“What?”
“Your daddy. ‘No,’ he says. No.”
“I don’t—”
“Saw me hitchhiking, your dad did. Told me could I play that thing, I allowed yes I could but not this way, with all but one reed gone so there wasn’t but one sound. He said anyway, anyway, he said, to play it round his house for a joke and not give up till he come back. When he comes he’ll give me a bottle. A free bottle.”
He grinned again and put the mouthpiece to his lips, but Ben Joe reached out and took a gentle hold on his arm. “He won’t be back,” he said. He turned toward Susannah. “Get a bottle of bourbon, Susannah. Bourbon all right with you, friend?”
“Oh yes, oh yes—”
Jenny suddenly came to life. She raced down the front steps and yanked Ben Joe’s hand from the soldier’s arm. “Leave him be,” she said. “You leave him. Let him play.” Her face was white and pinched-looking; Ben Joe thought if she shook any harder she would fall down.
“He’s getting tired of playing,” he told her.
“You leave him.”
Susannah came out of the house again, slamming the screen door behind her. “Here,” she said.
“Why, thank you, ma’am. I am much—”
“You play, you,” said Jenny to the soldier.
Susannah reached over Jenny’s head with the bottle; the soldier held out his hand and Jenny made a grab for the bottle but missed.
“Wait,” she said.
“Wouldn’t change a thing, making him keep playing,” Ben Joe told her gently. “If he played till you had grandchildren, it wouldn’t bring back—”
“You wait, you wait!”
She was rigid now, not shaking any more but with her hands folded into tense fists and her face wet with tears. When Ben Joe put one hand on her shoulder she spun toward him, not actually fighting him but letting her arm stay rigid, so that her fist swung hard into his stomach and knocked all the wind from him. The soldier clicked his tongue, his eyes round. Ben Joe started coughing and bent over, but he kept hold of Jenny, pinning her arms down at her sides and holding her tight while he and Susannah guided her toward the stairs.
“I told you and told you!” she was screaming. “Now you’ve sent him away and he’ll never come back—”
The soldier, mistaking her meaning, smiled cheerfully and waved his bottle at her. “Sure I’ll be back,” he called comfortingly. “Don’t you worry ma’am!”
He set off toward the street, whistling. On the porch, Jane and Lisa took Jenny from Ben Joe while he leaned over the railing and coughed himself hoarse, trying to get his wind again. Susannah whacked him steadily on the back.
“You’ll be all right,” she said over and over. “You’ll be all right. You’ll be all right.”
She did her best, but she couldn’t say it the way Joanne did. And right then he wished for Joanne more than anyone in the world. He thought probably they all did. If she came walking up the steps right now she would fold every single person up close to her and cry, and pat them softly; and they could start crying too and telling her all the secret fears swamping their minds at this minute and then they would realize everything that had happened. If they could only realize something, things could start getting better again.
But Joanne didn’t come up the steps, and when his coughing fit was through, Ben Joe straightened up and followed Susannah into the house again. Up on the second floor, Tessie was crying.
“You get the twins to give Jenny one of Dad’s sleeping pills,” Ben Joe told Susannah. “I’ll try and get Tessie out of the railings.”
Now, six years later, he thought he could still name the two posts where Tessie’s head had been caught. All seven children, from Joanne to Tessie, had been stuck in this railing at least once in their lives. But he thought he knew which posts Tessie had been between that night, because it was still so clear in his mind. He had soothed Tessie, who had been through this before and was not very frightened, and while he was trying to pull her out he thought about the same thing he always thought when he did this: he must put some screening here, to stop all these ridiculous goings-on. Even if Gram did say it would ruin the looks of the railing. Under his hands was the feel of Tessie’s head — the thin, soft hair, the tight little bones of her skull. He had turned her face gently, holding her small ears flat against her head, and worked her out from between the bars and scooped her up to carry her back to bed. It was then, standing there with the weight of her against his shoulder, that the first sorrow hit him — just one deep bruise inside that made him catch his breath. He could remember it still. That, and the little flannel nightgown Tessie wore, and the soft sounds of Jenny crying in the room she shared with Tessie …
It was so clear still that he could have told Joanne, and by telling her proved that Lili Belle hadn’t won. For if his father had meant to go to Lili Belle’s, he wouldn’t have played that bagpipe joke on them. He loved every one of his children; he wouldn’t have left them with any unkind tricks. But even though he had thought about telling her, Ben Joe had stopped himself. It was one of those things that wasn’t mentioned in this house. Not even he and his other sisters mentioned it.
What else didn’t they mention? He looked down the stairs and frowned, wondering what went on behind their cool, bright smiles. What did they think about before they went to sleep at night? He leaned further down, listening. The twins were chattering away in the kitchen; in the living room, someone laughed and Tessie gave a small squeal. He began to feel a sort of admiration for them. It was like watching a man who has been to Africa drink tea in the parlor and make small talk, with all those things known and done behind him that he is not even thinking about. Behind him, Joanne padded back to her bedroom with a pack of emery boards in her hand, but Ben Joe didn’t look around. He remained in his own thoughts, with his hand resting absently on the stair railing.
6
When finally he came downstairs he made another tour of the house, just to see if anyone was free to talk to him yet. He started with his mother, who had joined the others in the living room and was taking tiny stitches in a white collar.
“Finish Tessie’s dress?” he asked.
“Obviously not, since that’s what I’m stitching on.”
He stood in the middle of the room, chewing on his thumbnail while he tried to think of another opening.
“Well, how’s the book store going?” he asked finally.
“It’s all right. What’s the matter, Ben Joe, haven’t you any plans for tonight?”
“Not offhand.”
“You certainly are restless.”
He took this as an invitation to sit down and did so at once on the leather hassock beside her. On the couch opposite him Susannah and Gram collected the cards that lay between them and Susannah began shuffling them. The cards made a quick, snapping noise under her fingers.
“Carol sure doesn’t look like a Hawkes, does she?” he said.
His mother held the dress up at arm’s length and frowned at it. “No, I don’t suppose she does,” she said finally. She lowered the dress into her lap again and then, feeling that something more seemed to be expected of her, said, “It’s really too young to tell yet.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Gram said. “Has the Hawkes nose, I’ll say that. Small and pointy. And Joanne’s little pointy chin.”
There was another silence. Susannah began dealing, slapping down a loud card for Gram and a soft one for herself in a steady rhythm. Ben Joe stood up again and moved aimlessly over to the game.