“It’s lovely. You always set a lovely table.” She hesitated, still wiping her hands. “Don’t get all worked up now, please. Don’t depend too much on Rich coming home tonight.”
“But of course he’ll come home. Where else could he go?”
Vi shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s awfully bitter. When I went in to see him last week, he wouldn’t talk about anything.”
Jewel smiled. “That will go away after a while, now that he’s out of rehab. Richard has always been sensible.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right.” She patted the arm of her wheel chair. “I know how it is, Vi. It takes time adjust, that’s all.”
Vi smiled. “Well, I’ll have the steaks just the way he likes them, and everything else. Is there anything else you want me to do?”
“No.” Jewel heard a car in the driveway and turned toward the door, waiting, her heart beating a little faster. She had seen her son only twice since his accident and not at all since he had been moved to rehab. Traveling with her wheelchair was too cumbersome and she disliked asking for help.
Ken entered, and she released a long breath. “Ken, is your father coming?”
“He’s working a little late. He said not to wait dinner.” He glanced at the prepared table, back at Jewel. “Mother . . .”
She looked at his sober face, and the truth came slowly, reluctantly. “He isn’t coming home, is he?”
Ken shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mother.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. He got an apartment somewhere, somehow, and someone to help him. Dad either doesn’t know, or didn’t say where.”
Jewel maneuvered her chair around and pushed herself slowly toward the door to the front hall.
Ken caught up with her. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No. I’m going to lie down on the sun porch. Vi has supper ready.”
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
She shook her head. What little appetite she had was gone.
“Do you need help getting onto the chaise?”
“No.”
He stopped and she went on alone, into the living room, past the library, and onto the glassed-in porch. She used her exercise bar and swung herself, slowly and carefully, onto the lounge, lay back against her pillows and closed her eyes. She wanted to cry, but couldn’t in spite of the dull ache in her chest. Her eyes burned but there were no tears. She whispered silently, “Richard, what did I do wrong? What did I do to make you act like this, to desert me?”
She heard someone beside her and looked up at Ken.
“I brought you some supper.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Please.” He put the tray down on her side table. “Try to eat a little. Dad will be home pretty soon and he can tell you more than I can.”
“I just want to be alone.”
“All right, but do at least have some tea.”
She listened to him walk away, sorry that she had been so touchy. None of this was Ken’s fault. She could smell the tea and the hot rolls but the thought of food was nauseating. She had been so happy all day, waiting for Richard to come home, looking forward to seeing him now that he was walking again. Vi had cleared the downstairs bedroom, brought all his favorite things downstairs . . .
Jewel forced herself to stop thinking about it. She heard a car in the driveway and knew that Jim was home. She grabbed her bar and sat up. By the time Jim came in she had buttered a roll and could smile at him.
“Hello, sweetheart. Why eat out here?”
“I was a little tired.”
He sat beside her, slipped his arm around her waist, and pulled her to him. “You worked too hard, Jewel. I wish you hadn’t.”
“I wanted everything to be just right.” She heard the catch in her voice. “It’s been so long.”
He didn’t answer forcing her to ask, “Where is he, Jim? What happened?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. He said he had an apartment but didn’t say where.”
She rested her forehead on his shoulder, fighting back the tears that were now willing to come. “How is he, Jim? Tell me this time. Everything.”
He held her tighter, one big hand on her back, the other in her coppery curls. She took strength from him, let him comfort her, and she could listen without crying. The pain in her heart eased a little and she was left with emptiness, and an overwhelming sadness.
“I love you so,” Jim said. “I need you, too, even more than Rich does. Hoadly says he’s all right. His knee is stiff, has a brace on it, but in a while, if he takes care, he can get along fine.” Jim paused, took a deep breath. “But no baseball. I don’t know if he can go back to his Phys Ed teaching.”
After a long moment, Jim added, “Rich is hurt in his pride, maybe lost his self-respect. He has to take care of that by himself. I did all I could.”
She heard the hard note in his voice and said flatly, “You fought with him again.”
Jim admitted it reluctantly. “He said he wanted to try it alone and I said he couldn’t do it.”
“You dared him.”
“I guess, sort of.”
She pulled away so she could see his face. “I love you, too, Jim. Rich will be back one of these days.” She didn’t truly believe it but it was something to say, something to cling to, but Richard was much, oh way too much, like his father.
“I hope so.” But he didn’t sound as if he believed it, either.
4.
Philip Summers had often told his only son that a man must have a purpose in life, an ideal, a code, something to give his life a meaning.
Rich was twelve when his father died and during the following year he had remembered and treasured all his father’s sayings. Right now he was finding it hard to live up to that one. His goal in life had been baseball, his work, and his pleasure. Teaching Physical Education to high school students and coaching the school’s varsity team, was as close as he could get to baseball. Playing for a summer industrial league team filled in the rest, and he thoroughly enjoyed it. He had tried out for a professional minor league, but decided his teaching was more important, and a lot more certain.
Rich had been very close to his father. They were physically and mentally alike but that sameness had caused very little discord.
Rich repeated his father’s words to Gina. “He always said, if you can play this game, and live life as you play it, you will be all right. You have to know your job and do it yourself. No one can do it for you. You have to work with the people with you with no prejudices.” He settled himself more comfortably on the sagging couch. “You can have fun doing it, and keep yourself fit. God gave you a perfect body but it is up to you to keep it that way.” He grunted. “Perfect body? It’s all I can do to hobble around.”
She leaned a little closer against him. “Take it easy, Dickie. So you can’t play baseball anymore. Is it so important? You were a catcher on a one-horse team. Did you think you were going to make the majors?”
He shook his head. “That isn’t all of it, Gina. I spent four years learning to be a Phys Ed teacher so some other boys could make the majors. That’s what I wanted, not my three years with the Wolverines.”
“Oh.” She sobered instantly. “You never told me that, Dick. Wendy never said anything like that. I didn’t know.”
“Wendy wouldn’t. She hated baseball and envied the time I spent playing it with our father.” He laughed without any mirth. “Funny, isn’t it? I spent all that time working toward my goal, doing as my father always said, and all I got to do was to teach for three years.” And that’s Jim’s fault. He couldn’t even now think about the last argument that had driven him out into a freezing rain to escape the hurt and the unfair
accusations. And he honestly could not remember what happened after that.
“Dick, please.” She twitched around to find another position on the less than comfortable couch. “You started to tell me about your new job.”
He laughed again. “Now that is funny. It taxes all my ingenuity. I sit on a kind of bench, stick little plastic toys in a card, the holes are already there for them, put the card in a plastic bag and staple it shut. All I can say is, I don’t have to stand up and walk around. I’ll get calluses all right.”
“Oh, Dickie.”
“Get me a beer, will you?” He knew he was drinking too much, too often, and he had never really liked beer, but what else was there?
Sure.” Gina sat down on the arm of a chair when she had brought it. “What else is there about you that I don’t know? Tell me about you.”
“What about me?”
“Your family, for starters. I know Wendy, of course, since we were in school together, and you have an older stepbrother. I guess I’d know Ken if I saw him.”
He sighed. “And a younger half-brother named Archie, the absolute apple of Jim’s eye.”
“And your mother? Wendy said something about an accident? The one you were in? Broke something?”
Rich didn’t like to think about that. Her slow recovery had been hard on them all. “A couple of years ago. She and Jim were on a trail ride. Her horse shied and threw her. Broke her back. She’s in a wheel chair.” At least I’m not that bad. I can still walk and move around and she can’t. And she really enjoyed horseback riding. “So what else do you want to know?”
“You get along with them all? Me, I don’t talk to half my family. I know you had a fight with your stepfather. What about the rest?”
“Ken and I always got along. You know Wendy’s married to some kind of computer whiz named Frank Powers, and Archie’s a brat. Jim thinks the world revolves around him.”
She laughed. “You don’t think so?”
“I know it doesn’t. He’s only eleven, so he may outgrow it.”
She laughed. “Come on, cheer up. You don’t live with them anymore.”
He wondered if he really missed that. Maybe I should have moved out years ago, not come back after college, but then Mother had that accident and needed me . . . “I guess you’re right, Gina.”
“Of course I’m right. I do as I please and to hell with what my family thinks. They said to hell with me years ago and we all get along fine.”
He caught her hand and pulled her to the sofa beside him, slipped his arm around her and held her close. “You’re a comfort, Gina.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “I want to be more than that, Dick.”
He wasn’t quite ready for more intimacy. He was still in too much discomfort, still too unsure of himself, and unsure of Gina. “That’s all I need right now.”
“We have plenty of time. And stop worrying. Live it up and laugh. That’s my motto, you know.”
“I know. And I suppose you have to go to work?”
“That’s the problem with working second shift. I’ll see you tomorrow, and you be sure to rest your knee.”
He sat for a while finishing the can of beer, considering Gina. She worked at data entry for an electronics firm but was hoping to switch to days so she’d have her evenings for fun. All Gina wants is fun and I can’t give her what she wants.
The small apartment was stifling since little air reached him through the one open window. He picked up his cane, hating the need for it, and went out. The late afternoon was cool but not unpleasant, and the air was fresh even on this narrow street between the old mill buildings. There was a softness in it reminding him of the coming spring.
He walked toward Main Street, favoring his left leg although he tried not to, and tried to hide the limp. He disliked pity. He turned the corner onto Main Street and found he was beside a florist shop. He stopped, peering in the windows, the flowers reminding him of his mother who was always surrounded by them. He hadn’t thought about her recently, not wanting to know how all of this was affecting her, being tied to her wheel chair, unable to do all the things he recalled from his childhood, hiking, biking, riding, swimming. It had not broken her spirit, so why should his lesser injuries kill his?
I should go see her, but I can’t. Not now, not yet, maybe not ever. I can’t go back into that house for anyone, not even Mother.
So he did the next best thing. He went into the shop and glanced around at the flower arrangements, all the bright colors of spring. He looked longingly at a large glass vase of yellow and white roses, my favorites and hers, but his meager finances would not allow for that extravagance. Reluctantly turning away, he was attracted to a display of African violets in a variety of colors and sizes. He chose a cheerful mid-sized plant, a kind he had not seen among his mother’s collection, ruffled white with a purple border. He asked if it could be delivered.
He wrote carefully on the notecard, ‘Stop worrying. R.’ He scrawled her name and address on the envelope and went back out, his conscience partly assuaged. He strolled a little farther to a café he had once frequented, not wanting to get his own supper. A cup of beef-barley soup and half a chicken salad sandwich was better than warming up a can of tomato soup at home.
But even this short walk had been too much. He returned slowly to his apartment, his knee throbbing by the time he reached it, and he was grateful for the creaky elevator.
He slept fitfully and dreamed of his brother, a teen-age Ken who beckoned and called, “Let’s play ball, Rich. Come on Rich, Rich, Rich . . .”
He opened his eyes wondering if someone were calling him. He listened and decided it was the leaky faucet in the bathroom. He got up, put a washcloth under the drip to deaden the noise, and went back to bed.
I wonder what Ken is up to. I’ll have to give him a call.
5.
Ken Weston picked up the piles of papers he had been sorting, straightened out Jewel’s table, replaced her pillows on the chaise where he had been sitting, and carried the handful of files into the library where his father was doing his usual after-hours book keeping.
Jim was bent over his work, his face too close to his papers. Ken wondered at that. Was his father’s eyesight failing? He waited a long minute before he said, “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I found those estimates you wanted.”
“Put them here on the desk.”
“Is there anything else you want before I leave?”
Jim looked up at him. “Where are you going?”
“Thought I’d see a movie.”
“Um.” Jim returned his attention to his paperwork.
Ken went into the living room. Jewel was sitting by the fireplace reading as she usually did while waiting for Jim to finish his work. They would then have a light supper, or his father had a drink, and then they would watch television for a while or play cards. He felt no guilt at going out.
“Mother,” Ken said, “I’m going out for a while.”
She glanced up from her magazine. “Oh, where, if I may ask?”
“There’s a movie I’ve been waiting to see.”
“Oh.” She hesitated a moment then asked, “Would you mind awfully taking Archie with you?”
“Well, I . . .” He thought wildly of Wendy. What will she think?
Jewel was waiting for an answer and he had no good, valid reason for refusing. “I guess not. Where is he?”
“Upstairs.”
“I’ll call him. We won’t be late.”
When he reached the doorway, she said, “Thanks.”
He smiled at her as genuinely as he could. “No bother, really.” At the foot of the stairs, he stopped and called, “Archie? I’m going to a movie. Want to come?”
A voice answered un
intelligibly and a boy came down the stairs, trotting, skipping steps. He was a smaller, eleven-year-old version of his father, stocky, with unruly red hair. Ken thought irrelevantly, I was never allowed to run on the stairs. “Mother asked me to take you if you want to go.”
“Sure, let’s go.”
Ken followed him out onto the wide porch. “You’d better behave yourself, Archie, or else.”
The boy made a face at him.
“Just don’t try anything.”
Archie hopped down the stairs. “You don’t scare me. You can’t touch me.”
No, I can’t do anything about your manners. Dad would land on me like a ton of bricks. “We’ll see.”
~ ~ ~
Ken timed his arrival at the multiplex, planning to go in just before the feature started. He bought popcorn and large soda for Archie and led him into the dimness: right hand aisle, fourth row, she had said. Archie crunched his popcorn loudly. The film was full of action, lots stunts and chases, what he usually enjoyed watching, but he did not get involved in the story. He was conscious only of the girl sitting directly in front of him. She turned occasionally and glanced toward the door, but he made no sound.
Archie demanded more popcorn.
Ken fished several bills out of his pocket. “Here. Be quick and quiet.”
Wendy turned around and whispered, “What is he here for?”
“Mother asked me to bring him.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“So am I.”
Archie came back and Wendy returned to the movie.
The picture finally ended and the lights came on. Ken stood up.
Archie protested. “I want to watch the credits and the trailers.”
Ken grabbed his arm. “We’re leaving. You have school tomorrow.”
Archie grumbled, but went with him.
No Coming Back Page 3
