The Lost Mother

by Mary McGarry Morris

  “Well, she does. She comes in my room late when everyone’s sleeping and she climbs up on my bed and she whispers, ‘Jesse-boy, draw me a titty picture, please, please, please. I’ll kiss you if you do,’” he whispered, his eyes suddenly wide on the jackknife Thomas was holding. “Mummy! Mummy!” he screamed, covering his face with Thomas’s lunge.

  “She’s a little girl!” Thomas panted as the butt of the unopened jackknife struck Jesse-boy’s head. He pummeled his bleeding face now with both fists. “That’s all she is, that’s all she is, you—”

  “Thomas! What’re you doing?” Mrs. Farley demanded, then screamed for help. “He’s hitting Jesse-boy! He’s beating him!” She shoved Thomas against the stove. The jackknife fell as he caught himself on the glowing stove top. He ran to the sink and held his burned hand under the cold running water.

  “He stabbed me! With a knife!” Jesse-boy screeched. Blood poured from his nose. His lip was split. “He’s gonna kill me, Mummy! Make him go! Make him leave! I don’t want him here anymore!”

  Mrs. Farley stared down at the bloodied drawing on the table and shuddered. “Get out of here! Go on!” she screamed, pushing Thomas out the door and through the back shed. “Go back and live in the woods! With the animals like the horrible, filthy boy you are!”

  He stumbled down the steps then stood in the middle of the yard blowing onto his blistered palm.

  “Fred!” Mrs. Farley screamed from the doorway. “Fred!”

  His stomach roiled with the deep pain. He teetered a moment, closed his eyes against this next wave of throbbing. He staggered into the barn and collapsed in an empty stall. Directly below him, the last of the cows were being milked. Even their mooing made his hand ache.

  “Fred! Fred! I need you! Get in here right now!” Mrs. Farley was still screaming when Mr. Farley came running toward the house from the office.

  Trembling, he squatted in the stall. He’d been here for hours, it seemed. He couldn’t stand the cold much longer, but he couldn’t leave Margaret behind. If he could only get warm then he could think straight, decide what to do next. Maybe Otis would come soon. Otis would help, tell him what to do, where to go, maybe even let him and Margaret stay with him. At the far end of the barn, there was a small potbellied stove. He still had a match in his shirt pocket. He got up and looked from stall to stall. No wood, but lots of hay. He stuffed an armload into the stove then lit it. The hay ignited in a tinder-crackling blaze. He scooped up another pile and pushed it into the stove. Another pile. Another. It was a little smoky, but the heat felt good. Brow on his knees, he crouched near the stove.

  “Thomas! Thomas!” Margaret called softly.

  His head rose slowly over the stall board as he stood up. Alone, she hurried toward him, carrying his jacket. She wore her new navy blue wool coat and the red and white hat Mrs. Farley had just knit for her.

  “It’s smoky in here.” She coughed. “Here.” She held out the jacket. Shivering, he put it right on, but his sore fingers couldn’t work the buttons. “I got the money,” she said as she buttoned his jacket. “Eight dollars, that’s all she had. You think we can get two tickets for eight dollars?”

  “I don’t know.” His voice broke. He couldn’t stop shaking. Before, he’d been too cold to cry. But right now he was about to. Smoke poured from the back of the stove where there should have been a stovepipe, but wasn’t.

  “They’re all up with Jesse-boy. Come on, let’s go.” She was tugging him by the sleeve, out of the barn. “Come on, Thomas! Quick! We gotta go! We gotta run! Fast! C’mon!” She ran ahead, down the road.

  He caught up to her. “It’s five miles!”

  “So what? We did that before. With the blackberries, we walked the whole way, remember?”

  “Yeah, and you whining the whole time.”

  “I was little then.”

  He stopped and looked down at her. “You better go back. It’s starting to snow, and it’s not you they’re mad at.”

  “No! I hate it there. And besides, Mrs. Farley’s calling the sheriff. She wants you arrested. She said you tried to kill Jesse-boy.”

  “I did not!”

  “Well how come she’s got your jackknife then?”

  “Because it fell on the floor.”

  They began to walk. Quickly now, as if on the trail of vapor their voices made in the air.

  “You broke Jesse-boy’s nose.”

  He stopped dead in his tracks. “I did?”

  “And he’s got a black eye,” she called back over her shoulder. “The son of a bitch.”

  “Margaret!” He caught up, but before he could scold her the drone of an approaching engine sent them scrambling into the culvert. They lay on their bellies. An old truck loaded with baled hay, high over its cab, rattled by. Next, Thomas expected the sheriff’s car. He said it would be safer to follow the brook into town, the way they had with their mother once. It had been a blistering July day the summer before last. The heat of the road had burned through the soles of their shoes. By going along the brook they’d kept mostly in the shade, and when they got too hot she’d let them carry their shoes and wade over the cool stones through the rippling water. It was shorter this way, and they wouldn’t have to keep ducking off the road.

  “How do you know his nose is broke?” he asked when they came to the brook. The snow had turned to sleet. Fallen leaves crunched underfoot. In here the sleet came louder, rasping down through the branches.

  “Mr. Farley said so. He could move it back and forth.”

  “My hand’s killing me.” The knuckles were bruised and cut, the palm tender red.

  “Here.” She scooped up snow and pressed it into his hand.

  “That feels good.” He could almost make a fist. There weren’t any sirens, just falling snow. Mrs. Farley wouldn’t really call the sheriff because then he’d see Jesse-boy’s dirty picture.

  “You broke one of his teeth too.”

  Smiling, he scooped up more snow. “Damn tree fell the wrong way, that’s all,” he said under his breath.

  “What tree?”

  “Nothing, just something to say.” He hurried on ahead. Every now and again she’d sigh or whimper some, but she kept going. It was a longer walk than he remembered. Here, the slowing brook was so wide in some places from bank to bank that boards had been laid to get across. Come spring the rockbed would be under racing water, but now was covered with snow.

  “We should’ve stayed on the road,” Margaret complained, adding how hungry she was. She had just sat down to breakfast when Jesse-boy showed her his drawing.

  They were getting closer, Thomas kept assuring her. Pretty soon. Another mile or so. He curled his toes to warm them. At least he wore heavy leather shoes. Margaret’s thin strap shoes were soaked. She whimpered as she limped, falling farther behind.

  “I’m up here!” he called as he trudged on. “Can you hear me?” Each reply came fainter than the one before. “We’re in town,” he cried, running back to her. A little way ahead the brook tunneled under the road. There were two houses, one on each side. “See! It’s Main Street!” he said, urging her on. She tried to run, but couldn’t.

  When they came out of the woods he suggested they stay off Main Street in case the Farleys drove by. Margaret said she could barely walk, much less go another way. “It might even be quicker,” he said.

  “And it might not!” she called back. “I’m going in there.” She pointed ahead to a red house. She’d go ask them if they could come inside and warm up some. Maybe they’d feel bad and give them some food.

  “No!” he said as she hobbled toward the brick walk. “We can’t! We gotta get to the depot before they find us.”

  Again, he stoked her fear of the Farleys to keep her moving.

  “I don’t care. I gotta warm up. I can’t even walk. I’m so cold, Thomas. You don’t know how cold I am.” She burst into tears. There she stood, halfway up some stranger’s front walk, hugging herself, shaking all over and sobbing.

 
; Clippety-clop. Clippety-clop. Clippety-clop came the sound of hooves, then the metal-rimmed clatter of the wooden wheels as the old wagon rolled closer. “It’s Merton!” Thomas cried, pulling her by the hand to the edge of the road. “Hey! Hey!” he called, waving his arms and running alongside the stuporous old egg man, head turtled deep into his battered overcoat, his heavily lidded eyes locked on his blinkered horse. “It’s me, Thomas Talcott! You used to buy eggs from us. Remember? Mrs. Talcott? Irenie! You used to call her that!”

  “Whoa!” The wagon stopped. The horse shook his brown head with a wet snuffle that sent great puffs of breath into the air. “Hurry it up!” Merton the egg man said as Thomas helped Margaret climb into the wagon. He asked for a ride to the bus depot. He nudged Margaret and gestured for her to put her feet under the moth-eaten blanket covering the old man’s legs. She shook her head no.

  “Where you going?” The egg man shook the cracked harness and the horse started ahead.

  “Noplace,” Thomas said uneasily.

  Merton thought this over. “How come you wanna go the depot then?” he said after a minute.

  “I just said the depot. So you’d know. We’re really going to the drugstore. To Leamings,” Thomas said just in case anyone asked the egg man.

  “Okay then. Leamings. You shoulda said so’n’a first place. Never been anywhere but here. All my life, ten times yours probably. I know every place. Every place there is.” The horse slowed as they started downhill into the center of town. Leamings was a block from the bus depot. Thomas had to help Margaret down. He waved as the wagon continued on. The drugstore’s gold-lettered windows were steamed with warmth. Margaret begged to go in for a hot chocolate and some pie at the counter, but he refused. For all they knew there might be only one bus going to Collerton, Massachusetts. What if it was right there in the depot now, taking on passengers while they dillydallied over hot chocolate. What if it left without them? Then what would they do? Where would they go? They’d have to spend the night somewhere until the next bus tomorrow. And she sure didn’t want to go back to Aunt Lena’s, did she? They wouldn’t be there five minutes before she’d call the Farleys hoping to be rewarded with another twenty dollars. For their capture, he told his shivering sister. Yes, their capture! Because that’s what they were now, outlaws. Hunted outlaws. “We’re on the run,” he said breathlessly as she plodded along, head hung in defeat and fatigue. “And when you’re on the run, you can’t take any chances. None!”

  “You’re the one on the run, not me,” she said sullenly as he started to open the depot door.

  He stepped back. “What’s that mean?”

  “Means I didn’t beat up Jesse-boy. You did.”

  “All right then. So you want to go back?” They stepped aside as a man in a red hunting cap left the depot carrying a worn suitcase tied with rope. An old woman limped after him. “You want to go back to the Farleys?” He grabbed his sister’s arm and squeezed it, making his hand hurt again. “Is that what you want?”

  She stared up at him. “I want something to eat, that’s all I want.”

  They had to wait only a half hour before the bus arrived. There’d be a twenty-minute stop in White River Junction and then onto Collerton. Neither had been on a bus before. Margaret demanded the window seat, but it was wasted on her, so quickly had she fallen asleep. Thomas looked around for familiar faces, relieved that there weren’t any. The bus was almost full. It started off with a roar, jouncing its passengers up and down in the rigid seats. Directly behind the children two ladies argued in low voices. The disagreement seemed to be whether or not their mother used to put ground cloves in her apple pie filling.

  “Just because you do, doesn’t mean she did.”

  “She’s the one that taught me.”

  “For goodness sakes, I was there too. You act like you were her only child.”

  “You didn’t care one fig about cooking. I was the one always in the kitchen.” There was a pause. “Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry or I’ll move.”

  “Why do you do this? Why do you always make me feel this way?”

  “Pauline,” warned the lady who baked.

  “I can’t help it,” Pauline wept. “You spoil everything. You always have. All my life.” There was a wretched sob.

  “Excuse me.” The lady who baked reached over the seat and tapped Thomas’s head. “Excuse me, young man, but we need to trade seats.”

  “Mary!” Pauline cried.

  Ignoring her sister, the tall woman in the iron-gray coat stood in the aisle gripping a leather satchel while she waited for his seat. A little green hat perched low over her forehead. The hat’s one long feather was frayed to a bare quill.

  “That’s my sister. She’s sleeping.” He looked up imploringly.

  “Yes, well I’ll be very quiet.”

  “Mary, please don’t do this,” Pauline pleaded.

  “Her name’s Margaret,” he told the impatient woman. The bus lurched around a curve and she grabbed the seat with both hands. He rose, then leaned back in and shook Margaret’s shoulder. Her eyes opened, wide and panicky as if unsure of where she was. He said he had to move, that he’d be in the seat right behind.

  “Why?”

  “Because. The lady said so.”

  When he sat down, Pauline wouldn’t look at him. Right hand screening her face, she stared out the window. Margaret and Mary were having a lively conversation. The bus had grown noisy with voices vying to be heard over the loud motor. The sister next to him glared at the easy laughter in front.

  “Well, here!” the tall lady said. From her satchel she removed a crustless sandwich and gave it to Margaret. Margaret took a bite, then with a big smile handed the other half over the seat to her brother.

  Pauline leaned forward. “That’s my sandwich!” she declared before he could eat it.

  “She’s very hungry,” the tall lady said.

  “But the chicken sandwich, that’s mine.”

  “The little girl doesn’t like pork.”

  “Well I don’t either. And you know I don’t.”

  “I’m sorry. Here.” Thomas held out the chicken and butter sandwich. “It’s yours.”

  She looked at the sandwich, not at him, then snatched it away. She turned to the window, nibbling quietly. Paper rustled up front and then the tall lady handed him back half of her pork sandwich. He thanked her and tried to eat slowly. Dry and tough as the meat was, he devoured it before the lady beside him had finished hers.

  With a little food in his belly he closed his eyes and fell asleep. He awoke to Margaret’s voice. She was telling the tall lady that they were on their way to see their mother. To see her, the tall lady asked, surprised. Well, to live with her, Margaret explained. She told about leaving their father to live with their Aunt Lena and then with the Farleys. The tall lady knew the Farleys well. She and Phyllis used to be in the same bridge club. But that was before their son was born.

  The little lady pressed her face to the space between the seat backs and asked for her apple. Her sister said to wait, they were almost in White River Junction. The little lady said she wanted her apple and she wanted it now. Ignoring her, her sister said it was her opinion that Phyllis had turned that sickly child into a cripple with all her fretting and pampering. “Not that it’s any of my business, of course.”

  “Which it isn’t,” the little lady said under her breath.

  They pulled up to a small brick building. A few people huddled out front on benches, with suitcases at their feet. The sleet had turned to fast-falling snow. The bus driver said the toilet was in the shed behind the depot. Margaret and Thomas had to wait their turn. There were two men ahead of them and a pregnant woman who jiggled up and down, groaning anxiously. From here they could see the road. Margaret shivered in the gusting wind. A car’s approaching headlights lit up the bus.

  “Oh no,” said one of the men in line as a black car with a gold star on the door pulled off the road with a squeal of brakes. “Not him again.�
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  A square-bodied man in a tall sheriff’s hat, high black boots, and big holstered gun hurried into the depot. A moment later he came out and climbed onto the bus.

  “Looking for booze,” the man said shaking his head. “And he’ll keep every bottle he damn finds too!”

  Thomas grabbed Margaret’s hand with a nod toward the woods, but she pulled back. “He’s looking for us,” he hissed in her ear.

  “No he’s not.”

  “What if he is?”

  The people in line were too interested in the sheriff’s mission to notice the children disappear. They ran straight into the woods until they came to an oak tree so long ago fallen that a tall, spindly maple grew from its upended root system.

  “Shh! Listen!” each warned the other through the stillness. The snow had suddenly stopped. They could hear the running water of a nearby stream. A clamor of squabbling crows broke out, then died. In the distance a car door slammed shut. They started toward the depot. Margaret complained that her feet were numb again. Thomas told her to whisper. Light shimmered through the coated trees. “And I’m not sitting with that lady again,” she warned.

  “You liked her well enough, telling her everything there was to know,” he whispered.

  “She asked me!” she cried sounding relieved, as if she’d been expecting that rebuke.

  “Daddy’s told you a hundred thousand times just cuz some people’re nosy doesn’t mean you have to tell them anything.”

  “I got us a sandwich, didn’t I?”

  “Wait! Wait!” Thomas burst through the tree line, waving at the departing bus.

  His hand ached. They had been walking for a long time. Twenty miles anyway, Margaret insisted. Thomas knew better than argue. He was cold and too tired for any more of her temper. With the slightest disagreement she would cry. Their pace was even slower now, with them stopping every five or ten minutes so Margaret could warm her feet. His were just about frozen numb when a car pulled up behind them.

  The driver was a skinny man with gaps between his teeth and a big hook nose. His bushy hair had been so badly cut that chunks were missing in back. The minute the door opened they could smell the liquor. He drove with a bottle between his thighs. He’d take a drink from time to time, wipe his mouth then start talking again. His only question had been to ask where they were going. Collerton, Massachusetts, well, that shouldn’t be too hard to find, he’d said agreeably enough, then continued his soliloquy. He drove erratically, as if fueled by strange energies, veering suddenly onto narrow bumpy lanes, then finding his way back onto wider roads again. He’d been all over the world, first as a child with missionary parents, then as a soldier. Both his brothers were important men in Washington, D.C. But they were really small-minded men with no love in their hearts. This country was falling apart before their very eyes, men out of work, their families in rags, but what was the government doing? Nothing. Nothing, at all, he said. But he had a plan. He knew exactly how to end all this deprivation and suffering. His brothers wouldn’t listen, so he’d gone straight to the White House. He had demanded an audience with President Roosevelt. It was his duty as an American citizen to tell him how to stop the misery. But for his trouble he’d been thrown in jail. Kept for thirty days and nights in a cell with common criminals, thieves, and murderers. “But now I’m safe,” he declared. He reached under his seat and held up a long-bladed knife.