In An Arid Land (25 page)

The cat was all bloated like a toad and she'd been whining all afternoon and wandering through the house as if searching for something she'd lost. Jancy and I didn't think much of it till Mother said, "What's wrong with Tiger?" and she got that curious smile on her pretty face, young face then, a look like she'd just got a wonderful surprise. Mother stooped and hugged us to her and we leaned over Tiger who was crying and staring up at us from the floor with an air about her like she'd sat down on an ice cube.

Mother said, "Tiger, I'm afraid, my little lovelies oh, my goodness" (and she grinned at us then like we'd done something precious)"Tiger," she said, "is about to be a mother."

"No," said Jancy.

"Oh, yes," said Mother. "I'm afraid so. And any minute now it appears." Then her eyes went serious, kind of perplexed-looking, the same expression that was in Jancy's eyes, and Mother said, sort of to herself, "I can't believe I didn't notice."

Tiger lived out back in the garage most of the time. But we made her a bed of an old blanket and a cardboard box and put it in the washroom, because Mother said it would be better.

When Father came home and we told him (Jancy got to him first before he even had a chance to put down his briefcase, but she jumbled it up, so I said, "Tiger's having babies," and Mother just stood there nodding) he went to the washroom and squatted down and petted Tiger quite gently, which was odd for Father who never paid the cat any attention. And he said, "Hello there, old boy old girl, I guess now. Just full of surprises." Then he said, "And not even married."

"Do cats get married, Daddy?" I asked but he just chuckled and squeezed my head.

Then Roger came home from Bible study and he went to look at Tiger and then Roland came in from Debate Club and he went in to look, and at dinner everyone was happy and expectant. Roland said, "Hey, Robby, you a girl or a boy?" and then he winked all around the table and Roger laughed at me and Father chuckled, until Mother said, "Roland, hush! All of you, hush!" But she was teasing too. "I promise you he's a boy." At that Roland gave another wink, just for me, and I felt better.

In the morning there was magic. The box was full of kittens crawling all around Tiger and chewing on her belly and making the craziest noises, and Mother looked very tired. So did Tiger.

"Was Tiger bad?" asked Jancy, which seemed like a good question to me, though I hadn't thought about it. But Mother said, "No, of course not. What gave you such an idea?"

Jancy shrugged and Mother looked at me and I shrugged too.

That was a Wednesday. I remember because that night we went to prayer meeting, which we did every Wednesday back then. After the singing and after Brother Hobson preached his sermon and it was time to pray, I asked God to watch out for the kittens. I guess he didn't hear for all the other prayers coming up to him at that moment, or maybe it was something else . . . .

Anyway, in the car on the way home Mother and Father argued about Roland who was not with us that night. This was the first whimper of the uproar.

Father said, "I don't see why he can't attend, what with me a deacon and all."

"You know perfectly well why. He's a grown man now and about to graduate and he and Mary have things to do."

"I know that," he said. "I know that. But I have to wonder just what sorts of things." Then he called back to Roger, "What's your brother up to tonight?"

At that time Roger wanted to be a minister and he stayed to himself except for Bible study and he was mostly quiet except when he was talking about Jesus, and he and Roland didn't always get along. But he said, "Senior Boys' Club, I think."

Father said, "So he's out carousing . . . ."

"Oh, Richard!" said Mother.

"I don't know what he's doing," said Roger.

Father said, "And what about Mary?"

"I don't know," said Roger who hated arguments.

Father looked at Mother. "It was a mistake, you letting him buy that car," he said.

"He's a good boy," Mother said.

"But how does it look? With me a deacon and all. And her own father a deacon as well. Don't you know that people talk."

"They're good children," Mother said.

Jancy spoke up then: "Mother, is a deacon like a disciple in the Bible?" and I looked toward her voice in the dark back seat. "A rhyme," I said and I thought it was only to myself, but Mother and Father looked at each other and then they glanced back at Roger and for some reason all three of them started laughing.

Then Tiger moved the kittens. It was a few days later, a Saturday, the day of the prom that Roland and Mary went to but didn't come home from that night, or the next morning either.

Anyway, that day Tiger was sort of fidgety and nervous and then about lunch time we saw her out back pacing across the yard. She was toting one of the kittens in her mouth. She went into the garage and by the time Jancy and I got out there she was already up among the rafters. This is how we found her regular home, where she stayed when she wasn't in the house or out catting around. It was in the hollow part of the eaves. Jancy crawled up on the table saw and then up higher onto the lathe so she could see. "Golly," she hollered. "It's just like a nest in here."

So then Tiger brought out the last kitten. She jumped down from the rafters and slunk back across the yard and entered the house through the little dog door in the big door, Max's old door. We followed her again, and Father and Mother came too, and when we looked up sure enough there was one of the kittens just hanging over the edge, pawing the air. And sure enough it stepped off, but quick as anything Tiger's big head shot out and she snatched the kitten back at the very instant it fell.

Mother said, "Richard, perhaps we should bring them down."

"No no," Father said. "It's only natural. We don't want to tamper with something like this."

That afternoon Roland dressed himself up in a tuxedo. Then he left in his car. It was an old Dodge, a '54 convertible with flames on the sides that he'd saved for working summers at Mr. Hardessey's lumberyard. I had been out hunting jays with my BB gun and was up in the big tallow tree where he couldn't see me, and I watched him. He primped a bit in the rear-view and then he cranked her up. But before starting off he leaned over and took something out of the glove box. He glanced all around as though to see if anybody was out, and then, just like that, he lit up a cigarette. He blew out a whirl of smoke and with only one hand on the wheel he drove away, looking for all the world like a grown-up on TV, or a spy in the movies. So I had a secret on Roland.

Then Roland came home again. Mary was with him. And she was so pretty in her pink, fluffy dress and her hair all made up that I could feel my face burning whenever I looked at her. There was something different about her, in her eyes, like the eyes of the ladies you see in magazines, the ones wearing just petticoats. I couldn't help sneaking looks at her, even though I had known her most of my life, and knew her parents, and knew her brother and her sister as if we were all cousins. So I had another secret.

Father and Mother made a big hubbub over Mary, and Roger took a book's worth of pictures. First, with them outside by the boxwoods before the light went, and then inside with Mary sitting in a living room chair, and then with Roland standing beside Mary, and then three or four of Roland pinning on the flower as everybody joked about how he couldn't find enough material to pin it to, and even Father turned red in the face then.

"You're both so . . . so beautiful," Mother said. "Mary so pretty and Roland so handsome. Why, you look like the Kennedys, like Jack and Jackie." Everybody laughed. Then she said, "It's no wonder" but that was as far as she got before the tears started up and so Father hugged her and sure enough Roger snapped a picture of that too. And then Roland and Mary left again. We all watched at the windows. Father stood there a long time, long after they had driven away, till Mother called him in to dinner.

Then came the uproar. It went on for weeks.

Sunday morning when we got up Mother and Father were arguing. Or at least Father was arguing. I could tell that Mother was sitting there in the kitchen just taking it. From the hall I heard Father say, "I expected him to get home late, that's understandable. But this is going too far."

So Mother said, "Richard, for heaven's sake, all the kids do it. It's sort of a rite, a tradition."

"That's fine for them," said Father. "But we aren't these other people and I won't have it. Just how will it look?"

"It won't look like anything," Mother said, and then there was a pause and I could tell just by the silence, the length of it and the stillness, that Father was giving her the glare. It lasted till Mother said, "Don't do that to me, Richard."

"And you refuse to call the Zimmermans?" he said, meaning Mary's parents. And Mother said, "It's not that I refuse. I just don't see the point. If they're worried, they'll call us."

I decided to make my entrance. Father stopped in mid-sentence when he saw me and he gave me the glare too. Mother jumped up and started breakfast and Father poured himself more coffee and he just stood there in his robe, sipping it, his hair all balled up on his head the way it always did when worry wouldn't let him keep his hands still. Then here came Jancy and she said just the wrong thing: "Where's Roland?"

Father flew all over her, saying, "We won't be speaking of Roland. Sit down here, young lady, and eat your breakfast." At which Jancy twisted up her face like she was about to wail, so Mother made a big fuss over her, giving Father mean glances.

Roger came in then and Father must have changed his mind. Because right off he started in on him about Roland. But all Roger did was shrug and say I don't know.

"Well, at least one of you has the sense to behave the way we raised you," Father said, meaning Roger who never got into trouble. "Perhaps your brother and Mary would like to take up residence together, like beatniks, or whatever they're called."

And Mother said, "Richard, that's enough."

Father got loud then, ranting about how it wasn't enough and wouldn't be enough till Roland was home and explained himself. He went on for quite a while. In fact we could hear him all the time we were dressing for church. It made me not want to speak to Father and so I asked Roger for help with my bow tie.

We didn't go to Sunday school that day and in the car Father had made it clear he wanted us all together and that we would be leaving, pronto, right after the service. Which we did. He marched us out to the car as soon as the closing prayer was said and he put us inside and then he went away for a few minutes. I could see him on the lawn of the church talking to a couple of the other deacons, Brother Murtry, his boss at the company, and Brother Evans that Mother called the richest man she had ever known. Father was frowning when he came back to the car.

On the way home he told Mother that he had also talked to the Zimmermans. He said
they
were worried to
death
and would call if they heard something. He gave Mother the glare again. I was getting kind of sick over the way he was acting, and since there was no place I could go to hide, and I couldn't think of anything else to do, I started singing. It just came out of me, that kids' song about how Jesus loves the little children, and I got louder and louder on each verse, and then Jancy started in with me, and Mother glanced back with an encouraging smile not a smile really, but eyes that said
Yes, yes, that's right
and then I heard her voice singing too, and then Roger too. All of us singing
red and yellow, black and white
and so forth.

Which really touched off Father who suddenly stopped the car beside the road and got out. He said to Mother, "I'm walking home." But we all kept singing. He walked up the road about half a block and stopped, and other cars were driving by and people were gawking at us. Father stood there for a minute with his hands in his pockets like he didn't know what was what and then quick as a lizard he kicked a stone into the ditch and came back, looking furious with us. That's when we quit singing.

Roland's Dodge was parked in front of the house and he was in his bed when we went inside. All I heard from Father was "Where have you been?" before Mother grabbed Jancy and me. She fed us alone in the kitchen and then she sent us out to play.

Tiger was up in the garage and the little kittens were all just peeking over the edge or walking hazardously among the joists. Jancy said they were almost weaned, but I didn't know what she was talking about. "That's when they leave the nest," she told me. "Mother says it's an awful time."

That afternoon Roland went away. Mother said he was staying with his best friend Freddy Mathews. Jancy asked, "Is Roland being weaned?" but Mother just looked sad and hugged us both.

In the house then, and for days afterward, there was all kinds of discussing going on between Mother and Father and even Roger. After Roland came home they would sit with him in the living room for long stretches, talking in low voices, though sometimes they got loud and Roland would stomp off to his room. In the second week things smoothed over. We ate supper at the regular time and Mother and Father seemed to be themselves again. School was out. Roger went away to a church retreat in the country and Roland was working at the lumberyard.

About that time Tiger brought the kittens down from the rafters. They'd scramble all over the yard and Tiger would just lie there like a queen, ignoring them. Everything caught their attention, especially the car, the Chevy. They would crawl onto the tires and up under the hood and Jancy and I would have to dig them out. They were too ignorant to be afraid, I guess, even of the roaring engine, so that Mother got to where she wouldn't even start her up without checking to see they were gone.

But that morning, that Sunday morning, because we were in a hurry, or because Roland was driving us and because Mother had other things on her mind maybe, nobody checked.

We got into the car, the Chevy, Roland and Father in the front, and Mother between Jancy and me in the back. Father and Roland were talking, and Mother was retying Jancy's bow, quite normal, and then Roland cranked her up and slipped her into gear and he put his arm up on the seat, peering back, and I felt the car starting backwards and I felt something, something in the simple first movement of the car or in Roland's concentrated gaze that went over us and beyond us, or just something that told me this was wrong something made me yell, "Wait! Stop!" And Roland slammed on the brakes. It was then that we heard the scream.