Роберт Стивенсон: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 3, March 1990

At first Mama refused to ride behind him. “It’s not ladylike,” she protested; or, “Can you imagine what Sadie would say if she saw me?”

We hooted at the thought of Sadie’s face, but Jethridge teased her and eventually she even managed to ride alone — never very expertly, but she could wobble down to the end of our long drive, circle awkwardly, and return without falling. She was so competent with the little red coupe Daddy had given her when I was born that I couldn’t understand her ineptitude, but Jethridge seemed charmed and corrected her mistakes indulgently. Then Mama would shrug prettily and declare that only a man could handle such a monstrous machine.

Late in April, he left for a four-day haul to Nashville, and as Mama and I waved goodbye from the porch, I squeezed her hand and said, “Aren’t you glad I found Jethridge? You’re not lonesome any more, are you?”

She jerked her hand away with a strange look, then kneeling beside me and talking very fast, she explained that Jethridge was my friend — she let him visit only because I liked him so much. Did I understand? Her hands hurt as she grasped my shoulders, and I nodded, too scared by her sudden intensity to speak.

Mama changed after that. The house no longer smelled of warm roses. Spring was upon us and soon Daddy would be home again, but I felt confused and often caught Mama looking at me as if I were about to do something horrible.

Jethridge changed, too. He still came, but he had no laughter and no time for me. I was turned out of the house to play in the sun or hide myself under the Cape Jessamine bushes and brood on what I’d done to make them hate me.

One early May night, a roll of thunder from a spring storm awakened me. It sounded like Nazi bombers, and I’d just opened my door to go to Mama when I heard her voice, no longer low and sweet but edged with the new sharpness she used on me. Jethridge’s words were soft and coaxing but hers shrilled above them. “Leave all this for some white-trash bungalow while you’re on the road half of your life? Don’t be as childish as Libby!”

Lightning flashed outside as matching anger rose in his voice. I crept back to bed, pulled the covers over my head to shut out both storms, and wished that the next roll of thunder really would be Nazi bombers so Jethridge could be brave and rescue us and make Mama like him again.

I must have dozed off, because when next I sat up in bed, all was quiet downstairs. The rain had dwindled to a steady drizzle, but I heard the sound of Mama’s car as lights swept briefly across my bedroom ceiling. From my window, I heard the motor go silent in the drive below and the door quietly open and close. I waited to hear her come up the porch steps but long minutes passed. Suddenly I realized that Jethridge, too, must have been there in the dark shadows beyond her car, for I heard his Harley-Davidson splutter several times before catching.

Kneeling by the window, I saw its red taillight wobble unsteadily down our long straight drive and disappear in the rain.

And still Mama did not appear.

At last I crept out to the landing, feeling strange and lonely. Viewed through the railings, the big rooms below were shadowy and frightening in their emptiness, and one of Grandmother Watson’s Chinese lamps was lying on the floor, its silk shade torn and the bulb splintered upon the rug.

I huddled on the landing, afraid to go down and even more afraid to go back to my dark room. I must have slept again because Mama woke me as she was tucking me into my own bed. I clung to her, sobbing, and felt her hair hanging in cold wet strings like a soaked floor mop. Her cool skin smelled faintly of gasoline.

“You left me,” I sobbed. “You and Jethridge went away and I was all alone.”

“Little goose,” she soothed. “Jethridge left hours ago, right after you went to bed. And I didn’t leave you. I just ran outside to bring in the lawn chair cushions before the rain spoiled them.”

“But the lamp,” I quavered, confused. “I didn’t break it, Mama. It was just lying there. Honest.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the lamp. You’ve had a bad dream. You always have bad dreams when it thunders. Remember? Go back to sleep now and forget all about it.”

In the bright sunlight of morning, the night’s strangeness really did seem like a bad dream. The Chinese lamp was in its accustomed place, bulb intact; and if there was a neatly mended tear in the silk shade, well, many things had been repaired instead of replaced during the endless war.

By the time Sadie arrived that morning, Mama had begun a sudden orgy of spring cleaning. Even after Sadie left, Mama kept cleaning, and Jethridge did not come.

That afternoon I sneaked over to the store with the last pennies he’d given me. Afterwards, Mama heard me crying under the Cape Jessamines. At the store they’d talked of Jethridge’s death — how his beautiful Harley-Davidson must have skidded at that bad curve on Ridge Road during the thunderstorm and plunged down the hillside. A terrible accident, they said. Just terrible.

Mama’s hand clenched my arm as I sobbed out my news. One of her pretty red fingernails was broken into the quick and I remembered that it was broken like that when she soothed away my bad dream. Yet as soon as I told her what the men said about Jethridge’s terrible accident, the tightness went out of her fingers and she forgot to spank me for going to the store.

By the time Daddy came home, she was almost her old self; but if her face froze when I was prattling to my father, then I would choose my words with care.

Fear that she would tell him whatever it was that I’d done wrong those past few months made me avoid any references to that time and I buried Jethridge so deeply that only the smell of sun-warmed roses could —

“Aren’t you going?” asks Beth from the doorway and before I think, I hiss, “What are you doing here, you sneaking little—”

Suddenly everything snaps back into focus.

“Sorry, honey,” I smile. “I was daydreaming and you startled me.”

She hugs me in relief. We find the toy she came back for and I kiss her goodbye again.

So that’s all it was!

Poor stupid Mama! How incredibly careless to let a four-year-old witness her one shabby little affair. But what a stroke of luck for her that Jethridge was killed when their romance turned sour, before Sadie found out for sure. Remembering the man’s swaggering confidence, I doubt if he’d have let Mama go back to being a proper Watson wife without a messy scandal.

If it weren’t so pathetic, I could almost laugh with relief to know finally, after so many years of wondering, that the coldness between Mama and me wasn’t something Beth and I need ever endure.

I’ll have to be careful, though, about lashing out at Beth like that again. She’s not me and I’m not Mama, but neither is she a baby any more. I mustn’t let her become puzzled or uneasy — she and Carter are much too close.

I glance at the diamond-rimmed watch Carter gave me on our fifth anniversary. Nearly four. Already?

Carter expects me at seven. Even if I hurry, I’ll only have two hours with Mitch and he’ll probably spend most of it sulking and going on and on about how I put my reputation above his love. He’s really getting tiresome. I could almost wish he had a Harley-Davidson so I could...

Oh my sweet Jesus!

Mama?

Basically, the only thing I like about Standley is his signature on my paychecks. I wasn’t overjoyed about having to see his runty little cigar-chomping face every day, but my leg hurt like hell where the bullet had gone through it, and even the painkillers didn’t help much, so I’d been working in the office since I had come back. I was so tired of it I didn’t care about the pain any more. I needed some action.