The Lost Mother

by Mary McGarry Morris

  They stood in the musty-smelling dining room. “I thought you might like these.” Gladys handed Margaret a wrinkled cloth bag. In it were her paper dolls and a red haircomb with missing teeth that Gladys had found once at the movies. “Sat on it the whole time.” She laughed. Even though Margaret tried, her gratitude sounded thin. By now she was used to finer gifts. For Thomas Gladys had brought a tattered book of snakes. Its cover was torn. He thanked her and quickly turned pages, looking closely to make up for his sister’s spoiled ways.

  “It’s good to know the names. And the ones that’re poisonous,” Gladys said, adding a little self-consciously that the book had been hers as a girl.

  “You liked snakes?” Thomas asked, surprised. His mother was terrified of them.

  “Not liked them, so much as liked to know about them,” she said.

  Just then Mrs. Farley bustled into the room. Time for school; Jesse-boy’s energy, the little he had, would be running low soon. She steered Margaret toward the door.

  “Wait.” Margaret turned back to Gladys. “Is my father back yet?”

  “Back?” Gladys said.

  “From that slaughter job, the one way up north,” Margaret said.

  “No,” Gladys said with a look at Mrs. Farley. “Not yet. Soon’s he is, though, he’ll be here. And that’s for sure.”

  “But when? It’s been so long!” Margaret said.

  “Look at this girl.” Mrs. Farley pulled Margaret close. “She’s just blossomed, hasn’t she? And Jesse-boy too, he’s so happy having her here. Just like brother and sister, they’re so close. And of course, Thomas, he’s very … very nice.”

  “And honest too. Like his father. He’d never take what wasn’t his,” Gladys said. “And you know that, don’t you, Phyllis? You and Fred both.”

  “Gladys! I’m surprised at you. Really! In front of the children. Come now, time to get back,” Mrs. Farley said, blotchy-cheeked and herding them down the hall.

  Gladys must have waited, because even with the door closed on the stifling parlor classroom the women could be heard, not words, but sharp, angry voices. Beaks, Thomas thought, pecking at one another.

  8

  Thomas had been sick for a week. Every day he grew sicker. Tonight his fever was so high he could barely open his eyes. With little distinction between dreams and wakefulness he drifted in and out of sleep. The dark slipped into day, then dark again. The wordless, watery voices came and went, whether in and out of the shadowy room or surfacing through delirium he could no longer tell. He had no need of food. When she tried to force broth between his parched lips it dribbled down his cheek and stained the pillow. Hearing his mother moan he hit the spoon away and struggled to see. It was his own voice. He couldn’t lift his head.

  “See? He’s waking up.” Mrs. Farley wrung out a wet towel over the basin on the night stand then laid it across his burning forehead.

  A rough hand grazed his cheek. “Even hotter than before,” Mr. Farley said. “He’s burning up.”

  “It’s got to run its course, that’s all.”

  “He’s just getting worse.”

  “Go down and chip some more ice. He’s taking that at least.”

  “We should call the doctor. You know we should.”

  “Will you stop saying that? Please, Fred. Please?”

  Barefoot in his red plaid pajamas, Mr. Farley hurried downstairs to the icebox. Margaret tiptoed along the hallway close to the wall. She had already been sent back twice. Hugging herself, she watched from the shadows. Mrs. Farley dipped the towel into the basin again, then wrung it tightly.

  With so much traffic past his door Jesse-boy called in a high, panicky voice. “What’s wrong? Will somebody tell me what’s going on?” There was a pause. “Mommy! Mommy!” he shrieked and banged on the wall.

  Mrs. Farley rushed into the hallway. “Get back to bed, Margaret!” she snapped on her way to comfort her son.

  Margaret ran to Thomas’s bedside. When she said his name, he struggled to open his eyes. They rolled to whites, then closed again. With his agitation his chest rose and fell rapidly against the piled blankets. His teeth chattered.

  “Get away from him!” Mrs. Farley cried, coming back into the room. “You’ll catch it!” She tried nudging Margaret to the door, but the little girl backed into a corner. She would not be moved. Mr. Farley returned. He gave his wife the bowl of ice chunks. She told him to get Margaret back to bed. Margaret said she wanted to stay. He looked at his wife.

  “You gonna call Dr. Creel?” Margaret asked. She stared at her shivering brother.

  “He’s going to be fine, Margaret.” Mrs. Farley wedged a chip of ice between Thomas’s teeth as if to make her point.

  “You better. He’s awful sick. I never saw him so sick before,” Margaret gasped. “Look! He’s shaking! Same as James. And then he died. He died real fast. Mommy waited too long. She should’ve got the doctor!”

  “Get her into her room! Please?” Mrs. Farley hissed at her husband.

  “She’s right. What’s the point of waiting?” Mr. Farley asked.

  “It’s chilblains, that’s all. Open the closet and get me the blanket up there.” Mrs. Farley shoved more ice into Thomas’s mouth. Mr. Farley pulled a heavy woolen blanket from the shelf. “Cover him up!” Mrs. Farley ordered. Her voice was tight with intensity, but her face was not.

  “No.” Mr. Farley clutched the blanket to his chest. “Not with such a fever, Phyllis. He’ll get even hotter.”

  Her head snapped up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! Look at him! If the chilblains get any worse he’ll go straight into a fit. I know he will. I’ve seen it happen.” She fixed a hard, wordless warning on her husband. Margaret crept closer. Mr. Farley continued to hug the blanket. As with discipline and education, in matters of health he always deferred to her. And so it was that he was usually stymied in any decisions regarding Jesse-boy. Thomas moaned. His cheeks burned.

  “Please call Dr. Creel,” Margaret begged.

  “Yes. He’s getting too sick.” Looking closely, Mr. Farley bent over the boy, the blanket at his chest. “His breathing, it’s too … too forced. I’ll go call.”

  “Don’t! Don’t you do that! Don’t you dare!” Mrs. Farley hissed.

  “But—”

  “No! Not with her working for him. I don’t want her here.”

  “But Phyllis. The boy’s sick. He’s got to be seen. Dr. Creel will come alone if I say to.”

  “No!”

  “I’ll tell him, I’ll say, don’t bring Gladys Bibeau,” he pleaded.

  “I’m more than capable and I will take care of this in my own way. And alone, Fred.”

  “For God’s sake, Phyllis, this isn’t right. Send the boy away if you want, but don’t do this,” he pleaded in a low, frantic voice as Margaret slipped out of the room.

  Downstairs, she kept dialing the operator, but no one answered. Finally Mrs. Pierce’s sleepy voice came on the line. Margaret told her to get Dr. Creel up here right away to the Farleys’. Her brother was awful sick.

  “Who? Phyllis? Phyllis has a brother?” Mrs. Pierce said. “Not any I know of.”

  “No! My brother! Thomas!” Margaret shouted. “He’s upstairs and he’s gonna die. He’s gonna die just like little baby James did.”

  “Hang up then! Hang up and clear the line!” Mrs. Pierce commanded, jolted now to duty.

  Dr. Creel did come alone, though it took a while. His night vision was almost gone. As it turned out, old Bibeau had blood in his urine and the doctor hadn’t wanted to call Gladys away from her father’s care. He directed Mrs. Farley to fill the tub with cold water. He and Mr. Farley carried Thomas downstairs and gradually immersed him. Mr. Farley held his shoulders to keep him from sliding down while Dr. Creel patted his forehead and neck with a washcloth he kept dipping in rubbing alcohol.

  All the lights were on in the big farmhouse. Up in his room Jesse-boy raised such a ruckus demanding to know what was going on that Mrs. Farley insisted
Margaret go keep him company.

  “But I want to stay with Thomas.”

  “He’s in good hands,” Mrs. Farley said as she scrubbed Margaret’s face and hands with Borax over the kitchen sink. She dabbed more camphor onto the flannel pinned to Margaret’s undershirt. With influenza in the house, they’d all been wearing the strips for days.

  “I want to see him.”

  She clutched the girl’s shoulders. “No. You will do exactly as you’re told.” She glanced back at the stairs. Her son was calling, shouting her name. “This is all too much for him. He mustn’t be agitated. Do you understand? Do you? Well, do you? Do you?” she demanded until Margaret finally gave a teary nod. “All right then.” She marched Margaret up to his door, shut for days against turmoil and contagion. She put her hand on the knob then turned instead to Margaret. She knelt down and held the girl’s face between her hands. “I’m sorry, Margaret. I’m sorry for speaking to you like that. It’s just that Jesse-boy … he … well, he loves you so much. And he needs you, honey. He needs you very much. In the whole world the only thing that makes him happy is you.” Her smile quivered.

  “No,” Margaret gasped as Mrs. Farley scooped her up and carried her to Jesse-boy’s soft bed. “Make room, dear. Margaret’s afraid. She doesn’t want to be alone, and you’re upset too so this will work out just fine,” she whispered as she drew the covers to their chins. “Sleep tight,” she whispered through the closing door.

  “Here, hold my hand.” Jesse-boy groped between them.

  Margaret hit his hand away.

  “Don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not.”

  “What are you then?” He curled on his side facing her.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing!” he giggled. “You have to be something. You know what I am?” When she didn’t answer he moved closer. “I’m happy.” He touched her cheek. “I’m so happy. I love you,” he said in so small a voice it sounded like a question.

  “Shut up!” She moved as far as she could to the edge of the bed without falling off.

  “Your hair’s so soft,” he whispered, then suddenly pulled her close.

  Her eyes opened wide as his hand clamped over her mouth. With her back to him it was hard to fight him. She couldn’t understand his thick voice, but she was scared. And mad. Mad as hell, she would say later. Her elbow rammed into his belly. He groaned and she bit his finger then jumped down. She ran into her room. Even with the door shut she could hear his bawling.

  When Thomas was strong enough he came downstairs for meals. Classes had started without him, but he was expected to complete the lessons Mr. Wentworth prepared daily. Margaret delivered them every afternoon. She had grown very quiet. And paler. There was a sadness about her he could neither penetrate nor tease her out of. She seemed almost angry now. She sat on the side of his bed and said she knew he was pretending to be sick just to get out of school.

  “No, I’m not!”

  “Yes, you are. Just like Jesse-boy, you’re a whiny-boy weakling.”

  “Shut up!” he said, then quickly laughed for fear she’d cry.

  “You are. You’re a sissy. You just want to be up here all the time.”

  “That’s not true. Mrs. Farley says I’m not strong enough yet.”

  “I hate it here. I hate it here so much.” Her face twisted in her struggle not to cry.

  “You do? How come? You keep getting new dresses and things for your dolls. That’s pretty good, huh? And your very own kitty cat, right? That’s not so bad.”

  She stared at him, jaw set with stubbornness.

  “And it’s just for now,” he continued. “You know it is. Soon as Daddy gets our own place we’ll be outta here and back in our old school. And then Mommy’ll come back too, she’ll be so glad we’re all settled down. Happy and everything.” His voice trailed off.

  “Daddy’s in jail. Jesse-boy said we gotta stay ’til he gets out. Ten years, he said.”

  “Well don’t believe him,” Thomas said, sitting straight up. “He’s a liar. A goddamn liar, that’s all he is.”

  “But Daddy is in jail. Aunt Lena came by yesterday and I heard them talking. She was all blubbery crying and bumping into things, the way she gets, and she said she’d go tell the judge what a bad father Daddy is. Mrs. Farley said she appreciated that and how she’d let her know when. Aunt Lena got crying again how broke she was and alone now with Maxie out on the road again. So then Mrs. Farley gave her five dollars. And Aunt Lena says how she can’t take charity. Mrs. Farley says it’s not charity. ‘Consider it a debt paid,’ she says, now that she’s got us, ‘the dear children,’ that’s what she calls us. And Aunt Lena got her scissors out. ‘No. I gotta work for my keep. I always do,’ she says and she’s stumbling around the divan, tryna get at Mrs. Farley’s hair. But Mrs. Farley, she didn’t want her hair cut. She went out in the barn for Otis to come give Aunt Lena a ride back into town.”

  “So how’d you hear all that?” He was poking the satin point on the blanket binding inside and out.

  “I was in the pull-out closet.”

  “What were you doing in there?” He laughed uneasily. The cedar pull-out closet under the stairs, that was where the good woolen coats were kept.

  “Hiding. On Jesse-boy.” Her clear blue eyes showed the dread. “And her too.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “She makes me sit with him and ride. In the chair.”

  “Oh yeah? Seems kinda dumb to do, huh?” He reached for the tumbling man on the wooden sticks. Mrs. Farley had brought it up the other day. To keep his mind off being so sickly and weak, she’d said.

  “She thinks it’s funny,” Margaret said, watching the little man spin up and down between the sticks.

  “Must look funny, huh? You getting a ride and him working the wheels.”

  “That ain’t it! That ain’t why!”

  “Don’t say ain’t! Mommy says that’s ignorant farmer talk. And you don’t want people thinking you’re ignorant, do you?” All the while he was squeezing the sticks so fast the wooden man was a blur of tumbles.

  She grabbed the toy and flung it across the room.

  “You better not’ve broke it, damn you!” He scrambled over the side of the bed. The toy had hit the round mirror and landed on top of the dresser. He examined it carefully for cracks. There weren’t any, but he wanted her to squirm.

  “He made me look at pictures.”

  Thomas turned dizzily, teetering to be so newly on his feet again. “Who?”

  “Jesse-boy.”

  “What kind of pictures?”

  “Bad ones.” She looked down. “And he says bad things.”

  “What? What bad things?”

  She shook her lowered head. “I don’t wanna stay here any more. I just wanna go.”

  “We can’t. We got no place to go to.”

  “What about Mommy? We could go there, and then when we tell her, she’ll let us stay. You know she will. She will, Tom! I know she will!”

  He considered this a moment. “But how’ll we get there? Massachusetts, that’s far off.”

  “Down the depot. The bus.”

  “But we’d have to buy tickets. You need money for bus tickets.”

  “I know where her pocketbook is. In the pull-out closet.”

  “No! We can’t do that. That’d be stealing.”

  “I don’t care. I’m gonna go live with Mommy. You can stay here if you want, but I’m leaving.” She ran out of the room. He started to climb back into bed.

  “Margaret! Margaret!” Jesse-boy called from somewhere. “Come down here. Mommy wants you to meet somebody. Reverend Tillotson. He and Mrs. Tillotson want to say hello.”

  First Mr. Farley came, looking. He opened Thomas’s door and asked where Margaret was. Thomas said he didn’t know. Then Mrs. Farley came. She opened doors along the hallway, calling softly for Margaret. She burst into Thomas’s room, demanding to know where Margaret was. He didn’t know. She opened the closet and pu
shed back the few clothes in there. Grunting, she bent down, hand on her knee, and looked under the bed.

  “This is so embarrassing,” she said, plump hands on her flushed cheeks. “They’re here to see Margaret.”

  “How come to see her? We’re Catholics. Well, kinda, anyway.”

  “Tomorrow morning she’s supposed to start Sunday school. And they’ve come to say hello first.”

  “But we don’t go to church.”

  She opened her mouth as if to say something, but instead hurried out of the room. Across the way the wide door to the linen closet creaked open. “Margaret!” Mrs. Farley cried.

  He peered out. Margaret’s ringlets were mussed and wild-looking. Goose feathers were stuck to the back of her dark green dress. Mrs. Farley led Margaret toward the stairs. He dressed quickly and came downstairs.

  “Well, Thomas! Good to see you finally out of bed,” Mr. Farley said.

  Mrs. Farley blinked when he came into the parlor. She introduced him to the Tillotsons as if she’d been expecting him all along, but annoyance crimped her mouth. Her eyes narrowed every time she looked his way. Jesse-boy was all dressed up in a shirt and tie. The unscuffed shoes on his dangling feet gleamed with polish. He giggled happily. The grown-ups were drinking tea. Jesse-boy and Margaret had mulled cider in little clear glass cups with handles. There was a plate of cookies, fudge, and penuche on the side table. Thomas took a piece of fudge and Mrs. Farley’s eyes darted his way.

  Mrs. Tillotson was a tall, strong-faced woman. Even in the chair she towered over her husband. He was slight with thinning hair and full red lips and a preacher’s strong voice. So far he’d had little to say. Every few minutes there would be another lull in the conversation. Now, everyone began to speak at once, Mrs. Farley about the Christmas pageant, Mrs. Tillotson about the ham and bean supper, Reverend Tillotson about Alice Pfeiffer. She had been sent to the sanitarium up in Burlington. Tuberculosis. It was pretty bad. Yes, Mrs. Farley said with a vague look. She thought she’d heard something or other like that.