Maggie Now

by Betty Smith

they walked away together.

  Claude stood there in his cap and gown, holding his

  diploma and he waited until all the people had gone.

  He got a job that fall, :IS English teacher in a small-town

  high

  [ 473 1

 

  school in South Carolina. He loved the town, and he fell

  in love with a girl there. She v; as nineteen and he was

  twenty-four.

  "I would like to live here all my life. If you will marry

  me," he said.

  "I will, Claude," she said. "But first you'll have to speak

  to Daddy."

  "Why? "

  "Because that's the VV.Iy we do here."

  He sat on the porch with the girl's father. It was a

  spring night. There was the smell of mimosa and the smell

  of woodsmoke. Claude noticed a broken board of the

  porch floor. Tomorrow, he thought, is Saturday. And I will

  come and fix that board for them. And in spring va. ation'

  1 will come and say, Let me paint the porch for you.

  He told the girl's father all he knew about himself. The

  father was much moved by Cl.lude's story. But he spoke

  of heritage; he spoke of lineage, proud and poor, but

  pure. He spoke in firm words of uncontaminated, white

  lineage.

  "But, sir," said Claude, "I am a man in my own right. I

  have my own kind of honor . . ."

  "But this is the South, ' said the father. "And we have to

  know."

  "What was her name?" asked Ma~g~gie-Now.

  "Who? "

  "The girl."

  "Oh, Willie May."

  "I guess I don't like her," said Maggie-Now in a miserable

  voice.

  "Because she wouldn't marry me?"

  "Because you once loved her."

  "Oh, Margaret," he said patiently, "that was so long ago.

  It shouldn't matter now."

  He left his town, his job and his girl and started on his

  wandering search. He went to Detroit first because there

  he had started as an infant. He got a job as hotel clerk

  and in his free time he wandered over the city and its raw

  suburbs and looked in phone looks, directories, libraries

  (to read old newspapers, looking for the name), and

  examined the boards in office buildings and looked up

  names of professional people and firms. He found a

  Bassett or

  ~ 424 ]

 

  two but they were not the right ones. He tried to

  approximate the year of his birth and sent for a birth

  certificate. There was no record.

  He went to Chicago and stayed there a fall and a winter

  and again it vitas the same. Each state he went to, he

  wrote and asked for a birth certificate. Some states had

  no records prior to 190O, in others, the records had

  burned up, and in other states there w as no record.

  He got out to the West and he loved it there. lle loved

  the mountains and the sky and the great loneliness of it.

  Here, he thought, a man could liqe. No one would ask who

  he was or where he cane from. A r,'an could start his own

  dynasty here, he thought grandly.

  It was out there in Idaho that he first felt the chinook

  blowing. And he fell in love with it. After that, no matter

  where he was, he left the place and set out westward

  when he judged the chinook wind was blowing over the

  Rockies.

  And as the years went by, it was so that the wandering

  got to be more important than the searching.

  He made his way to Manhattan....

  "Then I got over to Brooklyn and found you," he said.

  "And I knew you were the one. You were the one. And

  you took me without question."

  "You could have told me," she said. "And it would have

  been all right. I wouldn't have cared. And perhaps you w

  ouldn't have needed to go away any more."

  In the summer just past, he had gone back to Detroit

  again. There he got the idea that perhaps Canada was the

  place. He walked over the bridge into Canada and worked

  his way north. One night, he registered at a small,

  inexpensive hotel in one of the smaller cities. The old

  desk clerk read off Claude's name slowly. He adjusted his

  spectacles to look at Claude. Claude had a sudden sense

  of awareness. "You have people here, Ilr. Bassett?"

  "No. I'm from the States."

  "I inquired because a gentleman of the same name used

  to live here."

  Very quietly, Claude asked: "Where does he live now?"

  ~4-'71

 

  "Oh, he passed on. B ifty years ago. I was a lad of twenty,

  then."

  "What," asked Claude carefully, "became of his children?"

  "He had but the one. A son. I
  my age now.

  "And this Kenmore Where is he now?"

  "That, I do not know." The old man suddenly became

  loquacious. "Kenmore never did have children. He was

  married, though. He was a professor in one of those big

  colleges up in one of the northern provinces. I don't

  remember which one, now. Used to know, though. Some

  things come back to me. I remember he had a year's

  holiday. You call it . . . ? "

  "Sabbatical year."

  "Thank you, sir. He went to the States for that year."

  The aged clerk started counting the coins in the cash

  drawer as though the coversation was ended.

  "And when he returned . . . ?" asked Claude nudgingly

  "Pardon me, sir? "

  "When Kenmore Bassett returned . . ."

  "Oh, he never did come back from the States. Here's

  your key, sir, and we like our guests to pay in advance."

  "I would appreciate any information you can give me

  about Kenmore Bassett," said Claude earnestly.

  "Let me see: His wife didn't go to the States with him,

  you know. He wrote her. Yes, I remember now. He wrote

  and asked her to divorce him."

  "Did she?"

  "No, SiI'. You see he wrote that there was a young lady

  in the States whom he wished to marry. And that did not

  go down well with Mrs. Bassett. Oh, my wife could tell

  you everything. You see, sir, she was in service. She

  worked for Mrs. Bassett until that lady passed on."

  "May I speak to your wife, sir?" asked Claude, feeling

  he had come to the end of the trail at last.

  The old clerk shook Lois head sadly. "My wife passed

  on ten years ago."

  "You believe then," said Maggie-Now, "that this

  Kenmore vitas your father?"

  "I can make myself believe it if I wish."

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  She thought: Oh, all the wasted years of life! But she said:

  "And now, you'll never need to go away again."

  "Never more will I go," he said lightly.

  But he had a stab of anguish. Never again to lit e a

  while in a sun-baked adobe house of the dreamy

  Southwest . . . never again the thrill of seeing for the first

  time one of the magnificent big cities of America. Never

  again the eternal mountains
against the wide and infinite

  sky . . . the miles of golden wheat rippling in the sun . . .

  the blinding Lila of the great Pacific Ocean. Never again

  . . . never.

  "And you're happy now that you know?"

  "I don't know, Margarer. If we were younger I'd want

  children now. I feel right about becoming a father, now

  that I know. But for twenty-five years that has been my

  way of life the wandering and the searching. N(,NV that

  that's over, I don't know anv other way of life."

  No, she thought, he doesn't know any other way of life.

  But how, all of a sudden, can he tell himself that he's

  through with it? I know! Oh, dear God, his strength is failing

  and he knows he can't make it any more.

  He said that now that he knows, /'e wants children; would

  feel right about having children. Did he mean . . . IVhy

  wasn't it right before? Could it be that he, like all men who

  never settle dowel. didn't want to be tied down by children?

  Or was it that he had to know who his father was first?

  She felt oddly ill at ease with him now as though he

  were a stranger with whom she had nothing in common.

  She felt vaguely inferior as though she were an illiterate

  peasant. Then she remembered that, this last time he had

  come home, he had asked her nothing about what she had

  done in the summer.

  He used to need my life, she thought, to fill in his own.

  Now he doesn't need that any more. He doesn't need me in

  that way any more. Oh, I'm sorry he told me!

  She said: "Claude, in a way, I'm sorry you told me."

  ~ }27 1

 

  'A CHAP]'ER SIXTY-FOUR A

  IN TIIE days that followed, Claude sat by the window

  and MaggieNTow sat with him and there vitas little to

  talk about. From time to time, he'd reach out his hand

  and she'd take it and tell him she loved him. Sometimes

  he'd ask her if she missed the children. She'd hesitate a

  moment before she told him, no, now that she had him .

  . .

  About a week later, Denny came over in his lunch hour

  and ate with them. He brought news. The new store in

  Hempstead was ready and they wel e going to move in

  March first. They had already given notice to their

  landlord.

  "Does Tessie feel better now about moving out there?"

  asleep .Maggie-Now.

  "Well," said Denny, a little evasively, "I made her see

  that it was for the best."

  Denny spoke excitedly about the new store. He

  described the fixtures, the floor plan and some of the

  exotic meats and cheese that already had been delivered,

  and . . .

  While Denny was spa aking, Claude started to moan.

  Suddenly his face contorted in severe pain.

  "My head!" he gasped. "The pains . . . get . . . something

  . . . Margaret . . . please . . . I can't stand . . ."

  "Oh, darling . . . deal . . . dear darling!" she said. She

  ran into tile bathroom. There was nothing for a headache

  in the medicine chest, only a tin of aspirin. She knew that

  wouldn't be enough. She ran back to the kitchen. She

  spoke to him as though he were a child.

  "There, my darling, Margaret will get you something

  and Denny will stay with you while I'm gone and I'll be

  right bacl.." She kissed him and rushed out.

  t4~, 1

 

  Fortunately, the doctor was home. He was having lunch

  with his family. "How often dales he get these headaches?"

  he asked.

  "He never had one before in all the years we've been

  married."

  "I'll give you a prescription...."

  "That will take too long, Doctor. And oh, he seemed to

  be suffering so terribly! He c ould hardly talk, and . . ."

  "I'd better take a look at him," said the doctor. They

  drove over in the doctor's car.

  Denny was on the stoop waiting for them. He seemed

  terribly distraught and kept putting his hands up to his

  head.

  "Something terrible happened, Doctor," he said.

  "Something awful . . ."

  "A stroke," said the doctor succinctly. He gave what

  comfort he could: "If he had to go, it was better this way.

  A few moments of pain and it was all over."

  Maggie-Now was too shocked to comprehend. "But he

  said he wouldn't go away," she kept repeating. "He

  promised!"

  "If you loved him," said the doctor, "you'd rather have

  it this way. You wouldn't want him to suffer and die by

  inches stroke after stroke."

  "But he told me he wouldn't leave me," she said like a

  bewildered child.

  "I'm going to give you something, Mrs. Bassett," said the

  doctor, "to get you over this first shock." He broke an

  ampule and filled the hypodermic needle.

  When she awakened, Claude was no longer there. The

  house seemed full of people. She heard Annie's voice

  saying she'd take care of everything.

  The talking ceased when Maggie-Now came out of her

  room. She went into the kitchen. Annie had the range

  going full blast. She was mixing a cake and preparing a

  beef rib roast for the oven. Potatoes and vegetables were

  on the table waiting to be prepared. Annie knew it was

  right to have food ready for the people who would come.

  "He's gone, Annie," said Maggie-Now.

  "Is better if you cry, Licbchen," said Annie.

  "But he promised . . ."

  [ 4 79

 

  She went into the front room. "Papa, he said he

  wouldn't go . . . he promised."

  "Ah, me Maggie-NoNv," said Pat. "lle poor Maggie-Now!"

  Denny gave her a glass with some pinkish liquid in it.

  "The doctor said you're to take this, Maggie-Now."

  "I don't want it," she said.

  "You must!" He started to weep. "The doctor said I

  must make NTou take it."

  "Of course," she said soothingly. "Don't cry. I'll take it."

  "Maggie-Now," said Pat, "you must put yourself together,

  girl, dear. We got to fix it about the funeral."

  "Funeral?" she said vaguely. "But I haven't any money."

  "I have a bit put away," said Pat. "I'll pay for it."

  "But, man, dear!" For the first time, Maggie-Now

  noticed Mrs. O'Crawley was there. "Man, dear, wouldn't

  it be hefter for .i~Iaggie to take care of that?"

  "I said I'd bury him and I will," said Pat. "Goddamn it!"

  he added for no reason at all.

  Maggie-Now's innate thoughtfulness broke through her

  shock. "It won't cost much, Mrs. O'Crawley," she said.

  "We have our own plot and he can be with Mama and

  Grandfather. And I'll pay Papa back as soon as I can."

  "He ain't going to be put in the ground," said Pat. "He

  wants to be ashes and the ashes to be thrown away in the

  wind where birds is flying."

  "No! " screamed Ma: gie-NoNT. "No! '

  'He told me the last time I w as here and I said I would

  do that for him."

  "I won't
allow it!" she screamed. "It's against our religion."

  "Ilaybe it ain't against his," said Pat.

  "No, Papa," she said note quietly. "I have the say and I

  won't allow it."

  "Look, Maggie-Novv~.'' said Denny. "You always gave

  Claude everything he wanted. You'd have ways to find out

  what he wanted and he could have it. You let him go

  when he wanted to and you never said no to anything he

  did or wanted. Why don't you give him this one last thing

  he wanted? It's nothing I'd want." He shivered. "But he

  wanted that."

  "Yes, Dennv," said Maggie-Nov.~ quietly. "That's right."

  [ 41 ]

 

  "Sure," said Pat. "And I'll take care of everything for

  you. Everything."

  "Thank you, Papa," she said. Novv she seemed to get

  control again. "It was nice of you to come, Mrs.

  O'Crawley. I think Annie made coffee. Will you go out in

  the kitchen and have a cup ? "

  "Thank you, I will," said Pat's wife.

  She turned to Pat. "And thank you again, Papa. And

  why don't you ask Mick Mack to stop over? I'd like to see

  him."

  After they had left, she went out to the kitchen. "Ah,

  Annie, you're so good," she said.

  "Is nothing," said Annic. "Someday, maybe you do the

  same for me. Is right people do so for each other."

  Maggie-Now put her coat on. "You go out, Maggie?"

  "I want to talk to Father Flynn."

  "Then you go by the church. Yes?"

  "Yes, I will."

  Maybe she will cry there, thought Annie.

  Maggie-Now didn't go to the cremation. Pat and Denny

  went; no one else. Pat brought her the cheap urn that the

  crematory provided.

  "I thought maybe you v. anted to keep this awhile," said

  Pat.

  "Papa, it would be all right to bury his ashes with Mama,

  wouldn't it?"

  "I gave him me word 1 would throw his ashes in the

  wind. I'll wait for the right day and then I'll come and get

  him and go out on a boat to where birds is flying, and I

  will do it."

  "All right, Papa," she said, obediently.

  It was terrible, terrible, for Maggie-Now to be alone; to

  have no one to care for. The house echoed with

  emptiness. All, all were gone. No tenants occupied the

  rooms upstairs. Denny was gone, her father was gone, the

  children had been taken from her. And now Claude.

  She walked from one empty room to the other,

  moaning, How can I live? How can I live alone? There was

  always someone. And now no one.

  Denny knew how it was with his sister and he was

  anguished

  [45i ]

 

  for her. And he was the one to conic to her aid.

  "I'm not going to tal:e over the never store in

  Hempstead," he said. "Well, Tessie and I tallied it over.

  We want to rent the rooms upstairs from you and dive

  here."

  "Honest, Denny? Honest?" Tears of happiness came to

  her eyes.

  "Tessie is tickled to death at the idea. She says no one

  can handle Rainy like you can. We could all eat

  together Tessie doesn't like to cook especially. And we'd

  all be safe together and . . ."

  How wonderful! How wo17derf7~1, thought

  Maggie-Now, to have them here with me! I c07~1d take

  care of Rainy and I c07~1d cook again: cook for someone

  else besides myself . . . I'd have someone to talk to....

  "Are you sure that's what yo7l want, Denny?"

  "I would have liked to manage the new place and live

  out there. Yes, I would! But in the first place, Tessie

  doesn't want to live so far away. In the second place, you

  can't stay here alone and starve. And then Tessie says her

  mother needs her."

  "It's the other way around," said Maggie-Now. "Tessie

  needs her mother or thinks she does."

  "Oh, well!" Denny shrugged and smiled.

  Maggie-Now took a little time to savor this wonderful

  idea of Denny's before she gave it up. It Ivould be like a

  dream come true. Tessie would let me take care of Rainy