my father was deliberately trying to heckle the old man into his grave. Was she right? Though many things fitted her theories, I never believed them. They were too neat and too grim.
I knew from the noise at the sink below me that she had turned away without answering. I could picture her, her neck mottled with anger, the wings of her nose white and the skin above them pulsing. I seemed to ride the waves of emotion below me. As I sat on the edge of my bed to put on my socks, the old wooden floor lifted under my foot.
My grandfather said, “We never know when we will be called. The world never knows who is needed above.”
“Well I know sure as hell they don’t need me,” my father said. “If there’s anything God doesn’t need, it’s my ugly face to look at.”
“He knows how much
we
need you, George.”
“You don’t need me, Cassie. You’d be better off with me on the dump. My father died at forty-nine and it was the best thing he ever did for us.”
“Your father was a disappointed
man
,” my mother told him. “Why should
you
be disappointed? You have a wonderful son, a beautiful farm, an adoring wife—”
“Once the old man was in his grave,” my father continued, “my mother really cut loose. Those were the happiest years of her life. She was a super-woman, Pop.”
“I think it’s so sad,” my mother said, “that they don’t allow men to marry their mothers.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Cassie. My mother made life a hell on earth for him. She ate that man raw.”
One sock had a hole which I tucked deep into the heel of the loafer. This was Monday, and in my sock drawer there was nothing but orphans and a heavy English wool pair my Aunt Alma had sent me this Christmas from Troy, New York. She was a children’s clothes buyer for a department store there. I guessed that these socks she had sent were expensive, but when I put them on they were so bulky they made my toenails feel ingrown, so I never wore them. It was a vanity of mine to have my loafers small, size 10½ instead of 11, which would have been proper. I hated to have big feet; I wanted to have a dancer’s quick and subtle hooves.
Tapping heel and toe, I left my room and passed through my parents’ room. The covers of their bed were tossed back savagely, exposing a doubly troughed mattress. The top of their scarred bureau was covered with combs, in all sizes and colors of plastic, that my father had scavenged from the high school Lost and Found department. He was always bringing junk like this home, as if he were burlesquing his role of provider.
The country staircase, descending between a plaster wall and a wood partition, was narrow and steep. At the bottom, the steps curved in narrow worn wedges; there should have been a railing. My father was sure that my grandfather with his clouded downward vision was going to fall some day; he kept vowing to put up a bannister. He had even bought the bannister, for a dollar in an Alton junk shop. But it leaned forgotten in the barn. Most of my father’s projects around this place were like that. Tripping in grace notes like Fred Astaire, I went downstairs, in my descent stroking the bare plaster on my right. So smooth-skinned, this wall shallowlyundulated like the flank of a great calm creature alive with the chill communicated through stone from the outdoors. The walls of this house were thick sandstone uplifted by mythically strong masons a century ago.
“Close the stair door,” my mother said. We didn’t want heat to escape the downstairs.
I can still see everything. The downstairs was two long rooms, the kitchen and the living-room, connected by two doorways side by side. The kitchen floor was of broad old pine boards, recently sanded and waxed. A hot-air register cut into these boards at the foot of the stairs breathed warmly on my ankles. A newspaper, the Alton
Sun
, that had fallen to the floor kept lifting one corner in the draft, as if begging to be read. Our house was full
I knew from the noise at the sink below me that she had turned away without answering. I could picture her, her neck mottled with anger, the wings of her nose white and the skin above them pulsing. I seemed to ride the waves of emotion below me. As I sat on the edge of my bed to put on my socks, the old wooden floor lifted under my foot.
My grandfather said, “We never know when we will be called. The world never knows who is needed above.”
“Well I know sure as hell they don’t need me,” my father said. “If there’s anything God doesn’t need, it’s my ugly face to look at.”
“He knows how much
we
need you, George.”
“You don’t need me, Cassie. You’d be better off with me on the dump. My father died at forty-nine and it was the best thing he ever did for us.”
“Your father was a disappointed
man
,” my mother told him. “Why should
you
be disappointed? You have a wonderful son, a beautiful farm, an adoring wife—”
“Once the old man was in his grave,” my father continued, “my mother really cut loose. Those were the happiest years of her life. She was a super-woman, Pop.”
“I think it’s so sad,” my mother said, “that they don’t allow men to marry their mothers.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Cassie. My mother made life a hell on earth for him. She ate that man raw.”
One sock had a hole which I tucked deep into the heel of the loafer. This was Monday, and in my sock drawer there was nothing but orphans and a heavy English wool pair my Aunt Alma had sent me this Christmas from Troy, New York. She was a children’s clothes buyer for a department store there. I guessed that these socks she had sent were expensive, but when I put them on they were so bulky they made my toenails feel ingrown, so I never wore them. It was a vanity of mine to have my loafers small, size 10½ instead of 11, which would have been proper. I hated to have big feet; I wanted to have a dancer’s quick and subtle hooves.
Tapping heel and toe, I left my room and passed through my parents’ room. The covers of their bed were tossed back savagely, exposing a doubly troughed mattress. The top of their scarred bureau was covered with combs, in all sizes and colors of plastic, that my father had scavenged from the high school Lost and Found department. He was always bringing junk like this home, as if he were burlesquing his role of provider.
The country staircase, descending between a plaster wall and a wood partition, was narrow and steep. At the bottom, the steps curved in narrow worn wedges; there should have been a railing. My father was sure that my grandfather with his clouded downward vision was going to fall some day; he kept vowing to put up a bannister. He had even bought the bannister, for a dollar in an Alton junk shop. But it leaned forgotten in the barn. Most of my father’s projects around this place were like that. Tripping in grace notes like Fred Astaire, I went downstairs, in my descent stroking the bare plaster on my right. So smooth-skinned, this wall shallowlyundulated like the flank of a great calm creature alive with the chill communicated through stone from the outdoors. The walls of this house were thick sandstone uplifted by mythically strong masons a century ago.
“Close the stair door,” my mother said. We didn’t want heat to escape the downstairs.
I can still see everything. The downstairs was two long rooms, the kitchen and the living-room, connected by two doorways side by side. The kitchen floor was of broad old pine boards, recently sanded and waxed. A hot-air register cut into these boards at the foot of the stairs breathed warmly on my ankles. A newspaper, the Alton
Sun
, that had fallen to the floor kept lifting one corner in the draft, as if begging to be read. Our house was full
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