Desert of the Heart: A Novel by Jane Rule

Riesman glanced over at Ann and smiled. “Let me take you home.”
    “No.”
    Ann opened the door before the car had come to a full stop. She no more than nodded good night to the doctor. A blunt, good man with an oversimplified sense of psychological history, he had always irritated her. Of course she missed her father. She missed him because he had borne down on her like a weight of gravity, had given her substance, had caged her in the knowledge of her own flesh. While he lived, her world was the prison of his need. She missed him now with a relief that used to seem almost a kind of madness. It was not simple, missing with joy the weight of earth. It was not simple, love freewheeling over fear of earth. She was not tied to his memory. If she had been apprenticed to her father’s need, she was now at least a journeyman and could choose the need she served. It was her own.
    There was no one she knew in the employees’ lounge. Idly, she read notices on the bulletin board, most of them orders from the Management to the Employees, always a dyspeptic paraphrase of the Golden Rule set out in large type among the bits of gambling jargon. “The Admonishments” Ann called them. She turned away from the board and saw two children standing quietly by the matron of the movies, an ample, tired grandmother of a woman whose job it was to accept, send to the free movies, and return children to their parents. The last movie ended at eleven. It was now after twelve. Because the employees’ lounge was always crowded, the children were not allowed to sit down to wait for their truant parents. They had to stand, as these two did, until they were claimed.
    The boy was younger, perhaps seven. He had been crying. The girl was nine. She might have comforted her brother if her own humiliation had not closed her off from his fear. She stared straight ahead of her at the door. Ann walked over to the matron.
    “Every night. Every single night it happens. I should have been home an hour ago.”
    “You’ll get your overtime,” Ann said.
    “What about my sleep?”
    The boy looked at Ann. The girl refused to listen.
    “Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?” Ann asked, squatting down beside the boy.
    “No, thank you,” the girl answered, still not looking at Ann. “My mother will be here in a minute.”
    “How about a Coke?”
    “No, thank you.”
    Ann looked at the boy. “How about you?”
    “He doesn’t want any either.”
    “If she doesn’t turn up in fifteen minutes,” the matron said, “I’m calling the police.”
    The little boy began to cry again. The little girl stared at the door.
    “It’s all right,” Ann said, putting an arm around the boy. “It’s all right. She’s just tired and grumpy.”
    But in fifteen minutes the matron would call the police if they hadn’t already come of their own accord. Rarely a night passed that a child or two weren’t taken to the hospital to sleep. Before the free movie was instituted, the police found children locked in cars. In the summer it wasn’t so bad. In the winter the children were a real trial to the law.
    “Say, why don’t we do something while we wait?” Ann said. “Do you like to draw?” The little boy shook his head. The little girl did not respond. “I do. Shall I draw you a picture? What kind of a picture shall I draw?” Ann helped herself to the matron’s pencil and looked around for a piece of paper. “What’s your favorite animal?” Ann looked down at the children. “Horse? Dog? Cat?”
    “Dog,” the little boy said softly.
    “Do you have a dog?” The little boy nodded. “What’s his name?”
    The little boy turned away from Ann as a tall, well-dressed, young woman came into the room. He cried out and ran to her. The little girl did not move. She stood, staring in front of her, forcing her mother to walk the full length of the suddenly silent, hostile room.
    “Now stop making a fuss, Tommy. Stop it!” the mother said in a loud,