Thief of Dreams (24 page)

She hadn't been home long before she laid out the jeans, shirt, underwear, and socks she expected him to wear the next day—something she hadn't done in years—and told him she wanted him to go up to the house and take a good, hot bath and wash his hair and cut his fingernails. Maybe she thought because he had a black eye and a split lip he needed such direction; but more likely it was just a function of her anger. As far back as he could remember, when she was seriously mad about something, she always set to work, putting everything around her in order. She worked in alarming and dreadful silence. Usually it was Edward she was mad at, and she wouldn't speak to him at all; but probably because he himself was only a child, he could expect at least a few short commands. “Wash your face now,” or, “It's time you were in bed, young man,” or maybe out of the blue, “I expect you to get a haircut, first thing in the morning!” Sometimes when she was mad at him, he got the silent treatment, and his father got the few clipped remarks. But it was his father who had taught him with subtle, sometimes amused meetings of the eye, or a slight lifting of the chin, that his mother was not to be crossed, but that, finally, the world was not coming to an end—that it was merely one of those times when the male of the species needed to lie low until the storm passed. Although there were times when he, James, had done something sufficiently wrong that all male comradery got set aside, and she would deliver him to his father for a beating, at least until the sound of it, or maybe just the idea of it, got too frightening for her, and she'd come running up to rescue him again. It was all very confusing until you understood that females were simply something else altogether, creatures that needed to be tolerated and indulged but perhaps never properly understood, because, finally, they weren't men. They were very different, and for that reason they couldn't help you become a man. He knew that for sure. There was something essential not held in common. And even another man, he feared, couldn't help so much. It seemed to be a condition you had to get to by yourself, even if, after you made it, it was common ground.

Whatever, he didn't cross her. He took tomorrow's clothes up to the house to wear back from his bath and did exactly what he was told, stuffing his dirty clothes in the laundry bags beside the Marshalls' hamper so that his mother could wash them Sunday afternoon, as she always did. He comforted himself with the thought that at the dinner table, at least, his grandparents and his aunt had been sympathetic about Lester, and even Virginia and Clara seemed genuinely saddened and subdued.

When he got back to the trailer, scrubbed and clean, his mother shouted, “Stop!” the moment he opened the door. “Jump to the couch,” she told him. “The floor will be dry in a little.”

He tried to shut the door behind him without having it nudge him off the narrow metal lip of the threshold, but he didn't quite make it. Still, one leap put him on the stiff Naugahyde couch, which sighed and sank a little under him. She had waxed herself into the other end of the trailer and was up on her bed. He couldn't see her for the half-extended bedroom partition, but the floor between them was certainly very shiny. The trailer, he saw, was immaculate. Everything was dusted and nothing was out of place. The kitchen counter and the stove were without the slightest blemish, crumb, or stain; and the stainless-steel sink shone as if it were made of silver.

He turned on the radio, not to listen to, but to mitigate against the silence; anyway he was foolishly afraid that, otherwise, she might somehow be able to eavesdrop on his thoughts, and if she did that, she would prevent him.

After a long time, he touched the floor and found it dry enough to get up and get his pillow and blanket and shuck out of his clothes. When at last he'd sandwiched himself in his bed linen and cut off the radio and light, he was surprised that the whole trailer went dark. He hadn't realized that her light wasn't on. After many minutes, when he'd made up his mind she was asleep, she surprised him again.

“Good night, son,” she said.

“Good night,” he told her. But he hardly slept. He was too agitated and worried and too much inspired. From time to time during the endless night he would drowse a little, but it wasn't until almost daylight that he dropped into a sound sleep. Still, he woke, instantly alert, when she came into the kitchen to fix breakfast.

She set about making bacon and eggs and toast, and it was clear to him that her anger had diminished very little. She still had a set expression on her face, and not a single movement she made was wasted. Anyway, she never made such an elaborate breakfast during the week.

“I've got to go to the bathroom,” he told her, putting his pillow and blanket away and dressing as quickly as he could.

“Don't dawdle,” she said, as he went out the door; “your eggs will get cold.”

Well, he didn't blame her. She had her reasons to be angry, even if he didn't understand them. He knew they had to do with his father, but he couldn't afford to think about them. He couldn't afford to think about anything that might weaken or distract him.

The bathroom was busy. Virginia was inside, and Clara was in the hall, rattling the locked door and demanding that Virginia come out. But it didn't matter. He'd noticed that the wood box by the stove was almost empty, because he'd forgotten his chores the evening before. He went out to the barn where his piss steamed in the morning air and melted the hoar frost by the pigpen, and he split a heavy load of stovewood for his grandmother and carried it in.

When he got back to the trailer, his fingers were aching with the cold, and the tips of his ears and the end of his nose were burning with it.

“Well, your eggs are cold,” his mother said.

“I got some stovewood for Grandmother,” he said. “I forgot it last night.”

“Sit down and eat then,” she said.

Again he did as he was told. It seemed to him only proper, and it cost him nothing, although he was a bit relieved to see that she had already eaten. She tied a woolen scarf about her head, but still had her dignity, even wearing the scarf with her house slippers and robe. When she took up the large silky bag she kept her makeup and toilet things in, she stopped suddenly in his line of vision. “I'm real sorry about Lester,” she said. “Hear?”

“Thank you,” he said.

If she had anything else to say, she didn't say it. After a second, she merely nodded and went out the door.

For a long time he sat, gazing at nothing. His food was without taste, and he'd eaten no more than half of it when he heard her footsteps outside in the stiff, frosty grass and quickly cleaned his plate. It would have been a stronger thing to fast, only he hadn't thought of it in time. But, no matter. He would make up for that too.

While she dressed for work, he set about cleaning up the dishes; and, again, before he quite knew where the time had gone, she was beside him, smelling of perfume, and somehow, of Green's Department Store.

“Use soap on those,” she said, pecking his cheek, “and be good.”

The door closed behind her and she was outside, but he could hear her steps for a moment in the stiff grass. Then he couldn't hear them. But some moments later he could hear the car start, the gravel pop and grind, a change of gears, and the fading sound of the motor. Then he could hear nothing more, and she was truly gone. And to some degree it was already started.

He finished the dishes as though that were a part of it, went out to the barn, carried in wood for the fireplace, and split more wood and carried it in for the stove until his grandmother said, “Merciful heavens, child! That's a gracious plenty!”

When he had taken the slingshot from its hiding place and got back to the trailer, he sat for a long time with a piece of paper and a pencil, trying to think what to say. It saddened him that anything at all was necessary, that he lived in a time which even required an explanation. But nothing came to him, and he decided to put the pencil aside and hope for inspiration. He got his blanket from under the couch and rolled it as small and tight as he could, only to realize—kneeling on the blanket with his knees—that he had nothing to tie it with. He almost wept at his foolishness and inadequacy. Maybe some spirit was trying to show him that he was too silly even to make a bedroll, never mind anything else. Abruptly he rose and turned his back so as not to see the blanket unfurl. Patience, he told himself. Now was no time for fear, or anger, or doubt, or any of that. He went to the closet in his mother's bedroom and got out his father's work shoes. For a moment he pondered the tongueless, disfigured one and then took the rawhide laces from both.

The shoestrings were rotten and they broke, but he knotted them and got the blanket tied. Having the slingshot with him felt right, but he turned it in his hands and considered it further. If only he'd had teaching in such matters. He had none of the knowledge he needed. No medicine. No magic or charms. But the slingshot seemed proper. Part of it was Lester's, part his father's, part his. Even the transgression was his, and he suspected it should not be left behind as though he weren't guilty. There was nothing to go by except what he felt to be true.

He needed to quit thinking. He had a book of matches, his pocketknife, the slingshot, and his blanket. He had no idea what an Indian boy might take or in what season of the year he would be asked to accept his trial. After a moment he went again to the bedroom closet and took down an old leather belt, hanging among a smattering of his father's neglected neckties. There was nothing else he needed, nor any further reason to linger.

He picked up the pencil and wrote:
I'm going off to be by myself for a while
. He meant to write more, to address it to someone, to sign it, perhaps to try and explain, but anything else he imagined writing down seemed useless. Worse, in some strange way he could not quite understand, anything further seemed to court dishonesty or boasting.

He strapped the rolled blanket down the center of his back by means of his father's belt, which he buckled across his chest. His knees burning and his stomach shaky, he let himself out of the trailer and turned south in order to keep the trailer between him and the house, at least until he reached the gully at the end of the cow pasture.

Once he'd crossed the fence and gotten to the bottom of the gully where he couldn't be seen, he turned east toward the highest of the mountains.

MADELINE TALLY

The moment she pulled out of the driveway, an oddly powerful guilt over James tugged at her stomach. She should have been more sympathetic. It wouldn't have hurt her to inquire about Lester, to ask, at least, how he was doing. It was just that she felt so harried, so completely taken unawares. Well, she'd make it up to the child, she decided, even send Lester a card or some such thing.

Just as she made that resolution, Leslie, whom she absolutely did not want to think about, popped into her mind, and she saw again the way he'd looked when he came walking into Green's yesterday just at quitting time. He had looked so self-possessed, so distinguished and stylish, she had known in an instant what she desired and went straight up to him and said, calmly she thought: “I want you to get me one of those … what do you call them?”

Amused, his eyes twinkling, Leslie merely shrugged.

“Restraining orders,” she said. “Yes, restraining orders.”

“Why?” he said, grinning. “For what? For whom?”

“Edward, of course. And he'll just … I can't …”

“He's here?” Leslie asked. “In Cedar Hill?”

“Yes,” she said, “and I won't put up with it.” She hardly noticed the change in his face or that he'd taken her by the elbow to lead her out of the store; she was too busy blurting out the details of Edward's sudden, shocking appearance.

“You're his wife,” he told her once they were on the sidewalk. “If he hasn't harmed or threatened you, you can't ask for a restraining order. He has every right to see you.”

Why was he whispering? He released her elbow and took a step backward.

“Go get your coat,” he said. “I'm sure you don't want all the salesladies to know your private affairs.”

She went back in the store and got her coat and her purse as though she had only just realized she'd been drawn outside in the first place. Something wasn't quite right, but she was too concerned with Edward to be able to speculate about it, at least until she was back out on the sidewalk and got another look at Leslie's face.

“Legally, I'm afraid Edward has very little to fear from us,” he told her. He made a sound something like laughter. “I wish I could say the same. He could name me as a corespondent, for example, and make things extremely difficult for me.” He made the sound that was remotely like laughter again, and she realized how uncomfortable he was. “He could sue me for alienation of affection and have a case I sure wouldn't want to …”

The look she gave him seemed to take his voice away. She nodded very slowly and, once she understood perfectly, turned away toward her car.

“Maidy?” he said behind her. “Maidy wait … please.”

But she was in her little coupe and backing up.

He had stepped off the sidewalk in a lame, halfhearted attempt to follow her when she stopped and held up a forefinger as though she were calling for a point of order. She got his house key from the glove pocket, rolled down the window, and held the key out to him, but he made no move to come any closer. He appeared to be looking somewhere over the roof of her car, perhaps at the sky. “Oh Maidy …” he said, so she dropped the key, backed into the street, and drove home.

Well, she thought, coming over the crest of the mountain into Cedar Hill in the bright morning sun, she could see Leslie's side of things after all. It simply made no difference to her, since, as far as she was concerned, he had ceased to exist.