The Cape Ann (47 page)

At a quarter past four, the phone rang. “Lark, it’s Mama. Is Papa home?”

“No.”

“Did he call?”

“No.”

She said something to Aunt Betty.

“Wait a minute, Mama. I heard the truck, I think.”

“Look out the window,” she said.

Through the delicate tracery of frost, I saw the headlights pull up beside the depot and wink off. Then the truck door slammed, and in a moment, Papa opened the storm door, then the inner door, in a tentative manner, as if the kitchen might be booby-trapped.

“Mama, Papa just came in.”

“Put him on the line,” Mama said in an angry voice.

“Papa, Mama wants to talk to you on the phone.”

“Where’s she?” He learned against the doorway.

“In St. Bridget at the hospital.”

“Wha’s she doin’ there?”

“Looking for you.”

He pulled off a glove with his teeth and threw it down. Making his way overcarefully across the room, he said, “’Lo,” into the phone.

Mama’s voice crackled at the other end.

“Boys had a li’l party afterwards.”

He hung up the receiver while Mama was still talking. “Can’ even have a li’l fun.”

I added the remainder of the coal to the fire, then found the old flatiron and set it on top of the stove. While it heated, I fetched a brown paper sack and a towel. When the iron was hot, I wrapped it in the bag and then in the towel, and tucked it under the quilt at the foot of the crib. Papa was sitting on the couch, still in his brown jacket, wearing one leather glove. Pulling the plug on the tree lights, I climbed into my crib, put my feet against the warmth of the iron, and fell asleep.

I didn’t hear Mama and Aunt Betty return. Nor did I hear Mama later, after the sun came up, when she rose, dressed, and let herself out of the house. When I woke, Aunt Betty was asleep in Mama’s bed. Papa had slept on the couch.

Now his unshaved face was puffy and gray as he sat at the kitchen table cradling a cup of reheated coffee, not drinking it, only holding it and staring at the wall.

I poured a bowl of cereal and carried it into the living room. Someone had refilled the coal scuttle. The morning paper lay on the sideboard, unopened. I got it down and, spreading it on the floor, knelt on all fours to read the funny papers.

In the kitchen, Papa scraped his chair back, got up, and dumped the coffee down the sink. Setting the cup on the drain board, he stood, palms on the rim of the sink, leaning heavily against it as if he hadn’t the spunk to stand by himself.

“Where’s your ma?” he asked after several minutes.

I didn’t understand him because his voice was strained and thin, as if he had something caught in his throat. “What did you say?”

“Where’s your ma?”

“I don’t know. Are you sick?”

“Never mind.” He turned and walked to the door, opening it and pushing the storm door open.

“You going next door?”

“Huh?”

“Are you going next door?”

“Why? What difference?”

“You don’t have a coat or cap. It’s real cold. Look at the windows.” In fact, a blast of air swept in through the open door, armed with a thousand needles of arctic ice.

He turned away and left, as if he hadn’t heard, and closed both doors behind him. I ran to the living room window. Maybe he was going across to Mr. Navarin’s Sinclair station. Or maybe he’d drive downtown for coffee at the Loon Cafe. Sometimes he did that on Saturday morning. But he was walking along the tracks, just walking, not going anywhere. There was nowhere much to go in the direction he was headed. Not even the hobo jungle.

Aunt Betty padded out of the bedroom, clutching herself. “It’s cold in here.”

“Papa just went out,” I explained.

“Where to?”

“Nowhere. Just walking. And he didn’t even take a coat or cap.”

“Must be going
somewhere,”
she said.

“Just down the tracks.”

“Going to check something on a siding.”

“Not in that direction. Nothing on the siding down there.”

“Your mama make coffee?”

“No.”

Aunt Betty dumped out the little that remained in the pot of yesterday’s coffee and began preparing a fresh pot. “Is there a fire in the coal stove?” she asked. “It feels like it’s gone out.”

“It’s going. It’s the kitchen that’s cold. Turn on the oven.”

I folded the paper and carried the cereal bowl to the kitchen. “Papa’s going to freeze.”

“Maybe you better get dressed and go look for him. Where’s your mama?”

I lifted my shoulders. “Out someplace. She got up early, I guess.”

“Is the car here?” Aunt Betty asked.

I nodded.

“Then she hasn’t gone far. Maybe to Truska’s for milk or something.”

It was a strange morning, I thought, pulling a dress over my head. It felt as though I had wandered into somebody else’s life. Normally Mama was up making breakfast on Saturday morning. She liked preparing breakfast on the weekends, when she didn’t have to hurry off to her typewriter. Usually Papa stayed in bed, head under the pillow, until Mama called him to the table. After breakfast he had another cup of coffee and a Lucky Strike while he read the sports section of the Minneapolis paper. The smell of bacon and coffee and Lucky Strikes spoke of ritual Saturday morning indolence.

Not this morning. Papa was out wandering in twenty-below weather. Mama was God-knew-where, not even leaving a note on the table. I had a tight, expectant pain in my stomach. I wanted to climb into the crib, and scramble up into the banjo clock. But it was my place to go after Papa.

When I had pulled on my boots and coat and mittens and cap, and Aunt Betty had tied the cap under my chin and wound the long scarf around my face below my eyes, I tramped out into the virgin air. It was so clear and calm that I felt like a monster laying waste to its purity. Shlump, clump, shlump, clump, down the rail bed. People could hear me down the line in Hazelton, I thought.

When I came abreast of the last of the grain elevators, I saw Papa standing in the sharp, blue morning shadows, between the
last elevator and its nearest companion. He was leaning against the great, high wall, looking at his feet.

“Papa, come home.”

He paid no attention. I shlumped across the rows of tracks. “Papa, it’s freezing. Come home. Aunt Betty wants you to come home.” At length he looked up. He glanced at me as if I were Beverly or Sally, someone else’s kid. “I’m not supposed to come home without you,” I told him, “so if you don’t come, I have to stand here till I freeze.” I reached for his hand and pulled. “Come
on
. It’s cold.”

He followed docilely. What was the matter with him? I was worried. Was he sick? Crazy? Where were his brains? I led the way into the house and closed the doors. Aunt Betty poured Papa a fresh cup of coffee and helped me out of my heavy things. “What’s going on, Willie?” she asked.

He shook his head and wouldn’t look at her. We remained in place, as if waiting for an actor whose entrance was late. The door opened, and Mama dragged into the kitchen. She passed us, saying nothing, and went into the bedroom to take off her coat. She had forgotten to remove her boots. I was shocked. What terrible thing did this portend? What else could happen? We were already at war. And Hilly had died.

“Mama, what is it?”

I don’t think she realized that I had spoken. She was sitting on the bed. She pulled her arms out of her coat and let it drop behind her.

“Mama, take off your boots!” I cried.

Papa came into the bedroom. “How did you find out? Who told you?”

Mama stared at him.

“I was going to tell you as soon as you came home.”

Still she was silent, with a wondering look on her face.

“We were drinking boilermakers. I shouldn’t’ve. I shoulda stayed with beer. But you know what them bastards are like. ‘God hates a coward, Willie.’ That’s what they say, ‘God hates a coward.’ So I drank boilermakers with ’em.

“I never meant to lose the money, Arlene. I wasn’t even going to play, but you know how they are. They think you’re not one of them if you don’t play.”

Papa knelt on the bedroom floor and grasped Mama about the
waist. “I’m so sorry, Arlene,” he sobbed, and tears gushed from his eyes and washed his cheeks.

Horrified, I climbed into the crib. This was the day the world ended, I thought.

“I know how bad you wanted that house. We’ll build it, you’ll see. Only we can’t build it right now. I’m going to need that money. How much is there, Arlene? Is there five hundred dollars? There’s nowhere else I can turn.” Through his sobs, he pleaded, “Don’t turn your back on me. I’m at the end of my rope.”

Except for Papa’s crying and the twittering of a family of snow buntings on the roof, the town was quiet. No engine growled, no mother called, no foot fell overhead in the Bigelow’s apartment.

At last Mama said, “You didn’t have to lose the money after all, Willie—Mr. Rayzeen says by spring there won’t be any home building. The government needs the materials, he says.”

“You think I lost it on purpose?” Papa cried.

Mama didn’t answer. She stood up, pulling away, and drifted into the kitchen, leaving Papa weeping beside the bed.

“Lark and I’re leaving for California in January, Betty. You want to come along? I’ll pay for your ticket.”

“I can’t go to Los Angeles.”

“Then we won’t go there. We’ll go someplace else. There’s lots of towns in California.”

“For a vacation?”

“For good.”

Now the world
had
ended.

“WHERE’LL YOU GET THE
money?” Aunt Betty asked Mama.

“I’ll sell the car. Willie can get tickets for Lark and me.” Being family of a railroad man, Mama and I rode on passes. “If we put your fifty dollars together with what I get for the car, I think we can make it.”

“You think I’m gonna get tickets for you to leave me?” Papa asked, barging into the kitchen, grabbing Mama’s arm.

“Do you want the five hundred dollars, Willie?”

“What is this, blackmail?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not gonna let you do this to me.”

“Then you’ll never see the five hundred dollars, Willie.”

“Well, you’re not taking the kid, I’ll tell you that. I’ll see a lawyer.”

“Do that, Willie. Tell him about the five hundred dollars. Tell him how we lost the Oldsmobile. Tell him all of it. You’ll end up without me, Lark,
or
the money.”

“I don’t see how you can just walk out like this, all of a sudden, without any warning. You never said a thing.”

“No, Willie, you never
heard
a thing.”

“I’ve been a good husband, better than most, given you everything you ever wanted. I’ve gone without so you could have the nice things you wanted, expensive things.”

“You mean like this dump we live in?”

“I’ll get you a house.”

“It’s too late.”

“You won’t have a friend left in this town if you leave me. They all know what I put up with.”

“God, Willie, you believe your own bullshit. You disgust me.”

“No!” he cried. “Don’t talk like that. I can’t stand it. I love you. You know that. Don’t talk to me like I was dirt.” Papa lowered himself onto a kitchen chair, pulling a handkerchief from his back pocket. “You’ll put my folks in their graves, you know.”

“I’m sorry about your folks, Willie, and I’m sorry about mine, but I’m leaving.”

Mama sat down. “I’m leaving in January, so order the tickets. For Lark and Betty and me, to—where did I tell you the Huemillers moved, Betty?”

“Long Beach, I think it was called.”

“Long Beach. We want to go to Long Beach. I’ll pay for Betty’s ticket.”

“How are you going to feel in Long Beach when you hear that I killed myself?”

“I’ll think it’s strange. You told us Hilly went to hell for doing the same thing.”

Papa was like a wild thing, stung by a hornet, flailing his arms and sending the cups flying. He bellowed and stumbled to his feet,
pushing the table halfway across the room. “You never cared!” He grabbed the bread knife from the cupboard. “Why do you think I’ve done the things I have? Because I knew you didn’t care, and it was driving me crazy.”

“Willie, don’t!” Aunt Betty screamed. I jumped from the crib and ran into the kitchen. “Don’t! Please, don’t!”

“Get out of the way,” he yelled, pushing me aside. Aunt Betty grabbed me.

Papa looked like a bear, reared onto his hind legs, one great, huge claw on his right paw, wild pain distorting his face.

Mama was on her feet, putting the table between herself and Papa.

He lunged across the table, and Mama sidestepped. The knife scraped a gash down the wall. “I’ll kill you before I let you go!”

Mama stood still then, and dropped her arms. “All right, Willie. Come kill me.” She was crying, too. “I’d rather die than stay.”

Every day thereafter, Mama asked Papa if he’d ordered the tickets. “When I see the tickets, Willie, you’ll see the five hundred dollars.”

Papa didn’t answer. There could be no acceptance of our leaving, no admission that his life had split in two and half of it was going to California. He went silently about his days, selling tickets, sending telegrams, delivering freight. I heard him laugh and joke, as he always had, to Art Bigelow and the trainmen and the passengers who waited beside the depot coal stove for the train to pull in. But as soon as he stepped through the kitchen door, he closed himself up.

“Why do we have to go, Mama?”

“Because I can’t take any more, Lark.”

“I don’t want to go. I want to stay here, even if we live in the depot.”

“If you want to stay, you can. I have to go.”

I felt as though she had pushed me out into the cold. She was supposed to say, “No, I won’t hear of your staying. You’re coming with me.” She was not supposed to make me decide, and she was not supposed to act as though she could get along without me.

Life was flying at me like trash in a wind storm. Mama was leaving Papa, going to California to find work. Aunt Betty was leaving, too, starting over. California was the place to be, everybody said that. Thousands of jobs were going to open up there.

Who would Mama become in California? It frightened me to think that she might change. And yet she rushed toward change as if she would perish without it.