“Shut up and leave me alone!”
“Well. Well,” Mrs. Malverson said and retreated to her own yard, her straw hat bouncing angrily as she moved. This was the thanks you got for trying to bring a little joy into someone’s life.
Ignoring the mess on the veranda, Thelma went back into the house and sat down at the kitchen table. A pair of curious houseflies chased each other in and out of the open window and Thelma watched them, thinking, Harry must put on the screens this week...
She had been doing this quite often lately, considering the future as if it were going to be a repetition of the present, thinking of little things that should be done around the house or yard, making tentative plans for the Decoration Day weekend. She knew better. She knew that Harry and she weren’t going to live in this house any longer; whoever put the screens on for the summer, it would not be Harry. She knew, too, that there were other, greater changes waiting for her around the next corner of time. She could not avoid this corner, every tick of the clock brought her inexorably closer to it, no matter how tenaciously a part of her mind tried to stay on a secure day-to-day basis.
Harry will...
No, Harry will not, she thought. I must get used to the idea we won’t be here. Some stranger will be putting on the screens, at the request of his wife, also a stranger. They will live in our house, these two strangers, and pretty soon it will be theirs entirely. Well, I mustn’t get sentimental about it. I’ve never liked the place much. It’s the same as thousands of other houses in Ontario, a square red-brick box. I want to live in a house without stairs, a climate without winter.
The telephone began to ring in the dining room. She was sure it was Harry calling but she was not sure enough to keep from answering it.
“Hello?”
“Thelma, is that you, honey?”
“Yes.”
“Are you feeling all right again?”
“Yes.”
“Listen, dear, I’m phoning from Wiarton. Ron hasn’t shown up yet. I don’t suppose you’ve had any news at that end?”
“No.”
“Well, don’t worry, everything will turn out right.”
“Will it,” Thelma said, and hung up.
A minute later the phone began ringing again. Thelma turned her back on it. As she walked toward the kitchen she counted each ring deliberately, like a defiant child counting the number of times she is called to supper: “Thelma. Thelma? Thelma! Thelma...”
Long after the final ring, the sharp shrill sound kept echoing in her ears, stirring up memories.
“Thelma? You hear me, Thelma?”
Oh yes, Aunt May, I hear you. Everyone in the city can hear you.
“You come in this house right away and finish up these dishes.”
No, Aunt May.
“Hiding again, aren’t you, pretending you don’t hear me, well, you don’t fool me. Thelma!”
I can fool you any time.
“Sneaky, that’s what you are, a born sneak. If you don’t march right in this house, I’m gonna write your ma and tell her I can’t look after you. The Lord knows you’re eating me out of house and home, and not a penny does she send for your keep. We’ll all end up in the poorhouse, how would you like that, Miss Royalty too good to do dishes?”
If you end up in the poorhouse I’ll come and visit you dressed in mink and diamonds.
“Thelma Schaefer, where are you hiding?”
Under the porch. You could reach out and touch me. Do. I’ll bite.
“That no-good sister of mine, what else would you expect from her but a no-good child. You answer me, you hear?”
Aunt May had been dead for years, but every shrill sound reminded Thelma of her, an alarm clock, a telephone, a doorbell. Each was the voice of authority, the call to duty: Come in and do the dishes. Get up and go to work. Answer the phone and talk to Harry.
The child hiding under the porch was imprisoned forever within Thelma. Aunt May’s voice still soured the sweetest melody, and the bile green of her nature had colored the universe.
Thelma began to make breakfast, moving around the kitchen with a kind of grim efficiency, as if she had in some way been challenged to prove her worth.
Aunt May was wrong, she thought. I won’t end up in the poorhouse. There’s Ron’s money, a lot of money. My baby will have security and love. There’ll be no Aunt May for him, no poverty, no fear. He’ll have a house without stairs, a climate without winter, no running nose for him from fall to spring like the kids around here. He’ll have the best care, the best clothes, the best schools...
She ate her breakfast as if in a dream, not enjoying it, not even tasting it, eating for the sake of the baby which needed nourishment. After she had finished, she took her coffee into the parlor at the front of the house.
The room was cool and dark, the shades still drawn from the previous night when she had waited there listening for the sound of Ron’s car on the driveway. It was spring now, but the parlor still smelled of winter, of the long weeks of unopened windows and artificial heat, a close dusty smell which, even into autumn, never quite disappeared.
Thelma pulled up the shades and opened two of the windows. Summer sounds drifted in, the children from down the street fighting over a bicycle, the whirr of roller skates, the pounding of a hammer. The young married man who lived across the road was busy removing his storm windows while his wife watched him with great pride as if he were performing some unusual feat. The sun had drawn everyone out of doors like a magnet, but because the spring was new and people were still a little self-conscious about being outside, idle, and bare-armed and bareheaded, they had to find excuses to stay out. Cars were being washed, screens painted, babies walked, lawns rolled, gossip exchanged.
And Thelma, watching, thought, I wonder how much each of them knows about me. When it all comes out in the papers — and it will, I must face that fact — when they find out, will they be surprised, or will they claim they suspected it all along because they’d often seen Ron’s car here?
The telephone in the dining room began to ring again. She was positive this time that it was Harry, and she would have let the call go unanswered, except for the fact that the front windows were now open and the people across street could hear the phone ringing quite plainly. They knew she was at home, they’d seen her at the window, and they would wonder why she didn’t answer. It was the kind of neighborhood, the kind of country, where little things like that didn’t go unnoticed.
She hurried into the dining room and picked up the receiver, annoyed by Harry’s persistence. “Hello.”
“Is this the Bream residence?”
“Yes.”
The woman’s voice was low and soft, and self-consciously cultured. “Is Mr. Bream at home?”
“No. I’m his wife, Thelma Bream.”
“This is Joyce Reynold calling, Mrs. Bream. You may recall we met two or three years ago, and of course I’ve known Harry for a long time. He’s been very kind to my poor daughter, Dorothy. Do you expect him home soon?”
“I’m afraid not. But if there’s anything I can do...”
“Sweet of you, my dear, but I’m not sure, I’m simply not sure. A very perplexing thing has happened. It happened last night, actually, but it seemed too late to call Harry and besides I wasn’t sure what I was expected to do. I’m still not. You didn’t receive a rather peculiar call from Ron Galloway last night?”
“No.” Thelma took a deep breath. “How do you mean, peculiar?”
“Confused. Rambling. Those are Dorothy’s words. You see, the call wasn’t to me but to Dorothy. I was tucking her in bed for the night when the telephone rang and it was Ron wanting to talk to Dorothy. We haven’t heard from him in years, and I assumed it must be important so I allowed Dorothy to talk to him. She’d had a good day and was feeling stronger than usual, and I like to let her have a bit of excitement when I’m certain no harm will come of it. I was wrong, of course. I should have realized the man was drunk or out of his mind. Dorothy’s been in a frightful state ever since.”