Family Linen (27 page)

I told it to Millard, who was real nervous waiting for me. He had closed up the shop by then of course, and had been looking out the window for me, and worrying. This is the first thing I remember, in fact, about that long walk home, Millard at the window, against the yellow light. He met me there at the top of the stairs, and hugged me, and sat me down on the sofa inside, and I told him all of it. I used to tell Millard everything. He was good to talk to. I've never told it since.

“The worst part is,” I said to Millard, “and I'd stake my life on it, honey, the worst part is that the way it was, you could tell it had happened over and over, it's probably been going on for years. You could tell she was used to him telling her like that, and resigned to it, and you could tell he was used to getting it whenever he said. It was that kind of a thing,” I said to Millard, who lit two cigarettes and handed me one. My whole hand was shaking.

“Do you reckon she knows?” Millard asked, meaning Elizabeth.

“No,” I said, “or if she does, she don't know she does.” I thought this was more likely.

“I'm going to talk to her,” I said.

Millard said, “Honey, I don't know if I'd do that or not, if I was you. Things'll either get better, or they'll get worse, and you can wait and do it then.” This is how Millard was, and one of the things that made him so easy to live with. And also he'd come right out and tell you what he thought, but he'd never try to tell you what to do. That's the one thing I won't stand for, never have. Everybody knows it.

“Well, I am anyway,” I told him then. Elizabeth was my sister after all, and so was Fay.

But Elizabeth wouldn't listen.

I came up to her on the sidewalk, two days later, outside the five and dime, she was all dressed up and looked real pretty.

“Hello, Nettie,” she said in a way that said something about my old coat, and my hat, and the way Millard and me lived. She looked beyond my face.

So things got off on the wrong foot right then, and me with the best of intentions.

“Listen,” I said to her, speaking fast, and keeping my voice low. “Elizabeth, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but there's something I've got to say.” People were going by on the street, a lot of them nodding and speaking, and she kept smiling and nodding at them. A little icy drizzle fell all around.

“It's about Jewell,” I started, and her face iced over, but she kept on smiling. “I don't know if you know what he's been doing,” I said, “but it's not right, and it's time you sent him packing,” was what I said. Now I know I did this all wrong, there's ways of beating around the bush to put a person at their ease, and ways to sugar-coat a bitter pill. But those ways are not my way. Once I decide to do a thing, or say it, I go on and get it over with, that's the way I am.

“It's none of your business, whatever you're talking about,” she said.

“I mean about him and Fay.” I said it plain.

Elizabeth stood staring at me for a minute with the misty rain falling between us. She opened and shut her red mouth. Then it was like she gathered herself up somehow, so she stood about three inches taller.

“Well!”
she said. “I never in all my life! I don't have the faintest notion what in the world you might be talking about, Nettie. I can't imagine what you're referring to. I don't have the faintest idea. I am a happily married woman, which ought to be evident even to you, and these insinuations will get you no place. Oh you'd like to see the end of Jewell, I'm sure, you think you might have access to some of my money then. But don't you think for a minute I'll fall for such a trick as that,” Elizabeth said.

I was too surprised to say a thing. You'd have thought she really believed it, she spit out those words so strong. Maybe she did believe it right then, for a minute, or maybe it just came to her as a way not to listen to me.

“Listen, Elizabeth—” I started again, but she opened up her red-and-black striped umbrella with such a whoosh, she damn near poked my face.

“I'll thank you to stay out of my business in the future, Nettie dear.” Her voice was cold, sugary sweet. “My marriage does not concern you. And if I ever do need any advice, I'll seek it elsewhere, I can assure you. I certainly don't need either criticism or consolation from a two-bit whore.” Then she was gone, off up the street, red-and-black umbrella, black suit and hat, all elegant. I stood there looking after her, I saw how it was. Even if she did know it, and I got the feeling she must of had an idea about it by then, she didn't want to hear it. Well, can you blame her? What a thing to know! And her putting on all those airs. As for her calling me a whore, that didn't set too well with Millard, but it never bothered me. I could see why she said it, I know how she thinks, but that is just one of those words that don't mean a thing in the world to me. I can't say I had not given plenty of thought to Millard's wife living over across town, and to his three kids, and one of them retarded. But what's done is done. I went on back in the shop and worked on the books for the rest of the day, and never did see her close up like that again for weeks.

Not until he disappeared, I reckon, thinking back.

I mean Jewell.

It was in March, close onto six weeks later. We had been having crazy weather as I recall, hail and some of those early thunderstorms you can get sometimes in March. And it was still bitter cold. Millard had had him a big drunk—he was bad to drink from time to time, he couldn't help it, it was a sickness with him. This happened every three or four months. Then he'd get real sick after it, and I'd have to run the shop, and get somebody to sit up there with him. Well, that's how Millard was, and Millard's daddy before him. But Millard was such a sweet man, I couldn't complain.

So Millard was getting over a big drunk when this all happened. I had been real busy. And the first I knew of it was when Fay came down to the shop all frazzled and wild-looking, a couple of days after the worst one of them early-spring thunderstorms. I was in there alone. “Let me make you a bow, honey,” I said to Fay. “Looky here.” I showed her some new satin ribbon.

But Fay shook her head back and forth, and seemed all wrought up. She said something about a trip, pulling at my arm. I could tell she wanted me to come with her, so after a while, I closed up and went. Water was running down the gutters beside the new sidewalks, I remember. And several times we had to step over limbs of trees that had fallen across the sidewalk, or walk around. Some men were sawing up one whole tree that had fallen on the Harrison property, but we saw not a sign of Grace. The sunshine was sharp and cold. When we walked around to the side of Elizabeth's house, to go up the driveway, I saw that Fay had left the back door wide open. Now this looked funny, and made a bad feeling start inside my stomach right then. “What's going on up here?” I asked Fay, but she just looked at me sideways and ducked her head, giggling. I went in the cold-pantry, then the kitchen, which was a mess. Dirty dishes all over the sink, sugar spilled out on the kitchen table, the cookie jar broken in three pieces on the floor. Elizabeth would not have left a kitchen that way if her life depended on it.

“
Elizabeth!
” I screamed.

No answer.

Then I felt this little tugging, tugging at my sleeve. It was Fay, so I let her take me into the parlor. There sat Elizabeth. Fay pointed at her, and giggled, and then started crying. Elizabeth sat on the loveseat, just sat there, hands down slack at her side. She sat staring out the window down toward town, waiting, I reckon, for his return. Her eyes were empty and flat, she looked like she had had a complete nervous breakdown, which I guess she had. I never did figure out exactly how long it was between the time Jewell disappeared and the time Fay came for me. I don't know how long Elizabeth sat there. I do know it was a day or so. She had soiled herself, waiting. Fay and the children had eaten up what was there. The icebox was empty, they had left things like bread crusts and apple cores everywhere, broken china and cookies all over the kitchen. You never saw such a place. Sybill and little Arthur were rampaging through the whole house, pulling things down, the way children that age will do if they're not attended. Arthur in particular was always hell on wheels, the cutest, most mischievous little boy, but he was shaky and crying that day, and Sybill would not let go of her dolly. Fay kept holding my sleeve. She seemed younger than ever, like one of the kids.

I took a good look around and then I called Millard and told him to come up there. Arthur quit crying and started to squeal. He loved Millard, who would give him a piggyback ride at the drop of a hat. Then I was fixing to dial up Elva Pope and get her to come up there and help me too, and maybe Mr. Camp, who was the Episcopal minister then, but Elizabeth came up behind me and put her hand over the phone. It spooked me, her coming up so silent, when I'd thought she was plumb off her head.

“Nettie,” she said, and there was a tone in her voice which told me she might not be as crazy as I had thought, “don't tell anybody else, please.”

I put the phone back on the hook and turned around to face her. “All right,” I said.

“Jewell has left me, as you see,” she told me then, “and Fay is pregnant.” Looking at Fay, I could see this was so, in fact Fay had almost got to that point where anybody would notice it. But she was a big girl, and wore Daddy's sweaters around all the time.

“Who all knows it?” I asked, and Elizabeth said, “Nobody.” We didn't say whose it was. Elizabeth's hair straggled all down her back, it looked like a rat's nest, her face looked like death warmed over. Although I had hated her putting on airs, it hurt me to see her that way.

“Come on over here, honey,” I said, and took her and washed her face in warm water at the kitchen sink, and after I did that, she broke down. “It's been terrible—” she said this over and over. “He does horrible things, he wants horrible things.” But she never did say what these things were, and I didn't ask her, either. Her eyes looked like big blue holes poked in her tight white skin. She had not eaten, or slept, I could tell, for some time. I washed her off and got her to put on some clean clothes. I put Fay to making some Wheatena and they all ate that. The kids ate like they were just starving, and Sybill feeding her doll. Millard had got there by then. We made Elizabeth go lie down on the loveseat in the parlor, since we couldn't get her to go upstairs, and before her head touched the pillow, she was sound asleep. She woke up one time, about twenty minutes after she fell asleep, and sat straight up and said that Jewell had gone on a business trip, and that he would be back on Thursday. She said this in a calm, regular voice. Then she lay back down and went back to sleep, moaning and twisting and calling out, and crying. I hate to see a person cry in their sleep, but she would do this for months to come.

Millard gave Arthur a piggy-back ride all over the house. Then Fay helped me bathe the children, who were as dirty as could be, and then I got them to bed and Fay went to sleep sitting up in the wing chair in the parlor, didn't want to leave Elizabeth. Fay slept a heavy sleep like a little child, with her mouth open, head hanging off to the side, pulled forward by her heavy yellow hair.

Now all this sobered Millard up pretty fast, believe me. And wasn't no use him saying not to get involved, we
was
involved, and that was all there was to it. Well, we spent the night up there, of course, drinking coffee and talking about what to do, and ended up sleeping finally for a couple of hours in Jewell and Elizabeth's bed. A person can do anything if they get tired enough. But before that, we cleaned up the house the best we could, and investigated, as Millard called it. It did look for certain like Jewell had planned to go on a trip, as she said. His toilet things were gone from the bathroom, and some of the dresser drawers were pulled out like somebody had packed in a rush. He had not took much that we could tell, just the toilet things as I said and maybe some socks and some underwear. Now since Jewell was gone so much anyway, what puzzled us was how Elizabeth had seemed so dead set, at first, on the fact that he'd left for good this time. We didn't know what to make of it. We figured at the very least that they'd had it out, the two of them, and had a big argument, and then he'd left. Also it seemed funny to us how the Packard was still there, still out in the driveway full of gas, like Jewell had just left it, waiting. But then Millard said that was the real tip-off, probably, that he was taking off for sure, that meant that he had had somebody come for him, such as Mavis Lardner, or got somebody else to drive him over to Buncoe to catch the train. Jewell Rife got around, he knew a lot of people, he could of gotten anybody to come up here and drive him. So he had left the car for Elizabeth, Millard had figured, and then that started us wondering what else he might have left in the way of support.

Precious little, as it so happened. After we left town, which I will tell about directly, Millard went to the bank and explained himself and looked into it, and Jewell had nearabout cleaned her out during all those years he'd been living so high on the hog. He had got him a hundred dollars the day of his trip, that was all, and there was some left in there of course, but nothing compared to what you would have thought, which would have took care of her and Fay for the rest of their lives. Millard said Geneva Vail, one of the tellers, remembered Jewell coming in that day, and getting the money. She said he got a hundred-dollar bill, that that was how he usually cashed a check. She said he was wearing a red-striped tie. Geneva Vail said that Jewell was in a real good humor, and said he was fixing to go on a little trip. Fay said this too, and it was all she'd ever say, when Millard and me asked her about it. Oh, we asked her a lot. She'd nod her head up and down, up and down, and say “Took a trip” or “Took a big trip,” over and over, like she was agreeing with herself, and thought she was real smart.