Lost
Page 36
Leona looked at her. Oh, Mamie, she thought. I’m losing Mamie, and she started to sob. I’m losing her. And Mamie’s sob answered her own. The sound of their pain rebounded in the other two children, who had begun, once again, to cry. Losing her. I must do something.
Leona wanted to stop the car and comfort her, but she knew the fire would be visible for miles. They’ll be coming, she thought, and yielded to her first concern—to get them to a place of safety.
They drove through the night up the high hill street of Brandenburg Station, past houses she remembered from that other, happy time. She took remote river roads. It was midnight before she noticed the blinking motel sign on the horizon and pulled the car in across gravel.
Leona signed someone else’s name and carried the children into the room like all the other rooms, so many lives ago. In her pocket, she felt the paper envelope of sedatives and Walter’s medicine and she drew water in a glass. She looked at Mamie, who was standing by herself, alone, alone in the world. And Mamie looked at her. The set of the little girl’s shoulders, the terrified loneliness in her eyes were heartbreaking. They had lived through a burning hell and now stood on the far side of it, smoke-drenched, weak with exhaustion. Mamie was sobbing, gulping dry, shallow breaths.
Patsy and Walter had stopped crying, but they were still upset, still terrified. Leona broke one of the sedatives in two, giving them each a half, and then she gave Walter his medicine. Without losing sight of Mamie, she told them just to sleep in their underwear for the night and she helped them undo their clothes.
Then she put them to bed with a warm hug and a kiss, telling them not to worry. “Good night,” she said softly, going from one to the other. “Sleep tight.” Drawing the covers up around them, she straightened and turned. Mamie was gone; the door stood ajar.
With the last of her strength, Leona ran outside and saw Mamie stumbling slowly away through the night. She was weeping uncontrollably, her small shoulders heaving. It tore at Leona. Not knowing what to do or say, she followed after her, pulled along by Mamie’s grief. The pain, the desolation were unbearable and she began to weep with Mamie and for her, for her suffering and for the terrible boy Mamie had loved so dearly.
“I’m sorry,” Leona said. “Oh, Mamie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” unable to stanch her tears.
Still grieving, Mamie turned, and from the depths of her despair, she gave voice to what would haunt her forever. “He wasn’t”—she choked and her voice rose, fluttering out on a wail—“he wasn’t my Sherman any more.”
Kneeling in the snow, Leona took her in her arms and held her. “I know,” she said. “Mamie, I know, I know …”
When at last they had stopped crying, Leona carried Mamie inside. With a wet washcloth, she bathed the child’s face as she had long ago through sleepless nights at the hospital. Then she took her in her arms again and, holding her close, turned off the light and carried Mamie to her bed.
Lying in the dark, she smoothed the hair from Mamie’s cheek. Outside on the empty road the wind scurried away, and little by little the motel room sank to deep silence. Time drifted from them in a slow, quiet stream. Mamie turned her head. “Sherman,” she murmured, “Sherman, Sherman.” In her longing, she saw him standing with the Chinaman at the foot of the bed, waiting to take her away. Then they were gone in the night.
So who’s here? Mamie thought. She could see Leona’s shadowy outline on the bed right next to her. Slowly she reached out and touched Leona’s face and felt Leona’s hand on hers. The dark stood still between them. “Yes, Mamie,” Leona said, “I’m here,” and she held her hand through the night, through their sleep.
Watched by the day flooding in. Day, with its trackless blue splendor.
About the Author
Gary Devon (1941–2007) grew up on the banks of the Ohio River in Indiana, a part of the country to which he later returned with his wife and sons. After graduating from the University of Evansville, he won a writing contest sponsored by the New Yorker and was awarded a fellowship to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he studied with Kurt Vonnegut and José Donoso. His first novel, Lost, was nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award. He wrote two other novels, Bad Desire and Wedding Night.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1986 by Gary Devon
Cover design by Amanda Shaffer
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3754-9
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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