The Lost Mother Page 4

  He paused, rubbing his chin to the pencil. He didn’t want to make her glad to be far away from bratty Margaret, so he continued.

  But she is mostly a nice little girl just like you want her to be. So please, please come home soon. We miss you. I wish I could see you. Maybe I can come there. Soon, I hope. I can take the bus.

  Your loving son, Tom.

  Sincerely, Thomas H. Talcott

  “What’re you writing?” Margaret asked.

  He folded the paper and put in his pocket. Now he had to get an envelope and stamp somewhere. Maybe tonight at Gladys’s.

  “Tell me what you wrote!” Margaret cried as she dove next to him on the cot. “Show me!” She tried to pull the letter out of his pocket.

  “Don’t, Margaret!” he warned, slapping away her hands.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s private.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s like a secret. I can have secrets. I don’t have to tell you everything. I’m older than you.”

  She moved away and sat on the edge of the cot, her back to him.

  “Is it a secret like Jesse-boy did?”

  “I don’t know. How should I know?”

  She didn’t answer, and didn’t move from his side.

  “What did Jesse-boy do?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he said not to. I can’t.” She looked frightened.

  “But I’m your brother. You have to tell me.”

  “But you won’t tell me your secret.”

  So he did then. He unfolded the letter and read it aloud, leaving out the part critical of her. But when she would not tell her secret, he realized she’d tricked him. That’s how the girls in school were too. Just when he would try and be nice to one, he’d turn around to find her and her friends laughing at him.

  “Hello! Hel—lo—oh!” piped a woman’s hell-bent, breathless voice.

  Startled by the novelty of a visitor, they sprang from the cot. Peering over the little round glasses that hung at the tip of her nose, Mrs. Farley emerged from the line of spindly birches that had snagged her stockings and mussed her hair. She trudged along the path, a basket in each hand. “Hello! Look what I’ve brought you!”

  There were sweet potato muffins, fried chicken, even buttery corn on the cob fresh from Mr. Farley’s garden. He only grew enough for the family, she was explaining as she set everything out on their rickety camp table. Dairy, that’s what Mr. Farley grew up doing. “I, myself, am from an educational background.” Their blank stares caused her to explain. Until her marriage she had been a schoolteacher, like her father and grandfather before her. But then one fine day she met Mr. Farley at a Lenten service, with her sister. Six months later they were married, so she had to leave teaching. Only single ladies taught school, but then she and Mr. Farley had to wait twelve, almost thirteen years before Jesse-boy came along.

  “So here, dear. Start in now.” She patted one of the wobbly stools for Margaret to come sit next to her. Thomas moved quickly onto his. Passing out pink linen napkins and flowery china tea plates she presided over the tent as if it were her home and not theirs. His mother was always pleasant to Mrs. Farley when they met in town, but as soon as she was gone his mother would berate herself for being too nice and falling all over the woman just because of who she was. Out of loyalty Thomas tried to look stern.

  Once he and Margaret started eating neither spoke. His eyes sagged heavily with pleasure. Everything was delicious. Maybe even better than Gladys’s cooking. Of course that was probably more the result of being able to eat in their own place and not under old Bibeau’s caustic stare. Old Bibeau liked their father and hated them. Mrs. Farley liked them, but not their father. She kept glancing toward the path now. Thomas hated to do it, because he wanted it to last, but he began to eat as fast as he could. Mrs. Farley was surely thinking the same thing he was. If Henry Talcott came home now and found her with them, there’d be hell to pay.

  Mrs. Farley had resumed her strange narrative. Strange to Thomas who had never heard his own mother tell about lady things. Aunt Lena did, but her tales were different, vulgar, some too wild to be believed. Mrs. Farley was telling a very personal and, to her, thrilling story. She grew more breathless. Forty-three years old, and when she found out she fainted—just fainted dead away in Dr. Creel’s office from the shock of it. Thomas gnawed his drumstick clean to the bone. What a creepy baby Jesse-boy must have been to make his mother faint. Born the day after Christmas, he was the most beautiful baby she had ever laid eyes on. God had answered her prayers. When he was almost a year old they realized their sweet, weak child had a heart condition. They brought him to the best doctors in Boston and New York, who all said the same thing. There was no cure, nothing for them to do, but keep him as healthy and happy as they could in the short time he had. Probably not much past his third birthday the doctors said. And here he was fifteen—all because of one thing. Mrs. Farley’s voice hushed to a whisper. A mother’s love, she said. That’s what was keeping her Jesse-boy alive. Love. It was her life’s work, she declared in a surge of passion. “He’s a happy boy in spite of everything.” Her voice trembled and behind her thick lenses her eyes were bright and wet. “But he gets so lonely,” she gasped, then looked away.

  Please don’t cry, Thomas thought. He didn’t know what he’d do if she did.

  Margaret was also staring at her. “Excuse me, Mrs. Farley,” she said in a small voice. “Is there any more ginger beer, please?”

  Mrs. Farley grunted as her short, plump fingers struggled to wrench out the cork. She gave Margaret the bottle. Margaret slurped at the amber bubbles fizzing down the neck.

  “And so that’s why I thought I would speak to you children first. Maybe if it comes from you, your father would be more receptive to the idea. I bake almost every day. You could each have your own bedrooms. And you wouldn’t have to go to regular school anymore. Mr. Wentworth said he’d welcome two more pupils in our front parlor classroom. It would be so much better, so much more normal if Jesse-boy had little classmates. You could visit with your father any time you wanted, of course.” Seeing the panic on Thomas’s face she waved, as if erasing a chalkboard. “You don’t have to say anything now. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. I wouldn’t want to get Jesse-boy’s hopes up. So just think about it.” With one of the pink napkins she wiped Margaret’s greasy chin, her hands, then each finger. “Think how happy you’d be. How much fun we’d all have together,” she said softly. To Margaret, who smiled up at her. She leaned closer and whispered in Margaret’s ear. Then she packed up the bones, gleaned cobs, empty bottles, and, as quickly as she’d come, bustled her way down the path again.

  Thomas and Margaret sprawled on their cots, dazed with gluttony. They had even eaten the molasses cookies she’d left. He asked what Mrs. Farley had whispered.

  “That she loved me. And that Jesse-boy did too.” Margaret sat up and looked over at him. “She said she asked him what he wanted most in the whole world and he said for me to be his sister.”

  “You’re my sister!” Thomas snapped with the fire of his father’s quick anger.

  “I know, but you could be his brother too.”

  “Margaret! We’re this family,” he said, gesturing around as if the shadowy tent teemed with relatives. “You don’t want to leave Daddy, do you?”

  “No. But I don’t like it here anymore. I don’t!”

  He told her not to worry, as soon as their mother read his letter she’d see how badly they needed her back. In fact, he took it out and in front of Margaret wrote exactly that in a boldly underlined postscript. PLEASE COME RIGHT AWAY, he printed. The blunt force of the capitalized letters filled him with an urgency he had not felt until that moment, with Margaret so close at his side that her breath raised not just the hairs on his arm but the realization that it was up to him. He had to get his mother back before something terrible happened. He thought of Mrs. F
arley’s mother-love keeping Jesse-boy alive all this time. He printed, I HAVE BEEN VERY SICK. SOME DAYS I CAN’T BREATHE TOO GOOD. What else was wrong with Jesse-boy? I GET TERRIBLE HEADACHES AND HAVE TO BE IN THE DARK A LOT. Jesse-boy’s legs and feet twitched, but he was afraid to go that far, afraid to tempt fate. This was for Margaret’s sake. She was so easily swayed. It was a good thing Mrs. Farley didn’t know how much she loved black licorice. That’s all it might take, a few whips in the next basket and Margaret would be gone.

  For three drizzly days the truck was parked dead in the clearing off the old logging road that led to the pond. Even if Henry Talcott could get into town there was no money for new spark plugs. From time to time Thomas and Margaret pretended to be sad for their father. Having him with them all this time was wonderful even as he sank deeper into his bitter malaise. “Poor Daddy,” Margaret sighed as she trimmed the hair above his collar. “I’m going to make you look like a movie star.” She blew cut hairs off his neck, then peeked around at him. “Which one you wanna be?” Usually when he got this gloomy only Margaret could make him smile, but now even she wasn’t succeeding. Thomas knew to keep out of his way best as he could, but the tent seemed to shrink up even smaller with his father here. Hands behind his head his father would lay on his cot with his eyes closed. Just when they thought he was asleep there’d come a rubbly groan, like rocks being scraped up from deep in his chest. There was plenty to worry about, Thomas knew that, but lately his father acted as if it was the end of the road for them. Thomas was sure his mother wouldn’t be gone much longer. He had mailed his letter two weeks ago. At first he’d been disappointed when she didn’t write right back. But now he understood. She was probably preparing for her return. A trip like that would take time. Collerton, Massachusetts, was a long ways away. He pictured her riding the bus back, which was how she’d gotten down there in the first place. She had probably saved every cent she’d earned, so he’d have to warn Margaret not to expect a present. Having her back would be the best gift of all, he’d tell his sister.

  Henry Talcott had gone outside to shake the hair from his shirt. Margaret was trying to bundle the kitten like a baby in her sweater, but it kept squirming free. Henry was ducking down into the tent when someone called to him.

  “Where’ve you been?” a woman’s voice inquired and both children watched the opening, rooted in their hopefulness.

  “Nowhere. Just here,” he said walking not toward their mother, but Gladys. They stood a few feet off from the narrow lean-to he had fashioned as a three-sided outhouse, which was no more than a pole to squat against, a shovel, and bucket of lime. A tattered blanket served as door.

  Almost as tall as his father, Gladys was a pretty strange-looking woman in her baggy dress and man’s jacket and work boots. Thomas knew better than ever say as much though. Gladys and his father were like brother and sister almost, his mother used to say. His mother was always saying the trouble with poor Gladys was she had no self-respect, dressing the way she did and letting her father run her life. Gladys had gone away to nursing school, but when her mother died, her father ordered her home to take care of the place. Of him, really. His mother’s pity for Gladys often seemed more like gloating in the way most observations were made in front of his father. And who could blame her? Until Irene had come along, everyone assumed marriage between the two friends would be just a matter of time.

  Lately, Thomas had noticed the unnatural quiet that would descend over Gladys with any mention of his mother. It was almost as if she were holding her breath to force silence onto herself. Now that he thought of it, no one had said a bad word about his mother for leaving. All T. C. Whitby had really said was that she was a mill hand. It had been his sarcastic tone that had angered Thomas. His father had assured him Whitby was just mad he’d lost such a good bookkeeper. He said there wasn’t a thing wrong with working in a mill. A lot of fine women did. In these times people were lucky to find work, men and women alike. A person did what he had to do.

  Shirtfront still open, Henry Talcott came back into the tent to tell his children that Gladys was going to take him into town to see about spark plugs. His father never would have stood bare-chested in front of any lady but his mother, Thomas knew. Gladys stuck her head into the tent and asked Margaret if she’d named her kitten yet.

  “Yes,” Margaret said, lifting the cat from its nest of clothes in the trunk. “His name is Thomas.”

  “That’s your brother’s name,” Gladys laughed. “You can’t call him that!”

  “Yes I can!” Margaret huffed.

  “She does not!” Thomas scoffed.

  “Yes I do!” Margaret said in the superior tone he hated so.

  “I never heard you.”

  “Because you say, ‘what?’” Shaking her head, she looked at Gladys. “He always thinks I’m calling him.” Gladys and Henry were both laughing now. At him. But it was the first time his father had even smiled in days. “And I hate so to hurt his feelings,” she drawled.

  “Listen to you, you little imp,” Gladys said, picking Margaret up and holding her out in front of her so that they were face-to-face. “You’re so fresh you’re just as fresh as paint!” she declared in her creaky voice before putting her down.

  He was still trying to think of a clever retort when Gladys hugged his head to her bony chest. She announced that she was expecting them for dinner Monday night. And dress up pretty, she told Margaret. It was a very special occasion. A party! Margaret shrieked. “Yes,” Gladys said, grinning. “August twenty-first! Your brother’s twelfth birthday. And I have something special for him.”

  How strange that summer had become: not even knowing what day of the week it was, much less the date. He hadn’t thought about his birthday at all. But now that it was upon him, it governed everything. He and Margaret had come to the same conclusion. Their mother had chosen his birthday for her return. Of course. For she was the special gift. The surprise. Yes, Margaret eagerly concurred. Something he had wanted for a very long time! (Had Gladys even said that?) But maybe Margaret had heard it and he had not. That’s why his mother hadn’t written him back. She was waiting for his birthday. And she knew he would know that.

  3

  Old Bibeau’s dreary farmhouse should have seemed even bleaker that rainy evening. But how could it on so joyful an occasion? The sky was black with rain. The dull walls vibrated with each blast of thunder. Margaret’s curls dripped from their giggly run inside. She had smuggled in the still unnamed kitten.

  “I’m going to let Mommy pick it,” she had whispered to Thomas when they had been searching through the big black trunk for their best clothes. Their mother was very particular about how they looked when they went out—especially with her. The fancy lady and her ragamuffin kids, Aunt Lena would tease her sister when by the end of a visit brother and sister were bedraggled and grimy. For this wonderful evening Thomas wore his good white shirt, yellowed and short in the sleeves as it was. Margaret’s pink and white dress had started out a clutch of wrinkles. By the time they arrived the rain had smoothed out all but the most compressed creases. As soon as their father had put on his best shirt they had known for sure she would be there. He had even tipped his head into the water bucket to slick down his unruly black hair. Thomas was relieved when the curls sprang back up. Their mother was usually critical of her husband’s appearance. No matter how hard she tried to make him look like a gentleman, he always came back mussed. But she loved his hair. “That’s what did it, these beautiful curls,” she’d say, running her fingers through them until he’d push her hand away, embarrassed.

  The dining table was covered with a white tablecloth. The yellow and blue flowers vining the hem had been embroidered by Gladys’s mother, Gladys was telling Margaret. Boasting almost. No one had said much so far. Margaret kept looking toward the door. Thomas tried not to. The stewed meat and potatoes were delicious, but he was too happy and excited to eat much more. The hard times would be over soon, he was thinking, even as old Bibeau su
ddenly announced that the next hobo looking for a handout would be shot, point blank, no questions asked.

  “I’m putting a sign on the gate. ‘Posted Land. Bindle Stiffs Keep Off!’” he barked with a stab of his dripping fork. His chin stubble glistened with grease.

  “The one yesterday was so young,” Gladys said. “He couldn’t have been much older than you, Tom. Maybe he was fourteen. Maybe. Him and his older brother, they were on their way down from Vergennes. Going out west, they said. California. ‘You should stay in school,’ I said, ‘young boy like you.’ ‘Can’t,’ he said. ‘Too many of us at home to feed, so we’re on our own now.’”

  “Not again, goddamn it!” The old man reached down his leg. He lifted the kitten by its scruff. “Scratching me in my own home!” He shook the curled-up little cat over the table.

  “Please don’t hurt him!” Margaret cried, reaching. “He was just playing! He does that to feet.”

  Their father had been eating steadily and in silence, but now fork in one hand, knife in the other he paused to look at old Bibeau. Thomas held his breath. The skin on the kitten’s head was tight back from its scruff, pulling its eyes to slits. Once he’d seen the old man kick his dog in the ribs, just to make him move.

  “Put the cat down, Dad,” Gladys said, staring at him.

  The old man grinned. “C’mere,” he said to Margaret. She scrambled from her seat and hurried to the head of the table. “Now, don’t you know better’n bring a cat to someone’s house?”

  “Yes, sir. But he’s just a little kitten.”

  “I don’t like cats. They’re sneaky. Like women, always coming up on you when you least expect it.” He stared at her. Thomas’s stomach churned with nerves and joy. This was the old man’s twisted way of announcing their mother’s appearance.

  His father’s knife and fork clattered onto the plate. He stood up and held out his hand for the kitten. “I’ll put him out in the truck,” he told Margaret. She called after him to be sure and close the windows. Henry Talcott returned a moment later. Alone. Thomas’s gaze lingered on the door, but it stayed closed.