"Of course," Andrew shouted. "We understand, Mama. But Mary'd rather hear now. She'd already said so."
"Yes, Mama," Mary screamed, leaning across towards her "good" ear.
"Well in that case," Catherine said primly, "I think it would have been kind so to inform me."
"I'm awfully sorry, Mama," Andrew said. "We would have. We really would have. In about another minute."
"Well," Catherine said; "no matter."
"Really we would, Mama," Mary said.
"Very well," Catherine said. "It was just a misfortune, that's all. I know I make it-very difficult, I try not to."
"Oh, Mama, no."
"No, I'm not hurt. I just suggest that you ignore me now, for everybody's convenience. Joel will tell me, later."
"She means it," Joel said. "She's not hurt any more."
"I know she does," Andrew said. "That's why I'm Goddamned if I'll leave her out. Honestly, Mama," he told her, "just let me tell you. Then we can all hear. Don't you see?"
"Well, if you're sure; of course I'd be most grateful. Thank you." She bowed, smiled, and tilted her trumpet.
It required immediate speech. That trumpet's like a pelican's mouth, he thought. Toss in a fish. "I'm sorry, Mama," he said. "I've got to try to collect my wits."
"That's perfectly all right," his mother said.
What was I-oh. Doctor. Yes.
"I was telling you what the doctor said."
Mary drank.
"Yes," Catherine replied in her clear voice. "You were saying that it was only by merest chance, where the blow was struck, a chance in a million, that…"
"Yes, Mama. It's just unbelievable. But there it is."
"Hyesss," Hannah sighed.
Mary drank.
"It does-beat-all-hell," Joel said. He thought of Thomas Hardy. There's a man, he thought, who knows what it's about. (And she asks God to forgive her!) He snorted.
"What is it, Papa?" Mary asked quietly.
"Nothing," he said, "just the way things go. As flies to wanton boys. That's all."
"What do you mean?"
"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport."
"No," Mary said; she shook her head. "No, Papa. It's not that way."
He felt within him a surge of boiling acid; he contained himself. If she tries to tell me it's God's inscrutable mercy, he said to himself, I'll have to leave the room. "Ignore it, Poll," he said. "None of us knows one damned thing about it. Myself least of all. So I'll keep my trap shut."
"But I can't bear to have you even think such things, Papa."
Andrew tightened his lips and looked away.
"Mary," Hannah said.
"I'm afraid that's something none of us can ask-or change," her father said.
"Yes, Mary," Hannah said.
"But I can assure you of this, Poll. I have very few thoughts indeed and none of 'em are worth your minding about."
"Is there something perhaps I should be hearing?" Catherine asked.
They were silent a moment. "Nothing, Mama," Andrew said. "Just a digression. I'd tell you if it was important."
"You were about to continue, with what the doctor told you."
"Yes I was. I will. He told me a number of other things and I can-assure-everybody-that such as they are, at least they're some kind of cold comfort."
Mary met his eyes.
"He said that if there had to be such an accident, this was pretty certainly the best way. That with such a thing, a concussion, he might quite possibly have been left a hopeless imbecile."
"Oh, Andrew," Mary burst out.
"The rest of his life, and that could have been another forty years as easily as not. Or maybe only a semi-invalid, laid up just now and then, with terrific recurrent headaches, or spells of amnesia, of feeble-mindedness. Those are the things that didn't happen, Mary," he told her desperately. "I think I'd just better get them over and done with right now."
"Yes," she said through her hands. "Yes, you had. Go on, Andrew. Get it over."
"He pointed out what would have happened if he'd stayed conscious, if he hadn't been thrown clear of the auto. Going fast, hopelessly out of control, up that eight-foot embankment and then down. He'd have been crushed, Mary. Horribly mangled. If he'd died it would have been slowly and agonizingly. If he'd lived, he'd have probably been a hopeless cripple."
"Dreadful," Catherine cried loudly.
"An idiot, or a cripple, or a paralytic," Andrew said. "Because another thing a concussion can do, Mary, is paralyze. Incurably. Those aren't fates you can prefer for anyone to dying. Least of all a man like Jay, with all his vigor, of body and mind too, his independence, his loathing for being laid up even one day. You remember how impossible it was to keep him quiet enough when his back was strained."
"Yes," she said. "Yes, I do." Her hands were still to her face and she was pressing her fingers tightly against her eyeballs.
"Instead…" Andrew began; and he remembered his face in death and he remembered him as he lay on the table under the glare. "Instead of that, Mary, he died the quickest and most painless death there is. One instant he was fully alive. Maybe more alive than ever before for that matter, for something had suddenly gone wrong and everything in him was roused up and mad at it and ready to beat it-because you know that of Jay, Mary, probably better than anyone else on earth. He didn't know what fear was. Danger only made him furious-and tremendously alert. It made him every inch of the man he was. And the next instant it was all over. Not even time to know it was hopeless, Mary. Not even one instant of pain, because that kind of blow is much too violent to give pain. Immediate pain. Just an instant of surprise and every faculty at its absolute height, and then just a tremendous blinding shock, and then nothing. You see, Mary?"
She nodded.
"I saw his face, Mary. It just looked startled, and resolute, and mad as hell. Not one trace of fear or pain."
"There wouldn't have been any fear, anyway," she said.
"I saw him-stripped-at the undertaker's," Andrew said. "Mary, there wasn't a mark on his body. Just that little cut on the chin. One little bruise on his lower lip. Not another mark on his body. He had the most magnificent physique I've ever seen in a human being."
Nobody spoke for a long while; then Andrew said, "All I can say is, when my time comes, I only hope I die half as well."
His father nodded; Hannah closed her eyes and bowed her head. Catherine waited, patiently.
"In his strength," Mary said; and took her hands from her face. Her eyes were still closed. "That's how he was taken," she said very tenderly; "in his strength. Singing, probably"-her voice broke on the word-"happy, all alone, racing home because he loved so to go fast and couldn't except when he was alone, and because he didn't want to disappoint his children. And then just as you said, Andrew. Just one moment of trouble, of something that might be danger-and was; it was death itself-and everything in his nature springing to its full height to fight it, to get it under control, not in fear. Just in bravery and nobility and anger and perfect confidence he could. It's how he'd look Death itself in the face. It's how he did! In his strength. Those are the words that are going to be on his gravestone, Andrew."
That's what they're for, epitaphs, Joel suddenly realized. So you can feel you've got some control over the death, you own it, you choose a name for it. The same with wanting to know all you can about how it happened. And trying to imagine it as Mary was. Andrew, too. Any poor subterfuge'll do; and welcome to 'em.
"Don't you think?" Mary asked shyly; for Andrew had not replied.
"Yes I do," he said, and Hannah said, "Yes, Mary," and Joel nodded.
Hannah: I want to know when I die, and not just for religious reasons.
"Mama," Mary called, drawing at her arm. Her mother turned eagerly, thankfully, with her trumpet. "I was telling Andrew," Mary told her, "I think I know the words, the epitaph, that ought to go on Jay's-on the headstone." Her mother tilted her head politely. "In his strength," Mary said. Her mother looked still more polite. "In-his-strength," Mary said, more loudly. Christ, I don't think I can stand this, Andrew thought. "Because that was the way it happened. Mama. Just so suddenly, without any warning, or suffering, or weakness, or illness. Just-instantly. In the very prime of his life. Do you see?"