The Lost Children: Part 3 of 3. Mary MacCracken

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Doris is quiet for a while; I can almost hear her listening to me, though neither of us is speaking. If Helga and I have a body language, Doris has an inner ear and she somehow knows things long before they are put into words.

      Now she says, “I was a funny kid. Always bringing home sick cats or birds with broken wings; had a regular clinic in the backyard of our house when I was young. I must have nearly driven my mother crazy, but she never said a word until the summer I brought home Leland Hagstrom. He was handsome as anything, but weak – drank like a fish, couldn’t seem to leave the bottle alone. After supper one night that summer my mother took me out on the back porch and asked me how serious I was about Leland. I was pretty serious; he needed me, or said he did – and I liked that.

      “I’d never lied to her and it didn’t occur to me to do it then, so I told her the truth, that we were thinking of getting married. You know what she said? ‘You’re a fool if you do, Doris. I’m not one to interfere, but remember’ – and I’ve never forgotten this – ‘remember,’ she said, ‘never do your social work at home.’”

      Doris sighs and gets off the table. “Well, I didn’t marry Leland. I waited, and after a while I met Harry and we had a love affair that lasted thirty years … I don’t know what made me think of it now; I must be getting old, rambling on like this. Well now, you get to work, don’t let me keep you. Where are you off to for vacation?”

      “Oh,” I say, “California, I think.”

      “It’s a beautiful state; you’ll like it. Have a good summer now; I probably won’t see you until fall.” Another cheery wave and Doris disappeared out the door.

      I finished gathering my books and papers, thinking all the while about Doris. Had she just been rambling on or in her own way had she been giving me advice? In any event, before I went home I drove five miles beyond the school and put a deposit on one of the new apartments that would be completed in the fall.

Chapter 15

      I am back from California and settled in my new apartment a week before school opens. The apartment is small and there is not much furniture, but it is carpeted in gold and open on both sides so that the morning sun pours through the bedroom and living room and the afternoon light fills the small kitchen and dining room.

      Larry’s and my separation is complete, the final papers signed; only the formality of the divorce remains, and this has been postponed until January for tax purposes.

      Elizabeth and Rick are back in school, tanned and healthy from the summer, and my own impatience to begin work, to see the children, wells inside me.

      Bedlam. The first day in our new room is bedlam and Dan and I barely have a chance to speak to each other. Eight children in the room. Supposedly four are mine and four Dan’s, but we can never remember exactly who is whose.

      Brian is back, taller, still flapping.

      “Hey, Bri, did you have a good summer?”

      “Mary. Mary. Is your father dead?”

      What is this now? “No. My father isn’t dead. Why?”

      “Where does he live?”

      “In Guilford, Connecticut.”

      “Yule O’Toole lives in Guilford.”

      “Who is Yule O’Toole?”

      “Yule O’Toole is dead. I thought maybe you were dead, too – the summer was so long.”

      “Not me, Bri. I’m going to be around for a long time. I’ve got a lot to catch up on.” Later I found out that Brian’s grandfather had died during the summer.

      Stuart comes sliding in the door.

      “You look perfectly darling this fall, Mary.”

      “Thank you, Stuart. I’m glad to see you.”

      “Shit,” he says and kisses my hand, licking it with his tongue. Jeffy Olivero and his widowed mother have disappeared without a trace over the summer, and I wonder if he still sleeps beside her, pressing her earlobe between his thumb and forefinger, wherever they may be.

      Tom and Ivan, Dan’s boys from the year before are back; the new room is strange to them and Ivan whirls and jumps in one corner, his beautiful face a silent mask, while Tom pulls up his turtleneck and paces back and forth along the wall.

      “Good morning, Tom,” I say.

      “Good morning, Tom. Goddamn fucking son of a bitch. Lost on the mountain. Call the one o’clock call.”

      And I know that he remembers me, although I am not so sure that he is glad to see me in this new room. Changes are difficult for all children; for ours, they are doubly so. Their own self-image is so fragile that any alteration in the immediate external environment is a major threat.

      If it is hard for the returning children, it is even harder for the four new ones, two boys and two girls.

      Tony, seven years old, black eyes bright, perches on a table beside me. “Kee-rist. What a bunch of weirdoes.” Tony’s mother ran away when she discovered she was pregnant again, and he lives now in a single motel room with his father and his father’s mistress. Before the morning is out I am extracting a five-dollar bill that he is transferring from my purse to the inside of his shoe. When I take it back, Tony yells in rage. “See. I knew it. I knew it. You goddamn whore. No matter what you look like, you’re mean. Mean. Like all the rest of them.”

      Alice is the first girl for either of us. She is twelve, with tight blond braids and angry, slanted eyes. She spends the first hour drawing at the blackboard as the others arrive, drawing huge ice cream cones, labeling in careful letters each mound of ice cream … vanilla breast … chocolate breast … butter pecan breast. Twenty-seven flavors?

      Dan asks her what she’s doing and she says, “Shut up. I want my own way in the world. Why can’t I have my own way in the world?”

      “You better take her,” says Dan. “She seems to need a maternal influence.” “Thanks a lot,” I say.

      Jenny Woodriff is our second and only other girl. She isn’t new; she had been in Renée’s class, but neither Dan nor I had known her well. She is eight but seems much smaller because she walks doubled over, hands almost touching the ground. Her auburn curly hair is pulled down over her eyes, hiding most of her face. She doesn’t speak; she only barks. Jenny thinks she is a dog.

      “She’s for me,” says Dan.

      “Aw, come on. You’re making all the decisions.”

      “Okay, okay. You get to pick the next one.”

      Rufus stands in the doorway dressed like a middle-aged businessman, blue suit, necktie, glasses, large briefcase held in front of his fat stomach.

      “I am Rufus Jay Greenberg,” he announces. “I live at Six-eight-nine Harrison Avenue. You may call me Rufus, or Rufus Jay – or if you are very angry, Rufus Jay Greenberg.”

      “Come СКАЧАТЬ