âIâm just going to have a cup of tea.â
âMarybeth, come on over here and sit down.â
âJust a cup of tea. Iâll just . . .â She looks over at me, and my solemn face. âOkay, Iâll get it later.â
I sit down on one of the armchairs and she perches on the arm of the sofa, like a sparrow. Her smile twitches on and off. I wonder, not for the first time, if she takes some kind of medication.
I tell her about Jack, and for a few minutes Iâm not sure sheâs taking it in. She nods vigorously, chewing on the side of her mouth like a school child struggling with a perplexing math problem. People react in different ways to news of a death, but Marybeth doesnât seem to understand my words. Her eyes flit from me to the TV and back. Finally she jumps up and paces around the room, hugging herself. âThank you for coming all this way to tell me.â She stops in the kitchen long enough to set the kettle on to boil, then starts moving again. âDoes Curtis know?â
âI reached him in Dallas. He said heâll be at the house sometime tomorrow.â
âCurtis hates Jackie,â she says, in an off-hand way, as if talking to herself. She takes shuddering breaths.
âI doubt that.â
âOh, he does. He hates me, too. Heâs not a very nice man.â Suddenly she stops in front of me. She has peculiar look on her face. Defiant? Thatâs a first. âAnd you know what? I never liked Curtis. Thatâs a horrible thing for a mother to say, but from the minute he came out, I didnât like him.â
Iâm jolted by a flash of anger at Marybeth. I think about how my brother, Horace, could never do anything right in our mammaâs eyes. She had no patience for boys or men in general. But she singled out Horace for her wrath. Horace and my daddy took to the bottle to soothe the hurts she inflicted. Being the younger son, I was cushioned a bit.
Maybe Marybeth did the right thing by leaving Bob and Jack. Maybe my brother and I and our daddy might have been better off if my mother had realized that she wasnât suited to the job and left.
âListen, you donât need to open those old wounds.â
Itâs like she didnât hear me. âJack made me feel the opposite. The second he was born, I said, âHeâs mine.â Thatâs why I had to leave after he was hurt in that war. My heart just plain cracked in two every time I looked at him.â She paces back to the window. âIt was selfish, I know that. But better than me there crying all day, every day. And I knew Bob could handle it. He was like a mule. You put him in a harness and he just plodded along getting the job done. Me? Iâm . . .â She stands wringing her hands. âOh Samuel, how could someone have hurt my sweet boy?â
I feel trapped in her tiny place. âLetâs go get something to eat.â I walk over and turn off the kettle.
âEat?â As if itâs a foreign concept. âYes, that would be okay.â
We go to a cafe and I order a hamburger. Sitting there with Marybeth is a hard slog, with her picking at a salad and starting sentences she doesnât finish. But what little food she gets inside her brings some color back to her face, and she sits a little quieter.
âMarybeth, somebody needs to go over to the house and figure out what to do with Jackâs and Bobâs things, find out if thereâs a will, and make funeral arrangements.â
She puts her fork down and shrinks back in her seat. âCurtis will do all that.â
âIsnât there anything youâd like to have from the house? Photos? Anything?â
She chews her lip. âThere might be pictures of Jackie, from before. I might like those.â
âIf you want, I can take you over there. The house probably belongs to you now.â
She puts a hand to her mouth and starts to shake. âI think I have to go
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