The Lost Mother

by Mary McGarry Morris

  “Where are we going?” Thomas asked on their way to the car. Eager as he was to get out of here, he knew his father wouldn’t be pleased.

  “Don’t you worry now, young man,” Mrs. Farley said with such fierce conviction he knew there was good reason to worry. “From now on everything’s going to be all right. I promise!”

  Even Margaret could tell that something had just happened. Something very bad.

  7

  Thomas awakened easily to the shimmering light through the gauzy curtains. He had never slept in such a warm room or in so soft a bed. The sheets lay like silk against his arms and legs and the blankets smelled of cedar, without a single hole in them. Even getting out of bed was pleasant, his bare feet sinking into a thick rag rug. Across the hall in Margaret’s bedroom was a dollhouse, three stories high, almost as tall as she was. There was beautiful furniture in every room on small oriental carpets. There were miniature brass lamps that lit up and gilt-framed paintings on the papered walls. The cherry dining room table was set with blue and white china and tiny silver flatware. The doll-house had been Mrs. Farley’s as a child. Now that Jesse-boy was too old for it Margaret could consider it hers. As long as they were there, Mrs. Farley had added.

  That had been for three days now. Not only was Thomas never cold, but he was never hungry. If anything he felt too full most of the time. Mrs. Farley loved to bake and not just for special occasions, but every single day. Jesse-boy was a finicky eater. Cakes were his favorite food and the only way Mrs. Farley could keep any weight on him, she said.

  Even now for breakfast Jesse-boy was having a thick slice of chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and milk with Ovaltine. After only a few spoonfuls of oatmeal Margaret pushed the bowl away and asked for cake. Thomas kicked her foot under the table, but she would not look at him.

  “Here you go, dear,” Mrs. Farley said, bearing it to her. She scraped the oatmeal into the covered pail under the sink. When the pail was full it would be carried outside and dumped into the slop bucket for the pigs. The pail always filled quickly, usually with Jesse-boy’s spurned food. It almost seemed that Mrs. Farley cooked mostly for the pigs. Even Mr. Farley didn’t clean off his plate, not the way Thomas’s father always did. As much as Thomas would have preferred cake he finished the gluey cereal, his spoon noisily scraping the empty bowl. Margaret was falling into the trap. He’d warned her again last night how careful they had to be. Mrs. Farley wouldn’t tell him when they were going back to Aunt Lena’s. When he asked if his father knew they were here, she told him not to be “such a worrywart.” He stared at Margaret. Ignoring him, she asked for more Ovaltine.

  He kicked her foot, harder this time.

  “Ow!” She rubbed her ankle.

  Turning from the icebox, Mrs. Farley asked what was the matter.

  “Nothing.” Margaret glared at him.

  “Thomas kicked Margaret,” Jesse-boy said, licking frosting from his fingers.

  “Now, Thomas,” Mrs. Farley said coming quickly to the table. “Why did you do that?”

  “Because he’s mean,” Jesse-boy spoke up. “He’s always picking on Margaret.”

  “Why, Thomas? She’s such a sweet little girl.” She stood behind Margaret, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger.

  Margaret’s eyes closed. Since his mother had gone away no one ever touched him. Not in tenderness anyway.

  “I think that’s why,” Jesse-boy said in his soft, scratchy voice. Maybe it was from being together so much, but he and his mother were lapsing into one of their singsong, whiny choruses. One spoke and the other’s lips moved. “Thomas is jealous. He thinks Margaret gets all the attention.”

  “Oh, dear. Is that why? Is that what you think? Well, it’s because Margaret’s a girl. And girls just need special care, now don’t they?” She smiled at her son.

  “No, he wants cake, that’s why,” Jesse-boy said irritably.

  “Well, he can have cake. Of course he can. My heavens, here!”

  “No, thank you. I’ll have mine tonight. For dessert.”

  Margaret still wouldn’t look at him.

  “You don’t have to be such a Spartan, you know, Thomas. Cake is actually very nutritious, all the eggs and butter and cream.” Mrs. Farley sounded hurt.

  The massive grandfather clock chimed in the front hall. Eight o’clock. Hurry! Mrs. Farley said. Mr. Wentworth would be here any minute now. He was very excited to have two more students in his little class, she was telling them, almost giggling, as she pulled Jesse-boy’s enormous wheelchair back from the table. “Come along now, Thomas,” she called on her way out of the kitchen. Margaret helped push the wheelchair. For reasons he couldn’t fathom Margaret found that exciting.

  “Why aren’t we going to our own school?” Thomas asked again. Last night Mrs. Farley had changed the subject when asked. He liked the idea of not having to go back to that big, confusing school in town, but he didn’t understand why they couldn’t go to their little schoolhouse with Miss Hall now that they were back in Belton.

  “This will be much better, and you’ll like Mr. Wentworth.” Mrs. Farley slid the pocket door open into the front parlor, which was now a classroom. Two chairs stood behind a narrow table facing a large oak desk. The bay of floor-to-ceiling windows flooded the room with so much light that Thomas didn’t notice the older man in the corner until he spoke.

  “Good morning, Jesse-boy. And a very special welcome to our two new students, Margaret and Thomas,” he said, clapping enthusiastically with Mrs. Farley and Jesse-boy. For such a thin, stoop-shouldered man, Mr. Wentworth had a booming voice.

  The hours dragged on. Jesse-boy was a most uninterested student. He only wanted to draw pictures. He leaned over the pad closely, his chin grazing the paper. He could barely read and long division so easily frustrated him that he threw his tablet onto the floor. Mr. Wentworth spent half the morning on spelling, while Jesse-boy doodled on his drawing pad. Mrs. Farley visited from time to time with “treats,” hot molasses cookies, warm fudge. Though Mr. Wentworth’s frustration with Jesse-boy was obvious, he never reprimanded him. Instead, he drilled his new pupils with a relentless fervor that drained them. If they were here to spark Jesse-boy’s desire to learn, it wasn’t working. Mr. Wentworth recited “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. He paced in front of them, waving his arms as he thundered, “Nevermore, spoke the raven. Nevermore.”

  Jesse-boy slept with his head on his arm. Drool seeped onto his paper. Mr. Wentworth tiptoed to his desk and sat down. He pulled a newspaper from his valise and whispered that they should read quietly while the boy rested. Like the other rooms in the house this one was hot. The radiators hissed as shafts of dusty light streamed from the windows. Minutes later Margaret’s head sank into her arms. She was asleep. Thomas poked her and she grunted irritably. “Margaret!” He poked her again.

  “Leave her be, Thomas,” Mr. Wentworth whispered. “And you may rest too if you’d like.”

  Thomas read for a while, then doodled in his composition book, something Miss Hall would have never allowed. At noon Jesse-boy finally woke up and looked around, his cheeks red with the heat. He declared himself tired of school, so that was it. School was over for the day. Mr. Wentworth ate lunch, then left quickly. Margaret ran upstairs to play with the dollhouse. Thomas sat on the porch petting Mr. Farley’s collie. Two more dairy trucks pulled in and drove down the road to the larger barn. Two men came out and unloaded the empty milk cans. One was the barn hand Arnold, his head still bandaged. Seeing Thomas, he looked away. Thomas had gotten some revenge the other day when he told Mrs. Farley that Arnold had said a bad word in front of him and Margaret. Goddamn! Arnold had yelled when the barn door swung back and split the back of his head open. Mrs. Farley wanted him fired. Mr. Farley tried placating his wife. That wasn’t such a bad curse, particularly under the circumstances, but Mrs. Farley demanded that Arnold be read the riot act. Him and every man on the farm. One bad word in front of these dear children and they’d be fired on the sp
ot.

  The trucks had left early this morning. Soon after, Mr. Farley had come in to say he had to get to the courthouse. He didn’t know how long he’d have to be there so Mrs. Farley shouldn’t expect him for lunch. No backing down now, Mrs. Farley had warned in a low voice. I know, Mr. Farley had answered.

  His father still hadn’t come to see them. Thomas watched another shiny Farley’s Dairy truck turn onto the gravel road. His father’s truck had probably broken down again. If it had, he couldn’t work. But if he wasn’t working, then they could at least be together. Why were they here? In a million years his father wouldn’t want them with the Farleys. It didn’t make sense. Unless—fear rose in his bones—unless his father had gone away and left them too. Or maybe—maybe he’d gone down there to Massachusetts to be with her. Maybe he was bringing her back. Or maybe he’d stay there with her.

  He hurried into the house. Mrs. Farley wasn’t anywhere downstairs. Through the kitchen window he saw her outside taking clothes off the line. She put each clothespin into her bulging apron pocket. She smiled as he ran around the corner of the house. She dropped a towel into the basket by her feet. “Look at you.” She wet her finger and tried to flatten his cowlick. “You’re all mussed. I just realized.” She held his chin and turned his head from side to side. “You need a proper haircut, Thomas!”

  He jerked his chin away. “I want to see my father. Where is he?”

  Her mouth opened and closed the way it did whenever Jesse-boy spoke or when she was nervous. “Don’t you speak to me in that tone, young man. Don’t you just dare!” She perched the basket on her hip and marched toward the house. He wanted to run and grab her by the arm and make her answer him. “But Mrs. Farley!” he called, but she went inside. He yanked a towel off the line and threw it to the ground, then another, then sheets, shirts. Underpants. He stood there looking down at the big wide white pair of Mrs. Farley’s in his fist. He dropped them, then ran down the road.

  It took a while, but Gladys finally told him. His father didn’t want them to know, but better Thomas hear it from her than anyone else. It had happened when he and Margaret had still been with Aunt Lena. His father’s tire had blown out and there weren’t enough slaughtering jobs to keep him going, so he’d tried to find any other work he could. No one needed help, but then someone in town told him he’d just heard that Farley’s Dairy was looking for a man. So he swallowed his pride and went, hat in hand, to ask Fred Farley for a job. Farley made him stand outside in the freezing rain for almost an hour, then sent one of his hands out to say he’d just hired someone else. That night Henry went back. He slipped through a window inside the truck barn and searched until he found his saw and the spare tire Farley’s men had taken when they demolished his tent site. Soon after that, the sheriff arrested him coming out of the woods where he’d hidden the tire and saw, intending to pick them up the next day.

  Gladys said the sheriff tried to talk Farley out of pressing charges. He couldn’t see putting a decent man in jail for an almost treadless tire and an ancient saw hardly worth owning, much less stealing. Even the sheriff thought they probably did belong to Henry, but Farley wouldn’t budge. Talcott had broken into his place of business and stolen from him. The sheriff said Mrs. Farley was even more adamant. Henry Talcott thought he could make up his own rules in this world and it was about time someone taught him a lesson. His father had been in jail ever since.

  Mrs. Farley barely spoke to Thomas when he returned. He was sent to his room, where he would wait until Mr. Farley came home. The only reason Thomas had come back was Margaret. He couldn’t leave her alone here. And, he had nowhere else to go. Even Gladys thought Farley’s was better than staying at Aunt Lena’s again. She’d take the two of them in a minute if it wasn’t for her father, who was sick with pneumonia. While Thomas was there the old man called out that he was dying. Gladys said he wasn’t even close to dying. Hearing Thomas in the house made the old man frantic for her attention. He was afraid she would leave him alone as she’d threatened when he’d caused Henry to move out with the children.

  Thomas sat on his bed. He could smell supper cooking. Voices rose from the kitchen, yet no one called him down to eat. He opened his door, then tiptoed to the end of the hallway. Margaret and Jesse-boy were laughing. Mrs. Farley said something and now Mr. Farley laughed. The yellow-warm smell of chicken and gravy was thick in the air. He crept back to his room and waited.

  An hour later Mr. Farley knocked on his door. Thomas didn’t answer, but Mr. Farley came in anyway. He said he understood from Gladys Bibeau that Thomas had found out about his father. He was sorry, but some violations couldn’t be overlooked. No matter the circumstances. Thomas sat on the edge of the bed staring up at the wiry little man. The muscles in his jaw and temples clenched. His nasally voice was hard, the words tightly strung, pauseless. In this driven, humorless way, he reminded the boy of his father, except that his father would have gotten to the point long before this. Farley said that, his father being unable to, Aunt Lena was in charge of their care. And she wanted them with the Farleys. Thomas and Margaret had a home here, a very good home, as long as they acted properly. What Thomas had done today was completely unacceptable. Not only had he hurt Mrs. Farley’s feelings, but he had frightened her terribly. She didn’t know if she could trust him. Margaret was no problem; she would certainly stay. But they weren’t so sure about him. “So from now on, you should consider yourself here on a trial basis only,” Mr. Farley said before opening the door.

  “I don’t care. I don’t even want to be here.” He spoke just loudly enough to be heard or not heard as would be Mr. Farley’s choice. His heart pounded.

  Mr. Farley stepped back into the room. He closed the door quietly, as if this had to be just between them. “It would be difficult to have to separate you from your lovely sister, Thomas, but maybe that’s the way it’s got to be. For the good of everyone.”

  Thomas glared at him.

  Mr. Farley seemed to be smiling. “Is that what you want? Is it? Well? Is it?”

  Thomas forced his stare downward. He shook his head.

  “Then don’t upset Mrs. Farley.” Mr. Farley leaned close, the grind of his voice like unoiled, rusted gears. “God knows, she has problems enough without the likes of you scurrying around.”

  Bastard. Son of a bitch. His father was in jail for trying to get back what had been stolen from him. But this time Thomas kept his mouth shut.

  Sometimes the lessons lasted as long as an hour and a half. Today, though, Jesse-boy had fallen asleep after only a few minutes. Mr. Wentworth was annoyed. His private school was not turning out well. Thomas made little effort now and all Margaret wanted was to play. Every day, when she ran upstairs, there would be on her bed a beautiful new dress for her doll, and matching cape. The thump of Mrs. Farley’s sewing machine treadle would go on through the night. Jesse-boy loved dressing the dolls with Margaret.

  Hearing voices late last night, Thomas had gotten out of bed. He stood in Jesse-boy’s doorway, disgusted by the sight. Jesse-boy was making his doll kiss Margaret’s. “I love you,” Jesse-boy was saying in a tremulous falsetto. “And now I want to marry you.” He jerked the doll up and down as he spoke. “Will you marry me?” His gray flannel pajama top was unbuttoned, revealing the bony hollow that was his chest.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Margaret answered. Thomas had never minded her high, make-believe voice when she played with him, but now it made his skin crawl. She moved her doll’s head from side to side. “How do I know you’re not the evil king?”

  “Because.” Sweat trickled down Jesse-boy’s ashen face. “The evil king has no heart. Listen.” He pulled her head against his chest. “Do you hear it? That’s the heartbeat. That’s how you know.” Closing his eyes, he lowered his face into her hair. He rubbed her back.

  More frightened than repulsed, Thomas backed into the shadows. She was just a little girl, and Jesse-boy … he didn’t know what he was, man or boy, with that whiskery smudge above his lip.


  Margaret pulled away. “Marybelle’s tired,” she said, but her pretend voice was thin and forced. She held the doll out at arm’s length as if it were a shield. “She needs to go to bed now. So good-night. Good-night,” she called, running to her room.

  Mr. Wentworth read his newspaper for ten minutes then got up and gently shook Jesse-boy’s arm. “Wake up. Would you please wake up.”

  Thomas could tell he only pretended to be asleep.

  “Leave me alone,” Jesse-boy groaned.

  “No. We accomplished very little yesterday, so today we must be diligent.” Mr. Wentworth stood over him, waiting. “I said, wake up. Please.”

  “No, I can’t. I don’t feel good. I’m sick,” Jesse-boy whined.

  Mrs. Farley was summoned. Mr. Wentworth usually deferred to Jesse-boy’s brattiness with feigned concern, but now even Thomas could sense the old teacher’s shame. A day off with pay was nothing to sneeze at in such demeaning times, but how could he squander his professional authority in front of these normal children, his more promising pupils.

  Jesse-boy was sick, Mrs. Farley concurred after pressing her cheek to his brow. He made a face behind his mother’s back, and Margaret giggled. Then school would continue without Jesse-boy, Mr. Wentworth declared. Thomas and Margaret’s studies needn’t be interrupted by another pupil’s illness. Like a dash of vinegar into buttermilk, the sweetness in Mrs. Farley’s face curdled. Jesse-boy was the paying pupil here, and Mr. Wentworth would do well to remember that. And be not only willing, but eager to meet whatever special circumstances her son’s condition called for. She would decide if there was to be school or not. Red-faced and weak with dread, Mr. Wentworth tried to explain. He had only thought to continue lessons with “the other two” not in exclusion of Jesse-boy, but as an enticement. To get the boy feeling better and back to class sooner.

  “I’m surprised, Mr. Wentworth, being a teacher that you know so little about children. Not being able to participate is very painful for a sick child and only prolongs their convalescence. School will start up again as soon as Jesse-boy feels better.”