“What’s the matter, Virginia? If it’s my job, I can change it. If it’s the fact that we have no family, we can change that, too.”
“No,” she said sharply. “I no longer want a family.”
“Why not? You’ve wept for one often enough.”
“We no longer have anything to offer a child.” She stared out beyond the patio walls to the horizon. The wall of fog had begun to expand. Pretty soon the city would disappear, streets would be separated from streets and people from people and everyone would be alone. “Yes, Howard, I wept, I wept buckets. I was young then. I didn’t realize how cruel it would be to pass along such an ugly thing as life. Poor Jessie.”
He frowned. “Why? Why poor Jessie?”
“She’s only nine, she’s still full of innocence and high hopes and dreams. She will lose her innocence and high hopes and dreams; she will lose them all. By the time she’s my age she will have wished a thousand times that she were dead.”
Twice Louise covered the entire length of Jacaranda Road, driving in second gear, looking at every parked car and every person walking along the street or waiting at bus stops. There was no sign of Charlie or his car, and the Oakley house at 319 was dark as if no one lived in it any more. She was encouraged by the dark house. If anything had happened, there would be light and noise and excitement. Nothing’s happened. Nothing whatever—
She drove to Miria Street. Ben let her in the front door. “Hello, Louise. I thought you were working tonight.”
“I was.”
“Charlie’s not here but come in anyway. I’m making a fresh pot of coffee. Would you like some?”
“Please.” She followed him down the hall to the kitchen. He walked slowly as though his back ached, and for the first time she thought of him not as one of the Gowen brothers but as a middle-aged man.
She accepted the cup of coffee he poured her and sat down at the table. “Are you tired, Ben?”
“A little. It was Dollar Day in most of the stores downtown. What the ladies saved on hats and dresses they came in and spent on food.” He sat down opposite her. “I think I’ve found the right place.”
“Place?”
“The apartment I wanted down near the breakwater. It’s furnished, so I wouldn’t have to take a thing out of the house here, and the landlord told me I could keep a dog if it wasn’t too big. I’ll sign the lease as soon as you and Charlie name the wedding day... You don’t look very pleased. What’s the matter?”
“I was trying to imagine this house without you in it. It’s very — difficult.”
“This house has seen enough of me. And vice versa.”
“Charlie would like you to stay with us.”
“He’d soon get over that idea. He’s nervous, that’s all. He’s like a kid, dreading any change even if it’s a good one.”
“Maybe I’m a little like that, too.”
“Come off it, Louise. Why, I’ll bet after you’ve been married a few weeks you’ll meet me on the street and think, that guy looks familiar, I must have seen him before some place.”
“That could never happen.”
“A lot of things are going to happen. Good things, I mean, the kind you and Charlie deserve.”
She took a sip of coffee. It was so strong and bitter she could hardly swallow it. “Did — did Charlie come home after work?”
“No. But don’t worry about it. He had to go on an errand for the boss. It was an important errand, too — making a delivery to the Forest Service up the mountain. It shows the boss is beginning to trust him with bigger things. Charlie told me on the phone not to expect him before seven o’clock.”
“It’s nearly nine.”
“He may have had some trouble with his car. I’ve had trouble up there myself on hot days. The engine started to boil—”
“He was at the library about an hour ago.”
“There’s more to this, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
Ben’s face didn’t change expression but suddenly he pushed his chair away from the table with such violence that his coffee cup fell into the saucer. Brown fluid oozed across the green plastic cloth like a muddy stream through a meadow. “Well, don’t bother telling me. I won’t listen. I want one night, just this one night, to think about my own future, maybe even dream a little. Or don’t I deserve a dream because I happen to be Charlie’s older brother?”
“I’m sorry, Ben. I guess I shouldn’t have come running to you.” She rose, pulling her coat tightly around her body as if the room had turned cold. “I must learn to deal with situations like this on my own. Don’t come with me, Ben. I can let myself out.”
“Situations like what?”
“You don’t want to hear.”
“No, but you’d better tell me.”
“I think I can handle it myself.”
“By crying?”
“I’m not crying. My eyes always water when — when I’m under a strain. There’s a certain nerve that runs from the back of the ear to the tear ducts and—”
“We’ll discuss the structure of the nervous system some other time. Where is Charlie?”
“I don’t know,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of one hand. “I’ve been looking for him ever since Miss Albert called to tell me he’d been at the library.”
“You’ve been looking where?”
“Up and down Jacaranda Road.”
“Why Jacaranda Road? You must have had a reason. What is it?”
She took a step back, as if dodging a blow.
“You’ve got to answer me, Louise.”
“Yes. I’m trying — trying to say it in the right way.”
“If it’s a wrong thing, there’s no right way to say it.”
“I’m not sure that it’s wrong. There may be nothing to it except in Charlie’s imagination and now mine. I mean, he gets so full of worry that I start to worry, too.”
“What about?”
She hesitated for a long time, then she spoke quickly, slurring her words as if to make them less real. “There’s a child living at 319 Jacaranda Road, a little girl named Mary Martha Oakley. Charlie swears he’s never even talked to her and I believe him, but he’s afraid. So am I. I think he’s been watching her and... well, fantasying about her. I know this isn’t good because a fantasy that gets out of control can become a fact.”
“How long have you known about the girl?”
“Two days.”
“And you didn’t level with me.”
“Charlie asked me not to.”
“But you’re leveling now, in spite of that. Why?”
“I want you to tell me how it was the... the other time. I’ve got to know all about it, how he acted beforehand, if he was quiet or moody or restless, if he stayed away from the house on nights like this without telling anyone. Did he talk about the girl a lot, or didn’t he mention her? How old was she? What did she look like? How did Charlie meet her?”
Ben went over to the sink and tore off a couple of sheets of paper toweling. Then he wiped the coffee off the table, slowly and methodically. His face was blank, as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
“Aren’t you listening, Ben?”
“Yes. But I won’t do what you’re asking me to. It would serve no purpose.”
“It might. Everybody has a pattern, Ben. Even strange and difficult people have one if you can find it. Suppose I learned Charlie’s pattern so I could be alert to the danger signals—”
“It happened a long time ago. I don’t remember the details, the fine points.” Ben threw the used towel in the wastebasket and sat down again, his hands pressed out flat on the table in front of him, palms down. “If there were danger signals, I didn’t see them. Charlie was just a nice, quiet young man, easy to have around, never asking much or getting much. He’d had two years of college. The first year he did well; the second, he had trouble concentrating — my mother suspected a love affair but it turned out she was wrong. He didn’t go back for the third year because my father died. At least that was the accepted reason. After that he went to work. He held a succession of unimportant jobs. One of them was at a veterinary hospital and boarding kennels on Quila Street near the railroad tracks. Every day the girl walked along the tracks on her way to and from school. Charlie used to chase her away because he was afraid she’d get hurt by a train or by one of the winos who hung around the area. That’s how it began, with Charlie trying to protect her.”