“Come on, you girls,” she said. The three girls followed her out to the old car where she got into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“How’s Daddy?” one of the girls asked.
Marie did not answer.
“How’s Daddy, Mother?”
“Don’t talk to me,” Marie said. “Just don’t talk to me.”
“But—”
“Shut up, Honey,” said Marie. “Just shut up and pray for him.” The girls began to cry again.
“Damn it,” said Marie. “Don’t cry like that. I said pray for him.”
“We will,” said one of the girls. “I haven’t stopped since we were at the hospital.”
As they turned onto the worn white coral of the Rocky Road the headlight of the car showed a man walking unsteadily along ahead of them.
“Some poor rummy,” thought Marie. “Some poor goddamned rummy.”
They passed the man, who had blood on his face, and who kept on unsteadily in the dark after the lights of the car had gone on up the street. It was Richard Gordon on his way home.
At the door of the house Marie stopped the car.
“Go to bed, you girls,” she said.
“Go on up to bed.” “But what about Daddy?” one of the girls asked.
“Don’t you talk to me,” Marie said. “For Christ sake, please don’t speak to me.”
She turned the car in the road and started back toward the hospital.
Back at the hospital Marie Morgan climbed the steps in a rush. The doctor met her on the porch as he came out through the screen door. He was tired and on his way home.
“He’s gone, Mrs. Morgan,” he said.
“He’s dead?”
“He died on the table.”
“Can I see him?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. “He went very peacefully, Mrs. Morgan. He was in no pain.”
“Oh, hell,” said Marie. Tears began to run down her cheeks. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, oh, oh.”
The doctor put his hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” Marie said. Then, “I want to see him.”
“Come on,” the doctor said. He walked with her down a corridor and into the white room where Harry Morgan lay on a wheeled table, a sheet over his great body. The light was very bright and cast no shadows. Marie stood in the doorway looking terrified by the light.
“He didn’t suffer at all, Mrs. Morgan,” the doctor said. Marie did not seem to hear him.
“Oh, Christ,” she said, and began to cry again.
“Look at his goddamned face.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
I don’t know, Marie Morgan was thinking, sitting at the dining room table. I can take it just a day at a time and a night at a time, and maybe it gets different. It’s the goddamned nights. If I cared about those girls it would be different. But I don’t care about those girls. I’ve got to do something about them though. I’ve got to get started on something. Maybe you get over being dead inside. I guess it don’t make any difference. I got to start to do something anyway. It’s been a week today. I’m afraid if I think about him on purpose I’ll get so I can’t remember how he looks. That was when I got that awful panic when I couldn’t remember his face. I got to get started doing something no matter how I feel. If he’d have left some money or if there’d been rewards it would have been better but I wouldn’t feel no better. First thing I’ve got to do is try to sell the house. The bastards that shot him. Oh, the dirty bastards. That’s the only feeling I got. Hate and a hollow feeling. I’m empty like a empty house. Well, I got to start to do something. I should have gone to the funeral. But I couldn’t go. I got to start to do something now though. Ain’t nobody going to come back anymore when they’re dead.
Him, like he was, snotty and strong and quick, and like some kind of expensive animal. It would always get me just to watch him move. I was so lucky all that time to have him. His luck went bad first in Cuba. Then it kept right worse and worse until a Cuban killed him.
Cubans are bad luck for Conchs. Cubans are bad luck for anybody. They got too many niggers there too. I remember that time he took me over to Havana when he was making such good money and we were walking in the park and a nigger said something to me and Harry smacked him, and picked up his straw hat that fell off, and sailed it about a half a block and a taxi ran over it. I laughed so it made my bellyache.
That was the first time I ever made my hair blonde that time there in that beauty parlor on the Prado. They were working on it all afternoon and it was naturally so dark they didn’t want to do it and I was afraid I’d look terrible, but I kept telling them to see if they couldn’t make it a little lighter, and the man would go over it with that orange wood stick with cotton on the end, dipping it in that bowl that had the stuff in it sort of smoky like the way it steamed sort of, and the comb; parting the strands with one end of the stick and the comb and going over them and letting it dry and I was sitting there scared inside my chest of what I was having done and all I’d say was, just see if you can’t make it a little lighter.
And finally he said, that’s just as light as I can make it safely, Madame, and then he shampooed it, and put a wave in, and I was afraid to look even for fear it would be terrible, and he waved it parted on one side and high behind my ears with little tight curls in back, and it still wet I couldn’t tell how it looked except it looked all changed and I looked strange to myself. And he put a net over it wet and put me under the dryer and all the time I was scared about it. And then when I come out from under the dryer he took the net off and the pins out and combed it out and it was just like gold.
And I came out of the place and saw myself in the mirror and it shone so in the sun and was so soft and silky when I put my hand and touched it, and I couldn’t believe it was me and I was so excited I was choked with it.
I walked down the Prado to the café where Harry was waiting and I was so excited feeling all funny inside, sort of faint like, and he stood up when he saw me coming and he couldn’t take his eyes off me and his voice was thick and funny when he said, “Jesus, Marie, you’re beautiful.”
And I said, “You like me blonde?”
“Don’t talk about it,” he said. “Let’s go to the hotel.”
And I said, “O.K., then. Let’s go.” I was twenty-six then.
And that’s how he always was with me and that’s the way I always was about, him. He said he never had anything like me and I know there wasn’t any men like him. I know it too damned well and now he’s dead.
Now I got to get started on something. I know I got to. But when you got a man like that and some lousy Cuban shoots him you can’t just start right out; because everything inside of you is gone. I don’t know what to do. It ain’t like when he was away on trips. Then he was always coming back but now I got to go on the rest of my life. And I’m big now and ugly and old and he ain’t here to tell me that I ain’t. I’d have to hire a man to do it now I guess and then I wouldn’t want him. So that’s the way it goes. That’s the way it goes all right.
And he was so goddamned good to me and reliable too, and he always made money some way and I never had to worry about money, only about him, and now that’s all gone.
It ain’t what happens to the one gets killed. I wouldn’t mind if it was me got killed. With Harry at the end there he was just tired, the doctor said. He never woke up even. I was glad he died easy because Jesus Christ he must have suffered in that boat. I wonder if he thought about me or what he thought about. I guess like that you don’t think about anybody. I guess it must have hurt too bad. But finally he was just too tired. I wish to Christ it was me was dead. But that ain’t any good to wish. Nothing is any good to wish.