Daybreak (37 page)

Foster said quietly, “I understand. Yes, I do. But that would solve nothing except to add more pain to your life.”

Laura grimaced. Pain, she thought. And Foster doesn’t even know about Tom’s real pain.

Tom got up. “Excuse me, but I can’t talk anymore, and I’m going upstairs. Good night, Mom. Good night, Dr. Foster.”

Laura and Foster exchanged hopeless glances. There was nothing more to say, and so Foster left, and Laura went to lock all the doors for the night.

At the kitchen door, feeling a sudden need for space and air, she stepped outside, and if it had not been for the light streaming out from the kitchen, would have stumbled over a box that lay on the step. What was left of Earl, a nauseous mess of entrails and fur, lay on a neatly arranged square of flowered cretonne, the remnant of some old slipcovers that had been stored in the attic. No doubt this was Betty Lee’s kind work in preparation for the burial in the morning. Poor Timmy. Oh, poor Timmy, she thought.

And then came horror. The dog had been next to Bud when it happened. So then, Bud, too, had been mangled, mutilated … This was the picture in Tom’s head, the picture that would be in his head always, always to the end of his days.

She retched, vomited, cried and vomited into the bushes behind the garage. Then, shaken, she stood for a minute or two looking up into the sky, into the magnificence that so inspired Tom. But the indifferent, endless glitter refused to answer any questions or to console her spirit, and she went back into the house.

The night wore on. It was curious how her thoughts kept running in random, zigzag directions like chipmunks in foolish chase across the grass. And yet, perhaps there was a pattern to such a chase; you had to watch it for long enough to see the repeat in the design. She stretched her arm across the bed; the sheet, which should have been warmed by Bud’s body, was smooth and cool; he would never sleep here again. How strange to think that last night when he lay down he had no way of knowing that he would never rest here again!

He had been good to her. Without ever truly knowing her, he had been good. And she remembered how he had wanted her, how he had made himself fit into this house and family, he, the ambitious young man so eager to please. Yet all the time he had had that other life, that mean, ugly life of an underworld. A secret mistress would be easier to accept.

Stiff and straight, lying like a corpse herself, she stared up at the ceiling. If this death—terrible word—had not happened, what would have come next? Would I have stayed with him forever? she asked herself. If he had not died, but she had somehow discovered
his connection with the Klan, could she possibly have stayed under the same roof with such a man? She did not think it possible. But if everything had gone on as it had been during those few weeks since they had learned about Tom and Peter—Peter Crawfield, who was the image of Timmy, my Peter—what then would she have done?

Erratic thoughts leapt, making parallels. She’d had a lace dress long ago, a precious white lace dress, an extravagance that Aunt Cecile had “made” her buy. Over and over, she had tended that dress as it wore out, knotting the first loose threads, catching the next tiny rent, mending and hiding the splits one after the other, wearing the dress as long as the fabric could be decently held together, until eventually there came a tear too wide to be bound up, and the dress had to go. Perhaps her life with Bud had been like that and had been destined to end even without his death.

But the boys! How they loved him! Plenty of women these days wouldn’t let that stand in the way of divorce, she knew that well. Plenty of women would, though, and did, not because they were martyrs, but because they were mothers. And Laura Rice was one of those.

These were futile maunderings. And yet, futile or not, there now came a stab of guilt, as if the presence in her thoughts of Ralph Mackenzie could have been in some way connected with Bud’s death. That was crazy, of course. Death always gives rise to irrational thoughts on the part of the survivors, especially when they are not as grief-stricken as people expect them to be. She had read that many times.

Poor Bud.

* * *

She must have fallen asleep toward dawn because the sun was high when she was awakened by the sound of voices in the yard. From the bedroom window the view was clear all the way to the boundary hedge near the old Alcott house. There, under a redbud tree, the boys were burying Earl. Between them stood Betty Lee. And how to look into the face of this lady who had been serving Bud Rice all these years? She had either stayed in the house all night or come back early. She was holding a little clutch of flowers. Timmy was evidently speaking, perhaps saying a prayer; Tom shoveled earth over the tiny grave and Timmy laid the flowers on it.

“Oh God, help them,” Laura whispered. What was going to happen to her boys, each of them with a rare, special burden of his own?

After her shower, she stood undecided at the clothes closet. She owned nothing black except a silk dinner dress; something would have to be ordered for the funeral. All her clothes were bright except those that were white, so white would have to do, a cotton skirt and sweater.

The boys were finishing breakfast when she came downstairs. They were wearing dark blue pants and starched white shirts. Tom gave her a sharp look.

“No black?” His tone reproved her.

“I have nothing. White is summer mourning, anyway.”

“I’m going downtown to get black ties for Timmy and me.”

“That’s a good idea. Charge them at Benninger’s. I have to phone for something black for myself,” she said, feeling the need to explain. She, the mother, explaining to Tom. He was forcing guilt upon her.

Betty Lee said, “I put the
Sentinel
and the
Courier
on the back veranda for you to read. I figured you wouldn’t want to be seen from the street this morning. Reporters will be coming.”

“To the house? Oh, do you think so?”

“Sure as shooting.” Betty Lee’s mouth was grim. “Wait till you read the papers.”

She sat down to read. There were headlines:
PROMINENT COMMUNITY LEADERS MOWED DOWN AT KLAN RALLY; TYSON, RICE, AND PITT KILLED IN KLAN ROBES
. There were subheadings:
No Clue to Driver of Death Car; Luther Tyson, Prominent Supporter of Jim Johnson
.

Down the column went Laura’s eyes, and the letters rose from the page as if they were coming to life. The scene of the horror took color: the orange-red burning cross, the dark, the moonlight, the headlights of the ambulances and the police cars, figures running to and fro, the injured writhing on the grass, the gory dead.

She skimmed the first paper and made an exchange with Tom to read disjointed words and phrases.
Homer Rice, a well-known figure in the civic life of the city … the old firm of Paige and Rice … three generations … prominent family … survived by wife Laura and two sons, Thomas and Timothy
.

She skimmed the indignant editorials.
The respectable navy blue suit, the proper collar and tie, the affable manners and correct opinions disguising the real man who, in robe and mask, waits with his kin at night in secret to spread this evil disease …

She was numb. Flexing her legs and hands, it actually seemed to her that they were chilled, as though the blood had ceased to flow through them.

Jim Johnson can disclaim the Klan a hundred times over
,
but if his aims are so different from its, it behooves him to explain why so many of its members are also his supporters
.

“Have you read all this?” Laura asked.

“Yes, I’ve read it,” Tom replied.

“And?”

“And it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.”

She got up to avoid any more words with him and went inside. The doorbell had begun to ring as she had known it would; friends and neighbors would be coming to bring food, offer whatever help she might need—and also, now that they had read the news, to satisfy their very natural curiosity.

Reporters came with photographers, who caught her on the front veranda, trying to answer with as much coolness as she could muster a clamor of questions.

“Are you then saying, Mrs. Rice, that you actually knew nothing about your husband’s connection to the KKK?”

“I am saying just that.”

“How is that possible, Mrs. Rice?”

“It’s possible because he never told me.”

“And why do you suppose that was?”

“Because he knew,” Laura said patiently, “that I would have been horrified. He respected me enough not to want that to happen.”

One of the neighbors from down the street, losing patience with a string of reporters, told Laura to go back into the house, and shouted at them.

“Have you no decency? Go away and let the poor woman alone.”

Flowers arrived with notes of sympathy. Telephone calls came from people whom Laura had not seen in years, some of them men and women who had been at
school with her or with Bud. Toward evening there came a call from Ralph Mackenzie.

In his direct and simple way, he asked only, “How can I help you?”

“I can’t think of anything now, but I will call you if I do.”

“I’ve heard from Margaret and Arthur. If they can be of any help—” And he corrected himself. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be mentioning it. This isn’t the time.”

“You can speak out to me, Ralph.”

“No, it really isn’t the time. Well, all right. They’re concerned about Tom. The paper they read said he was there, and they’re wondering whether that was true.”

“Yes, Tom was there. He’d gone along with Bud.”

“Well,” Ralph said.

“Tell them I feel just as bad about that as they possibly can feel. But tell them that Tom’s otherwise all right, not to worry. Oh, here he is now.”

“I’ll hang up, Laura. Just remember where I am if you need me.”

“I suppose that was Mackenzie,” Tom said.

She turned to face a thin, bitter mouth and hard eyes. “Yes, a condolence call, like all the others.”

“Like all the others,” he repeated.

She followed him outdoors to where he had sat down at his usual place on the steps. An unopened book lay beside him. His elbows rested on his knees, and his head was in his hands. For a moment she stood unspeaking; the air was too thick with sorrow, the cicadas’ drill too loud, the oak leaves too dreary and dusty in the heat, to collect any thoughts.

Tom raised his head. “Who’s not to worry about me? Those Crawfields, I suppose.”

“Yes, they care about you, Tom. They care very much.”

“They have no right to. I’m nothing to them. They’re nothing to me.”

She laid her hand lightly on his hand, asking, “Tom, tell me, is there anything at all that I can do for you?”

The reply was so low that she barely heard it. “Nothing. Nothing.”

She left him sitting there. The rage that had been firing him had used itself up, leaving a residue of caustic ash.

That Mackenzie, a meddling do-gooder if there ever was one! He probably had his eye on Mom, too. And those others who “care about you, Tom.” Never. Never. A long struggle lay ahead, perhaps a lifelong struggle, unless he were to leave here and disappear on some other continent. Now that Bud was gone, there was no one to stand up with him or for him. Mom had not the faintest comprehension of his feelings, and Timmy was still a little guy, eleven years old, for heaven’s sake, with a hell of a problem of his own.

If only Robbie were here! He wouldn’t even need many words; once the first few bare facts were told, she’d grasp his meaning and take him into her arms with that hot, vigorous little body, hard yet pliable as rubber, the lips so soft, the hair slippery as silk spread over the pillow, the scent of flowers, the—If only she were here!

14

L
ugubrious chords descended from the organ loft, and a mournful purple light flickered through stained-glass windows as the sun went in and storm clouds gathered. All this was appropriate to the occasion, Laura reflected, as were her gloved hands resting on the lap of her black linen suit. Correct as he had been, Bud would approve the fine decorum of his sons in their dark suits and black ties; he would be pleased at the large and distinguished assembly here to say their farewells. How many of these people had come out of sympathy, and how many had come because it was an “event,” she had no way of knowing, nor did it really matter.