Бетти Смит: Maggie-Now

He used to need my life, she thought, to fill in his own.

Now he doesn't need that any more. He doesn't need me in that way any more. Oh, I'm sorry he told me!

She said: "Claude, in a way, I'm sorry you told me."

~ }27 1

'A CHAP]'ER SIXTY-FOUR A IN TIIE days that followed, Claude sat by the window and MaggieNTow sat with him and there vitas little to talk about. From time to time, he'd reach out his hand and she'd take it and tell him she loved him. Sometimes he'd ask her if she missed the children. She'd hesitate a moment before she told him, no, now that she had him.

.

About a week later, Denny came over in his lunch hour and ate with them. He brought news. The new store in Hempstead was ready and they wel e going to move in March first. They had already given notice to their landlord.

"Does Tessie feel better now about moving out there?"

asleep.Maggie-Now.

"Well," said Denny, a little evasively, "I made her see that it was for the best."

Denny spoke excitedly about the new store. He described the fixtures, the floor plan and some of the exotic meats and cheese that already had been delivered, and. .

While Denny was spa aking, Claude started to moan.

Suddenly his face contorted in severe pain.

"My head!" he gasped. "The pains. . get. . something

. . Margaret. . please. . I can't stand. ."

"Oh, darling. . deal. . dear darling!" she said. She ran into tile bathroom. There was nothing for a headache in the medicine chest, only a tin of aspirin. She knew that wouldn't be enough. She ran back to the kitchen. She spoke to him as though he were a child.

"There, my darling, Margaret will get you something and Denny will stay with you while I'm gone and I'll be right bacl.." She kissed him and rushed out.

Fortunately, the doctor was home. He was having lunch with his family. "How often dales he get these headaches?"

he asked.

"He never had one before in all the years we've been married."

"I'll give you a prescription…."

"That will take too long, Doctor. And oh, he seemed to be suffering so terribly! He c ould hardly talk, and. ."

"I'd better take a look at him," said the doctor. They drove over in the doctor's car.

Denny was on the stoop waiting for them. He seemed terribly distraught and kept putting his hands up to his head.

"Something terrible happened, Doctor," he said.

"Something awful. ."

"A stroke," said the doctor succinctly. He gave what comfort he could: "If he had to go, it was better this way.

A few moments of pain and it was all over."

Maggie-Now was too shocked to comprehend. "But he said he wouldn't go away," she kept repeating. "He promised!"

"If you loved him," said the doctor, "you'd rather have it this way. You wouldn't want him to suffer and die by inches stroke after stroke."

"But he told me he wouldn't leave me," she said like a bewildered child.

"I'm going to give you something, Mrs. Bassett," said the doctor, "to get you over this first shock." He broke an ampule and filled the hypodermic needle.

When she awakened, Claude was no longer there. The house seemed full of people. She heard Annie's voice saying she'd take care of everything.

The talking ceased when Maggie-Now came out of her room. She went into the kitchen. Annie had the range going full blast. She was mixing a cake and preparing a beef rib roast for the oven. Potatoes and vegetables were on the table waiting to be prepared. Annie knew it was right to have food ready for the people who would come.

"He's gone, Annie," said Maggie-Now.

"Is better if you cry, Licbchen," said Annie.

"But he promised. ."

[4 79 She went into the front room. "Papa, he said he wouldn't go. . he promised."

"Ah, me Maggie-NoNv," said Pat. "l\le poor Maggie-Now!"

Denny gave her a glass with some pinkish liquid in it.

"The doctor said you're to take this, Maggie-Now."

"I don't want it," she said.

"You must!" He started to weep. "The doctor said I

must make NTou take it."

"Of course," she said soothingly. "Don't cry. I'll take it."

"Maggie-Now," said Pat, "you must put yourself together, girl, dear. We got to fix it about the funeral."

"Funeral?" she said vaguely. "But I haven't any money."

"I have a bit put away," said Pat. "I'll pay for it."

"But, man, dear!" For the first time, Maggie-Now noticed Mrs. O'Crawley was there. "Man, dear, wouldn't it be hefter for.i\~Iaggie to take care of that?"

"I said I'd bury him and I will," said Pat. "Goddamn it!"

he added for no reason at all.

Maggie-Now's innate thoughtfulness broke through her shock. "It won't cost much, Mrs. O'Crawley," she said.

"We have our own plot and he can be with Mama and Grandfather. And I'll pay Papa back as soon as I can."

"He ain't going to be put in the ground," said Pat. "He wants to be ashes and the ashes to be thrown away in the wind where birds is flying."

"No! " screamed Ma: gie-NoN\T. "No! '

'He told me the last time I w as here and I said I would do that for him."

"I won't allow it!" she screamed. "It's against our religion."

"I\laybe it ain't against his," said Pat.

"No, Papa," she said note quietly. "I have the say and I

won't allow it."

"Look, Maggie-Novv~.'' said Denny. "You always gave Claude everything he wanted. You'd have ways to find out what he wanted and he could have it. You let him go when he wanted to and you never said no to anything he did or wanted. Why don't you give him this one last thing he wanted? It's nothing I'd want." He shivered. "But he wanted that."

"Yes, Dennv," said Maggie-Nov.~ quietly. "That's right."

[41 ] "Sure," said Pat. "And I'll take care of everything for you. Everything."

"Thank you, Papa," she said. Novv she seemed to get control again. "It was nice of you to come, Mrs.

O'Crawley. I think Annie made coffee. Will you go out in the kitchen and have a cup? "

"Thank you, I will," said Pat's wife.

She turned to Pat. "And thank you again, Papa. And why don't you ask Mick Mack to stop over? I'd like to see him."

After they had left, she went out to the kitchen. "Ah, Annie, you're so good," she said.

"Is nothing," said Annic. "Someday, maybe you do the same for me. Is right people do so for each other."

Maggie-Now put her coat on. "You go out, Maggie?"

"I want to talk to Father Flynn."

"Then you go by the church. Yes?"

"Yes, I will."

Maybe she will cry there, thought Annie.

Maggie-Now didn't go to the cremation. Pat and Denny went; no one else. Pat brought her the cheap urn that the crematory provided.

"I thought maybe you v. anted to keep this awhile," said Pat.

"Papa, it would be all right to bury his ashes with Mama, wouldn't it?"

"I gave him me word 1 would throw his ashes in the wind. I'll wait for the right day and then I'll come and get him and go out on a boat to where birds is flying, and I

will do it."

"All right, Papa," she said, obediently.

It was terrible, terrible, for Maggie-Now to be alone; to have no one to care for. The house echoed with emptiness. All, all were gone. No tenants occupied the rooms upstairs. Denny was gone, her father was gone, the children had been taken from her. And now Claude.