"I didn't mean it," he said aloud. "I didn't mean to do bad."
I wanted to show you my cap, he added, silently.
He looked at his father's morsechair.
Not a mark on his body.
He still looked at the chair. With a sense of deep stealth and secrecy he finally went over and stood beside it. After a few moments, and after listening most intently, to be sure that nobody was near, he smelled of the chair, its deeply hollowed seat, the arms, the back. There was only a cold smell of tobacco and, high along the back, a faint smell of hair. He thought of the ash tray on its weighted strap on the arm; it was empty. He ran his finger inside it; there was only a dim smudge of ash. There was nothing like enough to keep in his pocket or wrap up in a paper. He looked at his finger for a moment and licked it; his tongue tasted of darkness.
Chapter 17
They were told they could eat, that morning, in their nightgowns and wrappers. Their mother still wasn't there, and Aunt Hannah talked even less than at any meal before. They too were very quiet. They felt that this was an even more special day than day before yesterday. All the noises of their eating and from the street were especially clear, but seemed to come from a distance. They looked steadily at their plates and ate very carefully.
First thing after breakfast Aunt Hannah said, "Now come with me, children," and they followed her into the bathroom. There she washed their faces and hands and arms, and behind the ears, and their necks, and up each nostril, carefully and gently with soap and warm water; she did not get soap in the eyes of either of them, or hurt their skins with the washcloth. Then she took them into the bedroom and opened the bureaus and took out everything bran clean, from the skin out, and told Rufus to get his clothes on and to ask for help if he wanted it, and started dressing Catherine. Rufus began to see the connection between all this and the bath, the night before. When he had on his underclothes she brought out new black stockings and his Sunday serge. While she was helping Catherine on with her stockings, which were also new but white, the phone rang and she said, "Now sit still and be good. I'll be straight back," and hustled from the room. They heard her say, rather loudly and distinctly, up the hall, "I'm getting it, Mary," then her feet, fast on the stairs. They sat very still, looking at the open door, and tried to hear. They found they could hear quite distinctly, for Hannah spoke to the telephone as she did to her deaf brother and sister-in-law. They heard: "Hello… Hello… Yes… Father?", and when they heard the word "Father" they looked at each other with curiosity and with an uneasy premonition. They heard "Yes… yes… yes… yes… yes… yes, Father… yes… yes, as well as could be expected… yes… yes… Thank you. I'll tell her… yes… yes… very well… yes… The Highland Avenue… yes… yes… any… yes… any car to the corner of Church and Gay, then transfer to the Highland-yes-very well… yes… Thank you… we'll be waiting… yes… no… yes, Father… yes F-… good b… yes, Father… Thank you… goo-… yes… Thank you… good-bye… good-bye."
They heard her let out a long, tired, angry breath and they could hear her joints snapping as she sprinted up the stairs. They were sitting exactly where she had left them. Rufus thought, Maybe she will say we were good children, but without a word she finished with Catherine's stockings. She gave Rufus a new white shirt from which he slowly and with fascination drew the pins, running them between his teeth as he watched Aunt Hannah help Catherine into her new dress, which was white, speckled with small dark blue flowers. Catherine stood holding the hem and looking at the skirt and at her white-stockinged feet, which she could see through the skirt. "And now your necktie," Aunt Hannah said. She took his dark blue tie and made expert motions beneath his chin while alternately he tried to watch her hands and looked into her intent eyes behind their heavy lenses. Her eyes looked stern and sad and exhausted.
Then she cleaned their nails and combed and brushed their hair, and put a clean handkerchief in Rufus' breast pocket and blacked their shoes. "Now wait a moment," she said, leaving the room. They heard her rap softly on their mother's door.
"Mary?" she said.
"Yes," they heard dimly.
"The children are ready. Shall I bring them in?"
"Yes do, Hannah; thank you."
"Come in now and see your mother," she told them from the door.
They followed her in.
"Oh, they look very nice;" she exclaimed, in a voice so odd that it seemed to the children that she must be sorry that they did. Yet by her face they could see that she was not sorry. "Hannah, thank you so much, I don't know what I'd have…"
But Hannah had left the room and closed the door.
They stood and looked at her with curiosity. Her eyes seemed larger and brighter than usual; her hair was done up as carefully as if she were going to a party. She wore her wrapper and where it opened in front they could see that she had on something dull and black underneath. Her face was like folded gray cloths.
She watched them look at her; they did not move. Her face altered as if a very low light had gone on behind it.
"Come here, my darlings," she said, and smiled, and squatted with her hands out towards them.
Rufus came shyly; Catherine ran. She took one of them in each arm.
"There, my darlings," she said above them, "there, there, my dear ones. Mother's here. Mother's here. Mother has wanted to see you more, these last days; a lot more: she just-couldn't, Rufus and Catherine. Just couldn't do it." When she said "couldn't" she held them very tightly and they knew they were loved. "Little Catherine"-and she held Catherine's head still more tightly to her-"bless her soul! and Rufus"-she held him away and looked into his eyes-"you both know how much Mother loves you, with all her heart and soul, all her life-you know, don't you? Don't you?" Rufus, puzzled but moved, nodded politely, and again she caught him to her. "Of course you do," she said, as if she were not speaking to them. "Of course you do.
"Now," she said, after a moment. She stood up and drew them by their hands to the bed. They sat down and she sat in a chair and looked at them for a few seconds without speaking.
"Now," she said again. "I want to tell you about Daddy, because this morning, soon now, we're all going down to Grampa's and Grandma's, and see him once more, and tell him good-bye." Catherine's face brightened; her mother shook her head and placed a quieting hand on Catherine's knees, saying, "No, Catherine, it won't be like you think, that's what I must tell you about him. So listen very carefully, you too, Rufus."
She waited until she was sure they were listening carefully.
"You both understand what has happened to Daddy, don't you. That something happened in the auto, and God took him from us, very quickly, without any pain, and took him away to heaven. You understand that, don't you?"
They nodded.
"And you understand, that when God takes you away to heaven you can never come back?"
"Never come back?" Catherine asked.
She stroked Catherine's hair away from her face. "No, Catherine, not ever, in any way we can see and talk to. Daddy's soul will always be thinking of us, just as we will always think of him, but we will never see him again, after today." Catherine looked at her very intently; her face began to redden. "You must learn to believe that and know it, darling Catherine. It's so."
She seemed to be about to cry; she swallowed; and Catherine seemed to accept it as true.
"We'll always remember him," she told both of them. "Always. And he'll be thinking of us. Every day. He's waiting for us in heaven. And someday, if we're good, when God comes for us, He'll take us to heaven too and we'll see Daddy there, and all be together again, forever and ever."