“Yes, I used to hear him.” The girl laughed, a full deep laugh. “Lordy, I used to think what a conniption he’d have if he knew he was a granddad!”
Joan said, “Our parents are dead.”
“Yes, I know. The chapel’s shut up. They say it’s going to be a dance hall next summer — fellow name of Jack Weeks is going to open a beer hall there as soon as the main road’s finished — a little peakedy white fellow, but his dad’s putting up the cash. Going to open the factory again, too. The state’s working on a big new road now right through South End, and everybody says business is going to be good — we’re all going to make money.” The girl spoke eagerly, her mouth a poppy for redness in her glowing face. She was restored to good humor. “I’ve got to be gone, I guess. My fellow’s waiting down the road. He’s got a car. Well, thank you, ma’am, if you will help me. I call this child Frankie, after his pa. I call them after all their pas — the two girls, I twisted their names. Willa, I call one, and the other — Here, you take off the lady’s jacket, Frankie.”
“No — let him keep it,” said Joan. “And take care of him.” She turned and began to walk away.
“Oh, sure I will! I’m always good to them — nobody can say I’m not good to them.”
She looked after them once, quickly. That small creature was trudging along over the rough earth road. She could see her jacket warm around him, glowing through the twilight a spot of scarlet.
Oh, what had Francis done?
In the house there was the smell of wood burning in the kitchen stove. The cover had been taken from the table and in the kitchen, the men were washing. She heard Bart say, “Where’s Jo?”
“Upstairs, I guess,” his mother answered. “I’ve had no help from her tonight, I know.”
But she tiptoed through the room and went straight upstairs to the attic. Francis was still asleep. No, he was not asleep. He was lying awake, and he had lighted the candle on the box.
“That you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. She came over and sat on his bed. She had no time to waste. In a few minutes Bart would be shouting for her.
“Francis,” she began and stopped. “Francis — there was a girl here this afternoon — from South End — looking for you. I met her on the road.”
She felt his body gather and grow tense. “She was here, looking for me?”
“Yes — but I knew before.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
They were both whispering. He sat up. “If you knew, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t — you didn’t tell me.”
“I wanted to get away. … Damn her, she used to say she’d find me wherever I went. That’s why I couldn’t come back home. Thought I was safe here. How’d she know? I haven’t stirred out. I haven’t seen anybody.”
“She heard somehow.” He did not ask of the child.
“I’ve got to go away now.”
“But why are you afraid of her, Frank?”
“I’m not afraid of her — she’s only a whore. You can’t understand.”
“Then what are you afraid of, Frank? I could help, you know. I’ll think of some way to help.”
“You can’t help — you don’t know.” He began picking at the old tufted quilt he had put over his knees. “You — I’m not afraid of her—it’s myself—you can’t understand. I’m spoiled, see? I’m afraid of — wanting to go back to her. I–I’m not decent. I — want her — a woman like her. You don’t know. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I make myself sick. I want her and then I’m sick. I’m sick. I’m sick when I remember her — other women like her — but I want her. It’s the only kind I can — can want. I can’t get away from it — I want to get away, but I can’t.”
But he did not speak of the child. He did not know of the child. He must never know about the child. … “Me in a coal mine, Joan, wanting to fly!”
“Jo!” Bart’s voice shouted up the stairs. “Time to eat!”
“You shall get away — poor Frank, you shall get away!” she promised. Somehow, she could do it, she said to herself fiercely. She could do what ought to be done.
She rode over them all. Bart, astonished, cried, “But you don’t know how to even get around in the city! You’ll get lost — and I can’t go with you right now. We’re butchering this week — don’t know if Sam could go, even.”
“I don’t want anybody. Frank knows the way there and I can get back.”
She forced her own will ruthlessly.
“You’re near your time. You might be took,” Bart’s mother said. New York! It was a hundred miles away. She knew all about it and she wouldn’t go there for anything, and never had. Things happened there. You could read about it in the newspaper. Everybody said—
“I’ll be all right,” said Joan. “I have more than three weeks to go.”
“You can’t tell so near,” the woman fretted.
“Dr. Crabbe says so,” she answered with composure.
“How can he tell? Can’t anybody tell exactly when a woman takes.”
She did not answer. She went on wiping the table, putting away dishes, sweeping the crumbs, planning. She was going with Frank herself. She was going to find Roger Bair herself this time and tell him about Frank. She could do it.
“It’s not decent for a woman in your fix to go among a lot of men strangers.” Bart’s mother was watching her from the stove.
She turned on her. “You mean it’s a shame for a woman to have a child?”
“No,” the other woman said, embarrassed. She was wiping out the zinc-lined sink and she did not look up. “It’s not shame — not after the birth. But before, a decent woman doesn’t show herself.”
“I do,” said Joan. “I don’t care — I’m proud.” She was triumphant over this house now, triumphant over their silence, over their stubbornness.
“You going to New York?” said Bart’s father at the dinner table. He shot his eyebrows over his eyes at her.
“Yes, I’m going,” Joan cried.
He grunted and filled his mouth with bread.
“Bring me back something, Sis,” said Sam, grinning. He had finished his food and was picking at his black nails with the tines of his fork.
She saw Francis look at him and then stare down into his plate. He ate doggedly, saying nothing. But after the meal he hung about her as she worked. “Don’t come,” he muttered. “It doesn’t matter about me. I’ll find something. There are lots of fellows like me — I’ll go on away again.”
“We’re going tomorrow,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve always wanted to see New York.”
But of New York she never remembered anything. She stayed by Francis closely, getting off the train, going down into subways, going up into elevated trains, walking along the streets that were swaying with crowds. He seemed to know his way, going on with certainty from one place to another. She looked at the faces flying past her, a glimpse at this face, a glimpse at another, before they passed. It was as though they were all whirling about her and Francis, and only they two seemed to have direction.
Or were they lost, too? Once in a subway, deep underground, he took her hand. “Don’t you get lost,” he said.
“I shan’t lose you,” she promised him, holding fast.
They climbed at last into a bus. “Now,” said Francis, “we are nearly there.” He sat down beside her. “There isn’t any hope, you know, Joan. It’s nonsense. He won’t remember me — he doesn’t know you.” His face was bleak in the early morning.
“Are you sure this is the time he will be there?” she asked. She did not answer his despair. She would do anything. All these houses and people — she was not afraid of any of them.
“Yeah,” he said listlessly. “I looked up the plane schedule. He comes the same time he used to. I was always there to see him come in and take off. He’ll be there unless he’s dead. He’s nuts about his plane.”