David and Frankie grew together, sleeping in the same room, going to the same school. But Frankie was far below his grade. David came home one afternoon bleeding, blown with battle.
“Why, David!” cried Joan horrified, hastening for water and bandages.
“Some of the fellows laughed at Frankie,” he said furiously. “They said he was dumb and they called him a nigger, and I socked ’em. He’s just dark, isn’t he, Joan?”
She looked at Frankie and caught his look, full of deep self-realization.
“Let me wash you, David,” she said. “Turn around and let me see you.” He turned, not knowing in his anger that she had not answered. When he had gone clattering upstairs to change his bloody shirt, Frankie spoke to her.
“I know I’m a nigger, ma’am.”
She looked back at him impulsively. But he might at this moment have been Francis, cut in bronze! She leaned to him and quickly kissed his forehead. “You are one of my children,” she said.
He warmed and melted, wavering, longing. But he did not dare to come too near her. He took her hand and held it against his cheek. His cheek was hot and soft beneath her palm. Now she felt this other flesh. It was as sweet, as sound, as any flesh, not strange to her. “There,” she said. “Run along and find David. I’ll spread you both some bread and jam.”
But under this passage of the days there was a stillness. They were very nearly enough, these children. Paul was nearly enough of sorrow. He was there among the others, blind, stumbling, mumbling at his hands, seizing gluttonously upon his food. His placid baby face was changing. The vacancy of his mind was beginning to shape it inexorably and more swiftly than wisdom might have shaped it. He was nearly sorrow enough, but not quite. There might be, she was beginning to know, a sorrow deeper than Paul, even as there was a joy deeper than David’s and Mary’s growing, sweeter than Frankie’s singing. They were not quite enough, all of them, for her sorrow and her joy. Something bright had ceased to weave beneath her, as though Roger were not living. Silence was worse than death. She never could bear silence since she had left Bart’s house. To be alive and silent was more meaningful than death. Day after day went past and he was silent. She came to feel she was living on a far island, out of sight and sound. Above her in the air, around her in the seas, people came and went and moved and struggled. But she heard nothing. Fanny had not come back. Francis did not write. Even in the village there was silence. No one came near her, day after day. Only Mrs. Winters had come twice, to look at the children. “I want them to know their grandmother,” she said. But both times she had stared at Paul.
“My goodness, Joan, you can’t keep a child like that here!”
Joan picked him up and wiped his drooling mouth and made his garments neat. She bore the pain drearily. It must come again and again, David asking sharply, “Why can’t Paul walk?”—Mary snatching Paul’s toys, knowing already he was without defense. Only Frankie was never surprised. “Yes’m, there’s quite a lot of babies in Sound End slow like Paul.” He looked out for Paul, always. He took Paul’s toys gently away from Mary and gave them back to him.
She said quietly to Mrs. Winters, “I think it just as well that they grow used to children like Paul. They’re part of life.”
“If I’d had my health,” said Mrs. Winters, “you’d never have to. Mr. Winters used to be so delicate, and now he’s heavier than me.” She held up her arm. “Remember what round white arms I used to have, Joan?” She looked at her withered yellow arm sadly.
Joan forgot what she had said of Paul. “Have you seen Dr. Crabbe?” she asked.
“Him!” said Mrs. Winters. “I wouldn’t go to him — I don’t put confidence in him — never did. He’s always abetted Mr. Winters against his egg-nog, anyway. Says it doesn’t do any good if he doesn’t want it. It’s contrary to religion, if nothing else. We’ve all got to do what we don’t want to — it’s life.”
Joan smiled. Mrs. Winters was old now. There was no use contradicting the old, whose voices would so soon be stopped. But she knew life only began when one did what one wanted to do. She wanted to see Roger Bair — to speak to him. It was no longer enough to write.
“Well, I’ll be going,” said Mrs. Winters. “David looks peakedy to me. He’s too thin. I saw him on the street yesterday.”
“He’ll never be fat — he burns himself up,” she answered. “Look at Mary!”
They both looked at Mary. She was chewing a rubber doll and when she saw them looking at her she dimpled madly, murmuring. Mrs. Winters capitulated. “Yes, she’s real heavy. You’ve done well by her, Joan. Well, as I was saying — my Ellen was just as healthy and in a week she was dead — pneumonia. You can’t fix your heart, not on anything in this world.” She turned away from Mary.
Joan did not answer. “I will fix my heart,” she said silently. “What is the use of living if you do not fix your heart? It is not living, living only to avoid pain.” And always she waited for Mrs. Winters to complain because she had left Bart
But Mrs. Winters began, “I don’t go to church anymore. I can’t abide the minister’s wife — a cold driving woman, laying down the law, especially in the missionary society. I told her, “Haven’t I got a son that was a missionary and my own daughter-in-law, lying out there martyrs? These children wouldn’t have been motherless if I’d been listened to. Well”—she sighed—“you’d better start David in on cod-liver oil. And if I were you, and I don’t mean to hurt you, Joan, but I’d put that child away. It isn’t right. Now you listen to me.”
She held Paul to her closely for a long time after Mrs. Winters was gone. One could not put sorrow away and have done with it. It lived on as long as one’s heart could beat to feel it.
David burst into the room. “Hello, Joan!” he shouted, and darted toward the kitchen. In a moment Frank would be there. He came and followed David, smiling at her silently. Did he really look as much like his father as she thought? She was frightened sometimes lest someone in the village might see him and see how much he looked like Francis Richards. But who now would remember Francis? No one thought about Francis anymore, no one except herself.
Whether Roger reached her first or whether she saw the notice of Francis’ death first, hardly seemed important. The notice was only a small paragraph, a plane had been lost in a curious manner by a man who had, it seemed, meant to lose it — a man named Francis Richards. She stood holding the paper in her hand, staring at the name. But Francis Richards was not a very common name. Still, it was common enough so that she must keep her head. She must telegraph. But the doorbell had rung at that moment and without waiting there was such a knocking that she put the paper down and ran to the door. He had telegraphed her first, of course. Roger — but it was he himself! She knew him instantly. She had not forgotten a line of his face, his body.
“Am I in time?” he asked quickly. She stared at him. “I mean — have you seen the morning paper?”