Chapter 1 ABSOLUTE PLEASURES
MAY 1903
"Who told Thad she was dead?" Rena asked.
"Thad killed her," Eva said. "He already knew."
Their father -- from his rocker, almost dark in the evening -- said, "Hush your voices down. Your mother's on the way. And never call him Thad. He was her dear father, your own grandfather; and of course he never killed her."
Kennedy said, "He gave her the baby. The baby killed her. So I think he did justice, killing himself."
"Shame," their father said. He drew at his cigar. "I hope none of you lives to face such a choice." Another draw. "But one of you will. Then remember tonight -- the cruelty you've talked against the helpless dead."
He had started directing his answer to Kennerly -- Kennedy was leaving home in a week: a job, his life -- but he ended it on Eva. His middle child, his choice of the three, the thing in the world (beside his own mother, dead twenty years) that he'd loved and still loved, for sixteen years.
Dark as it was, Eva met his eyes and waited him out. Then she said, "What's shameful, sir, in wanting the truth? We're all nearly grown. We've heard scraps of it all our lives -- lies, jokes. We are asking to know. It's our own story."
Her father nodded. "It would kill your mother to hear it."
They all were silent. The street beyond was empty. Hector the dog surrendered to Kennerly's scratching hands. Their mother's voice came from the kitchen, still talking -- "Mag, you can take this bread on with you and bake fresh for breakfast if you get here in time. You'll get here, won't you?" -- Some grumble from Mag, amounting to Yes. -- "And you too, Sylvie? We got to iron curtains." A younger docile voice said "Yes'm."
Rena and Kennedy also looked to Eva. She was running this.
Eva said "Safe."
Their father said, quickly and as near to whispering as he ever came, "Thad Watson married Katherine Epps and, much as he loved her, he wanted a son. Three, four years passed -- no son, no daughter. Katherine told him it was God's will, to calm down and wait. Wait was the one thing Thad couldn't do; and within another year, Katherine had a baby and died in the act. It had been a hard labor; and Dr. Burton had sent Thad out to wait in the yard, anywhere out of sight. He waited on the porch, really sat and waited for once in his life."
Eva said, "How do you know that?"
"My mother was there, helping what she could."
"Which wasn't much," Kennerly said.
"Not much. What could you have done with God set against you?"
Kennerly said, "l could have asked Him why."
"You'd have stood there and talked, and she'd have died anyhow. My mother gave the ether, little bits at a time on a clean cotton rag. So she died at ease -- no pain, not a sound, no signal to Thad twenty feet away. When the doctor had listened to Katherine's still chest -- Mother said he listened for the length of a song -- and seen Mother safely washing the baby, he washed his own hands and put on his coat and stepped to the porch and said, 'Thad, I lost her. But I saved you a girl.' Thad waited on a minute. Then he stood up and looked Dr. Burton in the face as calm as this evening and told him 'Thank you' and headed indoors. The doctor assumed he was going to Katherine -- there were plenty more women in there with her to meet him -- so he stood on the porch to clear his own head. It had lasted all night; it was past dawn, May. The next thing he heard was a single shot. Thad had walked to the bedroom, straight through the women -- never looked to your mother, herself nearly killed in Katherine's labor -- and taken his pistol off the mantelpiece and walked to the bed where Katherine lay -- they had still not washed her -- and blown his brains out and fallen on her body." He drew at his cold cigar. "Now you know."
"It was Mother," Eva said. "The baby that killed his wife was Mother?"
"You knew that," he said. "But never say killed. She was innocent as if she had come from the moon, and her own father stopped her life in its tracks before she could move. Part of it anyhow."
Rena said, "Why would he do that, Father? -- not wait for his child?"
A long wait. No answer, though voices still rose and fell in the kitchen.
"He knew his life had stopped," Eva said.
Kennerly made his sound of disgust.
"-- Thought it had," their father said. "Then why not take the ruined baby with him?"
Nobody offered an answer to that.
But Eva said, "Did you ever see them, Father?"
"I remember him -- I was ten when he died -- and I must have seen her any number of times. But I don't have a shred of memory of her. A perfect blank. Your mother even -- I still have to look at pictures of her to see her as a girl, and she all but lived with us." Rena said "Why was that?"
"She was a quiet child."
They all waited silently and listened to her come slowly forward through the house; stop in her bedroom (the left front room) and brash at her hair; then stand in the door and say, "Eva, take a chair" -- Eva sat on the steps -- "You're too dressed-up anyhow. Commencement's tomorrow."
"Yes ma'm," Eva said.
Their mother went on to her usual place -- the far comer swing where Kennedy waited, gently rocked as though by a breeze.
Eva stayed still.
Her mother stared at her -- the side of her face; she was lovely, brown cuffs in swags to her shoulders. "Eva, go change. You'll smother in that."
Eva looked to the street. "I'm breathing," she said.
"Rena, make her go change."
Rena budged, vibrated by the words themselves; but she also watched the street and stayed in place.
"Eva, look here."
Eva turned and looked and before her mother could speak, even study her face in the dusk, Eva said "Be good to me -- " She looked to her father.
Their mother said, "What is that supposed to mean?"
Hector barked once.
Rena said -- and pointed -- "Mr. Mayfield."
He was almost on them, having come up the stone walk that quietly; and everyone but Mrs. Kendal stood to welcome him, though she spoke first -- "Did she fail, Mr. Mayfield?"
"No'm, she passed," he said. "She barely passed." He was at the steps and paused there, three feet from Eva. So no one but Eva could see the smile that rose in his face as he turned to her father. "Ninety-six in English. One hundred in Latin. Be proud, Mr. Kendal."
"Thank you, sir," he said. "She'll graduate then?"
"Far as I'm concerned, she's graduated now; could have two years ago. Knows more than I do," Forrest Mayfield said.
"Too kind," Mrs. Kendal said. "Sit down and rest. Have you eaten your supper? You'll be starved and blind from reading children's papers."
"No I'm not," he said. "Good young eyes like mine -- I can see in the dark."
"You're thirty," Mrs. Kendal said, "and thin as a slat. You'll lose your looks. Then where will you be?" She got to her feet. "Mag's still in the kitchen. Come on and eat.'
"Thank you, no," he said. "I'm thirty-two and I've got to move on. Just wanted to tell you the fresh good news."
"Are you leaving for the summer?" Mr. Kendal said.
"Yes sir," he said, "when I get myself together."
"To your sister's again?"
"Not at first," he said. "I'll wander a little."
Mrs. Kendal said "To where?"
He smiled again, though entirely dark by now; spread his arms wide and sang it as music -- "To my heart's true home."
Mrs. Kendal said "I thought so," and all of them laughed.
He joined them but then he looked to Mr. Kendal. "But you've got all I ever wanted, here." He gestured round with one arm again, a single place in which to gather, people made in the place, made by the place and grown firmly to it.
"I love them," Mr. Kendal said. "Thank you, Forrest."
Through all that, Forrest had shuddered with fear but showed only calm, the only lie he told them till then.