Джеймс Кейн - The Enchanted Isle

He came.

He bent over and kissed me on the forehead. Then he whispered, “Good night, little Mandy.”

“Good night, Steve.”

“You see, I keep my promises.”

“For that I thank you, Steve.”

He sat on the bed and went on, “Mandy, there’s something I want to explain... why I paddy-whacked you.”

“Steve, you beat me up.”

“OK, call it that.”

“I call it what it was.”

“It was not for the reason you said, the one that you screamed at me more than once while I held you across my knee. To feel your bottom, you said. It wasn’t that at all. It was because I thought you were stepping out with that bunch Amy Schultz runs around with, and it almost set me crazy. Mandy, I couldn’t take it. Talking with her, after you left, trying to get on your trail, your mother found out that you weren’t... for that, and this other thing that you told me, that nothing went on on this trip between you and that boy you ran off with. I can stand all the rest and not mind. I can even glory in you, the nerve that you showed that day to hold steady there at the wheel of the car they put you to drive and get out of there with the money and the boy. Mandy, you couldn’t do wrong for me. It’s what I’ve been wanting to say.”

He got up then and kissed me once more on the forehead, but I pulled him to me, held him close, and kissed him on the mouth. I said, “Steve, now I know you’re my father. I love you.”

“Little Mandy, good night.”

Then he tiptoed to the door, and as he went out we waved to each other and laughed.

We were both up early, and I put on the blue dress, the one I’d left home in, and combed out my hair, and put a blue ribbon around it. Soon as I’d made us some breakfast we began straightening up to kind of get things in order. Then I put on an apron to go out front and sweep off, as we had two cedar trees and that time of year they shed, so brown fuzz was all over the place, ’specially the walk. So then Mrs. Minot was there, the woman who lived next door. She wanted to know where I’d been, and I said, “Oh, I come and go. First I’m here, and then I’m not here.” Then she asked where Mother was, and I said she’d be here directly. She said, “She left yesterday with a man, in a car, and three bags that he carried out. Has she gone away again?” So, of course, what she really meant was, not only about Mother but about me, had I spent the night alone in the house with Steve? I looked at her straight and asked, “Mrs. Minot, do you know what curiosity did to the cat?” And when she didn’t answer I said, “It killed her, that’s what. And I really and truly hope it does not do the same to you.” So on that there was nothing much she could do but go in her house again, which she did.

“What was that about?” asked Steve when I went in again.

“Woman sticking her nose in our business and getting it cut off is all.”

“She’s done nothing but try to find out about you.”

“What she found out wouldn’t choke a gnat.”

I got out the vac, but he said, “Mandy, put it back and put that broom away. The house is OK like it is. Your mother’s seen it worse. We’re in for one God-awful day, so let’s not throw it away working for Mr. Hoover. Let’s take it easy till they get here.”

So I put the things away and we sat in the living room, trying to take it easy. We did, I guess, for ten minutes, just sitting and not saying much. But then I had to talk. I said, “This Vernick now? Why did he say what he did, that I wasn’t his child?”

“I don’t exactly know.”

“‘Don’t exactly’ means you do. So, why?”

“Mandy, it’s none of my business.”

“But it’s my business, Steve. That means it better be yours, ’less you want me to leave you again.”

He got up, went to the window, and stood looking out. He stood there a long time, and I knew he was hoping they’d come. But it was only a quarter to ten, and they didn’t. I repeated it one more time: why did Vernick say what he did? And then at last he said, “OK, if you insist, I’ll tell you what I heard, what I’ve picked up from time to time, what may be true or may not be. Did you hear what I said? It may be true or may not be. But this much I’ll guarantee: when I’ve told it you’ll wish I hadn’t. Because I loved your mother once and think I understand her. I can defend what she did, take the side of a fourteen-year-old, a pretty teenage girl who liked a good time, who lived for a good time then, later, and now. It’s OK with me what she did. I’m not so sure it will be with you.”

“Listen, I have to know! ”

“Then: she was playing around with Vernick.”

“That I can’t understand! It’s weird!”

“But not like robbing a bank.”

“OK, OK.”

“She was fourteen years old. Teenagers are weird.”

“I said OK. She was playing around with Vernick.”

“And then kind of ran into trouble.”

“You mean she came up pregnant?”

“Yes, except she wasn’t quite sure yet. She was just a kid and kept hoping and hoping and hoping... and waiting. She was afraid to tell her mother. And then at last she’d waited too long. She had to go in a home and have the child, have you. Then she put the bite on Vernick, and his father backed her up, made him marry her. That was a week before you arrived, and his father, still wanting to do the right thing, went to her father, your grandfather Gorsuch, to pay what the home had cost. But he said, Mr. Gorsuch did, that he hadn’t yet got the bill, but whatever it was there was no hurry about it. But Vernick’s father wanted to lean over backwards and, instead of waiting, went himself to the home to give them a check so no bill would be sent Mr. Gorsuch. But the woman couldn’t say, or wouldn’t say, how much the bill would be, and he thought it was pretty funny. He asked her to please find out. And when she stepped in the next office, he tiptoed over to listen. And what he heard stood his world on its head, and his son’s world, and your mother’s world, and your world.”

“What did he hear?”

“‘But that’s all been taken care of.’”

“Taken care of? By whom?”

“That’s what stood all those worlds on their heads.”

“Steve, I asked you, by whom?”

“I don’t know by whom!”

After a long time I asked, “Does Mother know?”

“I can’t say what she knows.” And then: “Mandy, she was a teenage girl, a kid that liked a good time. Who knows what she knows?”

“But if she doesn’t know, I don’t!”

“I said, if I tell it you’ll wish I hadn’t.”

“And I don’t have any father.”

“You have me... if you want me.”

“Want you? Want you? Steve, I want you as I’ve never wanted anything! Steve, be my father! Be my father always. I’ve... I’ve been hit by too many trucks. I can’t take any more!”

By that time I was crying, and he came over and patted me, taking me in his arms and kneeling beside my chair. He said, “Mandy, I knew it would hurt. I warned you it was going to. I begged you not to make me tell it. But a deal is a deal, and if that’s what you wanted I had to go through. I want to be your father, and I promise never to take advantage. Well? I proved that I wouldn’t, didn’t I? Last night?”

“Yes, Steve, and I was so happy.”

“There’s one other thing, little Mandy.”

“Yes, Steve? What is it?”

“You can count on me, all the way.”

He knelt there some little time, patting me, kissing me, and calming me down. Then we got to laughing, when he got his handkerchief out and let me blow my nose. He said I sounded “like the B&O freight every night blowing for College Park.” Laughing was what I needed, I guess, and I began to feel a lot better. And then when I looked there was Mother, skipping up on the porch in that graceful way she had. Steve jumped up and scrambled out in the hall, opening the door for her. Then she was in, pulling his ear and kissing him, I guess from habit, or maybe forgetting who she was married to. She was all smiles for him but hadn’t any for me. I mean she had hazel eyes, which took up the green she always wore, to contrast with her hair, which was a beautiful dark red. And they could be warm and friendly and gay, and in fact usually were, ’specially for a man. They flashed that way for Steve, but when she saw me they got hard, and when they were hard they were hard. I mean like a couple of marbles. Then she started in letting me have it, taking up right where she left off on the phone the night before. She ran over it, what a pest I had been since the day I was born. She was ’specially bitter about Vernick, about my going to him.