Chapter 39 #4
She takes a step forward, but I stay in the doorway. I don’t know if you can stop a woman like her from coming in a house.
Mrs. Heidelberg, believe me, you do not want to go up there. Those two are sneezing and hacking things up in their throat. I would hate for you to catch it. At your elderly age, a cold turns to flu, a flu to even worse, and then where does that leave us? That could be the last cold you ever get.
She looks a little put off by that elderly part. How sick are they?
Not … very. I overdid it and made it sound like they are on a damn deathbed. It’s just that Tom doesn’t want you to catch it.
But I’m his mother. I don’t care if I catch it.
My heart feels like it’s beating down its door now. Course she has to be dressed all in red again today, a color hard to argue with. I decide to pull out the big guns. I did not want it to come to this.
Mrs. Heidelberg … the truth is, Tom said he doesn’t want to see you.
Her mouth falls open. Lines of red lipstick have leaked into the little cracks around her mouth. Because … he’s sick? I shake my head and try and look ashamed. I … see, she says. Well I. I’ll call on the telephone then. And check on them later.
That’s a good idea. You call on the telephone. I take her arm and steer her out onto the front porch.
Her lip trembles. Meg, how is Tom faring? After everything last weekend?
I cannot lie to her, not about this. His heart is broken, Mrs. Heidelberg.
She swallows and her eyes fill with tears. I look off past her at old Mr. Oney waiting by the car. He seems so sad. I wish I knew how to help him.
I do too, she whispers. Oh how I do, and she reaches out and takes my hand. Please keep a close watch on him for me, would you, Meg? You’ll let me know if it gets any worse?
I swallow a knot in my throat, thinking how Tom looked like a little boy this morning. Yes, ma’am, I will let you know.
While Tom and Lucille sleep the rest of the morning, I slip into Tom’s office.
I try and read some pages, but without page numbers, they don’t make much sense.
I can see why Tom likes to work in this room, though.
It is calming, with three curved windows looking out on the front yard.
Tom’s chair swivels around in a full squeaky circle.
I do that a few times. Push a key on the typewriter.
The lever pops against the wheel and I jump.
I feel like a criminal up in here, snooping and touching his things … and what is this …
Pushed under a bookshelf, I spot something yellow.
I pull it out and it is a Deluxe Box of Twenty-Two Color Crayons with a color wheel, and there is even a coloring book under there with it!
These must have been left over from when that mean Gloria’s family lived here.
I take them in the living room where I got a good view of the front door and the stairs.
The coloring book is titled Fun with Nursery Rhymes!
and all the pictures have black outlines around them to keep you in control.
Baby pictures like Little Bo-Peep, cow jumping the moon, a Jack be nimble, that type thing.
I don’t know how old Gloria’s little sister is, but I do know she was not a very good colorer.
Looks to me like she scratched the first crayon she could grab across every page without even trying to stay inside the lines, just coloring back-and-forth frantic with no set plan.
Pink trees, lime skies, purple cats. Oh it eats me alive, looking at it.
So I try and fix some of her mess. First I draw a thicker black line around the Bo-Peep to cover the scribbles and make her not look to where she has her finger in a socket.
It makes me think of Birdie, how she fixed up the office.
I never thought of it before now, but she did that for me.
She knew she was going home soon, but she did it so I wouldn’t have to sit in that nastiness. I bet Birdie’d be a fine colorer.
After my outlining, I look for the color that makes more sense over the wrong ones.
Problem is, the most important colors are missing from the box, your basic red, blue, and yellow.
That is too bad. I color the sun English Vermilion and the grass Ultramarine Blue and even if it looks interesting, it is still a couple shades from the truth.
After a while of coloring, I start to feel a little better. Now we can get back to how things were. Tom will sleep it off like Lucille does, and we can start fresh at being a family.
Around noon, Tom comes downstairs, still wearing the blue shirt from yesterday.
It is only half tucked into his pants, and his hair is all wrong.
When he sees me, he looks down at himself and shakes his head.
Like he is surprised his ownself it has come to this.
I think he has forgot exactly what he came down here for.
Tom, I think it would be important to—
I try again, the way I rehearsed it. Tom, I think it would be important to get the second opinion on your book. If you will just get the pages in order and let me read it, I could tell you what I think since I have heard the second opinion is very important in life.
I know I messed that up. Tom smiles, but it is sad. He does not seem back to his regular self yet. That’s very sweet of you to offer, Meg. I’d like to think that over. Are you … will you be alright on your own? I don’t think I’m up for swimming today.
Do not worry about me, Tom. I will be fine.
He is already easing toward the kitchen.
I follow him. I got everything cleaned up before Willy May got here this morning and I stacked the pages on your desk and I stuck those bottles in your side drawer and your mama—maybe I shouldn’t mention her, but—she came by here this morning so I told her you and Lucille were sick and not to …
come in or … He is toting Lucille’s pitcher with some ice and a glass to his office.
I trail after him to his doorway. But she will be calling.
On the telephone … He has taken a fresh bottle out of his closet and set it all on his desk.
Thank you, Meg, he says. I’ll see you a little later, alright?
Yes sir.
He closes the door.
See now I didn’t think this was even a option. I thought last night was one big exception to the rule. Not even Lucille starts on the liquor alcohol this early. She said day drinking will make a lady fat.
When Lucille finally does come down, she says, He’s still on a bender, huh?
I got no idea what a bender is, but I could wring her neck. Way she set that glass at Tom’s place, calling him a world-class failure, what did she expect him to do, ask for a hot tea? Go to bed early?
You better believe there is some sass in my voice when I tell her about my day. She came by here, you know. Mrs. Heidelberg did. I lied and told her y’all had head colds and not to come in and get it!
Good job, Meg, she says. I should’ve tried that a long time ago.
I don’t thank her for that. And I am usually a sucker for somebody telling me I did a good job.
I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over this, she says.
Believe me, I’ve been through it before.
He’ll drink a few days and then sleep it off and everything will go back to like it was.
And even if his mother finds out, what’s she going to do, cut us off the deposits? She laughs at that like she is funny.
She decides to make her own damn self a martini. I tell her don’t bother hunting for the pitcher, he already has it in there.
What I am now is just plain scared. Tom’s mama is already woid sick, and if she finds out I am lying, not only about Lucille’s drinking but now about Tom’s too, she will take me back to that Orphan in a snap.
But if I tattle on them, then Lucille will do the returning.
I don’t see how ole Nutmeg can win at this confusing game anymore.
When the telephone rings, Lucille comes down and answers it. I listen to her tell Mrs. Heidelberg they still got head colds, it’s best for them not to see anybody for a while. Telephone in one hand, a damn martini in the other.
Supper for me is ham slices and sweet potatoes I eat right from the cold dish. Maybe Lucille is right. Tom will drink himself silly and in a day or two he will wake up and be regular.
Late in the night I wake up again—Lord, is she going at him or was that me screaming?
But no, that is Tom’s voice. And it is not screaming at all.
I think … I think he is singing something.
It sounds like he is singing out in the damn yard.
I am so tired waking up two nights in a row, my bones don’t operate good a minute, but when I go look out the window, there Tom is, singing loud and searching the ground.
He spots something he likes the look of and snatches it up like it is a nickel on the street, examining whether he might should keep it.
Maybe he is hunting for Indian arrowheads, he likes to look for those.
Whatever it is, he smiles and puts it in his pants pocket.
I pull my window up.
I greet you with a song in my heart. I behold your adorable face …
Just a song at the start. But it soon is a hymn to your grace.
When the music swells …
I didn’t know Tom was a good singer, but it is loud and strong. It carries up and off through the yard and down the long drive for the house. I remember that song from when I was little living in my mama’s house. Rolling up the blue rug to dance to the song slow …
He bends down and picks something else up, but throws it back down. He takes a drink off a bottle and goes back to singing.
Tom, I yell down at him. What are you doing out there? You need to go to bed!
He stops and looks around and up at me. Then waves and smiles like I am a old friend from Yale College. He still has the same damn dirty blue shirt on.
Meg, I’m sorry I woke you up. You go back to bed, alright?
I can’t, Tom. Your singing probably woke people up in Memphis!
He grins at this. Alright, turkey. If I stop singing, you promise you’ll go back to bed?
But I want him to go to bed too. Tom, please come inside and get some rest so we can go swimming tomorrow? Please?
He stops smiling and stares up at me. Dirt and things sifting through his fingers. I’m so proud of you, Meg, he calls, like he didn’t hear what I asked. I’m so proud. I think you’re just spectacular, Meg. Now you go back to bed, alright?
Yes sir.
Good night, Meg.
Good night, Tom.
I shoot up in bed. Willy May will be coming in—Lord, what time is it?
It is already six thirty in the morning!
Tom’s bedroom door is all the way open, and I run downstairs.
Lights are on all over the house and … everything looks pretty good.
Just like I left it last night. Tom’s office door is shut, there’s not even a bit of that red wax anywhere, and then I remember the yard.
The way Tom was singing drunk, he’s apt to’ve left a bottle on the ground.
I open the back door in the kitchen. The sun is just starting to come up, turning everything pink.
I’ve hardly got the door shut behind me when I see Lucille.
Lord help us, first Tom out here and now her too?
She is dressed in her long white nightgown like a sane lady would wear to bed, not some drunk lunatic running out the woods.
When she gets closer, I see rips in the skirt part and long scratches on her ankles.
If she is not drunk, well she is damn something.
Lucille, where have you been? You are going to get us in trouble! I don’t know where I get the gall, but I have had it with her!
She stops and puts her hands on her knees, huffing.
At the lake, she says. She was not down there for swimming, I know that. She would rather chew her arm off than rinse out her hairstyle.
Go get in bed with Tom before Willy May gets here. You’re a filthy mess, I say. There are leaves in her hair and she has wild animal eyes.
Lucille is trying to get some air in. After every gasp, she gets a few words out.
Tom’s not in bed, he …
… tied bags to his arms and legs …
… filled his pockets with rocks and he …
What are you talking about? I don’t know if I ask it, but I do think it.
Tom took the boat into the middle of the lake and jumped in.
I stare at her. All I can think to say to her is, It gets awful deep in the middle.
Lucille has run past me inside, and now she is bawling into the telephone—
Get somebody out there, she cries, he’s out there—
No! she says. I saw him, he’s in the lake, he’s drowning!
I hear a wind in my ears. The person on the telephone doesn’t believe her.
No, he didn’t wander off—no, he didn’t have a fever! HE WAS DRUNK AND JUMPED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LAKE!
Lucille drops the phone and the bang makes me jerk.
Out the front door she goes, and I run after her, I don’t want to get left.
She starts her car, so I pull open the back door and get in with her.
When she drives, she leans up close, gripping the wheel, and after two turns she slams the car to a stop at the top of the hill that’s next to the lake.
I hear rumbling behind us. There are trucks, and a colored man and a colored boy my age get out of one. The boy is running.
Lucille points out to the middle of the lake, hollering at them.
All I can hear is that wind in my head. The empty boat is floating close to the edge, and the colored boy wades out and pulls it in, long pants and all.
Big Mr. Heidelberg and Tom’s brother are here too now, and Lucille screams through the wind for them to goddamn hurry.
The brother and the boy row out to where it is awful deep and they jump over the side of the boat and me and Lucille watch as they both go under.
I am holding Lucille’s hand tight. Her nails dig into my skin.
One pops up for breath, goes down again. Another pops up, goes down again. I don’t know how long a man can live under the water.
Lucille sinks down into the wet grass and pulls me down with her. I see Mrs. Heidelberg standing by her husband, bent over like she is trying to breathe. She gives me and Lucille one long look like we were in this together.
It is a long time that goes by before the boy pops up and hollers, I found him!
He’s out in the middle where it’s awful deep, too deep if you are just learning to swim, or if you stuffed your pockets and tied bags of rocks to your feet and arms.
It takes many men to drag him up to shore.
At least that is what I heard. I did not see that part in person, they made me and Lucille and Mrs. Heidelberg leave when they pulled him up. Oh but I see it all just fine in my head.
Tom still singing while he goes down.