Daybreak

  “Tom doesn’t need his help. And we don’t need any more friends, Mackenzies or Crawfields with their phone calls and presents. Bastards, all of them.”

  “What presents are you talking about?”

  “Tom got a package, a book from him, a big book on astronomy. How the bastard knew Tom was interested in astronomy, I don’t know, unless maybe the kid mentioned it when he was at their house. Anyway, Tom was too upset to talk about it. He went up to his room and left the thing on the library table.”

  The book, still lying in its wrappings, was magnificent, a thousand pages of narrative, drawings, diagrams, and splendid photographs. Beside it was a gift card inscribed simply, From Margaret and Arthur, who hope you will enjoy it.

  From Margaret and Arthur, to their own son. Surrounded by crumpled paper, the book was a sorrowful symbol; it seemed discarded, dead at birth. Objects take on the mood of the viewer.

  “The nerve of them,” said Bud. “What do they think, that they can buy his affection? If my son wants a book, I guess I can provide it for him.”

  And picking it up, he let it drop on the floor upside down, so that the binding split of its weight.

  “Oh!” cried Laura, “you’ve ruined it. You’re no better than a vandal. How can you be like this?”

  “Why not? Tom doesn’t want the thing. Throw it out, or give it away. I’ll buy him another one if he wants me to.”

  She said nothing. Anger boiled within her, but it was less important to vent the anger than to get the supper over with and go to the hospital. They ate in silence.

  Day by day, almost hour by hour, Timmy returned to life. In the middle of the second week, he got out of bed with the intravenous pole attached and walked very, very slowly down the hall. Next, he was detached from the pole, and to keep his legs moving, was allowed to walk all the way to the sunroom at the end of the hall. Finally, he began to get cranky, which was a sure sign of improvement.

  “It’s boring here,” he complained. “I’m sick of it. I haven’t seen any of the guys, and I’m worried about Earl.”

  Dr. O’Toole winked at the parents.

  “I want you here a few days more so we can watch you. The guys will be just as glad to see you next Monday as they would be today.”

  “Well, I’m still worried about Earl.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “My dog.”

  O’Toole winked again. “I’m sure your parents are taking good care of him. After all, they brought you and your brother up pretty well.”

  “Actually, it’s Tom who’s been responsible for Earl,” Laura explained. “He’s had his run every day, Timmy, and everything he needs.”

  When Timmy was sick, she forgot that he was eleven; she saw him as a little, little boy and tended to talk to him accordingly.

  “And when you do go home,” cautioned O’Toole, “you tell the guys and Earl to sit in the yard with you and do nothing but sit for a whole week. After that, you may start with a short walk in the cool of the early morning or the evening. I do not want to see you back here in the hospital ever again, Mr. Timothy Rice. Hear?”

  Laura smiled, going along with the mock severity, the game, the play. For someday, as they all knew well, although they could not know when, he would be back in a hospital just as Peter Crawfield, his brother, had been before him.

  In Timmy’s room on the table by his bed, the medicines stood in a row as they had always stood beside a glass and a pitcher of water. Oxygen was at the ready in the far corner by the windows as it had always been. Nothing had changed. And yet it would take time, a long time, to fall back into the familiar order of the house.

  Laura reflected: We have come back from a far, dangerous journey. A soldier returning from brutality and terror must have these feelings, too. There was a tension among them all, revealed in sudden bursts of laughter when nothing particularly funny had been said, revealed in quick glances that met behind Timmy’s back, revealed by unspoken questions on each other’s faces, Laura’s, Bud’s, and Tom’s.

  Wan and tired now although he had been clamoring to go home, Timmy lay outside on one or another of the large chairs, moving from shade to sun and back again. He read, dozed, listened to his Walkman, and talked to Earl, who, after chasing a squirrel, always returned to his place at Timmy’s feet.

  Toward the end of the week after the air had cooled, he went for his first walk. He would not admit it, but the effort was obviously exhausting, and he needed no persuasion to go directly to bed. The others, hearing his intermittent cough, were restless.

  Tom worried. “Are you sure I should go out tonight? You might need me.”

  “No, go,” urged Laura. “We’ll get you at Eddie’s house if we should need you, but we won’t need you. Go.”

  “The kid’s a prince,” Bud said when the front door closed behind Tom. “Do you realize how faithful he’s been from the first minute in the emergency room right up till now?”

  “I realize.”

  She wanted to ask but did not: And do you realize that he is being torn in two?

  “Character,” said Bud. “Quality. It’s in the blood. Well, he’s got good blood on both sides, yours and mine. Staunch people.”

  A long sigh struggled up from the region of Laura’s heart and was stifled, unheard.

  Bud went on cheerfully, “Eddie must have a couple of girls over. For all we know, our Tom’s got a girl right here in the neighborhood. I hope he has. This is his time. Nineteen! I’m not too old to remember what it felt like. That one in the photo on his desk isn’t bad-looking at all.” He chuckled. “Have you noticed?”

  “I noticed.”

  One of the girls who wrote the venomous trash in that paper. The photograph had stood in its place all year, so it must be serious. She, too, was not too old to remember what it felt like to be nineteen … This time the sigh escaped.

  “You’re tired,” Bud said kindly, “and I am too. It’ll take a while to recover from what we’ve been through. Let’s go on up.”

  Timmy called good night when he heard them in the upstairs hall.

  “Good night, Mom. Good night, Dad.”

  The voice had the nasal tone that often went with his particular illness. Its every nuance and catch was too familiar, as were every modulation and variation of his wheezing cough. How many nights had they not lain between sleep and wakefulness, estimating the strength and duration of the cough, asking themselves and each other whether this was the “normal” chronic cough or something dangerously acute!

  With every muscle tense they lay stretched out beside each other, listening, listening, until the last cough died and the house was still.

  “He’s okay,” Bud said. “He’s fallen asleep. Poor guy. God knows what his next few years will bring. Years when he ought to be playing ball and chasing girls. Poor little guy.”

  This litany was also familiar. Bud saw no future for Timmy. There was no space in his vast, tragic disappointment for the slightest word of hope that Laura might speak. Having learned that, she rarely uttered one. Now, as he put his arm around her, she said nothing, but merely waited for what she knew was to come next.

  Sex could be comfort. Some, when beset with troubles, lose all desire, while others find reassurance and escape through its delights. It depends, she supposed, on personality, or mood, or one’s particular hormones. And on the partner.

  Now Bud desired her. No innovative lover, his routine was unchanging; simply it was the vigorous demand of a healthy male. He was satisfied with himself, and because he was loving and because she was a healthy female, she, too, had long been satisfied. Besides, she had really never thought very much about it.…

  His hands moved through her hair, spreading it over the pillow. As his mouth came upon hers, his body sank its full weight on her, and he settled into the merging that was to give all pleasure. His repetitious murmurings were meant to excite and to arouse erotic fantasies, which generally they managed to do. But tonight, her response was mechanical. It was f
lat. Disordered, fleeting thoughts absorbed her; what he was doing to her body seemed of a sudden to have no connection with her self. It had no significance, no reality.

  Something was happening to her. A profound change was taking place.

  When he had reached the climax, he turned over and, as was his way, fell almost instantly asleep. For a while she lay staring up at the ceiling. This summer night was a white one, so that the room was only half dark and she could even discern the line where the wall met the ceiling with a thick band of plaster foliage. Bud’s shoulder heaved in a strong arc, like a whale’s back. He breathed lightly, never offending with a snore. From his warm, clean skin there came the astringent fragrance of good soap.

  It was a pity that all of a sudden she had no feeling for him. None at all. Even her anger was dead.

  It was past midnight, long after Tom’s footsteps whispered on the stair carpet, when she got out of bed and went downstairs. The house, the beloved house, oppressed her, and she went outside. The sky was still white so that the black treetops formed a pattern on it. In the center of the lawn, on the dew-wet grass, she sat down with her arms around her knees. No thoughts came. There was only blankness and deep loneliness. A small wind, swishing sadly through the trees, deepened the loneliness. She was lost on a mountaintop, abandoned in the desert, on the ocean, in a forest—And yet, behind the holly hedge, now grown twenty feet high, there rose the chimney of the old Alcott house.

  She covered her face and cried. Great sobs came out of her chest and whimpered in her throat. Her tears fell, warm and slippery, on her fingers; she let them fall unchecked and unwiped.

  Two weeks ago, there had been reason aplenty for tears, while pacing and sitting and pacing through the antiseptic-smelling corridors. But she had controlled her tears then. So why not now?

  After a while, though, they ceased, and she was relieved. She was also ashamed.

  “There is no excuse to be like this,” she said firmly. “Get up now, Laura. Go about your business. God knows, you have business enough to take care of.”

  In the morning she had errands downtown, at the bank, the dentist’s, and a shop to exchange Tom’s sweater. These brought her at last into the vicinity of the Hotel Phoenix, around the corner from which were the headquarters of the Mackenzie senatorial campaign. Having promised both Ralph and herself that she would volunteer again as soon as Timmy came home, she decided that there was no better time to start than right now. And she walked briskly around the corner with a feeling of good purpose. The woman who had sat weeping on the grass the night before would not have recognized her.

  Mackenzie’s party had leased a store; through the wide windows a whirl of activity could be seen. For a moment she paused to look in, not knowing why she paused. Then it occurred to her that if Ralph was there, he might think she had come to see him. But that was absurd. Had they not agreed that she would help his campaign? She was a concerned citizen, only one of dozens of women in this city who aided their favorite candidates. He was a fine man, an attractive man who had made extraordinary efforts on behalf of his friends the Crawfields, and in doing so had incidentally been very kind to Tom. That was all he was.

  All, except that he admired and was attracted to Tom’s mother. But what of it? Thank goodness she was attractive enough to be admired! What of it?

  You’re acting like a high school girl, she scolded, becoming aware that she had been standing in the doorway for several minutes. But suppose somebody was to see her hesitating there, as if she were disoriented, suppose Ralph was to drive up and see her; suppose he was actually inside right now, wondering what was the matter with her?

  She fled. Clutching Tom’s sweater, she almost ran and almost tripped in her high heels. She frightened herself. Her mind was doing tricks. If you play with fire, you get burned, warned Aunt Cecile. And it was true. You had only to read the newspapers or watch television to learn the ways in which people burned themselves. Stay out of this campaign. Stay away from Ralph Mackenzie …

  Across from the parking lot was a row of stores, among them a music store, from which now sounded the raucous voices, the tom-tom beat of teenagers’ music, reminding her that she had offered to buy some CDs for Timmy. And she went inside, made her selection, started out the door, and went back to ask about recordings of classical guitar.

  “Segovia? Bream? We’ve got a few of each, and we’ll order if you want anything that we haven’t got. Are you looking for something in particular?”

  “No, I’m not at all familiar with the guitar.”

  “But you most surely have one of the country’s largest collections of piano soloists.” The man smiled. “Not giving up the piano for the guitar, are you?”

  Laura smiled back, thinking, It’s funny how we feel compelled to fill every moment with these friendly, joking, meaningless remarks; we all do it.

  “Hardly. I was just talking to somebody the other day and got the idea that I’d like to hear some guitar music.”

  And that was true. Why, only a while ago, she had heard a flute recording on the car radio and gone right out to buy a James Galway selection. This time it was the guitar, that’s all.

  At home that afternoon she took out a disk: Segovia playing “Granada” and “Sevilla.” The room was cool and shadowed by the sycamore, now that the sun had gone around the side of the house. Through this coolness the music flashed; it danced and sang; one could imagine water rippling through a Moorish garden, a red-flounced, whirling skirt, castanets, a pleading serenade.

  “Like fire in the blood,” he had said.

  So it was. Laura lay back on the chair and shut her eyes.

  The back door closed with a bang, and Bud came in wiping his forehead.

  “Whew! It’s a sizzler out there. What the deuce is this racket? I could hear it out on the back steps.”

  “I like it,” she said, and got up to press the “stop” button.

  “You didn’t have to do that. Did I say shut it off? If you like it, have it. I don’t have to like it. Gee, you live here, too.”

  Immediately, she felt ashamed. “Never mind,” she said. “Not important. Where’s Tom?”

  “Coming in. The place was busy today, a madhouse. You wouldn’t think so in this weather. Tom worked like a horse. I told him I wish I could get a few more men like him. How’s Timmy been?”

  “Quiet. He read, and then a couple of the boys came over to play board games. No coughing, or very little. I’ll have dinner before you’re through washing up.”

  When the telephone rang, Laura took it in the kitchen. A voice, now familiar, spoke her name.

  “Laura? I hope Timmy is feeling better?”

  “Thank you, he is. Margaret?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m a little nervous, I guess. Yes, it’s Margaret. Margaret Crawfield.”

  It seemed to Laura that her heart actually did sink a few inches. This voice, like a living presence in her kitchen, came to remind, to warn that it was now attached to this home and family, forever attached, and never to go away. God, if those people would only go away!

  Yet the voice was tremulous and appealing. “Is this a bad time for you? Am I interrupting anything?”

  “No, no, it’s all right. And so good of you to ask again about Timmy.”

  “Well, we know it must have been very bad. Ralph didn’t need to describe what was happening. We knew it all.”

  “Yes,” Laura said weakly. My other son. Peter Crawfield, my other son.

  “Ralph said he had called a few times and spoken to Tom. Do you think—well, to tell you the truth, I hoped it might be Tom who’d answer the phone just now. Do you think—will you ask him to talk to me? Is he at home?”

  Laura knew without asking that he would not talk to her. It would be easier to say that he was not at home, but she also knew that she could not do that.

  “I’ll call him,” she answered.

  The other must have detected some hesitancy, because she hurried in explanation. “We sent him
a book on astronomy. Arthur thought maybe that might be a talking point. I don’t know—”

  And Laura, thinking, she is close to tears, as am I, said quickly, “Hold on. I’ll try to find him.”

  Tom and Bud were in the library standing near the telephone.

  “Don’t bother to ask,” Bud said. “I know who it is. I picked up the phone the same time you did.”

  Defiance was written on Tom’s lips, sucked into a thin line, and on his pose, arms folded across his chest, feet apart.

  If only that woman would give up, Laura thought once again.

  Yet she pleaded, “Please. It’s only a few words, Tom. You can’t keep evading this. Something’s got to give.”

  “Let that woman give,” Bud said. “Damn pushy persistence. It’s typical. Jews never give up.”

  “Put yourself in her place, Bud,” Laura said quietly. “Have some mercy.”

  “Mercy! For a pair of impostors who’ve shoved themselves into our lives with a pack of slick lies so they can take Tom away from us? If murder weren’t illegal, I know damn well what I’d do. I’d get my shotgun and—and—” Having reached the top of a crescendo, he paused.

  Appalled, Laura warned, “You’re shouting! She can hear you. Shut the door, Timmy.”

  The boy, hearing the commotion, had come running downstairs and now demanded to know what the trouble was.

  Tom told him. “It’s those people. She wants me to talk to her, and I don’t want to. Mom wants me to, but I won’t. I’m sorry, Mom, but I can’t. You don’t understand. I can’t.”

  Laura put her hand on his shoulder and looked up—how tall he was!—into his angry, sad, fearful face. “Tom dear, I do understand, much more than you think. We’re all in this together, so we have to understand each other.”

  “We’re not all in this together,” Bud shouted again. “I’m not. Listen, Laura. If you want to let yourself be dragged into it and be hoodwinked by these crooks, that’s your problem. But count me out, and count Tom out, too.”

  She turned now to her husband. Stubborn, stupid … But Bud was hardly a stupid man. Bud was merely blinded. Hatred had blinded him. If the Crawfields were Methodists, would he be acting this way? No. He would certainly resist, and he would be heartbroken, as she herself was, but he would not be in just this kind of intractable rage. She knew that surely.