Daybreak (38 page)

She still felt numb. She still had that odd sensation of being at the same time outside of herself, observing the event and observing her own numb demeanor. Her eyes roved upward to the top of the windows, which were now quite dark. It would be raining by the time they reached the cemetery. Her eyes roved to the coffin, directly in front of her. They had asked her whether she wanted a “last look” before it was closed, but Dr. Foster had advised against that, no doubt because
the body was so mutilated; hadn’t Tom said something about the face? So there Bud lay under a sheaf of carnations with everything ended, everything: ball games with Timmy and Tom, Chamber of Commerce meetings, Rice and Son, along with the sinister robe and hood. Laura shivered.

Dr. Foster was giving a remarkable performance, a feat to tax the most ingenious sermonizer. On the one hand it was imperative to condemn, while on the other it was humane to recall with praise.

“We must view each life with compassion. No life is perfect. We can be loving parents and responsible citizens, and at the same time we can stray into dark places. The powerful forces, inner or outer or both together, that lead us into these are many and complex. It is not for us here to analyze Homer Rice, but rather to remember him as the friend he was, and to pray. Pray for him, for the man who killed him, and for us all.”

Heads were bowed, while a soft murmuring accompanied the mellow voice. Timmy and Tom wiped their eyes. The organ played a recessional while the coffin was carried down the aisle between the ranks of men and women standing in respect. The next stop was the cemetery.

Bud always hated funerals, Laura remembered. He feared death, possibly more than most people did. She remembered that, too. Poor Bud.

On the way back home the rain was a torrent, so that the long black car had to crawl. She sat silently with her sons. There was, after all, nothing much to say, she thought again, perhaps for the hundredth time. Or maybe there was too much to say, so much that it seemed too discouraging to begin.

Tom said, “Mackenzie was in church. I saw him in the back row when we were going out.”

“I didn’t see him.” Surely he needn’t have come, but he had wanted to, and she was touched. A little lump came to her throat; in another second her eyes would be wet. She said quickly, “That was nice of him.”

“I hate him,” Tom answered.

Complications. There were too many. The windshield wiper raced from side to side, unable to cope with the rain. The car moved through the city toward the familiar home, now become so strange, a hostile place filled with all these complications. And why? Why me, why us?

   The question was: Where is my direction? In the first days after the funeral, Laura went from her desk to Bud’s, aimlessly sorting papers, bank statements, letters of condolence, and a printout from the laboratory proving that Tom was a Crawfield.

She leapt from the chair as if she had been shot. And, indeed, a wild thought had shot through her head: Just let us get away from here. Away from Crawfields and the KKK, we can get back the peace we had, my boys and I. With eyes closed, she twirled the great globe and put out a finger. Someone must have tilted the globe so that her finger landed on Patagonia, that vast, barren stretch at the tip of South America on the route to the South Pole.

“Well, that figures,” she said aloud, “on a par with the rest of our luck this awful year.”

Then the telephone rang. Bud’s secretary, Mrs. Fallon, hated to bother her at such a time, but really, it was important.

“Nobody’s running things, Mrs. Rice. The orders aren’t going out, and five of the men reported sick this morning. They’re taking advantage, of course. But they’ll be in later this week to collect their wages, you can be sure.” Mrs. Fallon, who was a responsible woman, was much worried. “That large project of Salsberg Brothers, those condos out on Route Nine, you know?”

Laura had heard some mention of it, but little else. She only knew that Bud had been jubilant over the order.

“Well, they’ve canceled. They’re going elsewhere for their supplies. They’re Jewish, and with this stuff about the KKK, well, you can imagine. And the MacDonald job fell through, too. One of the typists there told me that the old man MacDonald felt uncomfortable about dealing with Rice anymore. So there we are, Mrs. Rice. I can’t tell you how I feel for you and the boys, Tom especially. He’s such a fine young man. The men all like him here. It’s too bad he’s not old enough to take over.”

“Well, I’ll think. I’ll get some advice. I’ll do what I can. And thank you,” Laura said.

She sighed. If the aunts were still young enough and willing besides, there would be no problem. But they had been businesswomen since girlhood, while I—well, I have been a good mother and not-quite-first-rate pianist. What do I know about cement and two-by-fours?

Betty Lee came in, whispering that there was a visitor. “Mrs. Edgewood would like to see you if it’s convenient. That’s the black family who had all the trouble last month, you remember?”

Indeed Laura remembered. And wondering what the purpose of this visit could possibly be, she went to
the room still known as the “front parlor.” Mrs. Edgewood, holding a bouquet of roses, extended them to Laura.

“I always think that when you’re really down, flowers can lift you up a couple of inches. They’ve always done it for me, at least, and I hope these will do it for you.”

“They’re lovely, and it’s so kind of you. Won’t you sit down?”

Mrs. Edgewood, complying, sat on the edge of a chair. She was nervous and frankly said so.

“I was nervous about coming here. You were so good to come to my house after that attack on us, and I wasn’t nice to you. We almost slammed the door in your face.”

Laura smiled. “It wasn’t quite as bad as that.”

“Yes, it was. I was punishing you for what other people did to us, and that was wrong of me.”

“I understand it. You had been through a terrible ordeal.”

“Yes, and you’re going through one now. Ever since all that came out in the papers, I’ve been thinking, and I said to my husband, how hard it must be for a woman like you, what a blow, to find out—” And seeing the brightening film in Laura’s eyes, she turned her gaze considerately away, continuing, “I had to get this off my chest. I couldn’t treat you the way we’re so often treated, all of us taking the blame whenever one of us misbehaves. It’s not your fault that your husband—oh, but I’ve said too much. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I know what you’re trying to tell me, and I appreciate it, truly.” This woman was genuine. She was among those few who had come to this house without a trace of morbid curiosity. “Let me put these
wonderful roses in water and get some tea,” Laura said. “I’ll only be a minute.”

“No, another time, if I may. I didn’t come on a social call. You need to rest, not to entertain people right now.” At the door Mrs. Edgewood remembered something. “You said once you would take my daughter as a pupil. Will you be going back to work, and will you still take her if you do?”

“Yes, to both. I’ll be glad to. Just give me a few weeks to straighten myself out.”

When the door closed after the visitor, Laura put her face down into the roses; the petals were tender, cool against her flushed cheeks and beating temples. Then she went to fill a vase for them, set them on the table in the library, and stood undecided over what to do next. Perhaps she should go to the piano. There was always solace in music.

Straighten things out
, she had said. But how, with Tom so sullen, Timmy so scared, and the business on which this household depended now seemingly about to fall apart?

Somebody was at the front door again. If Earl had been here, he would have heard the footsteps long before they reached the door. His little body would have been shaken with excitement from his soprano bark to his scruffy tail. And she went to open the door.

“Hello,” Ralph said. “You haven’t called me, and I thought I wouldn’t wait any longer.” In the hallway he stood looking down at her with a quizzical, half-rueful smile. “You promised to ask me for help, and you mustn’t tell me that you don’t need any because I won’t believe it.”

“All right, I won’t say it. Come sit in here. It’s cool.”

She felt a queer embarrassment. He was so bright
with the light on his copper-colored hair and the sweetness of his smile, too bright and alive and easy to be engulfed by the mood of this house. So she was loath to speak, and she said so.

“Right now the problems seem insoluble. So why let them spoil a summer day? I’d rather hear what’s happening in your campaign.”

“The campaign is tough, we’re working hard, we’re hopeful because one has to be hopeful, and that’s that. As for you, Laura, nothing’s insoluble.”

“Except death.”

“Even that. You solve it by accepting it, your own death or somebody else’s.”

When she turned her head, she beheld Bud in a leather frame; seated in full dignity on a Queen Anne armchair, he had importance. Everywhere in this house, the faces of the family’s dead looked back at you.

“It can be disillusioning,” she said, the thought slipping out unbidden.

“Yes.”

The syllable was gravely spoken, and she knew that he had caught her meaning.

“There’s no one to run the business. The Klan—” she said, cutting into the word with a chisel, “the Klan has taken Bud and Pitt. Now there’s no one.”

“Perhaps it can be sold.”

“Perhaps—Oh!” she cried. “Do you know what I did a little while ago? I spun the globe around, closed my eyes, and put out my hand. I said to myself, The place I touch is where we’re going, the boys and I.” And making a wry face, she told him that the place had been Patagonia.

“Plenty of empty space there. Desert and sage and rocks and wind.”

“You talk as if you’d seen it.”

“I did. I was curious, so one year I just decided to go and have a look.”

“I knew somebody once who had that kind of curiosity. From India he went to Nepal and Tibet. That was years ago, when almost nobody went there.”

Frowning a little, she paused. It occurred to her that she had mentioned Francis to Ralph one time before, yet she wasn’t sure she had. There seemed to be so many parallels between those two men.

“So you’re not going to Patagonia?”

“No, I’m probably not going anywhere. It’s just”—and she made a wide, spreading gesture—“Bud’s deception, the public shame—”

“It’s not your shame,” Ralph said quickly.

“But even Timmy feels it, all the same. I know he does. And he looks so bad, so frail.” Now her worries poured out of her. “The funeral was very hard for him, the emotion, the church so stifling, and the heat these last two days. This morning I sent him to spend the day with a friend of his who has a broken leg. That way I can be sure he’ll be quiet. But I never know what’s coming next.”

“I understand. I lived through it all with the Crawfields until Peter died,” Ralph said gently, looking straight at Laura.

She said very low, yet not allowing herself to flinch, “I think of Peter so often. You knew him. What was he really like? Tell me the truth. Margaret said—”

“Margaret told you the truth. He was a very quiet, thoughtful boy and young man. He was much the way you’ve described your Timmy.”

“They look alike.”

“They do. I took particular notice of Timmy when I was at the funeral.” Ralph smiled suddenly. “Perhaps it will interest you to know that Peter was a religious Jew.”

“Tell me.”

“He was more observant than anyone else in his household. They still talk about it. Perhaps it was his age, or maybe it was his illness, or maybe he simply was a spiritual person. I was there when he became bar mitzvah, when he was confirmed, and when he was buried.”

In the cemetery under the Star of David, Laura thought. A strange journey from his conception and his birth to that resting place.

“It’s easier for me than for Margaret and Arthur. Peter is gone, and there is nothing I can do about that, but if he were living and didn’t want me—” She stopped for a moment. “It would be unbearable. Yes. Unbearable.”

“And so it is for them. They want so much to see Tom, Laura.”

“Poor people. Well, tell them from me that they’re welcome to come to this house. There’s no reason anymore why they can’t.”

“Shouldn’t you ask Tom first?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do with him. What’s to become of him! He hardly speaks. We eat in silence. I know he has, or had, a girlfriend, but he doesn’t even see her, he doesn’t see anybody. Of course, I know it’s very soon after and we’re all still in shock, his life has been overturned, but still I am just so worried. If you had heard him talk to the minister
the night Bud was killed, you would know what I mean. It was dreadful.”

“I’ve heard him enough,” Ralph said.

“Here’s the mail.”

Tom had entered so suddenly that it was certain he had heard the last remarks. He gave Ralph a nod and confronted Laura.

“You’re not wearing black.”

“It’s too hot for it, Tom.”

“Not for me.”

He was still dressed in a dark suit and black tie. Equally black was the look that he gave to Laura and Ralph.

Resentment and alarm rose together within Laura. “Where are you going?” she asked as he strode toward the front door.

“Out.”

“You’ve just come back from being out.”

“I’m going for a walk. I can’t stand staying in this house looking at Dad’s things. Maybe I’ll go to the cemetery, I don’t know.”

“I don’t think you should do that.” Now pity wiped out the resentment. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Your father wouldn’t want it.”

“I think he would. Especially since I seem to be the only one around here who really feels his death, except maybe Timmy, and he’s a kid, so that’s different.”

“That’s not fair, Tom. You shouldn’t talk this way to me.”

“I’m only speaking the truth. Even Jim Johnson seems to have more feeling.”

Ralph interrupted. “Yes, for the Klan.”

“Not at all!” Tom said indignantly. “I was referring to the letter he sent me, sympathy over the loss of my
father. He has no connection with the Klan anyway, and you know it.”