"If I choose to punish my daughter," Steve's anger was now directed at Mirelle, "I will!"
"If you punish, yes. But do not take your anger out on her."
"Don't intimidate me, Mirelle!"
She glared at him, daring him to strike her, too, but suddenly all the aggression drained out of him. She held out her hand to Tonia and led her to the kitchen, to bathe the child's face and help her control her sobbing. The marks of Steve's fingers stood out red and fierce against the creamy skin. Mirelle crushed ice in a towel, certain that Tonia would have a livid bruise by morning.
"You cannot speak without thinking, Antonia. Daddy loves his mother," Mirelle began in a quiet voice, hoping to calm the child.
"No, he doesn't," Tonia replied defiantly, her eyes sullen. "Not the way he was yelling at her this morning."
Mirelle put her fingers across the girl's mouth. "Be quiet." She tried to ignore Tonia's instinctive flinch.
When Mirelle returned to the dining room with Tonia, Steve was gone. She and the children finished their dinners silently, Nick darting glances at his sister's face.
"You two go watch TV," Mirelle said, "unless, young man, you've got homework to finish."
"All done Friday afternoon, Mom," Nick said. "Honest!"
She heard the grate of the garage door rolling up and, looking out the window, saw Steve attacking the snow drift in the driveway. His shovelling was almost frenzied and she thought for a moment of warning him to take it easy. He wouldn't appreciate such gratuitous advice. Better to let him take his frustration and anger out on the snow. She wondered exactly what had happened before her in-laws left.
"Have I won the war, or lost another battle?" she asked herself and then went to pack a suitcase for Roman.
She fussed in the kitchen, tidying up the last of the disarrangements of her usual placement of pots, utensils and spices which invariably took place when Mother Martin visited. She made hot chocolate for Steve, timing it so that it was ready when he had finished shoveling. He came in through the laundry room, stamping snow from his boots.
"I'm bone cold," he said, gratefully accepting the steaming mug she handed him. "Can I see Ro any time or do I have to wait for visiting hours?"
"He's in a private room. You can go when you want. I packed the small blue bag with things he'll probably need or want."
"I'll change then and go see him."
She accepted his neutrality. At least he'd worked out his anger on the snow. She wondered if she'd ever find out… short of pumping Nick and Tonia… what happened when he got home from the hospital that morning.
'I wear the pants in the family.' 'Don't intimidate me, Mirelle.' The phrases, like gauntlets thrown in preface to a duel, ran through her mind. They were unlike Steve. Was he stating the difference between himself and his father? Mirelle shook her head. She gave the drainboard a final swipe with the sponge and then went down to the studio.
Nick peered at her from the gameroom door.
"Gonna do Roman a sickpig?" he asked hopefully.
"I ought to but I'm too tired to do it tonight, Nickie."
"It's only six. Walt Disney isn't even on yet."
"It might just as well be midnight the way I feel."
"Yeah, it's been a day!" And Nick rubbed the back of his neck in imitation of his father's gesture.
Mirelle tugged his hair affectionately and then pushed him back into the gameroom. Without volition she went to the Lucy and touched it tenderly, dispassionately admiring the line of the figure that seemed about to spring forward into life and movement. She could almost see Lucy completing the gesture of patting her hair in order. She turned the statue into profile and sat down on the couch, looking at it.
"Momma," complained Tonia's voice in her ear, and Mirelle woke with a start. "I wanna watch…"
"Mom, I keep telling her it's her bedtime now," Nick said.
Mirelle looked at her watch and realized that she'd fallen asleep. It was almost 9:00.
"No more TV. Both of you get to bed and on the double."
She shooed them upstairs and settled the argument as to who would sleep where. She checked Nick's closet to see if he had school clothes for the morning and found herself automatically checking Roman's room as well.
She saw them tucked into bed and, wondering where Steve could be, slowly undressed and got herself ready for bed. She tried to read a book but the print blurred, so she gave up, and reassuring herself that if Steve had been in an accident on the the slippery roads, she certainly would have had a call. She thought of Roman, she thought of her in-laws and tried not to imagine what the final scene had been like. She tried not to think at all and touched the pole of concern for Roman, swinging back to her concern for Steve until she forced the figure of Lucy into her mind. Comforted by the symbol, she managed to drift into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DREAM AND REALITY got interwoven together, with hands grasping for her, hands tremendously enlarged by the power of the dreaming mind: grotesque hands, with thick fingers, hairy knuckles and ragged nails; horny palms and blunt fingers; then spider leg long digits with Chinese-length nails waggling grey-green index fingers at her in reprimand; suddenly the path opened into the depths of the forest and, grateful for the cool of the green woods and the smell of the ferns, 'they' plunged into the shadows, leaving the redness of the orange desert and the merciless sun behind them. The ferns grew fingers and grabbed at her ankles; the vines grew arms and reached for her.
"Mirelle! Mirelle!" Steve was shaking her awake.
"Oh, God," she groaned, shaking her head to dispel the nightmare.
"I overslept. Make me some coffee and an egg."
Mirelle grabbed his robe and staggered downstairs, yawning at the growing daylight visible from the kitchen window. She snapped on the overhead light, the glare making her squint. She got coffee made and was frying an egg when Steve walked into the kitchen. He gulped down the coffee, half-swallowed the egg, and went out to the garage chewing a slice of toast. She stood stupidly in the center of the kitchen and finally realized that he hadn't kissed her goodbye. Not so much as a perfunctory peck. She heard the car tires scrunching on the brittle snow and ice of the driveway and then heard him gun the cold motor as he swung up the hill.
She got the children up and ready just in time for their usual buses when Nick noticed that the high school bus hadn't come yet.
"Whee, maybe we have a snow day," he cried, cheering.
Mirelle felt none of his jubilation and was relieved to see the first bus belatedly making its rounds. She made them eat breakfast then, since the buses were obviously behind schedule. And then she dug up spare gloves so they could snow-fight while waiting as all the other kids were doing.
She was just about to sit down for coffee when Roman's newspaper route manager dropped by to ask how he was. She had to ask him in, out of courtesy, but he didn't stay long. Just asked her to see if Roman knew of a substitute to work the route. Mirelle promised, feeling slightly guilty because she'd completely forgotten about that obligation. Roman, it turned out, had phoned his manager from the hospital.
Then she was able to sit down quietly to a peaceful cup of coffee and her usual twice-over of the morning paper. Roman's horoscope advised extreme caution in attempting new projects. She snorted contemptuously, wondering what they'd advised for Sunday for Libra. Her birth sign promised a completion of projects underway and a favorable outlook for the start of new business.
She made toast and sat by the dining room window until all the snow-clowning figures had embarked on buses. There were huge marred areas on the snowy lawns now, the sunlight reflecting off the untouched patches and shadowing the uncompleted forts.