“What in hell do they want to be pestering him for, in his condition?” Henry said. Putting the question in words made him feel an indignation he hadn’t felt until this moment.
“Because they think somebody set the fire on purpose,” Doc said, “and most likely they’re right.”
“But what would Simon know about it?” Callie said. She asked it a little too calmly, with too much detachment. Henry didn’t notice it, but Doc Cathey did.
“He’d know if he set it himself,” Doc said, and he laughed, as sharp as acid.
“That’s crazy,” Henry said. His hands started shaking. He said, “His wife died in that fire. It’s right in the paper.”
“You don’t know these people,” Doc Cathey said. “I do. You watch.”
Henry leaned over the table toward him, and his face went dark red. “You’re a vicious old fool,” he said. “I could—” But he couldn’t think what it was he could do, or rather he knew all too well what he could do — he could knock Doc Cathey through a wall — and his realization of how angry he was checked him.
Doc Cathey clamped his mouth shut and got hold of himself. “We’ll see,” he said. “Don’t you go havin’ a heart attack over him.”
It was then that Callie Soames stood up, and both of them looked at her. “I don’t want him in my house,” she said. “I want him out, tonight.”
Henry went as red as before. He fumbled for the pills in the bottle in his shirt pocket, and he took one out and went over to the sink for water. He stood motionless for a long time after he’d drunk, leaning on the sink, and his wife and old Doc Cathey were as quiet as rocks. Henry said, “He’s staying.”
She said very quietly, “Then I’m leaving.”
“Go on,” he said.
Her look clouded a little, and she didn’t move.
3
Henry Soames was up at dawn. It was like Easter morning: The sun hit the late May dew like music, and the trees across the road were all silver and gold, still and breathless. He stood at the open kitchen window breathing in the cool, clean air, and all his body seemed more awake than it had ever felt before. He could hear farmers’ milkers running, infinitely far away in the valley, and he heard a truck start up, the milk truck, probably, down around Lou or Jim Millet’s. The thought of Simon came into his mind and partly saddened him, partly made him nervous. Callie hadn’t said another word last night, and, even though he knew he was right, Henry had felt and still felt guilty. He thought of putting breakfast on, but there was no way of knowing when the others would wake up, so he let it go. He put on his wool-lined frock, frowning, and went out in back to look at the garden. He saw at once that more of the lettuce shoots had been nibbled off even with the ground. Then he saw there were three young rabbits on the grass to the left of the garden, lying with their legs out behind them like dogs. “Shoo!” he said, waving but keeping his voice down, letting the house behind him sleep on. The rabbits jumped up and bounded off like deer. Henry stood still again, slipping his hands into the pockets in the sides of his frock. It was colder than he’d thought. The ground was soft under his feet and clung to his shoes. He ought to shoot those rabbits probably; but he probably wouldn’t do it, because of Jimmy. There was a good deal a man with a family couldn’t do — Jimmy, Callie, Callie’s folks. It was lucky it was more or less worth it.
It was a good little garden. He’d put in most of the vegetables only this past two weeks, three-foot rows of amazingly delicate-looking radishes and beets and garden lettuce and onions. To the right of those, toward the mountainside and the trees, was the rectangular patch where he planned to put in tomatoes and pumpkins and corn. Beyond the rows and curving out to the left a little lay the square he’d put in, mostly last year, mainly flowers, the crocuses and the tulips around the birdbath already in bloom — yellow, red, blue. He had three rose bushes and, around the border, honeysuckle, already in leaf, and to the right, where the mountain began to climb, a lilac bush. They would sit there on the white-painted bench, evenings last summer, he and sometimes Callie too, when Callie’s mother ran the diner for them, and they’d watch little Jimmy crawl around in the dirt, drooling and laughing and talking to himself. It was heaven out there on a cool summer evening. Sometimes they wouldn’t go in till long after dark.
He straightened up and, after a moment, went over to the slat and iron bench to sit down. In two minutes he was asleep, sitting with his head tipped down and his hands over his belly like a bear in clothes.
He didn’t wake up when Jimmy called to be gotten out of bed. Callie went to him, throwing on her bathrobe first, remembering from the first instant she opened her eyes that something unpleasant was in the house, and she seated Jimmy backwards on the toilet (it would take him forever to be sure he was through) and went down to put on breakfast. The bacon hadn’t been sizzling two minutes before sounds began to come from the room off the kitchen. She stood still, glaring at the top of the stove, listening; then she went to look out where she knew her husband would be sitting asleep and called, “Henry, come in here.” He looked up with that stupid, lambish look he always had when he wasn’t quite awake, and with all the venom she could muster she said, “Come see to your friend.”
She slammed the door and went back to her bacon. Jimmy came into the room, naked as a needle, and she pointed at him and sent him back for his clothes.
“No clothes,” he said.
She said, “Jimmy Soames, you get your clothes or I’ll give you a whipping you’ll never forget.” The two-year-old turned vaguely toward the stairs, not obeying, merely baffled, working up tears, and she said, “Stop it!” She laid out paper towels to dry the bacon on, and she heard him going up, very slowly, crying. She knew he wouldn’t get them, of course. He’d forget what he was after in about three seconds, or he’d come across a doll or a fire truck, or — most likely — he’d go to bed and sob. She’d have to go get him and make up to him, and she’d have to hunt up the clothes herself and dress him. She wished to hell Henry would get in here, and at that moment Henry came in. She said fiercely, “I’m sorry to be so crabby. I don’t feel good.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “Let me help you.” He took the spatula.
“Henry, you smell,” she said. “When did you last take a bath?”
Just then from the bedroom off the kitchen there came a crash, and both of them jumped. Henry stood staring at the floor, pulling at his mouth. Callie took a deep breath. “Your mother’s old water pitcher,” she said. He nodded. Callie said wearily. “Well, see if he wants to eat.”
Jimmy, for one, had no intention of eating. He sat in his high chair stirring the yolk of his egg with his spoon and watching Simon Bale. Henry sat solemn and uncomfortable, erect, so expressionless in his steel-rimmed glasses you might have thought him lost in troubled thought; but he couldn’t help seeing how Simon ate, and couldn’t help knowing why Callie suddenly put down her fork and got up to fuss needlessly with the coffee. Simon sat bent almost double, unshaven, his mouth almost level with the plate, scooping his egg in with his fork turned over, trapping it when he needed to against the side of his cracked finger. Sometimes, as if he knew there was something wrong but had no idea what, he would roll his eyes up toward Henry or Jimmy and would smile as if in panic, but he said not a word, and for minutes at a time he would seem to forget they were there. Henry hovered between pity and revulsion. Tears would come suddenly to Simon Bale’s eyes, and he would draw out his stiffly wrinkled, unbelievably filthy handkerchief and blow his nose with a sound so like that of a man unashamedly breaking wind that, each time he did it, Callie would turn, behind him, and stare. When she slid his coffee across to him, keeping back from him as from anthrax, Callie said, “Would you want some more eggs?”