So Long, See You Tomorrow

by William Maxwell

  When his mother came to get him he gathered up his things and stood there waiting, but she said, "Run outside and play. Aunt Jenny and I have things to talk about."

  The fairgrounds were deserted. The circus had gone ten days before, and it was too soon for the county fair. There was nothing to look at and nobody to talk to. When he got tired of waiting on the front steps he went back into the house and his mother made him go outdoors again.

  It will wear itself out, Clarence said to himself, provided he was patient and didn't drive Fern to do something foolish.

  He was patient, up to a point. For him, he was very patient. But she knew just where he drew the line, and, daring him, stepped over it. When he lost his temper he did things he could hardly believe afterward. Once when they were having an argument she screamed and Victor picked up a bucket of water and threw it over him. The shock brought him to his senses. He looked down and saw he had the poker in his hand.

  What she did she did deliberately, and she never said she was sorry.

  Somebody turned the wick of the lamp up too high and it made a fine layer of soot over everything. He expected her to burst into tears and start taking down the front-room curtains. Instead she laughed.

  He asked her to go with him to see his parents and she refused. "But if you don't come they'll think we aren't getting along."

  "Which is only the truth."

  "They've had enough trouble in their lives. I don't want to add to it."

  "You won't be," she said. "They know. Everybody knows. That's all people have to think about."

  Since there was work to be done outside, he gave up and reached for his jacket.

  All his socks had holes in them. The strawberry bed was loaded with fruit and she didn't bother to pick it. She left the beans on the vines until they were too big to eat. He no longer had a wife—only a prisoner.

  Unwatered too long, the Christmas cactus in the front window died and ended up on the rubbish pile. When it was time for her plate of scraps the dog came and wolfed them down and then withdrew into her house. The cats followed Fern Smith around, purring as usual, and with their tails straight up in the air. Since they were neither faithful nor obedient themselves they saw no reason why women should be.

  The widow knew that if she talked long enough at Fred Wilson he would have to lower the newspaper that hid his face and listen to her. Whether he wanted to or not. He heard about the habits of her late husband, and the hard life they had had—so much sickness, and losing the farm because they couldn't keep up payments on the mortgage, the younger son, her favorite, dead of a ruptured appendix, the older one who seldom came to see her because his wife made trouble if he did, and the daughter who lived too far away and never wrote except once in a great while, to say that things were not going well with them. In exchange for all this information which he did not particularly want, Fred Wilson felt obliged to tell her something, so he told her about his wife's lingering illness. "Poor thing," she said sympathetically. "But she's better off now. She's out of it at last."

  When he said how grateful he was to his nephew for taking him in after she died, the widow said, "But wouldn't you be happier in your own home?"

  "I loved my wife too much ever to remarry," he said firmly. He might not be able to read everybody's mind but he had no trouble reading hers.

  The widow had other strings to her bow. One day she met Colonel Dowling in the Smiths' lane and he bowed to her and she never got over it. The social life that went on in her mind was vivid and kept her from being lonely. When Colonel Dowling said Mrs. B., would you care to take a spin in my car? she said No, thank you, or Well, since you insist, depending on her mood.

  At Aunt Jenny's house, in a dresser drawer crammed with odds and ends of female clutter, there is an oval picture of her at the age of twenty-three. Every other picture of herself she has destroyed. She was never a beautiful woman but neither was she as plain as she imagined. When this picture was taken she was head over heels in love with Tom Evans, but for some reason love, even of the most ardent and soul-destroying kind, is never caught by the lens of the camera. One would almost think it didn't exist.

  Downstairs, on a bracket shelf next to a vase with hand- painted pink roses on it, there is a matching picture of him, taken at the same time. His hair is roached and he is wearing a high stiff collar, and hardly anything shows in his face but his Welsh ancestry. His father and mother were rabid Methodists, but the rigid attitudes that they tried to hand down to him did not stand the test of experience and he ended up not believing in God. "I believe in paying your bills on time," he said, when he wanted to excite the pious. "And in common politeness."

  He worked hard, because he liked to work, and was thrifty because he enjoyed that also. He worked for somebody else not because he had an ordinary mind but because the town wouldn't support a second plumbing business. Occasionally he treated himself to a glass of beer but the swinging doors of a saloon did not have an irresistible attraction for him. His fastidiousness could be explained easily enough by assuming that a nobleman's child and a commoner's had been switched in their cradles. But in Logan County there are no castles for the baby to be carried from in the middle of the night, and in fact no noblemen. So there must have been some other explanation.

  He died in agony, of a gall-bladder attack, when he was in his early fifties, and the oval photograph, adapting itself to circumstances, is now clearly the photograph of a dead man.

  He could not have loved Fern more if she had been his own daughter. To an outsider it seemed that Aunt Jenny was relegated to the position of waiting on them. Waiting on them was her whole pleasure, and she did not ask herself whether they valued her sufficiently. Or at all. Innocence is defined in dictionaries as freedom from guilt or sin, especially through lack of knowledge; purity of heart; blamelessness; guilelessness; artlessness; simplicity, etc. There is no aspect of the word that does not apply to her.

  Without the heavyset aristocratic man snoring away on his side of the bed, without the fresh-eyed child whose hair ribbon needs retying; without the conversation at meals and the hearty appetites and getting dressed for church on time; without the tears of laughter and the worry about making both ends meet, the unpaid bills, the layoffs, both seasonal and unexpected; without the toys that have to be picked up lest somebody trip over them, and the seven shirts that have to be washed and ironed, one for every day in the week; without the scraped knee and the hurt feelings, the misunderstandings that need to be cleared up, the voices calling for her so that she is perpetually having to stop what she is doing and go see what they want—without all this, what have you? A mystery: How is it that she didn't realize it was going to last such a short time?

  When Lloyd Wilson got upset at the thought of the money that used to be in his savings account in the Lincoln National Bank and wasn't there any longer, he reminded himself that he had a chance to object to the amount of the settlement and just said, "Where do I sign?" She had cleaned him out, but he owed her something, and he couldn't let his children starve. It didn't occur to him, though, that she would turn the little girls against him. They sat with their mother in church, all in a row, and if he tried to catch their eye or smiled at them they looked straight ahead at nothing.

  When they were older they would feel different, maybe, but all the same, it hurt his feelings. He changed his life insurance policies so that the boys were the sole beneficiaries.

  Mrs. Stroud drove out to her farm earlier in the day to avoid the heat. While, they were inspecting the corncribs she said crossly, "Your marital difficulties do not interest me but I don't like to see this place going to wrack and ruin because of them. The woman you have hired to keep house for you is old and half blind, and the house is by no means the way your wife kept it."

  "I know," he said, for once neither evasive nor verging on insolence.

  "My house in town is always clean and I see no reason why this house, which, after all, is mine too, shouldn't be the same way."
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  "I'll speak to her," he said soberly, but he didn't. As though he were gifted with second sight, he regarded the arrangement as temporary.

  As Cletus walked into the cool shade of the house he heard voices. His mother's voice. And then Aunt Jenny's. He knew the cookie jar was empty but he put his hand in it anyway, hoping to be surprised, and as he felt around inside, his mother said, "That was last Saturday. Naturally 1 was nervous but it turned out there was no cause to be." She waited until he had gone upstairs to his room before she continued: "When I got home I said to you know who, I said, 'It may interest you to know that I've consulted a lawyer.' I decided the time had come to tell him."

  "I don't know as I'd have done that," Aunt Jenny said. "That is, not if you're meaning to avoid trouble."

  Fern Smith wasn't meaning to avoid trouble; she was bent on making it. It was her only hope.

  "It set him back on his heels. I knew it would."

  Aunt Jenny raised her eyes to indicate the ventilator in the ceiling.

  "If we don't mention any names, how can Cletus tell who we're talking about? And I haven't mentioned any."

  "What did he say?"

  "Clarence?"

  "No, the man in town."

  "He listened, and asked questions, and finally he said, 'Airs. Smith, I think we can safely say we have a case.' "

  A case of what, Cletus wondered.

  With Lloyd Wilson's wife gone, what prevented her from throwing a shawl over her shoulders and running across the fields to his house? The whole community. It was one thing to behave in such a way as to provoke gossip and quite another for them to live in open immorality. They had talked about it often. She didn't care if every woman she knew stopped speaking to her, but they wouldn't let their husbands have anything to do with him, and that might make it very difficult. There wasn't a man for miles around who wasn't indebted to him for something, but the only one who ever seemed to feel this was Clarence.

  And Mrs. Stroud?

  He didn't know. With her, anything was possible. When she came out to the farm these days she had a cat-and- mouse expression on her face that was new—as if she was enjoying the situation he had got himself into and was watching with amusement to see what he would do next.

  People will stand only so much. And there is a line that you can't cross over, no matter how much you would like to. If he did cross over it and he got a letter informing him that after the first of March Mrs. Stroud had no further need for his services, where would they go then? Who would take him on as a tenant when they found out that he was living with a woman who was not his wife? Their courage failed them.

  Clarence believed Fern when she said that she had neither seen Lloyd nor talked to him, but he knew in his bones that they communicated with each other somehow. He questioned the boys and searched in odd corners about the farm —a hollow tree, an abandoned chicken house, a shed that was far enough from the house so that Lloyd could have gone there at night without the risk of being seen. But the dog would have barked, and the boys clearly knew nothing. About that, anyway. How much else they knew he didn't like to think. One minute she was careful and talked in a low voice, or she would get up and shut the door. And then suddenly it didn't matter to her any more what she said or who heard her. Standing at the head of the stairs in her nightgown, she shouted down at him, "You treat the horses better than you treat me!" It wasn't true, and she knew it.

  She said she had been in love with somebody else when she married him. He didn't know whether to believe her or not; it might be something she made up on the spur of the moment, to knock the wind out of him.

  He drove in to town and got drunk and came home and climbed on top of her. It didn't work. She fought like a wildcat, and he fell off the bed and lay tangled up in the bedclothes. In a sudden weariness of soul he dropped off to sleep and woke in broad daylight, with a hangover and a foul taste in his mouth. The bed was empty.

  He went to see the Baptist minister and they had a long talk. In the minister's study, with the door closed. Some things he could hardly bring himself to say, but he felt better after he had said them. And the expression on the minister's face was sympathetic when he said, "Why don't we kneel down right now and ask for God's help." So they did. And he wasn't embarrassed. At that point he would have done anything.

  Standing by the front door, with the rain blowing in their faces, the minister said, "Tell her to come and see me. It may be that I can show her where the path of duty lies."

  Fern Smith didn't go to see him. Instead she went to town, to the little house across from the fairgrounds. When Aunt Jenny's opinion didn't conform to hers it could be brushed aside.

  The widow could not let a farm wagon pass by without running to the front window to see who was in the wagon. It wasn't likely, therefore, that she would fail to notice that her employer had something on his mind. Poor man, he missed his family and was regretting the way he had behaved. She intended to try and make him understand—she was just waiting for the auspicious moment—that he mustn't be afraid his wife wouldn't forgive him. If he went to her in the right spirit and told her how sorry he was, things were bound to work out the way he wanted them to. And when his wife did forgive him and came home, then she might be glad of a little help with the housework.

  And if not? ...

  Bravely, Mrs. B. decided she was not going to let selfish considerations stand in the way of Lloyd's happiness.

  When Cletus walked into the cow barn the cats ran to greet him. His father was already there, milking Flossie. Victor should have been milking the cow on the other side of him but he had gone off on a bender, even though it wasn't a national holiday. Cletus picked up a milk bucket and stool and sat down. He tried to adjust the rhythm of his squirt- squirt to his father's. Old Bess moved her feet restlessly and he said, "So, boss." The cats rubbed against his ankles, purring, but he didn't feel them. The night before, the terrible voice had given him something new to worry about: 1 can walk out of this house any time I feel like it, taking the boys with vie. He fell back into the same deep sleep as if nothing had happened, but this morning, while he was mooning over his cereal, there it was.

  He saw that Blackie was sitting with his pink mouth stretched wide open and he squirted a stream of milk into it. Sixteen years old that cat was, and his ears all cut up from fighting, and hardly a tooth in his head.

  She won't do it, Cletus thought. But why shouldn't she? What was there to stop her, except fear of his father, and she wasn't afraid, of anything or anybody.

  The level of milk rose in the two pails. His father whistled the same sad tune he whistled all day long. When he stood up, Cletus said, "Last night I heard something."

  "Outside?"

  "No."

  "Shouldn't listen to conversations that don't concern you."

  "I wasn't trying to listen."

  "I see. Well, what did you hear?" "Mama said, she said she might move into town and take me and Wayne with her."

  "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

  "Pa .. ."

  "Yes, son."

  "Promise me you won't get sore if I say something?" He waited and there was no answer from the next stall. "Please don't argue with her about it, Pa."

  "Why not? Do you want to move into town with her?"

  "You know I don't. But you shouldn't have said you wouldn't let her do it. If you tell her she can't do something, then she has to do it."

  "Why, you little fucker!"

  The heavy hand shot out and sent him sprawling. What the boy had said was true, but a lot of difference that made. The bucket was overturned, a pool of milk began to spread along the barn floor. With his right ear roaring with pain and one whole side of his face gone numb, he picked himself up and drew the stool out from between the cow's legs and put the bucket under her. He managed not to cry, but his hands shook, and the milk squirted unevenly into the pail.

  "The next time you try to tell me how to run my affairs it won't be just a clout on the he
ad, I'll break your God damn back," Clarence Smith said. He picked up his stool and moved on to the adjoining stall and sat down and, with his head pressed against the cow's side, resumed his sad whistling.

  The conversation didn't turn out the way the widow expected. She thought Lloyd Wilson would open his heart to her and instead he said, "Yes, well, I'll think about it," and picked up the Farmer's Almanac.

  She paused in her crocheting and pushed the lamp closer to him. Either he didn't want to talk about it or he had something else on his mind that he couldn't bring himself to discuss with her. Maybe money troubles. Or it could be that Mrs. Stroud was making difficulty. She was not a very nice woman and had her nose into everything.

  VIII

  THE MACHINERY OF JUSTICE

  Clarence was fastening the pasture gate with a loop of wire when it came over him that she was gone. He broke into a run. In his mind he saw the note propped against the sugar bowl on the kitchen table. When he flung the door open she was standing at the stove, her hair damp with steam, stirring the clothes in the big copper boiler. They stared at each other a moment and then she said, "No, I'm still here."