The Late Child (44 page)

“Where's that old fool taking that boy?” she asked, peering across the yard. Her eyes seemed a little faded; Harmony knew that she should try to remember that her mother was really old, although she was neatly dressed and clean as a pin.

“I think they just went to wash Eddie's turtle,” Harmony reminded her. “After all, you were the one who said it might not be clean.”

“It ain't Eddie's turtle, it's just a turtle that happened to be passing through the yard,” Ethel said. “Turtles give you warts and they pee on you too. Turtles belong outside.”

“Well, it
is
outside,” Harmony said. “They're just washing it.”

“You shouldn't be letting that little boy keep any critter he happens to pick up,” her mother said, still peering with her vague old eyes around the yard.

“Mom, Eddie's not in his home right now, he needs a pet for
security,” Harmony said. “We'll just put it in the car or somewhere until we get a place.”

The problem with that was, she already had a feeling that she didn't want to get a place, at least not a place near enough by that her mother could criticize her hairdo every time she saw her.

But, through the screen door, she could smell Neddie's pancakes, they smelled so good it made her hungry. She had to resist the impulse just to pick her mother up like a doll and carry her into the house.

“I can't see Sty at all, I must have put on the wrong specs today,” her mother said. “I have to watch him though.”

“Mom, why? He's perfectly safe, he just went to wash a turtle off with the hose,” Harmony said.

“That's all you know—he's got a girlfriend in Bartlesville,” her mother said. “If I don't keep him in sight he's off and gone.”

Harmony was a little shocked; she didn't know why. With her mother being so critical it wasn't that hard to imagine that her father might want a woman who was a little less critical, at least to be his friend.

“Momma, could we just go eat?” she asked. She felt it might be best to skirt the issue of her father's other woman, if he had one—at least it would be best to skirt it until after breakfast.

“No point in telling you about it anyway, you always side with the man,” her mother said, looking her over closely. Harmony knew her mother was looking her over from the hair down, finding nothing to please her along the way. For one thing, she wasn't wearing nail polish, a choice that wasn't going to sit well. Her mother was a firm believer in bright red nail polish.

“Mom, you didn't want me to be a feminist,” Harmony reminded her. She had always had trouble thinking of anything to say when her mother made wild accusations. She didn't remember her childhood very well, but she did sort of remember siding with her father, most of the time. After all, he was the nicer person—why not side with him?

“He's taken up with some old hussy at the nursing home in
Bartlesville,” her mother said. “I have to hide the pickup keys or he'll be gone for a week at a stretch, leaving me with the chickens to feed and the pigs to slop. I'm too well mannered to be slopping pigs at my age. I think I got a right to resent that kind of stuff, but that don't make me a feminist. I don't even know what a feminist is—bra burners, I guess you mean.”

Harmony looked down toward the old barn—once it had been red but now it was gray; the prairie breeze Neddie was so fond of had slowly peeled the paint off the family barn. A few cows were standing around idly, but she couldn't see any pigs. Quite a few chickens milled around in the chicken yard, which was about halfway between the house and the barn.

“Let's go in, you don't want to hear my troubles, you never have,” her mother said, with a sigh. “Sty may be off to Bartlesville, I don't see him anywhere. I'll call Barbara right now and see if she can work you in at the beauty parlor.”

Harmony followed her mother inside—the ceiling and one of the walls had been smoked black as tar. The smoky smell was still very strong.

“As you can see, this house nearly burned up,” Pat said. “Looks like the time's finally come to hire Mom and Dad a cook.”

“That time came about twenty years ago,” Neddie remarked. She was sitting in a chair, smoking. She seemed more content, now that she was home where she could smell the breeze.

Seeing how black the kitchen was made Harmony wonder if her parents were really capable of looking after themselves. Her father looked perfectly spry, but the kitchen was perfectly black, too.

“I can run off any cook you two can hire,” her mother said, sounding determined. “I ran off the last one and I'll run off the next one, too. Nobody's cooking for me in my house, while I still got two hands and two feet.”

“How about two eyes, Momma?” Pat asked. “If you had any vision I imagine you could have seen that that frying pan was on fire. This kitchen's still so smoky it ain't fit to eat in.”

“Well, I had on my wrong specs yesterday,” Ethel said. “Don't you ever put on the wrong specs?”

“No,” Pat remarked.

“I wear specs,” Neddie said. “If you're so blind you can't tell your daughters apart it might be time to think about retiring from the kitchen.”

“You two shut up about that grease fire,” Ethel said. “I was frying Billy his bacon and just looked off for a minute. Anybody can look off for a minute, while bacon's frying.”

“If you'd looked off another minute we'd be living in the yard,” Sty said, coming in the back door. “I think it's time to hire a cook myself. Not only would it be safer, it might be better grub. At least it would if the new cook could cook at all.”

Eddie, Iggy, and the turtle came in behind him.

“I've decided to name my turtle Eli, after my friend Eli,” Eddie said. “Grandpa washed him and now he's clean.”

“I don't like animals in my house, much less reptiles,” Ethel said. “You need to learn to mind your grandmother. This is the first visit we've ever had and let's start it off right by leaving all the animals and reptiles outside.”

Eddie regarded his grandmother silently, as if she were a different order of being, one that required prolonged and careful study.

“Animals belong
outside
, that includes dogs,” Ethel continued, emphatically.

“Mom, I don't want to hug Grandma, she's being rude,” Eddie said.

Both Neddie and Pat laughed loudly.

“Momma's finally met her match,” Neddie said.

“I'm not sure—I think the outcome is still in doubt,” Pat said. “What we have here is a battle of the Titans.”

“Little boy, I'm older than you,” Ethel said.

Eddie ignored her. He marched over to the table and put Eli the turtle beside his plate.

“Turtles don't eat pancakes up but Eli can watch,” Eddie said.

“Sty, make him get that filthy thing off my table,” Ethel said.
“I won't be bossed around in my own kitchen by no five-year-old.”

“I'm five and a half, Grandma,” Eddie said politely.

“Let's eat, before this tasty food goes to waste,” Sty said. “All my daughters are good cooks. I can't say the same for my wife, not without fibbing a little.”

“Is it real maple syrup, Aunt Neddie?” Eddie asked, climbing into his chair. Iggy yipped to be lifted up, but no one lifted him up. Harmony knew her mother wouldn't put up with a dog
and
a turtle on her table, particularly since she had never before even allowed an animal to come in her house. Iggy continued to yip; he was annoyed that he couldn't sit in Eddie's lap and eat pancakes.

“It's the only maple syrup we have, let's hope it's real,” Neddie said.

“I
do
hope it's real,” Eddie said. “I do not like syrup that isn't real maple syrup.”

“That child's spoiled rotten,” Ethel said. “Somebody get that filthy turtle off my tablecloth and pitch it out in the road where it belongs. Ned, you're closest.”

“I'm closest but I'm letting it lie,” Neddie said.

Eddie looked his grandmother over with a cool eye.

“I don't think she's a grandmother,” he said. “I think she's an alien pretending to be a grandmother.”

“Could be,” Pat said. “She never has been quite normal.”

“Just kidding,” she added, after a glance at her mother.

“I wasn't kidding,” Eddie said. “I think Grandmother is an alien and the reason I think so is because she's rude to turtles and dogs. Eli is a nice turtle and Iggy is a nice dog.”

Laurie came downstairs at that point. She had washed her face and combed her short hair. She smiled at everyone, but she looked nervous. Harmony could tell she felt a little out of place; after all, it was a family gathering except for her.

“Just sit anywhere, young lady,” Sty said, sitting down himself. “If you like turtles sit by Eddie.”

“Well, she does like turtles because she's my friend,” Eddie said. “And I love her and she's always going to be my friend.”

“Yes, I am always going to be your friend,” Laurie said, sitting by Eddie. “That's a really cute little turtle.”

“Be careful, it'll tinkle on my tablecloth,” Ethel said. She ladled up a big plate of pancakes and set them in front of Eddie, along with a butter dish filled with butter.

“If you don't like the syrup it's your problem,” she said. “It's all the syrup there is.”

“Well, it's your problem if you don't like Eli, Grandma,” Eddie said. “He's the only turtle I've got and I just met him and he's my pet.”

Then he considered his grandmother solemnly for a minute. He gave her one of the looks that made people a little nervous if they happened to notice that he was looking at them that way.

“You could be my friend, too, Grandma,” Eddie said. “Because I don't have any other grandma and you could be my grandma and my friend too. Do you want to, Grandma?”

“Yep,” Ethel said. Then she gave Eddie a lipsticky kiss and, a second later, burst into tears.

“Whoa, there she blows,” Sty said. “Now we're in for it.”

“Momma, what's wrong?” Harmony asked. She had forgotten how horrible it was to see her mother cry.

Eddie regarded his grandmother's tear burst coolly.

“Everybody's against me, they always have been,” Ethel wailed. It was a wail all her daughters had heard many times—usually when her mother figured out that she wasn't going to get her way about something.

“No, everybody
isn't
against you,” Eddie insisted. “Eli isn't and Iggy isn't and I'm not. And my mom's not and Laurie's not and my aunts are
not
against you. Maybe you just need to see a psychiatrist, Grandma?

“Mom, I think Grandma's paranoid, maybe you better call a psychiatrist,” he added, turning to Harmony.

“A psychiatrist—where would your mother meet a psychiatrist, little boy?” Ethel asked.

“She meets her in her office, her name is Dr. Short,” Eddie said,
sampling a pancake. “Don't you have a psychiatrist you could talk to, Grandma?”

“No, and I don't want one and no one in this family needs one, either,” Ethel said. “Why would anyone go listen to a woman psychiatrist anyway? What would an old woman like that know about other women?”

“Dr. Short isn't old, Mom—she's younger than me,” Harmony said.

“I don't think Grandma likes psychiatrists, Mom,” Eddie said. “She glares out of her eyes when she talks about them.”

“My mother didn't approve of them either,” Laurie said, smiling at Ethel.

“A psychiatrist is just a doctor who doctors you when your emotions hurt, Grandma,” Eddie explained. “Everybody needs one sometimes.”

Harmony was hoping that Eddie wouldn't mention that he had gone to the counselor a few times himself, when he was feeling unhappy—maybe it was about his father never coming to see him, or maybe it was about her boyfriends, who farted too much or had other bad habits. But of course Eddie had no bias against psychiatrists and no reason to hold back, he promptly revealed to his grandparents that he had a counselor all his own.

“My shrink is named Dr. Prichard and she's pretty and she helps me when I'm hurt in my emotions,” Eddie said.

“My Lord, she's ruint that little child already, Sty,” Ethel said. “We can't tell a soul about this.”

“We talk about what hurts my emotions,” Eddie went on, blithely. “Sometimes I get a sucker when I leave, like at the bank.”

“Can't tell a soul what?” Sty asked. Harmony knew he turned down his hearing aid when he was in the house; that way he didn't have to be involved in every single argument that was going on. It seemed like a sensible policy; after all, her mother never seemed to do anything but argue. At least that was all she had done since they got home.

“Why don't you like psychiatrists, Grandma?” Eddie asked, looking at her curiously, as if he had not completely abandoned the notion that she might be an alien.

“Because I don't need one and no one in this family has ever needed one or ever will,” Ethel said. “You're not even six years old yet, you couldn't possibly be crazy. Why would you need to talk to some old woman?”

“Dr. Prichard isn't old, she's pretty I told you,” Eddie said. “Don't you ever listen to other people's words, Grandma?”

“No, she wouldn't see any reason to listen to other people's words, son,” Sty said. “She knows it all already—why listen?”

“Nobody pulled your string, I'm trying to save this whole family from disgrace,” Ethel said.

“You're too late by forty years or so, if that's what you think you're doing,” Pat said. “I think I'll go home and see if I got any love letters, or if anybody sent me flowers.”

“I'm going home and spread a little manure, myself,” Neddie said, in her matter-of-fact voice. “That always relaxes me after a long trip.”