"No," I said, "I didn't know, And maybe you'd better not tell me about it, Mrs. Summers. As long as the sheriff didn't, I don't think you should."
She hesitated. Then she said, softly, "You mean that, don't you, Carl?"
"I mean it," I said.
"I'm glad. I knew you'd feel that way. But he knows that I planned to tell you, and he doesn't object at all. The whole thing was so completely ridiculous in the first place! Even if he couldn't see the kind of young man you were at a glance, he had those wonderful wires about you from that judge and the chief of police and-"
"I don't understand," I said. "I don't know why this son would say anything against me. I couldn't have thought any more of a mother and father than I did of them. Why, Mrs. Fields wrote me right up to the time she died, and-"
"I imagine that was a large part of the trouble.Jealousy. And you know how kinfolk can be when it comes to elderly people. No matter what you do, how much you do, they're always convinced that you've abused the old folks. Imposed on them or swindled them or worse."
"But I-I just don't see how-"
"Honestly, Carl! Without ever having met you, I knew it was preposterous. They sent a five-hundred-word telegram back here, and it was simply filled with the worst possible… And, of course, Bill didn't just swallow it whole, but he didn't feel that he could disregard it completely. So-Oh, I suppose I shouldn't even have mentioned it. But it was so unfair, Carl, it made me so angry that-"
"Maybe you'd better tell me about it," I said. "If you don't mind."
She told me about it. I listened, sore at first, and then just sick. And I got sicker and sicker.
They-this Fields character-had said that I'd stolen his mother and father blind all the time I was working for them, and then I'd gypped her out of the station, paid her about half what the place was worth. He said I'd just moved in on his folks and taken over, and they'd been too scared of me to complain. He said-he hinted-that I'd actually killed Mr. Fields; that I'd made him do all the hard heavy work until he keeled over from heart failure. He said I'd planned to do the same thing to the old lady, but she'd taken what I offered her so I'd let her go "completely broken in health." He said…
Everything. Every lousy thing that a smalltime stinker could think of to say.
It was a lie, of course, every word of it. I'd worked for those people for peanuts, and I'd have stolen from myself quicker than I would have from them. I'd paid Mrs. Fields more than anyone else had offered when she put the place up for sale. I'd even done a big part of the housework for Mrs. Fields. I'd made Mr. Fields stay in bed, and I'd waited on him and done the other work besides. He'd hardly been out of bed for a year at the time he died, and she'd hardly stirred a hand, and.
And this character said things like that about me.
It made me sick. These people-those two people I'd cared more about than anything in the world, and… And this was the way it turned out.
Mrs. Summers touched my arm. "Don't feel badly, Carl. I know you were just as good and kind to those people as you could be and what he says doesn't change the facts."
"I know," I said. "I-" I told her how much I'd thought of the Fields and how I'd tried to show it, and she sat nodding sympathetically, murmuring an occasional, "Of course," and, "Why, certainly you did," and so on.
And pretty soon it seemed like I wasn't talking to her, by myself. I was arguing with myself. Because I knew what I'd done, but I wasn't sure why I had done it. I'd thought I was, but now I didn't know.
He was lying, of course; the way he'd put things had been a lie. But a lie and a truth aren't too far apart; you have to start with one to arrive at the other, and the two have a way of overlapping.
You could say I had moved in on the Fields. They hadn't really needed any help, and if they'd been younger and less good-hearted they probably wouldn't have given me a job. You could say that I had made them work hard. Two people could get by fine on the little business their station was doing, but three couldn't. And I'd saved them all the work I could, but still they'd had to work harder than they had before I came. You could say that I had stolen from them-just being there was stealing. You could say I had cheated Mrs. Fields on the price. Because all I had I'd got from them, and the place was worth a lot more to me than it would have been to an outsider. You could say…
You could say that I'd planned it the way it had turned out; maybe without knowing that I was planning it.
I couldn't be sure that I hadn't. All I could be sure of was that I'd been fighting for my life, and Fd found the perfect spot- the one place-to take cover. I'd had to have what they had. In a way, it had been me or them.
Those six years I'd spent with them… Maybe they were like all the other years.Just crap. Nothing to feel kind of proud of or good about.
"Carl… Please, Carl!"
"I'm all right," I said.
"You're sick. I can see it. Now, you're coming right into the house with me and I'm going to fix you a cup of coffee, and you're going to lie down on the lounge until-"
"I think I'd better go home," I said.
I stood up and she stood up with me. And she looked almost as sick as I probably did. "Oh, I wish I hadn't told you, Carl! I might have known how upset you'd be."
"No, it's-I just think I'd better be going," I said.
"Let me call, Bill. He can drive you."
"No, I'd rather you didn't," I said. "I-I want to walk around a little first."
She argued about it, looking and sounding like she might burst out crying any second. But finally she walked to the gate with me, and I got away.
I walked toward the house, the Winroys', my eyes stinging behind the contact lenses; and it didn't seem sunny or pleasant any more.
I could hear Ruthie out in the kitchen. No one else seemed to be around. I went out there, reached the whiskey out of the cupboard and took a long drink out of the bottle. I put it back in the cupboard, and turned around.
Ruthie was staring at me. She'd taken her hands out of the dishwater and was starting to reach for a towel. But somehow she never made it. She stared at me, and her face twisted as though a knife had been twisted in her; and she took a swing and a step on the cruch. Then her arms were around me and she was pressing me to her.
"C-carl… oh, darling. What's the-"
"Nothing," I said. "Just a little sick at my stomach."
I grinned and pulled away from her. I gave her a little spank on the thigh, and I started to say, I did say, "Where's-?" But I didn't get a chance to finish the sentence. I heard Fay coming up the front steps, that firm I'm-really-something walk of hers. And by the time she got the front door open, I was in the hallway.
I winked and jerked my head over my shoulder. "Just borrowed a drink of your whiskey, Mrs. Winroy. Had a sudden attack of stomach sickness."
"It's perfectly all right, Carl." She gave me back the wink. "Sick at your stomach, huh? Well, that's what you get for eating with cops."