The Lost Mother Read online

  Thomas cringed back. His hand closed over the door handle. The winding mountain road was dark, lit from time to time by the onrushing headlights. Curled in a ball Margaret slept in back. Not to worry, they were in good hands, the man said. He pushed the knife back under his seat.

  “My father’s in jail,” Thomas said in a bid for kinship, empathy, anything to spare their lives, but the man said nothing. Thomas’s eyes burned for sleep, but he forced them wide as possible.

  “Lord a’mighty, will you look at that. It’s a sign!” the man said as he hit the brake. In the middle of the road the eyes of a twelve-point buck shone like two rubies. The man hunched over the wheel, whistling softly between his teeth. The stately creature did not move. “We could live off the meat for a winter. Make shirts and shoes out of the hide.” He reached down for his knife. “What d’ya say?” he whispered, not moving, staring at the deer.

  “No,” Thomas said.

  “Go on! Git!” The horn blared and in a leap the great buck disappeared into the black night.

  “Thomas?” Margaret sat up suddenly. “What is it?”

  “Nothing, little sister. Nothing at all,” the man said. He began to drive again.

  Margaret did not lie down. She asked if they were near Collerton yet. The man grunted something. The brief sleep had invigorated Margaret. She said they were going to live with their mother. She worked in a big factory. Margaret said she was very excited because she hadn’t seen her mother since last winter.

  Thomas’s heavy eyes sank to the cadence of Margaret’s voice through the dark as they sped round curves, lower down into the flattening valleys, the mountains shrinking in their wake.

  “Thomas!” she whispered.

  He awakened, confused, cold with hunger and fear. They were parked by the side of the road. The man was gone. “Where is he?”

  “Going to the bathroom.”

  “Where?” He couldn’t see out; branches pressed against his window.

  “I don’t know. He said not to look.”

  He squinted through the windshield. “It’s so dark. I can’t see.”

  “No, don’t!” Her hand gripped his shoulder as she tried to pull him back. “It’s him the sheriff’s looking for. That’s why he went on the bus!”

  “How do you know?”

  “I told about the sheriff and that’s why we were walking. And he said, no, they’re after him. They always are. Every place he goes.”

  “Why? What’d he do?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I was too scared.”

  “But you told him all about us, didn’t you?”

  “No! Not about Jesse-boy. Not that part. Thomas!” she gasped.

  The door opened. The man scrambled in and drove onto the road. “Here you go.” He handed back a stale soda cracker. He took another from his pocket and gave it to Thomas, then one for himself.

  “Thank you,” they both said quietly.

  The eastern sky was brightening. A rim of pinkish light outlined the mountains behind them. Thomas kept looking over. Finally he said, “Your hand’s bleeding.”

  The man sucked one knuckle, then the other. “Must’ve cut it on the window.”

  No one said anything for a few minutes.

  “I got a sore hand too,” Thomas said, cupping it to his chest, begging God to please, please help them.

  “We almost there?” Margaret’s voice was a small rasp.

  “You could keep on going with me,” the man said. “I got two brothers in Mexico. Very important men down there. They have horses. Wild mustangs. Hundreds. So many, you can each have two or three of your own if you want.”

  “Thanks, but we better not,” Thomas said with a rueful shake of his head.

  “Suit yourself,” the man said. “But you won’t get such a chance again. No sir, not in a blue moon you won’t.”

  “Up there!” Margaret pointed over the seat. “The sign. See? It says Collerton.”

  “Probably just as well though,” the man continued, heedless of the passing sign. “I’m not particularly welcome anymore. Last time I went they locked me up in the bunkhouse. Thirty days they kept me under the boiling hot sun with no food or water. In a dirt-floor, one-room cell with common criminals, thieves, and murderers. Banditos, all of us!” he cried with sudden pitched laughter.

  “Turn here!” Thomas directed, and the man jerked the wheel. He turned onto a broad, treeless street with houses so near one another they almost touched. They hadn’t driven too far when they came to an enormous brick factory. The tall iron gates in front were being opened by a man in a wool cap with earmuffs. There was a large whistle around his neck. Their driver eyed the man uneasily.

  “Look for Common Street. Thirty-four Common Street,” Thomas said, repeating the long-remembered address on his mother’s letter.

  “He’s watching me,” the man said, speeding off.

  Men hurried along the sidewalk on their way to work. Some carried lunch pails, others, buckets with a cloth on top. A milk wagon came down the street, then stopped. The milkman jumped down and filled his wire carrier with bottles of milk from ice-filled crates in the back of the wagon. He left the bottles on the doorsteps of the next two houses.

  “Stop here!” Thomas said.

  “I can’t, they’ll find me!” the man said, his voice breaking.

  “Let us out quick then. We won’t say anything!”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes! I promise! We both do! We promise, we do,” Thomas kept shouting before the car finally pulled to the curb. Front and back doors opened at once and they leaped onto the sidewalk, running back toward the milk wagon as the crazy man sped off.

  Common Street was only a few blocks away, the milkman said. He gave directions, then asked who they were looking for.

  “Irene Talcott,” Thomas said and couldn’t help smiling to be so near with her name and his breath in the air. The milkman shook his head. He knew the address, but not the name. Thirty-four Common was a rooming house. People came and went; new faces all the time. Following the milkman’s directions Thomas hurried around the corner.

  “Wait!” Margaret squealed at his heels. “You’re going too fast. Slow down!”

  He couldn’t, so he grabbed her hand and tugged her, running alongside.

  11

  Thirty-four Common Street was a weather-beaten, three-story house with different colored curtains in each window. As the children ran up the front steps a skinny black dog charged out from under the porch, barking at them from below. Margaret cringed against Thomas as he reached for the brass knocker. “You’re not afraid of dogs,” he said, noting the paper sign nailed to the door:

  NO BEGGARS

  NO HANDOUTS

  NO WORK

  “But that’s at home. And I don’t know him.”

  “He doesn’t know you either.” He had already banged the knocker three times. Just as he went to lift it again, the door swung open.

  “Go on! Go! Get out of here, you stupid dog!” the woman shouted, then peered out through puffy eyes. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “It’s six o’clock in the morning and some’re still sleeping!”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  She gave a wave of disgust. “What is it? What do you want?” She had orangey hair and thin painted eyebrows of the same bright hue as her hair. Her black robe was covered with cat hair.

  “Is Mrs. Talcott here?”

  “Mrs. Talcott, is it? Her odd eyebrows arched. She seemed amused.

  “Yes. Her first name’s Irene.”

  “And who’re you?”

  “Thomas. I’m her son. And this here’s Margaret. She’s my sister. We’re here to see our mother.” He grinned.

  Chuckling, the lady bit her lip and shook her head. “Well, what d’ya know. Can’t say I’m surprised though.” She leaned down and pinched Margaret’s cheek. “But I know someone who will be,” she teased delightedly.

  Starin
g at the woman, Margaret rubbed her cheek.

  The woman brought them inside. They followed her down a dank hallway past a parlor where two shawled women huddled in front of a coal stove with cats on their laps. Thomas and Margaret glanced toward every passing room, expecting to see their mother. The woman led them to the kitchen. A dark-skinned young woman with haphazardly bunned hair stirred a pot of cereal on the stove. She glanced back and asked if they were eating. The woman asked if they wanted some porridge.

  “Sure,” Thomas said. He and Margaret sat at the long wooden table and the sulky kitchen girl served them. The cereal was thin and flavorless but hot, and it felt good going down. The woman sat across from them. “These’re Irene’s children, Millie!” she called to the quickly turning kitchen girl. “She never told me she had such beautiful children. She ever tell you, Millie?”

  “No!” The kitchen girl stifled a laugh.

  They were almost finished when she asked where their father was.

  “In—” Margaret started to say.

  “Belton,” Thomas said quickly. Belton, the woman repeated. Where was that? Vermont, he said. Why was their mother here and their father way up there, the woman asked, leaning close. She came down to work, Thomas said. In a big factory that makes cloth, he added. The woman smiled and tilted her head, as if she were trying to catch them in a lie. Did they know who owned that big factory? she asked.

  “No,” he said.

  Margaret’s spoon clinked as she scraped the last bit of cereal from her bowl.

  “Louis Dexter. Mr. Louis Dexter,” the woman said with a knowing glance at the kitchen girl, who had moved to the table. Arms folded, she stood over them, listening closely.

  “He’s the boss?” Thomas said.

  “I’ll say he’s the boss, all right,” the woman said. She and the kitchen girl smirked at each other.

  “I have to go the bathroom,” Margaret leaned close and whispered in Thomas’s ear.

  “Don’t be telling secrets, you rude little thing,” the woman scolded.

  “She said she has to go to the bathroom.” He stared at her. “That’s all she said.”

  “Go show her, Millie,” the woman said. Sullenness descended over the kitchen girl as she hurried Margaret from the kitchen. “So, what’re ya here for, you two? You gonna be living with your mother now? Or just visiting, are ya?” Again came that calculating sideward gaze.

  “Is my mother here?”

  “No,” the woman said. “What about your father, is he coming?”

  “Well, is she at work then?”

  She covered her mouth with a prim little giggle. “Depends on what you call work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  A tall, skinny man shuffled sleepily into the kitchen. Suspenders hung down the sides of his baggy brown pants. “Mornin’, Miss Noyes,” he mumbled and sat down with his head in his hands.

  “Serve yourself, Seamus. Can’t you see? Millie’s not here,” she said irritably, then leaned into the boy. “Your mother left. She doesn’t live here anymore.”

  Thomas and Margaret climbed halfway up the hill. He stopped to check the paper again. Twelve Kressey Court, the woman had written. Third right up the hill, then on the left was Kressey Court. There were six houses on the horseshoe-shaped street. Number twelve was the smallest.

  “We’re here,” he said. There were no sidewalks and the road was cobbled with paving blocks. Breathless, they stood in the street looking up at the pale blue cottage. The door was gray as were the narrow shutters on the small diamond-paned windows. There was a black iron fence in front. Margaret rushed to open the gate, but couldn’t. He ordered her to stand back so he could reach the latch. But it was locked. He swung himself over the fence, snagging his sore hand on the sharp tips of the wrought iron.

  “What about me?” Margaret struggled to get a leg over, but wasn’t tall enough.

  “Stand on the lower bar there. Arms around my neck. Okay, climb up and get your foot between the points. Okay, now the other one.” He stepped back with his arms out as she balanced, waiting. They had made it this far. Of course the last obstacle would be easy. She laughed and leaped into his arms.

  Thomas rang the bell. They could hear its jarring buzz from here.

  “Don’t!” Margaret said before he could ring it again. “Mommy hates loud things. She’ll be mad.”

  “I know that.” He scowled at her. “I was just going to knock, that’s all.”

  They both stared up at the door.

  “Well, go ahead, knock on it then!” Margaret said impatiently.

  “Don’t tell me what to do. I’m waiting.” He rocked back on his heels. “We have to wait.”

  “For what?”

  “For Mommy! You’re supposed to give people time to come, you know.” Hands behind his back, he watched the door.

  Margaret watched until she could stand it no longer. She rang the bell, holding her finger to the button.

  “Louis, I was in—” came the soft, familiar voice with the opening door.

  “Mommy!” Margaret screamed, springing at the tall, slender woman. She threw her arms around her mother, burying her face in the folds of her nightdress. It was so sheer that Thomas looked away in embarrassment.

  For a moment all Irene Talcott could utter was their names. Margaret. Thomas. Repeating them in uneasy bewilderment. “How did you get here?” She quickly closed the door behind them, as if on others yet to come. The bus. And then a ride, Margaret said, clinging to her mother’s hand. “With a crazy man,” she added, making the awkward moment even more so. “He had a knife and he probably killed somebody to get us crackers.”

  “I don’t understand.” She looked at her son.

  “Well we had to!” Margaret declared in a torrent of details too elusive for her mother, who kept blinking down at the unkempt dervish who had landed in her little parlor with the pink tub chairs. Margaret went on about life with the Farleys, the terrible heat of the rooms, so dry she could barely swallow some days, and not being able to go to a real school, and Jesse-boy, he—

  “Margaret!” Thomas interrupted. “You’re doing all the talking. I haven’t said anything to Mommy yet.” Irene looked at him. They both looked at him.

  “So go ahead and say something,” Margaret said in exasperation. “You’re just standing there.”

  At that instant Irene seemed embarrassed, as if aware for the first time how revealing her nightdress was. Just a minute, she said then hurried into the next room. She returned, tying the belt of a white satin robe. She sat the children down, one in each chair, then asked how they had come. And why.

  “To see you,” Thomas said, bristling.

  Margaret looked hurt. The attention she had desired for so long was on her brother now, its great beam eclipsing her. Thomas spoke hesitantly, though cautiously. He could sense his mother’s discomfort. And yet, no matter their disappointment, no matter the surges of relief and fear each was feeling, they could not take their eyes off their mother.

  In a loved one’s beauty, there is solace, comfort in its presence, and the hope—no, the belief—the certainty that possession of so fine an ornament might be sustenance enough. Here it was, at last, the object of all yearning. They stared, relieved. She was more beautiful than ever before. Her dark, loose hair fell softly about her face. Her deep-set eyes were startlingly bright, bluer than the clearest sky, her cheekbones high, her long imperious nose perfect, her skin milky beneath the high color of her emotions, her wide mouth full and parting easily with the suggestion, promise, hope of a smile. And though it might as quickly quiver to nothing, it left its beholder hungry, needing more. They both felt it, though they weren’t aware of holding their breath, of such grinning, of yearning forward in their chairs, abstracting from her hand-wringing, tongue-tied bewilderment the real proof of her love for them.

  When Thomas finished talking, telling everything in much the same careening, out-of-sequence garble as Margaret, Irene finally spoke. “So your father
sent you here?” Sighing, she closed her eyes.

  “No,” Thomas said. He went over it again, all their unhappiness in the different places they’d been. And so because their father was in jail they had nowhere else to go, but here. To their mother.

  “He did this.” From the delicate loveseat she spoke quietly, her voice dulled by sadness. They had heard and seen her like this before. The death of baby James had cut the heart and the life right out of her. Day after day she had sat this way, for weeks, contained and staring, numb with loss, not seeming to see or hear them, the living children, the only ones she had left.

  “But it’ll be all right, Mommy.” Margaret hurried to take her mother’s hand, to comfort her again as she had after baby James. “Because now we’re here. We can stay with you.”

  Irene’s head lifted. She did not look at her daughter, but past her, across the room at the wall or door, the street beyond, the sky. Thomas refused to follow her gaze, instead watched her as if the strength of his stare might penetrate something, put him in her heart.