by Sue Miller
Outside, Mack stood looking blindly into the sun, waiting for his family. Several of the senior girls were crying and hugging each other, and here and there families were already embracing or photographing some of the graduates. But others, like him, stood separately, waiting to be claimed.
Suddenly he recognized Mary and Sarah on the steps—they seemed to spring up from under the feet of the crowd oozing its way down. They pointed at him and waved, but waited. Behind them, he saw the rest emerging, Liddie most noticeable with her tumbledown light hair. And then his eyes found his brother, and he nearly cried out at the sudden realization of how much Randall looked like him. They were all moving together toward him down the stairs, waving and greeting people they knew, and he had the strange sensation that he—not Randall—was the one up there with them. That it was himself, but himself changed, like the person you dream when you dream yourself. Happy, laughing, they made their way to him with the surrogate Mack wearing his gray suit, the tie he’d chosen with his father’s gift money. Except for the haircut, the stumbling walk, it might have been him.
Then Liddie ran to where he stood motionless. She grabbed him, whirled him around in her perfumed embrace. Some of her hair swung across his lips and touched his tongue. And then they were all embracing him. His father stood back, and when everyone else was done, he shook Mack’s hand. Mary grabbed his sports award—he had captained two teams, baseball and soccer, and had been voted best all-around athlete—and began to show it to Sarah, to his father. His mother was laughing and talking at the same time. Her arm was still around Randall, whose eyes were big and frightened, rolling slightly in his head.
Nina smiled at Mack, lifted her camera to her face, and disappeared behind it. Her body pivoted, got him with Liddie—he could feel the way the camera paired them—then with his father; and then he forgot about her, she was just there, and his mother was asking him questions about Denise, about the other speakers.
In a little pocket of silence his father leaned forward and frowned for a moment at the tie Mack was wearing, but Mack kept his face bland and pleasant, and his father said nothing.
Then his mother was talking to Nina, she had taken the camera. She turned to his father and spoke to him. “Would you mind, David?” she said, holding the camera out. “I want one with Nina in it too.”
His father took the camera and stepped back away from them. He began directing them. They all sobered instantly. Businesslike, they began to arrange themselves. Mack put his arms around Liddie and Randall, one on each side of him. Their mother bent in a little in front of them, and Nina rested her head on Randall’s shoulder. “All together, all together,” their father called. “Here, you girls, squat down a bit.”
He was standing facing them, one hand directing them as he watched them in the viewfinder. Mack felt the bodies press tighter around him. He was aware of their laughing light voices, the way they smelled. He was in them, of them, again; and it was his father who stood out there, who was the one looking on. He had an image, then, of what they must look like pressed together, their heads leaned in, their faces presented. A family.
“Okay, everyone,” Liddie said. “On the count of three we give him the big cheese. One? Two? Three!” And they all yelled it across at their father like some sort of challenge, Mack the loudest of all. Cheese!
Chapter 11
March 1966
When David opened the door, they all looked up, frozen, and he saw at once that Lainey was all right. She sat on the second stair, her face lifted toward him. The lines of blood on her forehead and one cheek looked like thicker, redder hair, hair drawn on by a child’s bright crayon.
“David,” she said. “You came.”
And abruptly everything came to life again: Sarah, who’d evidently gone to get a wet cloth for Lainey, stepped into the front hall, saw David, and burst into loud crying. Nina moved toward him, starting to apologize; and as David shut the front door, he saw Randall huddled in the corner behind it, he was aware suddenly of the rhythmic mooing that had charged the scene with meaning from the moment he’d stepped in.
“How long has he been like this?” he said to Nina, who was standing close to him in her white nightgown.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Just Mom was trying to get him to go upstairs, and he pushed her, I guess.” Her face was white too, and her eyes looked black and bottomless in her fear. “We didn’t know right away. We were in my room.”
“Get his blanket,” David said. She spun back from him, ran up the stairs, her bare feet thudding on the wood.
Randall was squatting, hugging his knees and rocking a little. His eyes were nearly shut. When David touched him, they snapped open unseeingly and his fisted arm shot out at nearly the same moment. Then he hugged himself again and hunched over, and the low moans started once more.
Nina came running down the stairs and over to David. She was panting, a loud, ragged sound. He took the worn blanket she held up. He crouched and offered it to Randall, but Randall didn’t seem to see it at all, his eyes didn’t focus on it. They moved wildly in their sockets, and his noises grew louder. He’d had a haircut recently, David could see, and the wide bare strip of flesh above his ears and his long exposed neck made him look more vulnerable, more crazy. “Randall,” David said gently. “Randall, here’s your blanket.”
“Sing,” Lainey said. They’d fallen silent behind him, watching. He looked over at her. She was holding the towel against her head. It was smeared a brilliant red.
“Press down,” David replied. “Press on the cut. Sarah, help your mother.” He turned back to Randall. His mind was blank; and then from nowhere came the silly lyrics: “We are poor little lambs who have gone astray, baa, baa, baa …”
Lainey and the girls huddled on the stairs and listened as David sang. He moved gradually from a light whispered tone, which Randall barely seemed to hear, to full voice. When Randall finally reached for his blanket, David could see Lainey in his peripheral vision turn and bury her face in her arms.
David led Randall slowly past her and the girls, up the stairs, singing loudly now: “Gentlemen songsters off on a spree, damned from here to eternity …” At the top, he looked down momentarily. Nina was turned to watch their progress up, but the other two were busy, Sarah bent over Lainey, following his instructions to push.
In the second-floor hallway, he thought briefly of toileting Randall and decided to skip it. If he woke in the night, even if he wet the bed, handling that would be easier than stopping at this moment. Besides, Randall himself had already turned toward his room, and David was the follower now. Randall nearly broke into a run, the last few steps. When he reached his mattress, he handed David the red blanket, then knelt in the half darkness on his bare bed and threw himself forward awkwardly, seemingly in relief, making fluttery, eager cries. David was still singing as he bent and started to undo Randall’s clothes. Calmly he stripped his son, fetched his pajamas and guided them over the inert, stiff body. Randall’s eyes were shut fiercely, as though if he couldn’t see it, this world would disappear. Slowly, always singing, David tucked the blanket in all around him.
He was startled, when he stood up and stepped to the doorway, to see that Lainey was there, a massive silhouette in the hall light, holding the bunched-up towel to the back of her head like a mad hat.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“I’m going to say good night.”
He shook his head. “No. Not now. I want to look at your head now.”
“I’ll just be a minute. I just want to say good night.” She didn’t meet his eye, she was already moving past him.
“Lainey, after all this?”
She turned back and squinted into the light. “He didn’t mean to do this!” He could see that her eyes were swollen from weeping. She shook her head. “He didn’t mean it, David. And I think it’s better to keep everything as close to routine as we can anyway. He expects me to say good night.”
“I’ll wait, then.
”
He stood in the doorway and watched her slide awkwardly under the covers, always holding the folded towel with one hand. The two shapes lay still, side by side, nearly the same size under the red blanket. Then he could hear Lainey’s off-key voice humming “The Whiffenpoof Song”—an encore, he realized—and, after a long moment, Randall’s melodic wordless crooning joining her. He felt a sudden sense of shame, as though he were watching some private, sacramental act. He turned and went down the hall, flicking off the light.
The door to what had been his study was closed. Standing uselessly in the darkened hallway, he had an odd impulse to open it, to look at what had become of his room—his sanctum sanctorum, Mack had called it. Instead he sat down on the top of the stairs to wait for Lainey. Below him he could see Nina, bent over, wiping up her mother’s blood from the bottom steps with a cloth. Sarah’s voice came from somewhere beyond his vision. A persistent tone. She’d been pushing at this, apparently: “But weren’t you scared, Neenee?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Nina said. David watched her turn the cloth, look for a few seconds at the dark blood. Finally she countered, “Weren’t you scared?”
“I thought she was dead,” Sarah said softly, after a moment.
Nina stood up and started back to the kitchen. “Well, you weren’t the only one,” she said.
He looked up to see Lainey at Randall’s door, locking it shut. She turned and walked toward him, not seeing him until the last second, when she nearly kicked him.
“Oh!” she cried. Then: “What are you doing?”
“I want to check your head,” he said, standing up. He was on the first step down, and Lainey, in a muumuu, with her bizarre headdress, towered over him like some huge Samoan goddess. He stepped up to her.
They stood awkwardly close in the dusky light for a moment, not quite knowing what came next. It was as though they’d just finished dancing, or were about to start. Then Lainey said, “Well, I suppose the bathroom.”
“All right,” he said, and followed her.
She turned on the light as she stepped ahead of him into the room. She flipped the seat down and sank onto the covered toilet, then leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “God!” she said, and shook her head. “What a night. What a nightmare. It feels like it’ll never end.”
He crossed to her and bent over her, put his hands on the back of her skull. “Where is it?” Her hair was still dark and thick, but he could see the springy coils of gray laced into it.
“In back there,” she said, tilting down farther.
The blood was crusted brown everywhere. He straightened up. “I’ll have to wash it to get a look.” He got a clean washcloth out of the cupboard and stepped past her to wet it. “How did it happen? He pushed you?”
“He was confused, poor baby. Bob’s been gone two days, off with some new girlfriend, and the whole schedule’s shot to pieces. Last night was pretty bad, but tonight …” She shook her head, and the hair hanging forward swung below her. “Impossible. He was miserable all night. He wouldn’t come to the table, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t take a bath. He wouldn’t do anything. I was trying to get him upstairs.”
“And he pushed you?” David asked again. He was wiping at her scalp now. Scabs of hardened blood pulled away, then caught in her hair. He had to pick them out.
“Yes. Just away, you know. He just didn’t want to go. And I fell exactly the wrong way, I guess.”
“What did you hit?” He could see the cut now, still oozing slightly, a clean slice about two inches long, a lump swollen under it, pushing it open.
“The newel post. Right on a corner, I think. Wham! That was it, for a minute or two.”
“It must have been a little longer than that, for the girls to call me.”
“Well.” She was silent. “I think it was the amount of blood, honestly.”
“Yes. Head wounds are like that.”
“Is it okay?”
“Well, it’s big.” He stood back, looking down at her. “It’s slowed, but it could reopen easily. I think I should take you in. Anyone responsible would give you stitches.”
Her head had begun to turn from side to side. “No,” she said.
“And there’s a good chance that you’ve had a concussion.”
She pushed herself up straight and looked at him. “David, I’m not going.”
He sat down on the edge of the tub, facing her. After a moment he said, “You can’t make it not so bad by not treating it. It’s a serious wound. Someone ought to look at it.”
She looked at him. Finally she smiled, a kind of mischief in her face. “Do your damnedest, Doc. I’m not going.”
“I’m asking you to.”
“And who will you get to stay here?”
“That’s not the point. I can get someone.”
“I don’t want anyone. I want to stay here. I need to stay here.”
“And you also need a doctor to look at you.”
“You’re a doctor.”
He shook his head. “Lainey, I’m trying to do the responsible thing. Will you help me?”
She turned away. Several lines of brown blood had run down her neck, disappearing under her dress. When she turned back to him, she was frowning, serious. She lifted her big, roughened hands. “The problem is, you and I are working with two different definitions of responsibility.”
“Still, I am asking you to,” he said again. “For me.”
“And I won’t,” she said gently.
He stood. “Well, then. I’d better dress it, hadn’t I? What do you have?” He crossed to the medicine chest. “Any gauze?”
“Yeah. I think so.” She started to get up, but he signaled her to sit.
“I can find it.” He opened the medicine chest. On the shelves inside was a precariously jammed jumble of makeup—tubes, compacts, brushes, and wands. He found some gauze and brought it back, with tape and a pair of scissors. “Are you dizzy at all?” he asked her. She had sat again, was hunched forward with her head hanging.
“Oh.” She paused. “A little. I don’t know. It scared me. You know.” Her voice was tremulous.
“I’ll have to stick the tape down partly on your hair, if you don’t want a bald patch, okay? You’ll have to be careful taking it off. It’ll pull.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Your dress is a mess too. Bloody.”
She began to cry.
“Lainey.” He stepped quickly to the door and shut it. He sat on the edge of the tub and reached over her, his hands on her back. Her size, her shape, were as familiar under his fingers as if he’d never been away.
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
“Lainey,” he said.
“I don’t think I can do it anymore,” she said.
He bent his head over her. Soundlessly her body shook under his hands. They sat that way for some minutes, until she stilled under him.
“Ugh,” she said.
He sat up, and she turned and reached for the toilet paper. He glimpsed her face, swollen, glistening. Then it disappeared behind the clump of paper, and she blew her nose.
She looked up at him, ruefully. “Sorry,” she said.
“What on earth for, Lainey?” he said softly.
“Well, for crying,” she answered. “It’s so predictable. At it again.” He didn’t answer. “And for dragging you over here.”
He shook his head.
She gestured up, vaguely. “For this too,” she said.
“That? That’s hardly your fault.” She shrugged. After a moment he said, “Besides, you can always look on it as simply a new kind of stigmata.”
There was a silent pulse of time in the room, like a missed beat; and then she whooped with laughter. He laughed too, in pleasure at her laughter; and for a few seconds they sat facing each other, watching each other’s brief happiness.
Then she stopped and wiped her eyes. Her glance fell to her dress. She yanked it around to look at the bloodied neckline, her chin doubling
as she pulled it in. “What a mess,” she said. She threw the paper in the trash and stood up. In one quick motion she reached down and pulled the dress over her head. Under it, she was wearing a white cotton bra, large, matronly, and a half-slip. She wadded the dress, crossed the room, and violently threw it into the old hamper.
David had turned quickly away the moment she lifted her skirt. He didn’t feel he could bear to look at her so nearly naked, whether because it would draw him or repel him he wasn’t sure. He had stood and gone to the sink. He busied himself rinsing the washcloth, soaping it again. When she sat back down, he came and pushed her head forward. His fingers parted her hair. Gently he stroked the cut with the soapy cloth, then spread several of the gauze pads over the slice. He cut two lengths of tape and pressed them down, trying to connect as much as he could with the grayish, dead-looking flesh of her scalp.
“All set,” he said finally. He turned back quickly to the sink and began to rinse the cloth.
“Is it going to be all right?” she asked. She got up. She was standing by the hamper. He looked at her, then back to what he was doing. She was touching the dressing gingerly with both hands, exploring. The plucked-looking shadowed flesh of her underarms was exposed to him. The heavy curves of her arms and shoulders were nearly as white as the bra. There was some deeply female dignity to this whiteness, this heaviness, he felt, in spite of her absurd costume.
“We’ll see. I think so.”
Her arms dropped. “I guess I’ll go stretch out, then,” she said in a small voice. “I feel a little … not dizzy, exactly. Just shaken, I guess.”
“Okay. Just a second, I’ll help you.”
She waited by the door as she squeezed the last faint pink rinse out of the washcloth and hung it up. He dried his hands and then stepped to her. He took her elbow. Her arms were crossed over her breasts now.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?”
Without answering, he opened the door and guided her down the hall, her silent escort.