nothing.

“I've just come back from Logan's funeral,” she said gently.

Mark dropped his head. “I guess I should have gone with you to give you some support. But I couldn't, Prue. I just couldn't.”

“I should have gone too,” Bobby said. “After all, he was my relation.” He stared at her, his mouth pulled down into a mournful expression. “I don't very often do the things I'm supposed to do. How was the funeral?”

Prue stood before the two men and related the circumstances of her grandfather's funeral. It had been, she told them, the biggest funeral they had had in Strong County in years. “I never knew Logan had so many friends. The church was packed, and it could have been filled three times, I think. Finally the pastor simply went outside and held the funeral in the open from the church steps. It was a wonderful sermon he preached, about how much Logan served the Lord Jesus Christ all of his life.”

“Were all the family there?” Bobby asked quietly.

“Most of them. Lenora couldn't come. She had the flu, and Lylah really shouldn't have. She's not well these days, but she came anyway. Your folks were there, of course.”

She hesitated, then said, “I think of Logan so often. He was such a good man.”

Bobby listened as she spoke for a while about the family, then he said again, “I should have gone.”

Prue hesitated only for a moment, then said, “I talked a lot to Richard. He was there when Logan died, and you know he talked about you two a lot.”

“About me?” Bobby said, opening his eyes wide with astonishment.

“Yes, about you. He thought a lot of you, Bobby, and of course, Mark, you were just like a grandson to him.”

“What did he say?” Mark demanded.

“He was afraid for you. Both of you.”

“Well, I guess he had reason to be,” Bobby said. “Is that all he said about us?”

“He said,” Prue spoke very quietly, “that you ought to get away from here. That's what Richard told me. Just before he died he said Logan had prayed for both of you, and he was afraid that the life would get you here.”