by Donna Mabry
For an old man, George moved faster than he had in years with me hurrying right after him. Halfway down the block, Gene caught up with Paul and Ellis. He grabbed Paul’s shoulder, spun him around, and landed a punch on his jaw. Paul staggered back against a telephone pole.
Ellis tried to pull Gene away and Gene hit Ellis hard, knocking him backward onto a patch of grass. He had the good sense not to get up.
Gene turned back to his brother, hitting him again and again, holding him up with his left hand as he punched him with his right.
George reached them and caught Gene’s arm. It took all of his strength to hold it back. He hollered into Gene’s ear, “Gene, stop it! It won’t do anyone any good if you kill him.”
Gene quieted down, but George still held onto him.
“Ellis, you better get Paul out of here.” George said. “And don’t let him come home for a few days.”
Ellis stood, keeping his eyes on Gene, and pulled a bleeding Paul away from the telephone pole. He had to wrap one arm around Paul to keep him from falling down. As they walked away toward his apartment, Ellis glanced back over his shoulder several times to make sure Gene wasn’t coming after them.
Gene and George stood for a minute, with Gene glaring after Paul and Ellis. His breathing finally slowed, and his face returned to its natural color. George pulled him toward the house. “We better go see how bad Donna got hit. She may need to see a doctor.”
The statement shocked Gene. He ran back to the house, leaving his father to follow with us right behind him. He charged into the living room.
I gave Donna a cold towel to hold against her face and tried to clean up the room.
Gene wrapped his arms around her. “Let’s take a look and see how bad that is.”
Donna lowered the towel and blood started running out of a cut on the bridge of her nose. Gene took her hand and pressed the towel back up to her face. “Call a cab, Mom, I’m going to take her to the hospital.”
I made the call, and while we waited, I helped Donna get out of her bloody clothes and into clean ones. Then I pulled a fresh dress on myself. The taxi was there in about twenty minutes. Before we left, I told George to stay at the house. “If Paul shows up here tell him to get out. I mean it. I don’t want him here. There’s no telling what Gene will do if he sees him.”
We went to the emergency room and signed in. The receptionist told us to take a seat and wait until we were called.
We sat there, Gene and I, with Donna, still pressing the towel against her face We sat there for over three hours. There was no one else waiting.
Gene got up several times and went to the desk, asking how much longer it would be before Donna could see a doctor. The receptionist told him that the first doctor who became available would see her.
By midnight, Donna was getting bored. We went to the ladies’ room and stood in front of the mirror. She took the towel away and looked at herself. The bleeding had stopped, and the cut seemed to have closed itself. Both of her eyes were black and purple. Her left eye was almost swollen shut.
She stood there for a few minutes, but the bleeding didn’t start again. We went back out to the reception area and she told Gene, “I’m tired of this place. Let’s just go home.”
Gene asked again at the desk if the doctor was coming. The receptionist smirked. “I have no way of knowing when he can get here. You’ll just have to wait.”
“Never mind,” Gene said.
We walked outside and hailed a cab. Totally exhausted, the three of us returned home.
Chapter 68
The morning after Paul threw the wastepaper basket and hit her in the face Donna gathered up her things and took them to her grandmother Mayse’s house. After that, she visited us often, but it was years before she spent another night in our home, and she never brought her baby sister with her again.
Afraid to come home, Paul spent several nights sleeping on the sofa at Betty Sue’s house. She finally told me, “I’ve got to get Paul out of my home. We don’t have enough room for him, and I don’t want him. When Ellis comes home from work all they do is sit around like two children, watching television and seeing who can fart the loudest. They think it’s funny.”
George chimed in, “Let him come home, Maude. He’s not her responsibility.”
I bristled. “Why is he mine? I’m not the one who let him stay home from school or let him quit every job he ever got. He’s a grown man. It’s time for him to get a life and his own place to live.”
George rubbed his chin. “Maybe he could join the Army. They might make something out of him.”
I reflected that they hadn’t been able to do much with Bud, but if the Army would take him, at least he’d be out of my house. “All right, you go down to Betty Sue’s and talk to him about it. If he joins the Army, he can stay here until it’s time to leave.”
So Paul came home. When it was time for Gene to come in from work Paul went to his room and stayed out of sight.
The next Monday, he and George went down to the recruiting station. I felt as if a burden were being lifted from me. They came home with bad news. He was 4-F.
Ellis told George the Coast Guard might have easier requirements, and George took Paul to see about it. He didn’t make the grade there, either. Then he tried the National Guard. Another rejection.
I felt trapped. It looked as if I was going to be taking care of Paul for the rest of my life.
I was doing laundry three times a week now, trying to keep up with the family and the bedding of my boarders. I was in my seventies, and even with Betty Sue’s help, it was getting more and more tiring for me.
I was hanging out the sheets one afternoon, and Stella came over to chat. She picked up a sheet from the basket and began pinning it to the line that ran next to the one I was using.
“Did Paul have any luck getting into the service?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No, none of them want him. He can’t pass the tests.”
“He tried all of them?”
“He tried the Army and the National Guard. We knew he wouldn’t get into the Navy or the Air Force, so there wasn’t any use in him even going down there.”
“I wonder if he could get a job in the Merchant Marine.”
I paused, one arm still holding up the end of the sheet I’d begun to pin on the line. “I never thought of that. Do you think they would be easier on him?”
“I’ve heard that they’re always looking for help. They work with the Navy, but they’re a separate organization. They carry the supplies and cargo so the Navy can do its job. My nephew joined up a few years ago, and he’s not the sharpest tack on the board.”
“I don’t even know where to send him to apply.”
“I’ll ask my sister.”
I talked to Paul and George about it, and Paul agreed to give it a try. I felt encouraged that this would be his chance to finally grow up. Away from home, and away from his father, I hoped he would find some direction for his life.
The next morning, Stella came over and handed me a piece of paper with an address on it, “Have him go here. They can tell him right off if he has the job.”
George went with Paul. They took a bus to the downtown Detroit address. They were gone all afternoon, and I prayed they would come home with good news.
Betty Sue and I cooked and took turns going from the kitchen to the front door to look for them. It was almost five o’clock before they got back. When I saw them coming up the street I went out to the front porch to meet them. The look on George’s face told me I wasn’t going to hear anything I liked.
“What did they say?”
Paul stood on the step behind his father. George tilted his head and held his hands out. “Well, it didn’t seem like the right job for him.”
“So, they said no?”
George shuffled his feet. “Not exactly.”
I felt my face turn red, and my heart began racing. I know my blood pressure must have shot up. “What does that mean? Not exactly?”
I looked past George’s shoulder to Paul. “So you turned them down?”
Paul jutted out his chin. “Dad said I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to.”
I was so angry I thought I would faint. When I was younger, I would have accepted it without saying anything and carried on, doing the best I could. I was older now and had enough disappointment in my life.
I turned back to George with a look that made him wince. “So, you’re telling me they offered him the job, and you told him he didn’t have to take it? What’s going to happen to him when I die? Who’s going to take care of him?”
“He’ll be fine. Gene wouldn’t let him go hungry.”
The remark angered me even more. “You’re keeping him at home like one of those dogs you had back in Missouri. Why would you saddle Gene with him? Gene deserves a life of his own. He doesn’t need to be worrying about taking care of a grown man who’s too lazy to hold down a job.”
George stepped in front of Paul. “Don’t talk about him like that right in front of his face. He can’t help it if he can’t find the right job. It’s not his fault.”
I glared at him. “No, it isn’t his fault, George, it’s your fault.”
“My fault?”
“You wouldn’t let me make him go to school. He could have had a half-way decent education. From the time he was in first grade, you coddled him and let him stay home. Now he’s a grown man, and he can hardly read and write. He quit every job he ever got because he’s following your example.”
“What example?”
“You sit out on the porch or down in the basement all day, playing checkers or gossiping with the neighbors over the fence. He doesn’t see you doing any work, and he doesn’t see why he should do any either.”
George hung his head. He didn’t have an answer to my charges. The two men walked past me and into the house. I felt light-headed and had to sit down on the porch swing for a bit. Deep inside, I’d finally given up on Paul. I accepted that he would never amount to anything.
I would have liked to rest for a while longer, but it was time to put dinner on the table. Thirteen boarders would be coming home soon, and all of them would be hungry. When my heart stopped pounding, I got up and went back to my work.
After the meal was served, the dishes washed, and the kitchen clean, I went to my room and closed the door. I had a terrible headache, so I put on my nightgown and lay on the bed. Prayers didn’t come to me that night. I was too eaten up by my failures. I counted them back to myself in the dark.
I thought about my marriage to George. I’d been so happy with James and craved the same connection, but after all these years and four children, there was no more of a bond between me and George now than the day we met. I’d taken a vow to love him, but I didn’t. I never had. So I failed as a wife.
Secondly, I hoped for years to achieve the state of grace so many of my fellow church members seemed to have reached, where I didn’t sin any more. I asked God to forgive me for the harmful feelings I had for Evelyn, for Ellis, for Paul, and for George. I wanted to change for the better, but I resented each one of them more every day. I asked God to make me a kinder person.
I believed that God had forgiven me, but I couldn’t forgive myself, and now I didn’t even go to church anymore. So I failed as a Christian.
I failed as a mother to Bud, and now Paul. He was hopeless, and as much as I wanted to blame George, I had to share the responsibility.
If I’d fought harder to get Paul an education, George might have given in. I should have put my foot down, but I hadn’t known how.
At least I had Gene and Betty Sue, both of them loving, caring people, doing the best they could to make their way in the world. They were my justification. They were my testament.
Except for her temper outbursts, Betty Sue was a wonderful woman, cheerful and happy, and a wonderful mother. Her children were happy and well cared for, her home was always clean, and she did her best to support her husband, sinful as he was. She genuinely loved him. Too much, I sometimes thought.
Gene was a good man. He worked hard, loved his daughter with all his heart, treated everyone with respect, and had always been a man I could be proud of. I hoped that someday he would give up his dream of winning Evelyn back and find another partner to share his life.
Then, there was Donna. She was a strange, independent child, coming and going as she wanted, living where she chose, but I loved her and was proud of her, too.
So I counted my failures and counted my blessings. It wasn’t a regular prayer, but I finally was able to sleep so I could face the next day.
Chapter 69
George spent more and more time in the back yard, talking to Stella over the fence. I didn’t pay that much attention to it. In his late seventies, he didn’t ask me for relations anymore, and that was a relief to me.
One Tuesday in 1958 I came out of the basement door carrying a basket of laundry. When I opened the door, George was in Stella’s yard, his hands cupped around her face, kissing her on the cheek. Stella was leaning into him, with an easy familiarity. I froze. They didn’t see me watching them.
When I saw George do that, a loneliness I can’t describe came over me.
One morning, two weeks later, there was a knock at the front door. Through the screen, I saw a man in a suit. “May I speak to George Foley?” he asked.
I opened the door and waved him in. “Just a minute, I’ll get him,” I said. I walked through the kitchen and called down the steps, “George, there’s a man here to see you.”
He came upstairs with a puzzled look. No one had come to the house to see him since he retired.
The man asked him, “Are you George William Foley?”
“Yes, I am,” answered George.
“These are for you,” the man said, handing George an envelope. Then he nodded to me and said, “Thank you, Ma’am,” and left.
George stood there holding the envelope, still wearing the puzzled expression. He tore it open and unfolded the papers inside. After he read them, he shuffled them and read them again. I went to the kitchen and began stirring a big pot of boiling potatoes and humming a tune.
He walked up behind me. “You can’t do this, Maude.”
“Yes, I can. I’ve already done it. My mind is made up.”
“We’ve been married over forty years. What’s gotten into you?”
I turned around. “I’ll tell you what’s gotten into me. I saw you in the yard with Stella. In ten seconds you showed her more affection than you’ve shown me since the day we were married. There were times my heart ached, wishing you would just hold my hand or put your arm around me, but you never did, never.”
His mouth fell open. “How was I supposed to know you wanted me to do that?”
“Why should I have to ask for it? I never turned you down in bed. I had your children. I cooked your meals and cleaned your house. I was a good wife to you.”
His face turned red. “Did it ever occur to you that I might need the same thing?”
I was stunned. Tears sprang from my eyes. “No, George, it didn’t. You always seemed so far away from me that it didn’t look like you needed me at all.”
“I’m sorry, Maude. Let’s just forget this. I won’t even speak to Stella again if you don’t want me to. I never went to bed with her. It was never anything like that.”
“It’s not whether you did or didn’t go to bed with her. If you slept with her, it would have been easier for me to take. It’s that you gave her something you never gave to me. It was the last straw, George.”
“The last straw? What do you mean by that?”
“It’s one last thing piled up on top of all the other things.”
“What other things?”
“Way back, it’s the way you let your mother treat me. Do you remember that she tried to kill me once? You just let it go. I had to l
ive in your house in fear of my life.”
“I wouldn’t have let her hurt you.”
“You were in town all day pretending to be a sheriff. How could you have stopped her?”
“I didn’t think she would really do anything bad to you.”
“You refused to even talk to her about it. You were so afraid of her, you would have let her kill me and worried about it later.”
I took a deep breath and went on. “It’s not only that. It’s the way you ruined Bud and Paul, letting them drink and run around like they did. It’s you being too lazy to do any more work than you had to do to get by, letting me do man’s work on the house in Kennett, losing your job there.”
“That was because of the Depression.”
“What about now? You quit work as soon as you could get your Social Security and you spend all your money on beer and cigarettes. I work fourteen hours a day in this house, sometimes more, cooking and cleaning, but you probably don’t even know that. You just come upstairs to eat and watch television. When will I get to retire, when I die?”
He hung his head. “What do you want me to do, Maude?”
“I want you to pack up your things and Paul’s. Move out of here and take him with you. I’m not taking care of you two anymore. You can both go live with Stella. We’ll see how much she likes you then.”
“That’s ridiculous. I barely know her.”
“It looked to me like you know her well enough.”
“We’ll see what Gene has to say about this when he gets home.”
“I’m not going to change my mind, George. It’s made up. I’m through with you.”
At three-thirty, George came upstairs from the basement again, the papers in his hand, and waited on the front porch for Gene to come home from work. I saw him sitting there but said nothing.
When he saw Gene coming down the sidewalk George got up and went to meet him. The two of them stopped while Gene read the papers.
George waited on the porch while Gene came charging into the kitchen, waving the papers in his hand. “Mom, what in the world has gotten into you? You can’t do this.”