Philipp Meyer - The Son

“I do,” she said. “One day I really do, just not by myself.”

She looked at me and took my hand in both of hers and kissed it. She was a beautiful woman. I reminded myself she was plenty strong.

“Do you ever think about what my life is like here?”

“I imagine it’s hard,” I said, though I didn’t.

“It is hard. I’m stuck in this house with a little animal who can’t even talk to me. Sometimes I wake up and think today will be the day that I forget how to speak.”

“Isn’t it nice to have the baby, though?”

“Of course it is,” she said. “But not any nicer for me than it is for you. When he’s crying I sometimes want to leave him in his crib and run as far away as possible.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Sorry. I’m tired of playing the long-suffering wife. I thought it suited me and now it doesn’t. I will do all the work of raising your son but if you think I am going to be silent about it you have another think coming.”

“Can’t the niggers look after him?”

“My mother keeps them busy enough,” she said.

“You know when I’m not here I’m either sleeping in the rain or living off wormy biscuits. Or people are shooting at me.”

“I feel like your mistress,” she said. “So don’t pretend it is nothing but misery, because I know you, Eli, and I know you wouldn’t be doing it if it were.”

Then we were both quiet. She looked like she was going to cry. “I don’t want this to be your last memory of me.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen.”

“And please stop saying that.”

“All right,” I said.

“At first I thought there was another woman up there. Now I wish that’s all it was.”

Things had gone wrong from the start. She’d walked onto her plane and her pilot was missing and his replacement — a woman — had a certain look. For the first time in her eighty-six years, decades of flying ten or twenty times a week, she wanted to get off the plane. Of course everything was fine. The woman was an excellent pilot, she’d flared so perfectly that Jeannie had barely been able to tell they’d touched down. But still there was that feeling.

Later she was sitting on the gallery, the sun was going down and it was quiet and she had begun to weep, the entire sky from front to back was red and purple and fiery orange, one day soon would be her last, perhaps this one, everything was so beautiful she could not bear the thought of leaving it. Then Frank Mabry had made his presence known. He took off his hat and waited for her to acknowledge him. She wondered if he were blind, or deaf, but he was just stupid. She ignored him, but still he would not leave, he stood there like a scolded dog and waited.

“Ma’am,” he said, after a minute.

She nodded. Dabbed at her eyes.

“I was wondering if you’d thought about what we talked about last time.”

“No,” she told him. She had no idea. He flew the small helicopter they used on roundups. She dabbed her eyes again and hoped he would drop dead but he didn’t retreat, he seemed to have a sense that he might yet be able to weasel his way into her good graces.

“How long have you known me, Frank?”

“Thirty-four years. And in fact that is just it. I have been wondering if something… were to happen, if any arrangements had been made, any considerations, for the people who had been in your employ so long.”

She wondered what he was talking about. Then she understood. “Please leave,” she said.

He clomped away. She hoped he might be kicked by a horse or that his truck would flip or that the rotor might fall off his little helicopter. She watched him drive away, had the sense everything was ruined, and went up to bed without dinner.

THE NEXT MORNING she woke up earlier than she wanted. Normally she turned on the computer, checked the oil and S&P futures, where Asia had closed and Europe was trading, but this morning she had no interest. She dressed and padded down the long hallway, the light just coming in on the dark wood and busts of old Romans, but instead of going downstairs she stood at the top and watched the sun come up through the stained glass. There was something about it. She’d seen it thousands of times but now there was something different. You’re being sentimental, she decided. She began to make her way down the stairs.

In the kitchen she made breakfast but when she went to put her plate away, she found the dishwasher full of clean dishes and glasses. Not hers; she’d only been here a night. Someone — some employee — must have thrown a party, she didn’t remember being asked, no, she thought, I was not asked, of course it was Dolores, who ran the house, no one else would have dared.

Dolores had worked for her thirty years and they’d always maintained a tactful sort of friendship, hugs and air kisses, J.A. making the occasional showing at Dolores’s family gatherings, birthdays or graduations, a benevolent presence. Certainly she had helped them live far above what was normal in Dimmit County. And, unlike Mabry, Dolores was being taken care of, though she did not know it yet.

She felt a heat rising in her; she should not be having these feelings. They were no longer healthy. She pulled back into her mind. The anger went out of her, the sun came brightly through the windows, she could see hummingbirds just outside and the scent of vanilla — the agaritos were blooming — but it didn’t matter, everyone was against her, they all saw the end was near. She wondered if she should have remarried. Which was ridiculous — Ted had died years ago, another husband to bury — but still, she had not led a natural life.

Your pills, she thought, and your drink. But even the small container seemed like too much effort. She wondered when Dolores would come, she would mention the incident but make it clear all was forgiven, she could have parties but only with permission. The light was spreading through the house, across the old rugs and dark floors, the portraits of her father and grandfather and great-grandfather along the main stairway; of course there ought to be one more, the person who had run the ranch longer than her father and grandfather combined, but one did not hang a portrait of oneself. And there was no one behind her to do it. Her grandson: perhaps he would be happy. That was all she could hope for.

The front door opened and closed and Dolores appeared at the end of the dining room, a tiny figure, out of proportion to all her surroundings. There was a long minute as she walked closer; she was carrying a new white handbag and when she reached the near end of the dining room, she smiled and said, “Good morning, Mrs. McCullough.”

“Good morning,” she said. “How was your little party?”

The woman looked away. Jeannie could see her mind working. “Party?” she said. “It was not a party, it was just a gathering, it was not planned.”

This was clearly rehearsed and she became angry again: “Well, let me know next time. It is still my house.”

Dolores continued to look away and then Jeannie felt bad; what would it be like to be nearing the end of your life, still being scolded? She came around the counter, intending to hug her, to show this was nothing serious, they were old friends, but if Dolores noticed her intention she didn’t let on. She said, “I’ll go see about your room,” and turned back toward the stairs, giving Jeannie the feeling that she, not Dolores, was the one who ought to be apologizing.

And there was that feeling — that Dolores no longer thought it worth hiding what they both knew, which was that in most important ways she no longer needed J.A. McCullough. Within her own community, Dolores was considered wealthy, a matriarch, people calling on her for favors, at every holiday there were cars parked on both sides of the road to her house.