She settled herself down more securely, tucking her feet up under her to keep them warm. Her face was lively and wide awake.
“How come you’re up?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Well, for one thing, I was wondering where you were.”
“I’m all right,” he said.
“Well, I was just wondering.”
He lowered his knees and swung his feet to the other side of the bed so she would be more comfortable, and smiled at her, but all he could think of to say was “I’m all right” again.
“I know.” She rested her chin in one hand and looked at him seriously. “Where’d you go?”
“Just out.”
“Oh.”
He paused a minute, and then finally gave in and said, “What happened to Gary?”
“He’s asleep on the couch.”
“I know, but what happened to him? To him and Joanne?”
“Nothing, I guess.” She began stirring around restlessly and after a minute she rose and pulled the window shade up. “Joanne said she was committed to a date and was darn well going to keep her commitments.” she said. She was leaning her elbows on the window sill now; her whisper came back cool and sharp, resounding off the pane. “And even though that Horner guy said he thought it’d be better to take a rain check, she said no and went out real quick, leaving Gary kind of empty-handed-looking and Gram crying into the sofa cushions and wishing she’d married Jamie Dower—”
“What happened when she got back?” Ben Joe broke in.
“Joanne? I don’t know. I don’t think her date came inside with her when he brought her home again—”
“Thank God for small gifts,” he said.
“Well, but she and Gary didn’t talk too much. She just went on to bed after a few minutes. I reckon she’s counting on getting it settled in the morning. While she was on her date, Gary stayed home and taught us how to make a French omelet. You take—”
“Jenny, I’m getting awfully sleepy.”
Jenny went on looking out the window, her face cheerful and her mouth pursed silently to whistle. “You should see Lisa,” she said after a minute. “She’s out walking under the clothesline. Can’t get to sleep, I guess.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“Well, it’s no wonder she had to go all the way outside, considering she shares a room with Jane. Can’t make a sound in there. Step on a dust ball in your bare feet and Jane’s wide awake wanting to know what that crunching sound was.”
“Well, tell Lisa to come in,” Ben Joe said. “Makes me nervous.”
“You’d be more nervous if she did come in.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Oh, she’ll come soon of her own accord, anyway. Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, all right,” said Ben Joe. But he frowned and picked at the tufts of his bed spread. He never could have the feeling that the whole family was under one roof and taken care of; one always had to be out wandering around somewhere beyond his jurisdiction.
“You try and get some sleep, now,” Jenny was saying. She straightened up and left the window, heading toward the door and tying the sash of her bathrobe as she walked. When she reached the hallway she turned back and said, “Night.”
“Night.”
“See you in the morning.”
“If morning comes,” Ben Joe said.
She smiled suddenly and closed the door on him with a gentle click. Ben Joe turned over on his side, facing the wall. He closed his eyes and found that this time they stayed closed, although the muscles of his face were still drawn tight. Against his cheek the pillow was cool and slightly rough. Every time he breathed, the pillow brushed his skin with a soft, crisp sound and it made itself into a rhythm, plunging him farther and farther down until he found himself in the black, teetering world of half-sleep.
His father was sitting at the sunlit breakfast table. His mustache was gone and his face was as lined and leathery as it had been the day he died, although Ben Joe himself was only a small boy sitting at the table beside him. Why wasn’t he dreaming the ages correctly? Either his father should be a mustached, smooth-faced young man or Ben Joe should be at least old enough for high school. He pulled his mind up from the deep water of his dream and opened his eyes. He must get all this arranged right. No, he thought suddenly, he had to stop the dream altogether. He thought about flat, green things — leaves, chalk boards, lawns seen from a distance — to make his mind blank again. The face of his father stayed in one corner, twinkling and deeply lined.
He closed his eyes and gave in, sinking back into the stream of the dream. His father, frozen in one position at the breakfast table, became animated again, like a movie that has been stopped and then started at the same place. He was telling a story, one that they all knew by heart. Only he told it in that anonymous voice inside Ben Joe’s head instead of his own deep booming one; Ben Joe’s mind, searching frantically, was unable to recapture even the vaguest semblance of his father’s voice. But the story came to him perfectly, word for word:
“When I was young, and liked to go places, my Uncle Jed said he’d take me to the Farmers’ Market in Raleigh. You remember Uncle Jed. He was the one could walk barefoot on broken glass without feeling it and went on farming even after the family got their money. Well, sir, this was back in the days when the farmers went to market the night before and all slept on the ground in blankets so as to be up at five. And that’s how I saw my first silly-minded boy.
“Not that I haven’t seen plenty since.
“Big as an ox, he was, and kind of round-eyed, and hung his head like he knew he was silly and was damned ashamed of it, too. And well he might be. For soon’s we all got to bed this boy began saying, ‘What time’s it, Pa?’
“And his pa would say, growly-like, ‘’Bout ten o’clock, Quality.’
“Quality Jones, that’s what his name was.
“Name like that would make anybody silly-minded.
“And then Quality would say, ‘What time’s it now, Pa?’
“And his pa’d say, ‘Little after ten, Quality.’
“Well, sir, this went on for maybe two hours. Farmers are patient men. They got to be. Got to see those seeds come up week by week, fraction by fraction, and sweat it out for some days not knowing yet is it weeds or vegetables making all that greeny look. So they kept quiet — just sort of muttered around a little. And when Quality started snoring, there was this little relaxing kind of sigh, like a breeze through a cornfield, all over the Farmers’ Market.
“What good’s a clock to a man in bed? What good?
“But that wasn’t the half of it. For soon’s Quality started snoring, his pa raised up on one elbow and looked over at him and he says, ‘Quality, son?’
“ ‘Huh, Pa?’ says Quality, all sleepy-like.
“ ‘You all right?’ his pa asks.
“And Quality says, ‘Yes, Pa.’
“That’s the way it was all right. A fellow didn’t have time to get his eyes shut properly before it’d be, ‘You want to pee, son?’, ‘You want a drink of water, Quality?’ Lord, I never will forget.
“After about two hours of his, my Uncle Jed he stood up and grabbed his army blanket and he shouted, to the whole market place he shouted, ‘Folks,’ he says, ‘if morning ever comes, I hope you get to meet this Quality!’
“And everyone laughed, but Uncle Jed paid them no mind. He grabbed my blanket right up from under me and said, ‘Come on, boy, we’re going home,’ and that sure enough is where we went.
“I never went back to that market place. Folks say it is still going, only modern now, but every time I think about it, it seems like the only way I can see it is at nighttime still, with Quality still on his crazy quilt, and all those men still waiting, waiting still, for morning to be coming. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”