Daybreak (42 page)

“It’s brand, brand new. It wasn’t ready yet.”

And it isn’t ready yet now, thought Laura, with tears prepared to flow in another minute, prickling the backs of her eyes.

“But it will be, soon?” asked Timmy.

Arthur made a skillful evasion. “They expect so. Soon enough for you, at any rate.”

“In the meantime,” Laura prompted, “he has to take care of himself.”

“By all means,” agreed Arthur.

“He has to obey all the rules. He knows them, but sometimes he forgets. He has to watch his diet, not overexercise, and not get overheated.”

“Absolutely,” Arthur said.

“I wish I could get him out of this awful heat,” Laura complained. “But I can’t possibly go anywhere
now. There are things to do. Lawyers and papers. Things.”

Timmy was uncomfortable, and she became aware that she had been discussing him as if he weren’t present, just as one speaks about a little child who cannot understand what is being said.

“I wonder,” Margaret began, and looked toward her husband.

He nodded and smiled again. The smile used up his whole face, forehead and cheeks. “Go ahead.”

Margaret began, “I don’t suppose Laura would, or even that Timmy would—”

“Would what?” asked Timmy.

“We have a cottage near the lake,” Margaret said. “We were planning to go up for a week, but we postponed our departure till tomorrow because we were coming here. If you would consider it and your mother would let you,” Margaret said, turning to Laura, “it would be fun. It’s cool, at least ten degrees cooler than here.”

Now Holly interjected. “We go sailing and fishing in the river nearby, and there are two boys in the next cottage who are about your age.”

Timmy looked interested. He needed a change, he needed to have something good happen, Laura told herself. And yet she hardly knew these people. Unconsciously she looked toward Ralph, who promptly answered her silent appeal.

“Lake Mohawk’s a great place. Beautiful white sand beaches, hills all around, beautiful. Timmy would love it.”

Oh, she remembered the hills and the white sand beach, the sun and the wind, the bee-buzz in the flowers along the stairs rising to the cottage …

“I guess I’d like to go,” said Timmy, surprising her. Apparently these strangers attracted him. “Mom, yes, I’d like to go.”

“All right,” she said, giving in. And to the Crawfields, “You are just so incredibly kind, that I don’t know what to say.”

“Say nothing. It will be our pleasure. What we’ll do is, go back to our house from here, pack a few things, and make an early start in the morning.”

“Then, Timmy,” Laura said, “you’d better get your things now. Take two swim trunks, and don’t forget a sweater.”

As soon as he was out of the room, Margaret assured Laura, “You mustn’t worry for a minute. We know how to take care of him.”

“I know you do.”

When they had driven away, Laura remarked how strange it was that they had come here to be with their son, only to leave with hers instead.

“What really happened to Tom?” asked Ralph. “Although perhaps you don’t want to talk about it.”

“The same as always. He said it was just too much for him. It was the worst moment when they arrived and I had to tell them he wasn’t here. I didn’t know what to expect, whether Margaret would cry or they’d be furious, but they took the disappointment very well.”

“They do their crying in private.”

“I feel so sorry for them. It’s amazing that they wanted to take Timmy.”

“He’s Peter all over again, and they can feel for him.”

Ralph was still standing at the door. And when he turned to her, she, expecting a polite leave-taking, was about to respond when he remarked instead, “I look
around at these huge old trees and all this space, and suddenly I miss what I grew up with. I think of a garden, a hammock, and a book. My apartment begins to feel like a box.”

“Would you like to see our garden for a minute?” A second after giving the invitation she was embarrassed. She had presumed on the man’s good manners. Had he not made clear his decision to “bow out”?

“I’d like to,” he said.

They went through the house onto the rear veranda. The afternoon had waned, and here in the shade the air had cooled enough to be bearable. A fine spray from the lawn sprinklers glistened on a broad perennial border, a well-tended melange of larkspur and phlox, of lilies, asters, and cosmos.

“Who takes care of all this?” asked Ralph.

“Bud and the boys, mostly Tom when he’s home.”

But they would not be home, Bud never again and Tom only rarely, more rarely than ever now, things being what they were. This awareness swept over Laura with the sudden force of wind, chilling the long lawn in front of her and the lonely house at her back. She closed her eyes.

When she opened them, Ralph was looking at her. “I said if you needed help you should ask me,” he said gently. “You still haven’t asked.”

“But you also said you were ‘bowing out,’ and I understand why.”

“I was talking about Tom. Did you think I meant you?”

“It seemed that way.”

“I didn’t mean you,” he said quietly.

If she had been frail and weepy, she would not have touched him so, he believed. He had felt the strength
of her, the iron under the velvet, from that very first day when he had brought his shocking message to this house. It seemed like years ago, but it had only been weeks. And he remembered that he had gone away wondering what could have brought such a woman and such a man together. What a waste! he had thought, and thought now. That man had corrupted the boy, or at least, having seen the creeping corruption, had done nothing to stop it. Indeed, he had encouraged it, and must have rejoiced in it. And now she stands in mourning, for he recognized the black blouse and white skirt as a kind of discreet mourning—not because the death had crushed her, but because she knows what this particular community expects. And while she’s here, she will properly meet expectations. He understood her.

He wished he could foresee what was to happen between them, whether anything could. Tall as she was, he was still much taller, and she had to look up to meet his eyes. Two round, heavy tears gathered in hers.
I didn’t mean you
. He was moved to the heart.

“Tell me,” he said, “let me help you. You never complain.”

Laura shook her head. Totally unable to say that he was too much in her thoughts, that he had reawakened in her all the longing, the fierce sickness of desire that she had once had—only once—and then lost, she shook her head.

“You keep everything locked up inside.”

“No. Well, yes, I guess I do.”

And now as her tears rolled freely, she spoke.

“How can I sort it out? Everything is tangled into everything else. I think of Bud and how he died. They say he was killed instantly, and maybe he was, I don’t
really know, and I hope he didn’t suffer. But I didn’t love him. He was good to me, and he loved the boys, but he wasn’t honest with me, and I know my life with him wasn’t honest either. I covered up with my joy in music and my sons. Now I wonder what will become of my sons—” She stopped and drew back. “Are you shocked that a widow in these circumstances should say such things?”

“As you say, ‘in these circumstances.’ So no, I am not shocked,” he said gravely. And putting his arm around her shoulder, drew her to him.

The contact was tentative, the intent was only to strengthen and console; she knew that. Yet she knew, too, that with a slight, responding turn of her body or his, there would be consequences. Already her heart was beating rapidly …

She pulled away. It wasn’t possible, not here and now, with a pile of black-bordered stationery on the desk waiting to be addressed, no, nor with the boys still wounded and grieving for their father; nor with Tom and Ralph at loggerheads …

He read her mind. Releasing her, he murmured, “There is a time, Laura. A right time for everything.”

The evening had darkened into a hazy blue when she accompanied him to the door. Neither of them spoke. He kissed her cheek and went quickly down the path.

She went to the back of the house to lock up for the night. A chorus of those insects who grow louder as summer moves toward fall now burst the quiet, making her aware before long that she had been there for minutes gazing, thinking and gazing at the night. The hedgerow at the garden’s end was deep as a forest, where, wandering in circles, one might be lost forever.

16

O
n Saturday night Tom had sprung up out of bed, switched on the light and seen that it was almost three o’clock. Actually it was already Sunday.

At one o’clock in the afternoon those people would be coming up to the front door, the whole kit and caboodle of them, as Aunt Lillian used to say; remembering the old aunts and their sayings that had used to seem so boring and outdated, he longed for them now, those neat, proper American ladies. They would take his part, he was sure. Damn. He had to get out of here.

Enough was enough. No doubt it was mean to run out on Mom at the last minute, but he had never been mean to her before and must be forgiven a first time. Anyway, he felt bitter toward her. Deny it as she might and as she had done, there was something between her and Mackenzie, the bastard who was pushing him over to the Crawfields. He sensed it. Hadn’t Mom herself always said he had “an uncanny nose for people’s secrets”?

He folded his best slacks and a good sport shirt. Tonight they’d go out to dinner, he and Robbie, to a
great lobster dinner. He folded some bills and zippered the pocket. At the last minute before turning the light off, he remembered the polar bear, tucked it under his arm, and crept downstairs. The house was too still, Mom was alone in the big room without Bud, and Timmy was alone without his dog.

He took Bud’s car. Mom’s sleek Mercedes stood between it and the van, so he didn’t have to see the van. He had purposely not let himself look at it since that night. Poor Bud.

   At seven o’clock, having the key to the house door, he climbed the stairs to the topmost tower room that Robbie had described and knocked.

He heard the flurry of her feet and her startled, still sleepy cry, “Who is it?”

“Polar bear,” he growled, and when she opened the door, thrust the animal into her face.

Laughing, she half crying, they fell together onto the bed. Her hands caressed his cheeks and his hair. The blood drummed in his ears. Her arms twisted around his neck.

“My God, I’ve missed you! My God, I love you. Tom, Tommy, it’s been a hundred years.”

Her fingers twisted, unfastening, unbuttoning, stripping, until he was as naked as she. He had for an instant a queer sense of being an observer, of seeing two bodies entangled in each other, arms, legs, and lips, a sense of seeing himself, as in the last moment before the plunging darkness, he caught the morning light on her moist, glistening eyes and her glistening teeth; then he sensed no more, neither Robbie nor himself, only that vast, sweet, thoughtless dark.

All day they lay together, sleeping, making love and
once more sleeping. When late in the day the sky dimmed and the room went blue with dusk, they woke up rested, enlivened and starving. Unwilling to leave the room, they settled for doughnuts and coffee.

“Why are you smiling?” Robbie asked.

“Because you’re so delightful, so beautiful and so smart, and I’m so happy.”

“When are you coming down here for good?”

“I’ll stay tonight, go home to pack up and be back for registration on Friday.”

“We’ll have a great year. Very busy,” she warned, suddenly earnest. “The campaign people expect us to produce on this campus. After all, practically everybody here is over eighteen. I’d like to see a good turnout. It’ll take work, though.”

“I’m ready.”

“We’re going to go places with Johnson, you and I. We’ve already caught his eye, you know that. And he wants young people to build beyond this campaign, to build for the future.”

“I’m ready,” he repeated.

She said softly, “I didn’t want to do anything to spoil our day, but I just have to tell you again how sorry I am about this whole rotten time you’ve had, Timmy almost dying, and then losing your dad that way. They ought to boil that guy alive. No trial, no lawyers, nothing. Just boil him alive.”