Lost (6 page)

Then, for several weeks, every night, it seemed, after she and Toddy had gone to bed Mamie heard them talking downstairs, their faint voices rising sporadically through the joists and plaster and lath like buried hearts. On the nights she couldn't sleep, she went quietly down to the landing to listen. Their voices sometimes buzzed and hummed inside the walls; only pieces of what they said came to her undistorted. One night, her father said, “I'm going to do what the doctor said to do, Ellie. Or else, before we know it, it might be too late.” And her mother replied, “Not yet, please, not yet. Haven't you seen how well he walks? He's doing so well. Just today I was thinking we should move him upstairs. He needs more time. Give him a little more time, Ray … another few weeks.” A shadow came to the lighted doorway below, and Mamie slipped up the stairs.

Another night, she had to go all the way down the stairs to hear. Light glowed beneath the closed kitchen door; she inched toward it. “Doc Lasher said he needs tests and he needs specialists. Even then we can't be sure. Maybe he'll never be—”

Her mother was adamant. “I won't put him away. You might as well tear the heart right out of me. I can't … I won't.”

A long silence followed. One of them stirred something; a spoon tinkled against china. Her father said, “He's been out of the house again. I checked his shoes this morning when I got up. And they were wet. You know all this and still you persist.”

Without any detectable increase in the pitch of his voice, suddenly he was near; inches from Mamie's eyes, the brass doorknob turned clockwise. As if hypnotized by it, she stood locked in her tracks. She couldn't move, the fear pounding through her. The door cracked open a slit and a thin blade of light scored her in half. But before she could think what to do, the knob jiggled and the door closed. “What if he is depressed,” her mother said. “He'll come out of it.” Mamie was already on the stairs, her fingers swinging round the pillar post. “Depressive,” her father said, and the walls muffled his voice.

On the landing, Mamie hastened up the remaining stairs and back to her room.

But she dozed and tossed and dozed again. The house settled into a deep plinking silence, like a well. She couldn't think what it would be like to be put away, except that it would be a room with bars in it. Every few minutes, she woke up slick with sweat. She had to tell him, warn him.

In the deepest ebb of the night, she made her way down the dark stairs, crossed in front of the window fan that ruffled her hair and made her suck in breath, and entered the living room through the double doors, now left open. Her mother slept sprawled on the couch. Mamie paused long enough to watch the slow, even fall of her breath. Then she hurried toward the white island of the lounger.

To hide, she knelt on the back, shadowed side of it, checked the dark peripheries, and nudged Sherman's shoulder. As smooth and controlled as ball bearings, his eyes flipped open and they were like the lightless eyes of an animal stirred suddenly from an alert sleep. Placing her finger straight against her lips, she whispered, “Sh-h-h.” He started to raise himself on his elbow, but she motioned him down. “Sherman,” she said, uttering his name so low it was hardly more than the shape of her lips. “We have to go away. Go far away like we used to want to. Okay? Go far, far away. I put all your things in the doghouse. The things we took.” She couldn't tell if he was listening. Like cobalt disks, his eyes were fixed on her, unblinking and expressionless. “We have to go, Sherman, just as soon as we can. I'll let you know when. Maybe Saturday when they go upstairs to sleep. If we don't go, they'll put you away in a place with bars in it. They're going to. I heard 'em.”

Though quiet, his voice was gruff like a man's. “They did this, didn't they?” he said.

“What?” she murmured. “Did what?”

“Hurt me. To make me stop.”

“No, but they're going to if we don't leave. So we have to. Or they'll put electricity things on us and make us talk like they did on the radio. On ‘Boston Blackie.'”

“I know what they did,” he said, shifting his head on the pillow. “I'm tryin' to remember … all day.” The words oozed from him, his eyes beginning to squint. “I looked in the mirror. I had to do somethin'. And I had to do it.”

“But they're going—”

“I know what they're tryin' to do. I heard them.” Then he said, “Look.” He slipped his hand under his pillow and pulled out a crumbling white pill. “I fooled her.” His mouth worked and a strange broken smile widened his face. He started to giggle. Amazing bright tears clung in his eyes. “I fooled her.” And he laughed. For the spark of that moment, he was the old Sherman again, having a good time, and nothing else mattered. She couldn't help it; she was laughing, too. And as she laughed she whispered to him, “Don't be mad at Toddy any more. He's been so worried about you.” Sherman put his hands over his mouth and she put her hands on top of his, because if he stopped laughing, maybe she would, too, but it was too late. Their mother stumbled toward them. “What d'you two think you're doing? It's the middle of the night.”

They looked up at her, no longer laughing.

“Well, come on. Somebody tell me.”

“We're just telling jokes,” Mamie said.

“Oh, Mamie, you don't know any jokes. Now run back to bed.”

That was on Monday.

On Thursday evening, as they sat around the dining-room table passing the serving dishes back and forth, a knock came at the back screen door. It had been a sultry day for September, and it seemed an odd time for someone to call. Their father pushed his chair away from the table and went to answer the door.

They heard him say, “Well, Russell … come in, come in.” He always said it twice. The other man said he couldn't stay, apologized for interrupting their dinner, but he had seen their father come home from work and he had something he thought he might want to see. Would Ray step outside?

“Who's Russell?” Mamie asked Toddy, who shrugged and grimaced and dug his spoon into his peas.

“Why, I'm ashamed of you two,” their mother said. “You know who Russell is. It's Mr. Ambrose. He lives right behind us.”

Very carefully, Mamie sat back in her chair. She left her fork on the edge of her plate, slowly withdrawing her hand to her lap. She licked her lips. “What does he want, do you reckon?”

“How should I know?” their mother said. “Toddy, don't play with your potatoes. It's something to do with your daddy.”

“I want to see,” Mamie said. She rolled from the chair and dropped to her feet even as her mother told her she couldn't. She went to the window, but the projection of the porch blocked her view. She pivoted and ran through the kitchen to the screen door.

On the palm of his left hand, her father held the brown paper sack. It was open at the top. He was taking the things out of it one at a time, glancing at them and dropping them back in, while Mr. Ambrose talked. For a moment Mamie felt dizzy; the air began to waver. She turned and stepped into her mother. “I told you no, Mamie. Now come have your supper before it gets cold.” Steering her by the shoulders, she marched Mamie back to the table.

Keeping her eyes downcast, Mamie turned her peas with her spoon. Fine prickly goose bumps nibbled her legs as the worry gathered in her mind. Still she didn't move, sneaking sidelong glances at the empty plate, then at the empty blue eyes peering at her across the table. The minutes stretched indefinitely. Knowing the screen door would bang shut when her father came in, waiting for it and steeling herself, did not lessen its startling surprise. It was like waiting for the cuckoo to spring from a striking clock—when the screen door slammed, she jumped so hard she upset her plate. And he still didn't come for her. He stayed in the kitchen.

He made himself scarce. At eight-thirty, Mamie was helping her mother put the supper dishes away when she heard him in the living room. “Toddy, you better go on up to bed.”

Toddy said he wasn't through with his geography questions.

“Then you can finish them upstairs. And stay up there. What I have to do won't concern you. You better go on up right now.”

Mamie took a deep breath. Under her skin, her muscles tightened as if straining for a place to hide. She heard Toddy climb the stairs. Her father called her into the dining room and closed the door behind them. By then, she was far too tense to cry. She stood in front of the closed door, tucking her lower lip in over her bottom teeth with three of her fingers, breathing very fast. “Sit down,” he said, and she did, at her place at the table. “Mamie, when things were really bad, I asked you to tell me the truth and you wouldn't.” He was fuming, his words sawing across her nerves. In the shine of the tabletop, the ceiling light reflected an inverted ghostly pool. She fixed her gaze there.

“Is there something you want to tell me now?”

She did not flinch; her eyes began to smart.

“Mamie, you were in on this from the very beginning. You're just as guilty as he is. Maybe more. All along you've lied to me. Now tell me you don't know about this.” He dumped the contents of the sack on the table, the harder things—the fountain pen, the silver dollars, and the tiny telescope—bouncing and skittering on the tabletop, the noise deafening, then clattering to a standstill. “Now, what am I going to tell all these people—all our neighbors?” A web of bleary light skimmed across her eyes. She couldn't gulp her tears any longer. She twisted from the chair, but he caught her in midair and thrust her down on the seat. “Oh, no, you don't,” he said. “I'm putting an end to this right now. Tonight. I want to know what you did. Everything you did. If there's more than this, you'd damned well better tell me.”

Her mother opened the door to the kitchen and stood there, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. He didn't glance at her or pause. “There's more to this than meets the eye. You didn't do this by yourself. You couldn't have. So let's find out who helped you. And stop that bawling. Don't you dare cry.” She choked and swallowed and wiped her face.

She would never know what caused him to notice her ring at precisely that moment. But he did. “I suppose that's part of it, too,” he said, and for a second she didn't know what he was talking about. “All this time you've been parading it right in front of me, and like a damned fool I didn't even look. What d'you want with this trash?” Suddenly he pulled her fist up from her lap, forcibly undid her fingers, and yanked off the skull ring—all while she was begging, “No, Daddy! Oh, no, Daddy!
That's my ring!
Toddy gave it to me! Daddy, it's
my
ring! Please, Daddy! Please! Oh, please!
Oh, please, Daddy, that's my birthday ring!
We didn't take
that!
” But he had gone to the window and shoved it up and, with a snap of his wrist, the Phantom's skull ring sailed into the night. Shocked, she stood completely still, her voice like a rock stuck in her throat, astonished at the irreversible suddenness of it. Her ring was gone.

Her father crossed the dining room, threw open the living-room doors, and strode toward the lounger. Her mother followed after him. “Ray, don't, for God's sake. Let it pass.”

“Don't start on me, Ellie,” he answered. “I won't live in a nest of trashy thieves.”

From under Mamie's hair the sweat trickled down her back. She shuddered.

Her father brought Sherman into the dining room, with Sherman in front. In dungarees, a plaid shirt, and his Pirates baseball cap, the boy looked like any other strapping thirteen-year-old, except for his cold, blank eyes. Immediately he saw the jumble of trinkets on the table and sauntered to a stop.

“Sherman,” their father said, “have you ever seen any of this junk before?”

Mamie saw the realization flicker on his boyish face. Almost imperceptibly his expression drew tight—his jaw muscles clinched, his brow peaked slightly as he squinted, the rekindled hate flowed in his eyes. “I been tryin' to remember,” he said under his breath.

“Oh, you remember, all right. There's nothing wrong with your
memory
.”

Recalling that other time, Mamie rushed between them. “Daddy, don't hurt him,” she cried. “Don't hit him! He don't know any better.” The bile rising in her throat was so sour it burned. She tried to cover her mouth but couldn't in time, vomiting into her hands and down the front of her dress. Everything blurred. Doubled over, she retched and vomited and blindly stroked the air. She didn't know when her mother came or where she came from, but she was there, holding her at the waist and forehead. “That's it. Get it out. Let it all out.” The room and the side of her mother's face swam out of Mamie's focus. She couldn't find Sherman. Her father had picked up the telephone.

“Ray, put that down and help me,” her mother said. “What's the doctor or the police or anybody else going to do anyhow … after all this time?”

Mamie couldn't remember being taken to bed that night or how the two heart-shaped pillows from the sofa came to be under her head. She awoke in her petticoat as Sherman lifted her in his arms. Nestling upright against his chest, she put her tired arms around his throat and shoulder in a loose hug. “Are you okay, Sherman?” she murmured.

She could feel him nod against her hair.

“What time is it?” she asked, her voice as droopy as her eyes.

“Almost daylight,” he said.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked. Slowly the room wheeled; she nodded against him lightly as he walked. Still blinking with sleep, she glanced down the back slope of his shirt, seeing the cuffs of his pants and the slide of the carpet beneath them.

“Far away,” he said. Blades of cut grass were stuck to the backs of his shoes.

Mamie batted her eyes hard. “My purse,” she moaned, still woozy. They went back for it; he turned and stooped and she caught the strap in her fingers; they turned again.