“Can I have some ice cream?” Faith called from the kitchen.
“What time is it?” Jean asked.
“Two-thirty.”
That seemed about right. She didn’t recall hearing a clock chime three times. “Yes.”
“She eats too much,” Forrie muttered. “That’s why she’s so fat.”
“Oh, Forrie, don’t say that.” The rain stopped as suddenly as it began. Jean stepped outside to the patio. After-rain air was always so still. The dust that had hung suspended was settled now, tramped down by the gift of water drops. She reveled in the coolness and tried to think of something that needed doing outside.
“What are you going to do next?”
A funny question for Forrie to ask, she thought. “Oh, fold the laundry, I guess.”
“When’s Pop coming home?”
“The usual time.” Another odd question. “Betty and Warren are coming to dinner tonight.”
“Can you fold the laundry in your room?”
“I suppose so.”
They walked down the hallway, Forrie carrying the laundry basket. Once inside, he closed the door.
“Mom, I got to tell you something.” His voice quavered with urgency.
She chuckled softly. “I could tell.” They sat on the edge of the bed.
“No, something real big. You’re not going to like it.” He paused for that to sink in and when he began again, his voice was strangely off key. “‘Member when Chucky was here this morning?”
“Yes.”
“We went out to the clubhouse.” He came to a dead stop, his usual way of making her guess so he wouldn’t have to say it outright. She just waited. “Nobody was around. I don’t know where he got it, but Chucky, he had a real cigarette.”
Ah, so that was it. Jean still didn’t say anything, forcing him to go on.
“And he lit it. And smoked it.” His voice rose a half register. “And I did, too. Oh, Mom, I’m sorry. I knew you wouldn’t like it.” The words tumbled out between sobs. “And Pop. He’ll whomp me if he knows.” He flung himself at her and buried his face in her lap. “I know I did wrong.” The words were muffled.
Her heart ached for him. She had felt the same fascination when she was his age. Still, she knew that remorse was necessary to bring the lesson home. His shoulders shook, and he made funny gasping sounds reaching for air. She stroked his shoulders and they shook some more.
She let him cry in tortured suspense for a while. “I’m glad you told me. You did the right thing by telling me, even though it was wrong to do it just because Chucky did.”
“I know,” he wailed with all the pain of hearing what he already knew.
“You don’t need to do it anymore, do you?”
“No.” His voice was hardly more than breath. He sniffled. She let him keep his head on her lap until no more sounds came.
Forrie stayed in the bedroom with her and sorted the socks while she folded the rest of the laundry. When they were through, she opened the door and heard the television. She walked across the living room up close to the TV so as not to trip over a child on the rug. Briskly she felt her way, an arm’s length from the wall, but even there, within two feet of the television, she stumbled into someone and had to catch her balance quickly. “Who’s that up so close?”
“Me,” Hap said.
The one muttered syllable clutched at her heart.
The afternoon wore on with clucking of chickens, an occasional sneeze of a horse, doors constantly opening and swinging shut, child talk. In a way, she felt privileged to hear Forrie’s agonized confession. It meant he trusted her and that was precious to her. The motor on the well hummed a high whine. A cow mooed its hunger, and a killdeer repeated its thin, three-note whistle. She loved the sound, all the sounds—cows, dogs, footsteps, birds, even Forrie’s sobs. They were sufficient. Children and animals and breezes moved around her, but did not penetrate completely. Maybe not seeing was a way to be alone, to experience a semi-solitude, peaceful and reflective. A million things could be going on around her, she realized, but none of them as significant as her own thinking. Perhaps she had, after all, a filtering process that eliminated the trivial in order to embrace something truer.
She stirred the spaghetti sauce on the stove. The oregano smelled rich and musty and the steam made her eyes water. The day had passed so quickly she hardly had a chance to value it. Living was good today. Bursting with love for everything around her, she felt close to the Creator of it all. Forgive me for not appreciating it enough, she thought.
A car drove up, a door opened and closed, and the car drove off. Rusty barked and Forrest’s whistle came up the dirt road. The sounds—animals, children and now Forrest—and the thoughts alive in her mind, they’re all so good and real, she thought. Maybe those who can see the ants in the cupboards and the sullen pout on a child’s face are more distracted and see less of the good things. It was a dear, not-to-be-repeated day, and when it was all over she would share it with Forrest.
She positioned herself in the doorway so that he’d find her. “Hi,” she said.
“Hey, Jeanie, baby. We had some rain, huh?” He walked right into her and kissed her on the side of her face, right by her ear. They stood together, arms around each other, loving their closeness. It was good to feel that he anticipated this moment every day too.
After dinner they sat on the patio, the sounds of sunset full of harmony—coffee cups in saucers, quiet talk with Betty and Warren, a radio in Faith’s room playing “Love Letters in the Sand.” Jean smelled the fecund odor of the damp earth. Warren’s mellow guitar joined the crickets to usher in the night.
“Hey, itty bitty buddy, how about a little horseback ride?”
“Forrest, it’s black dark out here.”
“So?” The one flat syllable came quietly.
Warren didn’t respond. Jean guessed that he didn’t want to refuse him. She sympathized. There was no refusing Forrest once he got an idea in his head. Warren continued playing while Forrest headed for the barn. She heard him clap twice.
After a while he brought the horses up to the house. The music stopped and horse sounds started.
“You take Mort and I’ll ride Mac.”
“Be careful, Warren,” Betty said.
The clomp of hooves on the earth retreated until they heard only crickets, coyotes yapping their haunting, high-pitched chorus, as if there were a hundred of them out in the darkness, and close by, a boy’s voice.
“Mrs. Kenworthy, please may I play Mr. Kenworthy’s guitar?” Forrie sounded so serious.
“If you hold it carefully and sit in that chair, you can.”
Soon Forrie was making vague, dreamy strums on the guitar while Betty and Jean talked.
Even a sheet was too much that hot night. Forrest kicked the covers off the end of the bed. “It was beautiful riding out there, Jeanie.” His voice echoed the sable softness of the night.
“You knew Warren didn’t really want to go, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah, I guess so, but he did all right.” Forrest chuckled, then turned toward her.
Lying there on the cool sheet with the cricket music and Forrest’s presence surrounding her, she knew that the logical consequence of coming to know someone so nakedly was embracing him with all his faults—his continual stretching of others, his refusal to see the obvious, his too-quick judgments and too-demanding expectations. She had to see with love, and what love sees, however imperfect, is whole and beautiful.
Chapter Thirty-five
“Oh, you’re so stupid,” Forrie said. “Don’t you know how dumb you look?”
“We do not. What’s it to you?” Faith returned.
They probably did look pretty silly, Jean thought. She had given Faith some worn-out high-heeled shoes, an old fur coat from Hickory Hill and a lipstick Franny had told her looked too dark and gaudy. Faith pranced around the living room, clomping in the too-big pumps, Billy escorting her in a black Zorro costume.
“Yo
u’re too fat,” Forrie said. “Hundred and plenty, that’s what you are.” He had latched onto that when she weighed in at 120 on their new scale.
“Mind your own business, dodo.”
“Hush up the fussing, you hear?” Forrest snapped. “It’s Sunday afternoon. Let’s have a little peace around here. Go outside.”
“You two look so stupid I can’t stand to look at you,” Forrie said.
“Forrie!” Jean chided, but got no response. She winced when the door slammed after him.
“Come on, Billy. Let’s go,” Faith said. “It isn’t any fun in here anyway.” The door banged again.
“I can’t stand it, hearing them at it all the time. It’s getting worse,” Forrest said.
“Forrie always has to have the last word,” Jean said.
“It’s not just him. It’s all of them.”
Quiet settled deliciously when the children were outside, but after a while, Faith’s stubborn voice rose to a high pitch from beyond the patio wall. “We can be here if we want to. It’s a free country.”
“Fatty.” Forrie’s tease shot back. He came inside again. “Mom, Faith and Billy are bothering me.”
“Well, just leave them alone.”
“I been trying to.” The door slammed again. Jean heard her high heels scraping on the tile floor. “Give me back my Zorro cape.” Forrie’s voice was pouty. “You didn’t ask.”
“He doesn’t have to,” Faith chimed in. “I told you already, it’s a free country. Can’t you even hear?”
“That’s it. I’m fed up with this nonsense,” Forrest muttered, and stormed outside.
She knew Faith’s last comment got to him—impairment too close to his own. “Hold it down,” she warned. “Your father’s getting upset.”
“She thinks she’s the boss,” Forrie retorted. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Two Ton. You’re a big, fat boss.”
“Cut it out, dumbbell.”
“You think you can tell everybody what to do. Acting like a mother. But you’re a messy slob.”
“I’m warning you, Forrie.”
“And I’m warning both of you,” Jean interjected. “Drop it.”
“Your room looks so sloppy, you ought to be ashamed,” Forrie said. “What if President Eisenhower came here and saw that? Then you’d be sorry.”
That’s one for Forrie, Jean thought. He’s right about that.
“Just wait till I tell Mom what it looks like.”
“Shut up.”
“Or I’ll tell Pop. I’ll tell him right now.”
Forrie started for the door. Jean heard the solid thud of fist against flesh. “Stop it,” she said. “Go to your rooms.”
Forrie slugged Faith back and pushed. “Can’t even knock you down, you’re so fat.”
“Stop it right now, before your father comes back.” She wondered where Billy was. Lost in the middle, probably, not quite sure where his loyalties lay. Another smack.
“Cut it out,” Faith wailed.
“Make me.”
“Shut up.” They fell to tussling on the floor.
“Hold it.” Forrest’s voice thundered as he came back into the house. “I’ve had enough from you hamburgers.” For years that word, incongruous though it was, meant that the jig was up. Forrie and Faith were suddenly silent. “Come over here, all three of you, and stand face to face.”
“He started it,” Faith whined.
“I did not. Billy took my Zorro cape and you—”
“Quiet,” Forrest bellowed. Jean jumped at the sound. “I don’t—ever—want to hear another quarreling, self-justifying word from any of you.” It was his tone of voice that told them he was serious, that and the long pause before the expected word “ever,” as if it were hard to get out. Even Jean always waited for the word. It was bound to come. “Now stand still and belly up. Closer.”
He took the rope he’d brought back with him from the barn and wound it around all three meek, silent children four or five times so they were bunched in a tight bundle, their arms strapped to their sides, their legs tied so that they couldn’t walk. “Just like a roped steer,” Forrest muttered. The loop that got Forrie across the chest, got Billy around the back. “Not another word until you’re untied. By me.” Forrest left the room. The shock made them all speechless.
Jean was as surprised as the children. She had to smile, imagining them standing there in a triangle, brothers and sister actually touching each other. She guessed that eye contact was nil even though three sets of eyes must be only inches apart. The only sounds were belabored breathing, air puffing out of dilated nostrils, and the tick of the Ingraham clock. Maybe Forrest was being too harsh, but if it worked, it was worth it. The quiet was heavenly, and she sat down with a Braille book. Her hands moved regularly across the pages.
Hap came into the living room, let out a quick derisive laugh, but cut it off abruptly. The glare from six eyes must have silenced him. As if to accentuate his freedom of movement, his bare feet slapped the tile floor as he went through the dining room to the kitchen. He opened and closed the refrigerator twice, banged several cupboards and finally settled on some noisy potato chips. Jean practically laughed. Hap rarely ate potato chips, but they were Faith’s favorite.
He came back into the living room. “Mom, there’s nothing to do.”
“Well, let’s see. Why don’t you find Eddie and play with your airplanes?” Franny’s boy, Eddie, was Hap’s eternal shadow. Jean listened to their play enough to know that Eddie would throw his little balsawood airplane and go get it himself, but when Hap threw his, he’d tell Eddie to go get it.
“He had to go visit his grandma,” Hap said. “Guess what.”
“I don’t know. What?”
“This morning me and Eddie took this magnifying glass and—”
“Eddie and I.”
“Yeah, and we held it over an ant.” Hap giggled. “He stopped walking.”
“Then what?”
“He started smoking.” Hap’s giggle turned into a laugh.
Jean imagined the poor, unfortunate bug incinerated in his tracks. “That’s not kind, Hap. You shouldn’t do that.”
“Aw, Mom, it’s only a bug.”
“What if you were a bug?”
She knew his actions had been motivated by a wish to know, to discover the secret of those little lives, rather than by cruelty, but it still bothered her. “Are you still tying strings to moths?” He had told her once how he and Eddie tied thread to the bodies of flying insects, but didn’t kill them. Then the insect could only fly around in circles while the boys held the thread.
“Naw.”
“Good.”
“I want to. I just can’t do it no more.”
“Anymore. Why not?”
“Just can’t.”
Jean pulled in her breath. It was coming. Three years earlier she’d been told. Inherited myopia.
Outside, Rusty barked at something which caught Hap’s attention. He ran out the front door.
A half hour later Forrest came back into the living room.
“Now do you think you can be friends without squabbling?”
“Yes,” Faith and Forrie chorused, their voices sounding droopy.
“Billy?”
“Yup.”
“From now on, every morning I want each one of you to greet each other pleasantly, and say good night to each other kindly. Every night. Not grumpy, either, but with common courtesy. You know the hymn says to ‘speak kindly when we meet and part’ and we’re going to do it. And Hap, too.”
“Dumb idea.”
“Faith.” His voice rose threateningly.
“Okay.”
Faith’s phoney bass tone showed that she was beaten, at least temporarily.
The next morning as each one came out to the breakfast nook, she heard a litany of greetings. “Good morning, Mom, good morning, Pop, g’morning, Forrie, morning, Billy, morning, Hap.” Faith’s voice started strong and ran out of breath midway, but at least she
got through them. In the weeks that followed, Jean thought they dropped their ritualistic monotony and began to sound more natural.
Hap wasn’t usually involved in the wrangling of the others. As the youngest, he was left out of their quarrels. He spent a lot of time with Betty Kenworthy. Ever since he was a baby, they had a special affection for one another. In fact, some days it seemed like Betty was a heaven- sent help. With no children of her own, Betty poured out her love in gentle, wise doses to Hap. Sometimes he spent the night or the weekend with Betty and Warren. She taught him poems, made Christmas nativity scenes with him, taught him about trees and birds. She let him pick the geraniums in her yard. At six years old, he was beginning to read, his nose buried in his book, and Betty helped him to learn.
When Betty and Warren brought him back one rainy afternoon, Warren lifted Hap up onto his shoulders in one great swoosh. It was something Forrest never did. Hap squealed his delight. “The world is spinning,” he said.
“He’s probably never been that high before,” Jean said.
As soon as Warren set him down, Hap wanted him to do it again.
Betty took Jean aside into the laundry room. “Hap and I had a picnic in the lemon grove.” Her voice was low and serious. “I asked him to bring me all the lemons on the ground. He brought about half a dozen. I rolled them out like balls and asked him to bring them back to me. When I rolled them about eight or ten feet, he’d trot out and bring them back. But I kept increasing the distance.” Betty paused. “Jean, he can’t see a lemon beyond fifteen feet.”
Jean’s forehead knotted together. “I suspected as much.” Her throat closed. “I thought he’d have more time.” It became hard to talk, but she wanted to, now that it was obvious to others. “Several years ago, I found him watching TV through a toy telescope. It worried me, so we took him to a specialist.” Her voice cracked to a falsetto. “Inherited weakness, he said. Nothing can be done.” She felt her upper lip quiver and she stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do with her hands. Suddenly she felt Betty’s arms around her.