by Larry Watson
I didn’t see any bruises.
Oh don’t, George. You know what I mean. He’s a sensitive little boy. Things affect him in a way they don’t affect other children.
Those people in that house? One of them is his mother.
I’m aware of that, George. I’m well aware.
Finally, they retire for the night, the bedsprings squeaking out a reminder that though they are not yet home, they are no longer in the world of compromised sleep on jail cots or hard ground.
The evening’s last words belong to Margaret. Do you need anything from Montgomery Ward? she asks. Because that’s where we’re going tomorrow.
...
Lorna Weboy works in Montgomery Ward’s men’s department, the store manager’s idea being that her pretty face and trim figure might induce a man who comes in to buy a suit to buy a shirt and tie as well, or a man who comes in to buy a handkerchief to buy a pair of pants to put the handkerchief in. That is where Lorna finds George Blackledge—looking at the handkerchiefs.
You’ll find them cheaper in the catalog, she says, a remark that might have gotten her fired had that store manager heard it.
George reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out a snot-pasted, wrinkled blue bandanna. I’m pretty well fixed, he says.
By this time Margaret has come up on Lorna’s flank. Hello, honey, she says to the woman who was once her daughter-in-law.
I didn’t think you’d just go home, says Lorna. I almost said something to Donnie. If you believe you’ve seen the last of Margaret Blackledge, you’d best think again.
Like a bad penny?
To this Lorna says nothing. She takes a step back and crosses her arms.
Who watches Jimmy while you’re working?
Who do you think? Donnie. His mom. Someone’s always at the house. Or maybe you think I just tie him to a tree like a dog until I get home.
You’re a good mother, Lorna. I know that. I was merely wondering how you’re working things out with this job.
It’s working out okay.
Did you drive in today? George asks.
Lorna straightens the stack of handkerchiefs that George was examining. Uncle Bill gave me a ride. He and Donnie sort of take turns. Picking me up after work too.
Well, Margaret says, it sounds like you have a real system. Good for you. She pats the handkerchiefs that Lorna has rearranged. When do you have a break, Lorna? George and I would like to buy you lunch.
Lorna looks desperately around the store as if she’s seeking the assistance of a coworker, someone who can help her with these customers who will never be talked into a sale against their will.
At noon, Lorna says.
Noon straight up? All right. We’ll be out in front then. And we’ll eat anyplace you like.
...
Nothing, not a siren nor a church bell nor a chiming clock hovering over the town square, marks the arrival of noon for the residents of Gladstone, but at the appointed hour Lorna exits the department store, and there, on the sidewalk under the brittle sunlight of late September and pressed against the bricks to stay out of the chill wind, she finds the waiting Blackledges. Together they walk across the street to Ressler’s, where Jimmy was served his hamburger with mustard the night before.
Although the café is crowded with lunchtime diners, they’re able to find a booth in the back, and once Lorna sits down, Margaret immediately slides in beside her, hemming her in. Lorna has put her purse on her left side, against the wall, and Margaret her purse on the right, so nothing is on the bench between the two women. On the printed menu the prices for pie, both plain and a la mode, have been inked out with a ballpoint pen and new prices written in. George points to these, shakes his head, and lights a cigarette. Soon a stout waitress arrives with her pad and pencil. She is scowling and grinding her teeth for a reason known only to her. George and Margaret both order egg salad sandwiches and coffee. Lorna asks for a hot roast beef sandwich and a 7UP.
Since I started working, Lorna explains, I’m hungry as a horse. Even though I don’t do much but stand around all day.
You look as slim and pretty as ever, Margaret says to her. And good for you—working to help out the family.
I guess.
George offers her a cigarette, which she refuses. I only smoke the filtered kind now.
He leaves the pack of Lucky Strikes on the table within her reach.
Margaret extends a loving arm across Lorna’s shoulders and tries to pull her close, an action that the younger woman resists. Margaret says, It’s so good to see you.
You mean Jimmy.
I mean the both of you. Margaret pulls her arm away but her smile is unwavering. She says, But it took us a while to find you. We looked up north first. Didn’t you say you were going to Bentrock?
I meant to write you.
I’m sure you did. But you didn’t.
It was kind of a last-minute decision. Coming here, I mean.
Donnie’s decision?
Lorna nods.
Well, we found you. That’s the important thing. Jimmy’s grown since we saw him.
He can count now. To ten. The wariness leaves Lorna’s eyes as she talks about her son. At first he’d just say the words—you know, one, four, five, two—but now he knows they go in order. And I don’t have to remind him about please and thank you any more. Even if he forgets, it’s only for a second.
Margaret’s delight at these announcements shows in her eyes too. He’s so smart. Right from the start, so smart.
He misses you. Lorna’s admission is shyly delivered. He talks about going to the park, like the two of you used to.
We miss him too. We miss both of you.
Donnie keeps saying we’ll go back to Dalton for a visit sometime. But he never says when.
That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Lorna. And I won’t beat around the bush. You’re a smart girl. That was one of the first things James told us about you. You’ll like her, Mom, he said. She’s pretty and she’s smart—
I thought you weren’t going to beat around the bush. I have to be back at the store by one. Just get to it.
Margaret smiles in wry admiration for this young woman. All right. She places her palms on the tabletop as if to emphasize that she will keep her hands to herself. I’d like to propose something to you, Lorna. Here it is. Let Jimmy come back to Dalton with us. I don’t mean for a visit. I mean for good.
Lorna’s gasping, coughing little laugh helps her through her moment of speechlessness. Jimmy—! That’s my son you’re talking about!
You know we’d give him a good home. He’d—
You want me to give up my son? Is that what you’re saying?
Margaret presses harder on the table. He’d have Teddy Christianson and Larry Ault as his friends again. Dr. Garber would be his doctor. Jimmy could walk to school—Dalton has good schools, you know that. He’d be in a town and a house that he surely remembers. He’d be back in his familiar world, back on our side of the Badlands—
Stop it! Just stop it!
When he’s a little older, we’ll take him to the cemetery. We’ll tell him about his father and the name they share. I mean, I’m sure you’ll do this too, but you’re already a Weboy. And Donnie might be uncomfortable with—
The words come so fast Lorna presses her hands to her face. I can’t hear this!
George and I aren’t the richest folks around, but we can provide for him. Anything he needs—
All around the unceasing scrape and clink of cutlery and crockery, chewing, belching—customers have come here to eat and be on their way. There’s still half a day’s work to be done. The flare of a match. One last cigarette before hurrying back to the store or the office. Yet at this booth in the back nobody moves, not even when the waitress sets down the cups of coffee and the bottle of 7UP with the straw bobbing in it.
Eventually Lorna speaks. He needs his mother, she says. But the words come out as neither firm nor final; her voice betrays her and
she asks the question that she doesn’t intend. He needs his mother?
You know we’d give him a good home. You know that, Lorna. You know that in your heart.
In my heart . . .
Is it the mention of the human heart? The urgency in Margaret’s voice? The expression of defeat in Lorna’s eyes? Without contributing reason or feeling to the argument, without saying a word, George Blackledge picks up his cigarettes and slides out of the booth and walks away from the two women and their competing claims on a small boy.
Margaret gives her departing husband only a glance before focusing her gaze once again on Lorna. You and Donnie are starting a new life, she says. A new home in a new state. A new job. You’re part of a new clan. And you and Donnie—I’m sure you want to start your own family. Blanche said—
At the mention of Blanche Weboy, Lorna’s head suddenly lifts. What did she say? The smallest of waves appear on the liquid surfaces of the coffee, and the cups tremble in their saucers. The vibration comes from Lorna, who is bouncing her legs so fast under the table that everything above takes on motion as well.
Why, just that she wants the best for you, says Margaret. She wants to help you any way she can.
The hell. What she wants is Donnie where she can keep him under her thumb. I can fall off the face of the earth for all she cares.
Margaret puts her hand on the younger woman’s arm, lightly at first and then tightens her grip, and this time Lorna makes no move to resist the touch. Come with us if you like, Margaret says softly. You and Jimmy. Live with us. Like before. We can take care of you too.
To the booth’s inside wall Lorna turns her head as if she must look away from the older woman’s gaze and its power to persuade and enchant.
Donnie’d kill me. Him and his mother . . . they wouldn’t stand for it . . .
Margaret puts her hand on Lorna’s chin and gently rotates her face back toward hers. Do you want us to talk to him? And to his mother? George and I could do that for you. We could take you back there to pick up Jimmy and your things and we can talk to Donnie and to Blanche. You don’t have to worry about them.
Lorna tries to shake her head no, but Margaret’s hand on her chin won’t let her.
She won’t let me go, says Lorna.
Oh, hell. You’re a free woman in a free country. You can go where you please.
Lorna manages to move her head out of Margaret’s grasp. She does so by leaning far back in the booth. I don’t want him to grow up to be like Donnie’s brothers.
They’re a pair all right.
They don’t even talk. Did you notice? I mean, hardly ever.
Margaret glances over at the space where her husband sat before he wrapped up his silence and walked away. I noticed, she replies.
Donnie’s not like them. He’s like his mom that way. The two of them—they’re talkers.
So’s the uncle.
Bill? Yeah. . . . He pretty much does what Blanche wants. Just so she’ll feed him and let him under her sheets. I’m sorry but it’s true.
You’re not going to shock me, honey. Don’t worry.
The teeth-grinding waitress returns with the two egg salad sandwiches on smaller plates balanced in one arm and the plate with hot roast beef in the other hand. She doesn’t put George’s sandwich down but asks, Is he coming back? Does he want this?
Margaret whispers, He went to the men’s room.
Lady, he walked out the front door a while back.
Margaret looks toward the door, then gestures for the sandwich to be placed on the table. He’ll be back.
Whatever you say. The waitress puts George’s sandwich down and walks away.
Lorna pushes her plate away. I can’t eat this.
Margaret nudges her sandwich toward the younger woman.
I mean I’m not hungry for anything. Lorna leans into her palm, holding her own chin the way Margaret held it only a moment ago. I need to think.
And now Margaret Blackledge shifts in position and attitude, opening up a space in the booth that feels vaster than the few inches between them. You need to think. That’s fine. You think on this. Talk it over with Donnie if you need to or have a little heart-to-heart with just you and your soul. Are you working again tomorrow? Yes? All right. Tomorrow I’ll come into the store, and all you have to do is shake your head. Yes if you’ve made up your mind, no if you need a little more time. Then if need be, I can come back the next day. But that’s that. Then you need to say. Jimmy’s coming back to Dalton with us, or you and Jimmy are. Do you hear me, honey? You’ll have to say.
Lorna nods dumbly. I have to get back.
Margaret picks up the bill and slides out of the booth. We’ll see you tomorrow then.
I guess, says Lorna.
For sure, answers Margaret.
21.
GEORGE BLACKLEDGE WALKS PAST WOODROW’S Stationery with its line of typewriters and adding machines displayed in the window. Past Harmon’s Western Wear, Men’s and Women’s Clothing for All Occasions. Past Antler’s Bar and its odor of spilled whiskey and cigar smoke that leaks out onto the sidewalk though the tavern’s windows and door are closed. Past the Remington Arms, Rooms for Rent, Daily, Weekly, Monthly. At the end of the block George stops and enters a telephone booth, on the floor of which are at least ten cigarette butts smoked right down to the desperate nub.
He takes out his wallet and a small folded piece of paper. Written on it in a woman’s handwriting are the name Janie and two numbers, one for work and one for home. He places the paper on the metal shelf, then weights down each corner with the coins he takes from the pocket of his dungarees.
He picks up the black telephone receiver but its weight barely has time to register in his hand before he hangs it back up. If it had been James’s number on that slip of paper, there might be some use in placing this call. James, with his good-dog eagerness to please, would have been willing to listen to his father’s concerns. And James, who could make his mother stop whatever she was doing and pay attention to him, might have been able to deter her from whatever course she was embarked on. But Janie? She was George’s brand of Blackledge, someone who usually looked for—and found—a way to slip loose of any human entanglement.
Besides, every parent knows that it’s his duty to listen to his child’s fears, desires, and discontentments and not to burden his child with his own. He might forget this, so great is his need to unburden himself to someone who might listen, and understand, for the time that he has coins in his pocket. But soon he remembers. A parent remembers.
...
Margaret Blackledge finds her husband half a block away from the restaurant, smoking a cigarette and watching a man on a ladder paint something on a second-floor window above the State Farm insurance office.
What was the matter in there? Margaret asks. Your stomach or your nerve give out on you?
George’s jaw knots but he says nothing.
I brought your lunch. She holds out the sandwich wrapped in yellow-stained napkins. If you want it.
George takes the sandwich but it’s obvious from the way he holds it he has no intention of eating it. What’d she say?
She’ll think about it. Imagine. Giving up your child. Walking out on your husband. And she’ll think about it.
Don’t be too hard on her. You can be very persuasive.
Margaret Blackledge looks up at her husband as though she can’t be sure of his sincerity. Her scrutiny lasts a long moment but finally she gives up. Well, it didn’t take much.
Just a minute. Leaving her husband?
She touches George’s arm lightly. All right. I should have said something to you. I told her she could come back and live with us. Her and Jimmy. Like before. I don’t think she’ll do it, but last night when I saw her standing at Donnie’s side, she didn’t look none too happy. And how could she be—with that big baby for a husband? Living in that house with those wooly-headed louts lurking. And that harpy presiding over the castle. I had to say something.
&nb
sp; Did you.
I’m sorry. I should have talked it over with you.
George points to the window he’s been watching. A tooth, he says. They’re painting a tooth on the window. A dentist’s office. Sure. He looks down at his wife. I guess maybe we’ll need a bigger house.
I said I’m sorry. I don’t think she’ll do it. I really don’t.
He waves off her distress. We’ll manage.
...
They spend the afternoon in and out of their car, wandering around Gladstone, and since the town is not their home everything they see and hear they compare to home. As they drive down Main Avenue they notice that the saloons have more business than any in Dalton would have on a weekday. In Dalton those three young women would never stand outside the drugstore openly smoking cigarettes. George and Margaret go into the Red Owl just to check prices and find not only that bread, milk, eggs, coffee, and hamburger are sold for less but also that the shelves are stocked with brands and products unknown in their grocery. And in the dairy section, margarine is available as well as butter. Because George didn’t have lunch they go to Wolf’s Bakery to buy him a doughnut and see rhubarb among the racks of pies, whereas in Dalton the bakery sells only the pies—lemon meringue, blueberry, peach—that women are unlikely to bake themselves. No one would presume to sell a rhubarb pie, unless at a church bake sale. They park the car behind the high school and watch the football team get ready for this week’s game against Miles City. They have enough players to run a full scrimmage—eleven on a side. At Dalton High School they’re still playing eight-man, just as they did when James and Janie were students there (and James was on the squad). The asphalt shingles used for siding on houses. The porch columns on the houses on Russell Avenue. The blacktopped elementary school playground. The height of the steeple at First Lutheran Church. The size and ostentation of the newer houses along the eastern bench. The Gladstone Gazette published six days a week instead of the Dalton paper’s two. The rows of trailer homes waiting on the town’s western edge. The paving stones in front of the courthouse, the height of the curbs . . .
