The Witch (27 page)

Later, back at the house, Ellen's sisters helped her set out the supper of ham sandwiches and casseroles, and bottles of beer and of whiskey were lined up on a dish towel on the kitchen counter. Sheila's husband came too, and he drank a good bit and cried, and even though everybody knew how things had been between them, they let him carry on. What was the harm?

The youngest nieces and nephews and cousins ran in and out from the yard, filling the house with cold drafts, while the older ones grouped themselves on the couches in the basement, bored. Everyone complimented Ellen on how nice the house looked, how well she had kept it up. She smiled a lot, aware that she was under scrutiny. Her sisters brought out the old photo albums and they passed them around and remembered this or that story, funny or sad, and how Sheila had her good points, you had to give her that. In the kitchen the men stood with their drinks in their hands and talked work and talked sports. Everyone was glad that the red-haired boy was not from a Saint Brendan's family, so they could say a lot of harsh things without feeling conflicted, like, they should have put him under the jail, the little bastard.

Everybody loved Prince, who went up to people with his tail wagging and his new collar tags jingling. He did all the tricks
that people asked him, sit, roll over, shake hands, speak! When they got to speak! he said, “Woof!” and he and Ellen winked at each other, because it was pretty funny.

Finally the party was over, and the dishes washed and the trash bundled up, and Sheila's husband sent home in a cab, sobbing to the driver. Agnes, her nicest sister, got Ellen to one side and said, “You know you can come to us. We have plenty of room and we'd love to have you.”

“Thanks, but I'm all right here. Really. I'm fine.”

“As long as you're certain,” Agnes began, then her youngest child locked himself in the bathroom and she was needed there.

The next night, Ellen and Prince had the leftover ham for their supper. “They sure were a houseful,” Ellen said. “I mean, I was glad to see them and all, but I need a little more elbow room.”

“You guys do know how to throw a funeral,” Prince said. “By the way, you look really nice tonight.”

“Thank you,” Ellen said. She was wearing two of the net petticoats, a lavender and a yellow, one on top of the other. She twirled to make them flare out. “Crazy lady fashion. Not everybody can pull it off.”

At bedtime they climbed the stairs, and Prince lay with his warm back along Ellen's front, and she rubbed his nose and his ears and the fur on his chest. Prince said, “This is going to sound strange, but I don't think you're crazy. I mean, look at everything you do for yourself, and do for me, look how you managed the whole funeral thing. I think crazy is something you outgrew.”

“Huh,” Ellen said. She wanted to believe it, but she wasn't so sure. She still felt the same as she always had. “Okay, but, not to be rude, you and me talking. That's not crazy?”

“No, that's just magic.”

They were almost asleep. Prince's rib cage rose and fell, rose and fell as his breathing slowed. Ellen said, “Promise me you'll stay with me forever.”

Prince stirred. “Every day of my forever, I will stay with you.”

“Oh, yeah, that's good, okay,” Ellen said, and then they both slept.

Jean Thompson is the author of six previous novels, among them
The Humanity Project
,
The Year We Left Home
,
and five previous story collections, including
Who Do You Love
(a National Book Award finalist). She lives in Urbana,
Illinois.