“Where is she, by the way?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? She moved, is that what you mean? To the other house? Or what?”
“I mean, she left.”
“How, left?”
“Just took the car and blew.”
“There was a quarrel? Is that it?”
“You could call it that.”
“About what?”
I was getting pretty uncomfortable, not doing well at trying to make up stuff, and wanting to knock it off. But once more Jill got in it, with the same answer she’d given Sid. “About me,” she snapped.
“Oh — I see.”
“She didn’t like me much.”
Aunt Myra, my mother, sat looking at Jill a long time, and then at last remarked: “That I can well understand.” And then, to me: “Dave, Little Myra was getting ideas, or at least I felt she was, that made me very uneasy, ideas that may have accounted for the way she spoke out at last, about me, about herself, and the new relationship she wanted to have with you. Was that her reason? For breaking her pledge at last? Of silence she’d taken to me? In return for what your father did for her?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Then it was?”
She sat there, staring down at the floor. Then after a long time: “I should have come sooner. I’ve known it was in the wind, that something like this would come. What I didn’t know was that it would come this way, with a girl dropping out of the sky.”
She went over and touched Jill’s hair, and Jill patted her hand. Then she asked me: “What about the police? Or the sheriff’s deputies, whoever they are, who have charge of the case? The papers say they told you, and told her, and told Jill, to be available for questioning. What did they say about it? Did they give her permission to leave?”
“I didn’t tell them about it.”
“Has anyone?”
She turned to Jill who said: “I didn’t know it this morning when I called from my hospital room to tell them where I was going. They told me all right, come out here, but her name didn’t come up.”
“Then nobody’s told them about it?”
“No, but somebody’s going to.”
She aimed that at my mother as though expecting approval and maybe a kiss. If so, she got a surprise. My mother’s face turned stony and she sat there staring at Jill who suddenly seemed all crossed up. “Miss Howell,” she said, “perhaps I ought to explain something Dave hasn’t mentioned that’s pretty important to me. This woman who he thought until now was his mother has skipped with all my money, my hundred thousand dollars that Russell Morgan gave me, so I couldn’t be charged in any way — and as a reward for what I did. If I’m to get it back, she has to be caught. They can’t go after her; the police or the sheriff or anyone, until they’ve been told she’s gone. So that’s why I have to tell them.”
But all that got was more of the same from my mother, a stony stare and no answer at all. After a long time she turned to me, kissed me, and whispered: “I have to be going now.”
“What do you want me to call you?”
“What did you call her?”
“Mom — I thought you knew.”
“David, call me Mother.”
“I’d love to. I want to. Mother.” And then, after holding her close: “Mother, who is my father?”
“He’ll tell you.”
“Yes, but when?”
“As soon as he’s free to speak. It won’t be long — but don’t ask me to say more, David. If I do, I may find myself hoping — and I mustn’t, mustn’t, ever.”
“You mean that someone would die?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“And when that happens, what?”
“Your father and I can be married.”
“And it’s going to be soon, you say?”
“I didn’t say! Don’t ask me.”
“You said it wouldn’t be long.”
“Then all right, I said that. I didn’t say how long is long.”
Then at last she turned to Jill and took her face in both hands. She kissed her, then picked up the mink coat, which she had thrown over a chair, put it on, and pulled it around her. Then she opened the door and went out. We both followed, and I put her into her car. She started it, pulled ahead, and swung around the circle in front of the house. As she made the turn, where the circle joined on to the lane, she blew kisses, one to me, one to Jill.
“What did I do?” asked Jill. “I must have done something to change her.”
“She didn’t change. She blew you a kiss, didn’t she?”
“She changed from warm to ice.”
“You said you were telling the officers, so they could find Mom.”
“Well? Why shouldn’t I?”
“OK, but don’t ask any help of me.”
“Her, we’re talking about.”
“Or her.”
“I’m going nuts. Why not?”
“I’ve tried to explain to you. I’m mountain. She’s mountain. Mom’s her kin, that’s all.”
“Didn’t you hear what she said? She doesn’t respect her.”
“You can say that again.”
“And yet, on account of this Mom being kin, she’d block me off from making her give back what’s mine?”
“I didn’t notice any blocking.”
“For Christ’s sake, I’m going nuts.”
“Don’t ask her to help.”
“Or you to help?”
“I told you, she and I have been close.”
“I have to think this over.”
She went in the house and sat down off by herself. I sat down and put my arm around her. But she got up, put on her coat, and went out.
13
She was gone for some time. I didn’t peep, except to keep track that she hadn’t gone off, that her car was still in the driveway. But then I went out to look: she wasn’t there. I went around the house, wondering where she could be, and took a chance on the river. Sure enough, there she was. But she hardly turned around when I came. “Dave,” she whispered, “it talks.”
“You have to be putting me on.”
We both kept still to listen. Each time they’d come in clear, the sounds of the river at night, which you don’t hear by daylight, how it whispers and burbles and gurgles, and tinkles and tankles and glugs, and sometimes lets go with a roar. She stood drawing deep breaths and listening. “It’s beautiful, just beautiful,” she murmured. Then she jumped at the sound of a slap. “What was that?” she asked.
“Fish jumping, was all.”
“Sounded big.”
“Well, why not? Flood time’s food time, for him. Plenty to eat, so he grows.”
“I never even thought of fish while I was out there — I mean in it. I was, you know.”
“Well, they thought of you. They were looking right at you, probably.”
“Could we catch one and have him for supper?”
“Why not?”
“Do you have a pole?”
“Handline, good enough.”
“Aw, I forgot, we have to have bait, and we can’t in the dead of the night start digging for worms.”
“Aren’t shrimp good enough?”
“How do you catch them?”
“With a can opener.”
“You goof.”
We laughed and went up the path to the house. I found the handline in the porch closet and the shrimp in the kitchen. As soon as I’d opened the can, I said: “OK, we’re in business, but I warn you right now that fishing’s bad for that dress, that beautiful dress Mr. York bought you.”
“I’ll put on your pants.”
“Then OK.”
We went in the den where both of us changed our clothes, putting on something rough. We went to the back porch again, picked up the line and bait, and went down again to the river. I showed her how to bait up and said: “You can be the fisherman. I’ll row the boat. Now what do you want to catch?”