Thief of Dreams (23 page)

But when he got inside the hospital and discovered the little waiting room where they were sitting, he knew at once that there was a different and bigger problem. What he saw in their faces slowed his steps and made him forget any apology he might have made. Effie and James sat in their uncomfortable-looking chairs as if they'd gone deaf and dumb, and only Roy got up to meet him. By unspoken agreement, they walked a little way down the hospital corridor together; and, noticing a side exit, they turned as though they were of one mind, passing through two doors before they found themselves outside where benches and bushes and trees still had shape but had lost all color to the dusk.

With bewilderment in his voice, after a moment Roy said: “They claim it's his heart.”

“That can't be right,” Edward said. “He's just a kid.”

“They say it's likely his teeth that caused it,” Roy said. He was looking off into the darkness and speaking as though he weren't talking to anyone but only speaking the words aloud in an effort to understand them and believe them himself. He put one of his big square hands in his suit coat pocket, fumbled a moment, and came out with a piece of paper, which he held out to Edward. “This doctor I don't even know wrote it down for me.”

Edward took the slip of paper and held it up to catch light from the entrance behind them. “Bac … t … er … ial En … do … car … d … i … tis.” He gave his head a shake. “Bacterial endocarditis,” he said. He'd never heard of it.

“It's like it's a poison that's come from Lester's sorry teeth that's got around his heart some way,” Roy said. “They only just told us about it. We ain't got to see him yet.” Roy Buck rubbed his face, spat, and ran a hand through his hair thoughtfully. “They aim to let us look in on him in a little bit, but then they expect us to go on back home.”

“I'll have to get James back to his mother, anyway,” Edward said. “It won't be a bit of trouble to take you and the missus home.”

“Effie claims she's not going to budge, so I best not leave her,” Roy said.

Edward let out a short, bitter laugh and then realized how it might sound. “Well,” he said and blushed, “turns out I've got to come back to Cedar Hill tonight so if there's anything you want done or picked up, I can do it or give you a ride both ways, since I've got to make a round trip anyway.”

Roy stared off into the darkness and ran one of his big hands through his hair again. “Goddamn,” he said softly.

“He's young and strong,” Edward said. “They'll fix him up all right.”

Roy nodded, and they turned back toward the building and had only just got back to the waiting room when a nurse appeared to tell them that two of them, and only two, could visit Lester for no more than five minutes. Nervously, Roy and Effie got up.

“If Lester has a good night,” the nurse told Edward and James, “you can see him tomorrow, but it's important right now not to tire him out.”

“Lester's going to be all right, you just wait and see,” Edward said when they were alone, but James only turned to look at him with something haunted and mysterious in his eyes. “You must be worn out and about starved too, squirt,” Edward said, “but we'll get you home in a little bit.”

“How come it couldn't have been me?” James said.

“Christ,” Edward said, “that's a pretty dumb thing to say. There's always enough trouble to go around; nobody needs to ask for more.”

“But it should have been me!” James said, his eyes suddenly wet and slick.

“Horseshit,” Edward said, feeling exasperated and tired and frustrated. The boy had a lot of his mother in him. You couldn't explain anything to him once he got his mind made up. “Horseshit,” he said again, but he put his arms around James and drew him close, one hand on the nape of the boy's neck, holding his forehead hard against his chest. He heard a sob and held the boy more fiercely against him, but he could tell there was no yielding to good sense in his son. The boy was stiff, gathered to resist him; and even the sob was more a bark than anything, a stubborn celebration of private grief that James wasn't about to give up. And sure enough, in the next moment the boy pushed himself away and, wiping angrily at his eyes, got up and crossed the room to look out the window, which would do him no good, since it was fully dark outside and the only thing the window could give back was his own reflection.

“They're going to take good care of Lester here, and he's going to be good as new,” Edward said, but James stared out the window and didn't speak.

“I could set here, and you could take a rest and spell me tomorrow,” Roy said just above a whisper, and Edward turned to see Effie standing in the corridor shaking her head. “I won't leave him,” she said. “Not till they give us better than we've heard.”

Effie came into the waiting room and sat down with such an inward look, it was surprising, somehow, that she could steer through doorways and find a chair. Roy followed as though he had something else he was about to say, but whatever it was, he seemed to think better of it. “All right,” he said at last, “I'll ride on back and take care of things around the place. What do you need me to fetch?”

“My good sweater,” Effie said as though she didn't care in the least whether he brought it or not, and the look on her face settled into something so deep, she might have been blind. They left, subdued by it, and none of them said anything all the way down the mountain.

Even when Edward stopped in front of the Marshalls' house to let James out, he felt awkward speaking aloud. “You tell your momma I'm staying at the DeMerrit Inn in Cedar Hill if she needs to reach me. And as for you, squirt,” he said, “I reckon I'll see you tomorrow.”

James didn't answer. Without shutting the door behind him, he got out and went off up the driveway as though he'd just walked a hundred miles. Edward almost called him back, but stopped himself. Still, he couldn't keep a little anger and exasperation from rising in him as he stretched across the front seat for the door and found he couldn't reach it. He was about to kill the engine, get out, and walk around when Roy slipped in beside him.

“They're awful close, them boys,” Roy remarked in a sad, mild voice, shutting the door behind him.

Even so, it took a moment before Edward realized that the poor manners of his son had been understood and excused, even if he hadn't been able to do it himself. A few hundred yards down the highway, chastened, he said, “Did they tell you what they were going to do for Lester?”

“They're a-givin him a thing called heparin, I believe they said, and sulfa … sulfa .. . something.” Roy cleared his throat. “This heart thing he's got has been let go a long time, they told us. They fear, nearabout too long.” He rubbed his chin and didn't say anything more for a while. “If they can get him stout enough, they mean to take every tooth he's got in his head. They've always give him grief,” Roy said, “but who would have thought sorry teeth could ruin a boy's heart?”

“Well,” Edward said, “from what I hear about Lester, he's not a quitter.”

“No sir,” Roy said, “he ain't that.”

Again Edward urged the Packard up the wagon road, and while Roy milked, he tried to make himself useful feeding the stock or doing anything else he could find to do. But even as he busied himself, he was astonished that he wasn't with his own family. It seemed impossible that he could have felt so strongly and come so far only to … Well, he hadn't expected it to be easy. Still, he'd thought Madeline would forgive him. He'd expected to eat a lot of crow. He had a lot coming. But it seemed to him, at long last, that he'd come to understand something very important about himself and about his family. Yes, and he'd known Madeline would be angry, but he'd thought, finally, she would come to see that important thing too. He had supposed they would be in each other's arms by now. He'd hoped they would recognize all the silliness and stupidity that had always got in their way and kept them crosswise of one another and somehow get rid of it so that he and Madeline and James would be exactly what they ought to be and should have been all along.

He found himself watching Roy strain milk, and he came a little way out of his thoughts. “If that's your springhouse I saw below the house, I can carry the milk down and put it up while you tend to something else,” he said.

“All right,” Roy said, “I'm nearabout done.”

“Don't forget the sweater,” Edward said, hoisting the tin, insulated milk can and starting out on the dogtrot.

“Lord,” Roy said, “I already had.”

It wasn't that he hadn't anticipated something less than a sudden explosion of forgiveness and love, he thought, pawing at the ground a little with his feet in order not to stumble over the dark, unfamiliar earth. He'd imagined partial and tentative forgiveness too. A few weeks, maybe a month or so, while he earned his way back into his family. But hell, he'd thought his wife and son would be pulling for him, hoping it would work. He stubbed his toe on something and almost fell but caught himself and set down the milk can. But they didn't seem to want him, didn't act as though they were interested in even giving him a chance. He blew on his hands and tucked them for a moment under his armpits to warm them. It was damned cold, and the metal handles of the milk can had wicked all the warmth from his fingers.

He looked up at the stars through the smoke his breath made. Well, he thought, he would not accept it. He would wait them out. He had forgotten that he loved them for a while and had told himself foolish lies. He supposed they could do that too. But it hurt his feelings. He had left his job and come all this way to set things right. They hadn't come to Pittsburgh, after all.

He'd forgotten how damned black the night was in the country, but at last he found the springhouse, struck a match, and unhooked the door. He struck more matches to get the milk can in the trough and the door hooked again. But since Roy had kerosene lamps going in the house and he was no longer carrying the milk can, it was easier going back, although he jarred himself when he walked since the ground never seemed to be quite where his feet expected it. And what the hell was he doing here anyway? It was crazy and beside the point to be mixed up with the Bucks when he'd never even heard of them until a few hours before—his own wife wouldn't even shake his hand, never mind put her arms around him and kiss him hello; and his only son, who'd gotten him into all this in the first place, wouldn't even tell him good night for God's sake.

Easy, he told himself. Go easy. Get on back to your room. Have a drink or two. Sleep.

When Edward stepped back inside the kitchen, Roy was slipping cold biscuits with sidemeat in them into a paper bag.

“It's a little place for eats in the hospital, but there ain't much there and it's awful dear,” Roy explained. He looked up suddenly. “I expect you ain't had a chance at supper neither. I can heat up a little grub?”

Edward raised a hand. “Not for me.” He hadn't had breakfast or lunch, never mind supper. How strange that Paris Pergola had fixed his last meal. But he had no appetite.

Roy gathered up his wife's sweater and the food he'd packed and seemed to look around the kitchen in a daze as if he no longer quite recognized his own habitation. “Well,” he said, “I can't think of nothing else.”

When they passed the Marshalls' house for the second time, Madeline's car was in the driveway, and it seemed to reach out and take hold of Edward's heart. He had to see her and make her admit that she loved him. As soon as he'd dropped Roy at the hospital, that much, at least, had to be settled. It couldn't be otherwise.

But halfway up the mountain he thought better of it; he didn't dare risk it. He was suddenly so tired that he felt crazy. And he knew her temper. If she rejected him for the second time that day, he didn't know what he might do.

Still, he couldn't make himself go in when he pulled up at the hospital. Something inside him had got wound too tight, and he was shaking with impatience. But he managed to tell Roy where he was staying and repeat it twice so that Roy could reach him if he needed to.

He felt almost all right until he'd driven two blocks from the hospital, but then he suddenly began pounding the steering wheel so viciously, he was surprised it didn't break. “You son of a bitch!” he called himself, and for a moment his right front tire bounced over the curb, heading for the sidewalk until he fought the car back into the street. He stopped for a moment, breathing through his teeth. “You straighten up,” he told himself. “You straighten up and fly right!”

Still a little shaky, he let himself into his room, got his jar of moonshine, plopped down in the room's one tired easy chair, and took himself a swallow. It burned his empty stomach almost as much as his throat. Wet-eyed, he blinked, took another swallow, and pursed his lips to exhale, while some remote, irrelevant, he-goat part of his brain speculated that, if he struck a match and held it close to his lips, his breath would probably ignite like the flame of a blowtorch. But the thought had no power to amuse him.

He didn't know how long it took before the blaze in his stomach became merely warmth, but when that happened, he mustered the energy to take off his shoes and lie down on the bed.

“Straighten up,” he told himself. “You straighten up and fly right,” he repeated between swallows of whiskey until he was able to sleep.

JAMES TALLY

He and his mother didn't have much to say to each other, and that was fine with him. He had few thoughts he could part with. He'd told her where his father was staying and he'd told her that Lester was in the hospital, but she seemed no more interested in one than the other. She was angry, he knew that much, the cold, silent kind of anger that closed her off and made her abrupt and efficient in everything she did. It was the kind of anger that took two or three days to thaw, and then she would give somebody a long talking-to. And sometimes it would be a day after that before she could listen.