by Betsy Byars
“Then I’ll get my letter back. The return address was on it.”
“I know my mom got my letters. She just won’t answer. For all I know, she’s left the state.” Carlie kept swinging her legs back and forth, hitting the heels of her sandals against the railing. “If you weren’t in that wheelchair, we could go looking for your mother.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” she said. She was pleased with the thought. “We could just take off. I’d really like to see the farm. I’m bored with this place anyway, aren’t you?”
“Are you talking about running away again?”
Carlie looked at him. “Why do you have to make everything sound so bad? Run away. Nobody’s going to run away. You been watching too many Shirley Temple movies. We’re just going to take off, split.” She glanced at the door to see if Mrs. Mason was within hearing, then she turned back to Harvey. “You know, it really isn’t a bad idea, Harvey. I couldn’t go home because they’d pick me right up, but this farm …”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“For one thing, I am in a wheelchair in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Listen, the wheelchair would make it easier. It makes you look pitiful. Nobody would turn us down for a ride. I could step out and thumb and you could hold up a sign that said—”
“I couldn’t do it.”
“Harvey, you could. Listen—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to talk about it!”
“All right, all right, we won’t talk about it. You don’t have to jump down my throat.” She paused, then said, “Anything interesting in your lists lately?”
“What?”
“Your lists. Anything interesting?”
“Oh, no.” Harvey’s eyes were on the street. His father would have to come over the crest of the hill.
“What’s your latest list about?”
“What? Oh.” Harvey touched his forehead. He was too nervous to remember. He said, “Oh, I don’t know. Let’s see. Oh, yeah, it was just something I read that interested me, nothing important.”
“What?”
“I read somewhere that one day everybody will be famous for fifteen minutes.”
“Whoo, if that’s true, I wish my fifteen minutes would hurry up and come. I am so bored.”
“And I’m making a list of ways—if I get the fifteen minutes of fame—well, the ways I would want it to be.”
“What do you want to do? Splash down in the Pacific in a rocket ship? Discover a new germ?” She straightened. “You know what I’d want? I’d want a fifteen-minute TV special. I’d come out in a low-cut, shiny dress like Cher and I’d be so good that everyone would say ‘Who is she?’ and ‘She’s going to be a star.’” Carlie grinned. “That way my fifteen minutes would just be the beginning of a whole lot of fifteen minutes. I’d stretch it out like an all-day sucker.”
Harvey was still looking at the top of the hill. “I keep hearing a car but I don’t see it.”
Carlie said quickly, “How do you want to be famous?”
“I don’t know. I forget what I put down now.” He looked down at his legs. “I just hope it’s not for something bad.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, like maybe I’ve already had my fifteen minutes—maybe when my dad ran over my legs—” He looked at Carlie. “I mean, everybody in town knew about it. Everyone was talking. People were driving past our house. Maybe that was my fifteen minutes.”
“Naw. They didn’t just drive past your house for fifteen minutes, did they? Not if I know people. More like two or three days. No, you’re going to be famous. Hey, you’ll be a writer. I know you will. You’ll write best-sellers.”
“I don’t know.”
“Look, I was in the newspaper too one time, only they just called me a juvenile. You think I consider that fame? A juvenile? Naw, it’s got to be more than that. You’ll be a famous writer and then you can write a movie for me. I’ll get to be a star that way.”
“That’s his car,” Harvey said abruptly. He made a move as if he was trying to get to his feet. A pain shot through his legs.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s the same car.”
Carlie got to her feet. “Then I’ll go inside as promised.” At the door she turned. “If you need me, I’ll be right inside the living room.” She got serious. “You wouldn’t believe, Harvey, what good help I can be in a fight.”
16
Harvey watched his father coming up the walk. There was no expression on Harvey’s face. Everyone had always told him that he looked exactly like his dad, and he realized it was true. Yet, inside, he had always felt more like his mother.
“Well, how’s it going, Son?” his father asked. He took all three steps in one bound. Then he looked uneasy, as if he wished he’d taken more time.
“All right,” Harvey said.
His father cleared his throat. “Looks like a nice place.” His father was in the construction business—or had been until the building business went bad.
“It’s all right.”
“Any other kids here?”
“Two.”
“That sounds good—company.” He paused and cleared his throat again. Then he said more seriously, “What kind of kids are they?”
“They’re all right.”
“I mean, you know, kids in a foster home—well, you never know.”
“I’m here,” Harvey said.
“Oh, well, yeah.” Harvey’s father still had not looked directly at him. “And the legs?” he asked in a lower voice.
“They’re all right,” Harvey lied.
“Well, that’s good news.” He paused and then sat in the wicker rocker. He pulled at the turtleneck of his shirt. “Look, about the legs—” He still had not looked at Harvey.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, I just don’t know what got into me, that’s all. Sure, I’d just lost a contract. Sure, I’d just had a couple of drinks. Sure, the car was new, but that still doesn’t excuse it.”
“No.”
It was quiet on the porch now. Carlie had turned off the TV in the living room.
“Anyway, you seem to be getting on real well here,” his father said with false cheer. “I’ve never seen you looking better.”
“Except for the legs.”
“Oh, well, yeah, sure.” There was another silence. “Oh, guess what? I brought your birthday present—I didn’t forget the big day’s this Friday.”
“Oh?”
“It’s right out in the car only I’m not going to let you see me carry it in. You might guess what it is.” His father got to his feet abruptly. “Well, what do you say? Let’s go get something to eat.”
“I don’t know if I’m allowed.”
“Sure you are—your own dad.” He went to the door. “Mrs. Mason?”
Carlie’s face popped into view as quick as a jumping jack’s. “I’ll get her.” She ran into the dining room. “Mrs. Mason, Harvey’s father wants to talk to you. He wants to know if he and Harvey can go get something to eat.”
It was a relief to Harvey when his father left. He felt as flat as an old tire. He could hardly wheel himself into his room.
“How’d it go?” Carlie asked. She was leaning against the doorway in another halter. So far she had made eleven.
Harvey lifted his shoulders and let them drop.
“What does that mean?”
“It went all right,” Harvey said in a flat voice. Actually it had never been all right, but the worst moment had come in the restaurant when Harvey had said, “I wrote a letter to my mother telling her what had happened.” He hadn’t planned to say it. It had just slipped out.
His father had swallowed hard and wiped his mouth with his paper napkin. “Did you?” he asked. There was no expression in his voice.
“Yes, but I haven’t heard from her.”
“You won’t.”
/>
“I think I will.” Harvey put down his fork and looked up at his father. He said, “She probably wrote to me dozens of times over the years only you never gave me the letters.” This was something he had always suspected. He had even searched the trash cans for scraps.
“She never wrote you.”
“I don’t believe that.” Harvey was holding his fork in both hands as if he was going to snap it in two. “She wrote and you tore up the letters. You probably flushed them down the toilet.” He looked across the restaurant at a fat woman begging her thin son to eat just one more French fried potato.
“Look at me, son.” Harvey’s father’s voice sounded so low and strange that he had to look. “She never wrote you,” he said, “not one time.” He pronounced every word carefully.
“She would write if she knew I had two broken legs.”
“She didn’t write when she knew you had the appendectomy.”
“She didn’t know about that.”
“I wrote her.”
“How about the measles?”
“I wrote her then too.”
“And she didn’t answer?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“No!”
As soon as his father said “No” in that way, Harvey knew it was true. He suddenly felt old and tired. He looked down at the fork in his hands. A moment before he had felt as if he could snap it in two. Now he could no longer even hold it. He let it drop to his plate.
He looked up at his father, taking in all his features. Maybe, he thought, it was because he looked so much like his father. Could his mother, hating his father, hate him too just because of his looks? She was always saying “You’re your father’s son,” and he had known it was not a compliment—but could she hate him because of his looks?
“Eat your supper, Son.”
“All right.”
“Is your steak too tough?”
“No.”
“Well, eat.”
Harvey picked up his fork. He barely had the strength to move his baked potato. Finally he managed to cut his potato so it looked eaten, and to hide some of his steak, but he couldn’t eat a bite.
Carlie was still standing in the doorway. “Where’d you eat?” she asked.
“Bonanza.”
“Lucky! We had tuna casserole. One night I’m going to make tacos for everybody. Are they good!”
Carlie stood in the doorway, watching Harvey’s back. Harvey was trying to get the strength to lift himself onto his bed. He wished for one of those special hospital lifting bars.
Carlie said, “Oh, by the way, one of the Benson twins died today—you know the old ladies Thomas J used to live with?” She came into the room. “Or did you hear about it?”
“No.”
“Heart failure.”
“Oh.”
“It was Jefferson that died. Hey, and guess what the other twin’s name was?”
“I can’t.”
“Thomas! Get it? Thomas and Jefferson! Thomas Jefferson!” She hooted with delight. “Whoo, how’s that for names? You know, one time somebody told me they knew twins named Pen and Pencil, but I didn’t believe it till now.”
Harvey sat silent in his wheelchair, hunched forward like an old benched player.
“Thomas J is leaving in the morning to see the remaining twin and go to the funeral and all.” She sighed.
“Everybody here is having some excitement in their lives but me. You go off to Bonanza and Thomas J to a funeral.”
She paused. Harvey was still staring at his bed. “I don’t think I can make it,” he said.
“What? Oh, you want to lie down? Here, I’ll help you.” She started forward.
“No, I don’t think I can make it—period.”
Carlie stopped in the middle of the room when she realized Harvey was talking about more than getting in bed. “Harvey, you have to make it.”
“I really don’t think I can.”
“Because, Harvey, listen, you’re one of us—you and me and Thomas J are a set. And I’ve got used to you, Harvey. When I get used to somebody I don’t want anything to happen to them.”
She walked over to his wheelchair. “Look at me, Harvey—no, look at me.”
He glanced up. His face was pale. His eyes were dull. His lips had a smudged look.
“I promise you can make it,” she said.
He lowered his eyes.
“And I don’t make promises easily, Harvey. Listen, I promise you can make it.”
After a moment he said “I really don’t think I can” in a flat quiet voice.
Carlie stared at Harvey. Then she closed her eyes. She said, “You know, when I get my driver’s license the first thing I’m going to do is find your father and run over his legs. See how he likes it.”
She stamped out of the room and into the kitchen. “I never thought I’d say this, Mrs. Mason, but give me something to do.”
“You want to work, Carlie?”
“I’ve got to take my anger out on something.”
17
Thomas J didn’t want to go back to the hospital. There was something upsetting about seeing only one twin, because the Benson twins had never been separated before in their lives. Other twins, Thomas J knew, went to different schools and wore different clothes, married different men and moved to different towns. But not the Bensons. They had stayed together and looked alike all their lives. They had never even worn different dresses. People took their picture in town sometimes.
As they drove to the hospital, Mr. Mason said, “I know this is hard for you, Thomas J. I remember my first funeral.”
Thomas J looked up at him.
“It was an old man who worked for my father—Mr. Joe, they called him—and Mr. Joe was laid out in his house.”
“I don’t know what ‘laid out’ is.”
“Well, it just means he was in his coffin there in his house.”
“Oh.”
“And I remember my daddy picked me up so I could see Mr. Joe in the coffin, and my knee must have hit the coffin and jarred it, and Mr. Joe’s mouth came open. I never will forget that. I ran all the way home—seventeen blocks—hid under the bed.”
“Oh.”
“Kids don’t do that anymore, hide under the bed, but we were always doing it if we were scared or wanted to cry without anybody seeing us.”
Thomas J was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “It’s not really the funeral that I’m worried about. I’m not scared about that.”
“What are you worried about, Thomas J?”
“Well, going to the hospital.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know. It’s something I can’t put in words. It’s just standing there and just one twin and all and not knowing what to say.”
“Only sometimes you do a person a real favor by standing there, Thomas J. Just the fact that you’re there can be a comfort.”
“I don’t feel like a comfort,” Thomas J said. He paused. “I want to say something but I can’t. One of them’s already dead and last time I didn’t hardly say anything. I won’t be able to say anything today either. I know I won’t.”
Mr. Mason looked at him. “I’ll tell you something, Thomas J. I never told this to anybody in my life. But when I was your age my mother died. Now she was a good woman, real good, but she was never one to show affection.”
“The twins were like that.”
“I can never remember my mother hugging me or kissing me, not one time.”
“I can’t remember the twins doing that to me either. They patted me one time when I found their father’s watch, on my head and shoulders, but …”
“The word ‘love’ was never mentioned in our house that I can remember.”
“Mine either.”
“So I went to the hospital and I was standing there by the bed, just like you, not able to say anything, and all of a sudden my mother opened her eyes and said ‘Collin?’—that’s my first name. She sai
d, ‘Collin, tell me you love me.’ Well, I just stood there like a stick. The word love had never been said to me in my whole life.”
“Mine either.”
“I mean, I know she loved me—I guess she did anyway—she took good care of me and I must have loved her, but I’d never said the word in my life.”
“I haven’t either.”
“And so I just stood there. The nurse punched me in the back and said ‘Say it,’ because she knew my mother was dying, and my dad yanked my arm and said ‘Say it!’ I just stood there. I did love her, I guess, but my throat was as dry as sandpaper and I couldn’t say a word.”
“I couldn’t have either.”
“Well, finally the nurse—bless her heart—stepped up to the bed and said, ‘He said it, Mrs. Mason! Did you hear him? He said it real soft but he said it. He loves you!’ And my mother smiled and closed her eyes and that was the last time I ever saw her alive. To this day I am grateful to that nurse—Miss Brown, her name was—for helping me out.”
“It was nice of her.” Thomas J paused and thought. “I guess if mothers want you to tell them you love them, they should start real early, training you to do it.” This was the longest and deepest speech Thomas J had ever made, and he looked quickly at Mr. Mason to see what he thought of it.
Mr. Mason was nodding. “I think you’re right, Thomas J.” He kept staring at the road ahead. “You know, I think that was one of the reasons I wanted to marry Ramona.”
“Mrs. Mason?”
“Yes. Because she was always touching people and hugging them and telling them how she felt about them. It seemed to come so natural to her. It appealed to me.”
“It should come natural.”
“Would you believe it took me five years of marriage—five years—before I could tell my own wife that I loved her?” Mr. Mason said.
“Yes,” Thomas J replied earnestly. “I can believe it.”
18
The remaining Benson twin lay with her eyes closed. Thomas J stood by her hospital bed waiting respectfully for her to open her eyes. It was a good feeling to have Mr. Mason behind him, now that he knew Mr. Mason had once, long ago, stood in front.
There was another woman in Jefferson’s bed. She was flipping through a movie magazine, looking for a good article.
