Galveston (51 page)

“Oh, so
you're
afraid of
me?”

“On the contrary. I wouldn't be afraid of displeasing you at the price of making you mad. I don't owe anybody that. I just meant … well, if I were going to try and remain on your good side, I should remember how you are.”

“And are you?”

“I don't know. It's not in my line. But you do need somebody, I can tell that. You need somebody more than anyone I've ever known, Willa Frazier.”

“I just love the way you're always sizing me up. Well, I don't need anybody. I'm perfectly fine as I am, and was getting along great before you dropped into my life.”

“What's eating you, Willa?”

“Nothing, nothing! Why must you pry so? Can't we just try and have a good day without your analyzing me?”

“Of course, you're right. I'm sorry. It's only that you interest me.”

“Yeah, like a monkey in the zoo. Now, I've a splitting headache. Let's go home.”

“I'm sorry. I'm responsible for ruining this go-round. Oh well, at least you did finally see the house.”

“Yes, and I did like it, really. I can understand your enthusiasm about it.”

“Even the undercroft?”

“I could get used to it. I'm not all that afraid. What I mean is, I'm sure any client would like it, with proper lighting and so forth. Anyway, if it were my house and the room bothered me I would either have it sealed off or send a servant down whenever anything was needed from it.”

“It may surprise you to learn not all my clients have servants at beck and call. Some are just plain folks like me.”

I was going to say the obvious—anyone who would buy a house that large would surely have help—but I dropped it, and wondered why it was so often we wound up insulting each other. Why couldn't I just get bored with the whole thing and drop Rodney as I had just about everyone else?

He decided to try again the next week, and asked me over to his house for dinner on Friday night. It had been two days since the Sunday picnic, and I'd told myself many times it was foolish to carry on this friendship any longer. Still, I said yes, without hesitating.

The Sidney Younger home, off Caroline, was just as I expected—pleasant and unpretentious. We were met at the door by Rodney's father and a waft of garlic coming from the kitchen. Mr. Younger didn't favor Rodney very much except he was tall and lean, with a trace of freckles that seemed to have faded with age. He parted his thinning gray hair down the center and wore multicolored armbands with bright orange mingled through like fudge in a marble cake.

His skin had a certain pallor, although I attached no significance to this at the time. His eyes were bright, lively, almost laughing as he said, “Well, come on in, children,” as though we were tardy for dinner and had come in together a hundred times before. There was no getting to know Sidney Younger. You just met him and knew him right away.

Agatha Younger was straitlaced and far less friendly than her husband. It was from her that Rodney took his red hair, although the years have mellowed hers to almost a light brown. Mr. Younger called her Red that evening. Red is what he almost always called her. A small stout woman, she served us tomato juice cocktails as Sidney apologized, “Red's very strict about upholding prohibition around here, even if it's foolish.”

The parlor was homey, full of framed snapshots of Rodney in his military uniform and cheap ceramics, with crocheted doilies on the backs and arms of the furniture. A Packard piano stood in one corner, lit by a lamp with heavy fringed shade that gave the keys a spotlight effect. A huge portrait of Christ, complete with Sacred Heart and faint glimmer of halo, hung above the fireplace. Pinned to another wall was a small crucifix. I stared at it, only then realizing the Youngers were Roman Catholic.

As though reading my thoughts, Agatha began, “And what faith do you profess, dear?”

“Mother, really—”

“Just curious. I'm sure Miss Frazier won't mind telling me a little about herself.”

“I was christened Episcopalian, but I don't go to church anymore.”

Rodney was scowling at me from the corner, but I could see no point in trying to impress anyone. It was my business if I didn't believe in that ceremonial frivolity. I wasn't even sure God existed.

“I see,” she said. “Well, I suppose there comes a time for many when they stray. Of course, I can't recall experiencing … Oh well, Sidney, come along and help me finish dinner.”

When they were out of earshot I said, “I've insulted her, haven't I?”

“It's all right. Mother goes a bit overboard on religion.”

“How about you?”

“I've broken from Catholicism, to her disappointment.”

“So you're like me, then?”

“I don't know your feelings. Before the war I thought a person needn't believe in anything, for it had no bearing one way or the other, but after I saw a few guys get shot up within feet of me and spent three years fighting for something I knew deep down was senseless at best, I got to thinking we all need someone or something to believe in. It's the faithless people who've messed up the world—or else those with misguided faith. I guess you could say I'm a former Catholic, converted to religion in general.”

I turned and gazed into the dying log fire beneath the portrait of Christ and wished, for a moment, that I could have Rodney's convictions. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so desolate inside.…

After dinner we had a sing-song, which, I soon learned, was a Friday night tradition in the Younger household. Sidney's favorite was, “Hello, My Baby,” and this we sang three or four times. He had a buoyant voice, which wasn't too loud although he seemed to be putting much effort behind it, and Rodney's sisters Amanda and Jane, twelve- and thirteen-year old look alikes with long brunet plaits and mischievous brown eyes, flipped the songbook pages back and forth between songs, arguing over what we'd sing next.

It was the first of many evenings I spent at Rodney's house, and when I look back on them I recall best the way Sidney rolled his hands over the piano keys as he sang, “Hello, My Baby,” his armbands dazzling in the light. I believe now I'll think more often of him, although I never felt a twinge of sadness or spent a tear when he died before the end of the year. He'd had cancer for over a year and had shared the knowledge with Rodney and Agatha all those months. One night shortly after Thanksgiving he was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.

Rodney and I had tickets to see six reels of Harry Houdini that night, and, being a great fan of the escape artist, I was eagerly looking forward to the show. Rodney phoned as I was dressing to explain why he couldn't make it.

“I'll come down to the hospital and meet you,” I said.

“No, you go on to the show—”

“I'll come,” I repeated, and when I hung up the phone I muttered, “damn.” Mother, who was coming down the hall just then said, “Willa, what in the world? Standing there in your slip like that. What's the matter?”

“No Houdini. Rodney's father is at St. Joseph's Infirmary. I've got to go there now.”

“But your father isn't home yet with the car—”

“Oh yeah; will you order me a cab?”

“All right. But do you think you ought to? I mean, do you know the family all that well?”

“Skip it, Mother. I have to go.”

“All right then,” she said, and picked up the directory.

On the way out I tossed the Houdini tickets on the table and offered them to her and Dad.

“But your father has a meeting tonight.”

“Well, get Velma to go with you.”

“Velma? I hardly think she'd be interested in that sort of show. She and Carter are attending the Houston Grand Opera tonight. You ought to see her dress—”

“Okay, leave them. Maybe we can exchange them if the films play here long enough.”

The films did not play long enough, and I had no more than entered the halls of St. Joseph's and found Agatha Younger sitting stoically against one wall near the admittance office than I knew that Sidney Younger would not last long either.

I sat down beside her, realizing for the first time I had nothing to say. I hadn't stopped long enough to consider this after Rodney's call. She'd been crying, for her eyes were red, her cheeks pinched and damp, but she wasn't crying at that moment.

“I'm so sorry, Mrs. Younger. I didn't know Sidney was ill.”

“It was a family matter,” she said almost huffily. “They gave him six months, but he's survived this long. We are grateful for God's blessings to us.”

I looked down at her hands and saw the wrung-out lace handkerchief in one, the black beaded rosary wound around the other. Was this what you did when about to lose someone? Pray for strength, or count the beads along a cold piece of jewelry?

I leaned back against the wall, no harder than the wooden bench that had been provided for the loved ones of patients going through the machinations of entering the hospital. My mother had been right. I had no place here tonight, though perhaps not for the reasons she named. I knew nothing of losing people, what to say, how to cope. I could feel nothing except sudden flashes of resentment when I thought of missing out on Houdini.

I didn't know Agatha Younger or how to understand the roots of her faith. She sat next to me rigidly, as though held together by something so tenuous she feared to move. Somewhere in the distance I could hear Rodney's voice now and then, talking with some admittance clerk whose feelings toward Sidney Younger were no more or less personal than mine. I decided to be practical.

“Maybe they can pull him through again. If he has lived this long, maybe he has a chance of getting well, even. You mustn't quit hoping.”

“My dear, giving up on one's life is not the same as giving up hope for them. God has given me Sidney for thirty-five years. I must appreciate all the time with him and keep on believing he is bound for a greater, happier place than here. If he should pull through, I will again be grateful for God's pardon, and pray that it won't mean a dragging out of suffering for him. He's been so fortunate for having little pain these past few months. I do pray God will spare him that.…”

Her voice drifted off. I looked away.

Thankfully, Rodney soon appeared, and he seemed grateful I'd come.

“You needn't have,” he said softly. “It was kind of you. Father's been taken to room 201, and Mother can see him now. Are you ready, Mother? Willa, I—”

“I'll go now. Call me at home if you need anything.”

He nodded, and I watched as he helped his mother up and put a protective arm around her shoulders, then led her down the hall: two solemn figures, one tall, wearing an ugly trench coat wrinkled from sitting, walking so slowly his limp was indiscernible; the other, slight, wearing a long blue coat with a fur collar and carrying a wrung-out handkerchief and a chain of beads. Why could I feel nothing?

You must find something before being torn by losing it, I decided in the cab going home. How can anything have a value until you possess it? The questions, never far below, began surfacing as they often did. Who am I? Where did I come from? What have I to do with all that is going on around me? Have I a place, and if so, where?

What if I had lost my own mother or father? Would I feel nothing because they are not truly my own? How horrible to think in several years I could be facing what Rodney faces now, and have to shed false tears and feign sorrow because I could call up nothing from inside. How lovely if things could have been simple for me as they have been for him, with a real mother and father to love, to know exactly where he came from and what to expect from himself, what his limitations are.…

How wonderful to be no one's second choice, to have no picture on a bureau somewhere of a child in christening gown, reminding him he has not first rights on the intangible property called parents.

Was I alive or dead inside, I wondered? Was the blood running under the skin icy like the wind blowing by the cab window outside? Why didn't the memory of all the evenings when Sidney Younger sat on the piano stool and belted out his favorite tunes bring forth even a sting behind my eyes? Why couldn't even the recollection of other, opposite things bring forth some emotion? The way he sang with vigor but made somehow less noise than might have been expected from a man his size; or, the fact he ate so little at all the delicious dinners. How he'd say, “Ol Red has done up my favorites tonight—chicken casserole and molded salad—” then hardly touch the plate of food before him, and if Amanda or Jane chanced to make some comment about Daddy not eating all the food on his plate as they were bound to do, Agatha Younger would simply quieten them and say nothing in admonishment to her husband.

The pallor of his skin. The bright eyes glowing from out of the pallor. The man who lived a life of love and generosity to his family, who kept them together as a unit even with the wide age gap between Rodney and his sisters. I could appreciate the man, but I could not grieve for him. Was he at this moment drawing his final breath? Would he live on, come home from the hospital? Would I see him yet again, and if I did, would it be like always? Or would he be a tired, bedridden invalid, impatiently living out his last painful days and snapping at those around him because they had what he'd been denied?

Oh God, I had not thought of seeing him again. Now that I knew, seeing him again. What would I say, how would I act? Could I pull a typical Willa tactic and make my exit from Rodney's life now, while it was safe?

“Ma'am, that's three bits,” said a voice from somewhere far away. “Ma'am, are you all right?”

“Oh, of course, how much? All right. Yes, keep the change. Thank you.”

I got out of the stuffy cab and shivered in the wind, and, walking up the sidewalk and mounting the stairs, thought of the song: