The Late Child (9 page)

“Neddie, I never got in the habit,” Harmony said, a little defensively. Mainly Eddie watched cartoons on Sunday morning, when Sunday school was happening.

“He's just five,” Neddie pointed out. She didn't know why she bothered, though—Harmony was never likely to take Eddie to Sunday school. “It wouldn't hurt him to have another point of view and not just have his head totally filled with things he's learned on TV.”

Harmony couldn't quite get her mind off the vexing problem of Wendell and Pat.

“You don't think she'd do anything on the first date, particularly since it was supposed to be my date, do you?” she asked—she was beginning to feel a little insecure.

“Do you know about Masters and Johnson, that couple in St. Louis?” Neddie asked. “They're doctors.”

The names sounded familiar but, tired as she was, Harmony couldn't quite place them.

“Do they have a talk show?” she asked.

“No, they're them sex doctors that they send molesters to, and stuff,” Neddie said.

“Oh,” Harmony said. “What about them?”

“Your sister's been to see them three times,” Neddie said. “They're trying to get her cured of sex addiction, but so far they ain't had much luck.”

“What?” Harmony asked. Her mind had been sort of switching channels, it had just switched back to the Pepper channel; the
fact that Pepper was dead just wouldn't go away, not for long—it kept returning, to weigh down her mind and her heart. She didn't understand what Neddie was getting at, when she mentioned Pat and the sex doctors in St. Louis.

“She's been there three times for sex addiction,” Neddie repeated, in her flat voice.

“Pat's got sex addiction?” Harmony said—that was certainly a channel-switching piece of information.

“Yep,” Neddie said. “It's the talk of Tarwater, and has been for years. Masters and Johnson thought they could get her calmed down, but they ain't having no luck. If you ask me, Pat's more revved up than ever.”

“Oh, my God,” Harmony said—it had never occurred to her that anyone could be a sex addict, much less one of her own sisters. Though, thinking back, she could imagine that maybe sex addiction was what had been wrong with Denny, a boyfriend from years ago. If anyone in her own life had been afflicted with sex addiction, it was probably Denny; he had not been interested in much of anything else, not while he had been with Harmony anyway. The reason she broke up with him was because he had had the gall to ask Pepper for a blow job, this was when Pepper was no more than sixteen. But that was just Denny, he was no prize—she had booted him right out of her life the day she found out he had made that offensive suggestion to Pepper.

“Neddie, are you sure?” she asked.

“I guess I'm sure—I drove her to St. Louis myself all three times,” Neddie said. “Every man in Tarwater knows better than to go within thirty feet of Pat.”

“Good Lord,” Harmony said. “I wish you'd told me that before I let her go off with Wendell.”

“I meant to but it's kind of hard to work sex addiction into a conversation, particularly with Eddie bouncing around,” Neddie said. “He liked them biscuits, didn't he?”

Eddie liked the biscuits so much that he had eaten four, with various jams and jellies. But now all Harmony could think of was that she had sent her sister off with Wendell, never dreaming
that her sister was a sex addict who had been to St. Louis three times to get help. Years back, when Wendell had been dating Myrtle, Harmony remembered that Myrtle had been trying to slow him down a little bit, sexually, on the grounds that he had a bad back that was apt to go out and cause him excruciating pain if he wasn't careful in his movements. Pat had just met Wendell and was unaware of the problem with his back—Wendell, of course, was unaware that Pat had sex addiction. What if Pat's addiction flared up and tempted Wendell into some movement that caused him to become paralyzed? It would be terrible if, after going to bartending school and struggling to improve himself, Wendell became paralyzed because her sister Pat didn't have the self-discipline to keep her hands off him.

“How do you think Pepper got AIDS, Neddie?” Harmony asked. No matter how hard she tried to distract herself with thoughts of Eddie's skepticism about religion, or Pat's bad effect on Wendell's new career, little bombs of pain kept exploding inside her, and they were all about Pepper.

“Harmony, she's at peace now, however it happened, it's over,” Neddie said.

“She was my daughter, I need to know,” Harmony said. “She's been gone for six years. I wish I'd gone to visit her.”

“Why didn't you, hon?” Neddie asked.

“She didn't want me to—we weren't real close,” Harmony admitted. “Pepper was ashamed of my clothes, or something.”

“That's just daughters, mine are the same way,” Neddie said. “You just have to ignore the friction and do what you think ought to be done, anyway.”

“I was scared of Pepper, she was always so sure of herself,” Harmony said. “I should have taken Eddie to meet his sister, though—even if I was scared.”

“There's lots of things I wish I'd done that I didn't do, honey,” Neddie said. “That's life. We're all scared of something.”

“What are you scared of?” Harmony asked. Her sister Neddie had never seemed to be the scared type. The one time Harmony had visited Neddie and Dick on their farm, Neddie had killed
three rattlesnakes in her yard in one day. Having that many rattlesnakes around would have made Harmony too scared to move, but it didn't seem to faze Neddie at all.

“I'm afraid one of my kids will die,” Neddie said. It was something she had never been able to get off her mind, during all her years of motherhood—and now the very thing that she had always feared had happened to her sister Harmony. Often she had dreamed that a child of hers would be taken by one of the common afflictions: car wreck, drowning, hunting accident, fatal disease, drugs. And yet it had turned out that Harmony's gifted daughter was the only second-generation loss the family had suffered.

About all Harmony could remember about her brother-in-law, Dick Haley, was that he believed every word of the Bible to be literally true. Whether he had been a good husband to Neddie she had no way of knowing. It seemed to Harmony that it was just as well that Eddie and Dick had never met, given the fact that Eddie had his doubts about some of the Bible stories. She didn't know how Dick would react to some of the information Eddie had picked up on the Discovery Channel, even though most of it was just normal information about animal life, as far as she could tell.

“Why don't you come home with us, Sis?” Neddie asked.

“Do what?” Harmony asked. She had been wondering whether Dick and Eddie would hit it off; she had read an article in a magazine she had browsed through at the hairdresser's, an article about role models. The article made her feel a little guilty, because she definitely had not provided Eddie with much in the way of role models. Jimmy Bangor was a recent example of a boyfriend who hadn't been really bad but who also wasn't much to write home about if you were picking role models for a bright little boy like Eddie.

“Come home with us,” Neddie said again. “You been out here in this desert too long, Harmony, and the glory days are over. Come home to Tarwater and let Pat help you raise your little boy.”

“But Pat's a sex addict, you just said so yourself,” Harmony said. Actually, the remark took her by surprise; she wanted to give
herself a little time to think. With Pepper dead and her heart so weighted down, with bombs of grief exploding inside her practically all the time now, it was hard to know where she was going to find the spirit to be a good mom to Eddie. The thought of having her sister's help was so appealing and so comforting that she was a little afraid to let herself really consider it. What if Neddie had just said it without really meaning it? What if Dick Haley vetoed the notion because she had not given Eddie good training in regard to the Bible? Having her sisters to help her was almost too much to hope for, though part of her certainly wanted to hope for it.

“Oh, Pat's wild, but she's got her good points,” Neddie allowed. “She's good with kids, as long as they ain't
her
kids. She's been a good aunt to my kids—they'd go to her in a crisis ten times quicker than they'd come to me.”

“Eddie does like her biscuits, he ate four,” Harmony said. “But he's in school here—he's got his little friends.”

“Harmony, Eddie's five years old,” Neddie reminded her again. “He's sociable too. He could make friends in Oklahoma.”

“I guess so,” Harmony said. “Eddie's just always led an urban life.”

“Tulsa's urban,” Neddie reminded her. “I didn't mean you'd have to live right in Tarwater—I know our schools ain't as good as the schools in town. You can live where you please, as far as that goes. I just think you need to be closer to your kinfolk, so we can help you in this time of grief.”

“Oh, Neddie,” Harmony said. “Why did she have to get AIDS?”

Then a big bomb of grief exploded, and all Harmony could do was cry.

“Where's Aunt Pat?” Eddie asked the next morning, when he came bounding down the stairs. His mom was asleep on the couch, wrapped up in an old red blanket, and his Aunt Neddie was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking and drinking coffee.

“Good question, where is your Aunt Pat?” Neddie asked.

“Maybe a dinosaur ate her?” Eddie speculated. He owned several small rubber dinosaurs himself; but he knew that real dinosaurs were very large—and, unlike whales, they didn't just eat plankton.

“Dinosaurs might even eat aunts,” he told his Aunt Neddie. “Is my mom just taking a nap?

“I'm in the mood for an omelette,” Eddie added. “My teacher says eggs are fine as long as you don't eat them every day.”

“Why wouldn't they be fine?” Neddie asked. “Your Uncle Dick eats three or four of them every day and he's pretty healthy.”

“Bad cholesterol!” Eddie said. “You're not supposed to eat them every day. Are there any biscuits left?”

“One,” Neddie said, looking in the oven. She cut the last biscuit open and buttered it for Eddie, who munched on it while she made the omelette. Now and then he went over and peeked at his mother, to see if there was any sign that she was about to wake up from her nap.

“She doesn't usually nap when it's time to get me off to school,” he informed his aunt.

Harmony wasn't sleeping that deeply; she was just a little reluctant to open her eyes and face the truth, which was that her daughter was dead. Her son was alive, though—she heard his quick voice through the fog in her head. When she reached out to Eddie, she happened to catch him by the hand that held what was left of the buttery biscuit.

“Uh-oh, Mom—crumbs on the carpet,” Eddie said. “Aunt Neddie's making an omelette, would you like to share?”

“No, but you're sweet to offer, honey,” Harmony said, pulling Eddie up onto the couch with her, crumbs or no crumbs. He was still in his pajamas, and smelled sweet, the way he always smelled when he had just bounced out of bed.

“Aunt Pat's gone, we think a dinosaur ate her,” Eddie said. “Aren't you going to work today, Mom?”

“Not today,” Harmony said. “I think I'll just stay home and visit with your aunts.”

“One aunt,” Eddie corrected. “A brontosaurus ate Aunt Pat.”

“I hope so,” Harmony said. “That's better than having your Aunt Pat eat Wendell—how dare she stay out this late?”

“Ever since Pat got money she's been a law unto herself,” Neddie said. “Come eat your omelette, Eddie.”

“I love having my aunts here to cook, Mom,” Eddie said, pouncing on his omelette. “That way you can take naps.”

“It wasn't so much a nap as just going to bed too late, honey,” Harmony said, sitting up. The movement made her realize that her head hurt—her stomach didn't feel in the best condition, either. Later in the evening, after Neddie had dozed off, she had had a few rum Cokes; she wanted to fog out, if possible, and not sit there feeling that she would have to be awake forever, with little bombs of regret and sadness exploding over and over in her consciousness—the little bombs seemed to rock her harder each time.

“What kind of cookies do you have for my lunch?” Eddie inquired.

“Maybe just Oreos,” Harmony said, dragging herself up.

“I'll make his lunch, hon,” Neddie said, seeing that her sister was not too steady on her feet.

“No,” Harmony said. “I want to.”

“Yes, because my mom knows
exactly
how I like lunches,” Eddie said. It was fine having his aunts to cook breakfast, but he preferred to have his own mother make his lunch and pack his lunchbox, even though she usually had a variety of cookies, not just Oreos.

Harmony and Neddie stood in the yard and waved at the
school bus as it pulled away—through the window Eddie, sitting, as usual, with his friend Eli, waved back.

“One of my aunts didn't come home last night,” Eddie informed Eli. “I think a dinosaur ate her.”

“It couldn't have been, because dinosaurs are extinct,” Eli said. “You know that.”

“There might be just one that isn't extinct,” Eddie said. “It could be over there behind that building eating my aunt. Maybe it will eat this school bus and then we'll all be deaded.”

Eli didn't take the remark seriously. As usual, he was eating the licorice out of his lunch.

The school bus had barely rounded the corner when a white limo pulled up at the apartment building and stopped.

“I wonder if that's Giovanni?” Harmony said. She had briefly had an Italian boyfriend who was a limo driver—once in a great while Giovanni would cruise by, and stop in for a little visit.