Kent Haruf - Plainsong

They still have their papers in the morning.

They’ll be home in time.

What about money? he said.

I’m going to take half of our savings.

The hell.

It’s half mine, she said. It’s only fair.

He took out matches and lit the cigarette he’d been holding. He blew smoke toward the ceiling light and looked across at her. All right, he said. Take the money.

I already have, she said. And you’ll be good to the boys, won’t you. And you’ll pay attention to them. And I want them to call me and for you to let me talk to them. I want you to promise you won’t make that a problem.

You can call any time, he said. They can call you any time.

And I want them to come and see me too. After a while. After I’ve gotten settled.

I think they should, he said. They’ll want to. They already miss you now. It’ll be worse after you leave.

He smoked and looked around for an ashtray but there wasn’t any and she didn’t get up to find him one. He tapped ashes into his cupped palm.

So that’s it?

Yes, I think so.

All right. I think I’ll go.

He rose without saying anything more and he walked out onto the front porch and she followed him and shut the door. Outside, he brushed the ashes off his hand and that evening he drove the two boys back to their mother’s house, driving across town in the old pickup with a grocery bag containing their clean pajamas on the seat between them, with the blue streetlights turned on at all the street corners and the town itself looking quiet and serene. He pulled up and stopped in front of the house. The lights were on inside.

Mom’ll bring you home in the morning, he said. And you’ve got your pajamas.

They nodded.

You’re all set then.

Can we call you if we need anything? Bobby said.

Of course. But you’ll be all right. I know you will. You’re going to have a good time here.

Guthrie and the two boys sat in the heated cab, looking at the little stucco house with the lights showing in the windows. Once they saw her pass before the window carrying something. Patches of snow under the bare trees in the yard were shining in the house light.

All right? Guthrie said. That’ll be good. You’ll have a fine time. Who knows, maybe you won’t even want to come home again. He patted them on the legs. A joke.

But they didn’t smile. They didn’t say anything.

Well. You better go. Your mom’s waiting. I’ll see you in the morning.

Good night, Dad.

Good night, he said.

They climbed out of the pickup and walked one after the other up the sidewalk and knocked on the door and stood waiting without turning to look back at him, and then she opened the front door. She had changed clothes since the afternoon and now was wearing a handsome blue dress. He thought she looked slim and pretty framed in the doorway. She let them in and closed the door, and afterward he drove up Chicago past the little houses set back from the street in their narrow lots, the lawns in front of them all brown with winter and the evening lights turned on inside the houses and people sitting down to dinner in the kitchens or watching the news on television in the front rooms, while in some of the houses some of the people too, he knew well, were already starting to argue in the back bedrooms.

When they entered the house Ike and Bobby found that she had already set the table in the little dining room. It was pleasant, with lighted candles and the flames reflecting in the glasses and silverware, and out in the kitchen she had hamburger chili ready to dish up and a round chocolate cake, which she had made specially for them. She wanted it to be festive.

Well come in, come in, she said. Don’t be strangers. Take off your coats. I have everything ready.

We ate at home, Bobby said, looking at the table. We didn’t know you’d have supper.

Oh. Didn’t you? She looked at him. She had both hands on the back of a chair. She looked at his brother. I thought you would eat here. I thought that was understood.

We can eat some more, Ike said.

Don’t be foolish. You don’t have to make yourselves sick.

No. We’re still hungry, Mother.

Are you?

Yes, we are.

I am, Bobby said.

They sat down and ate the supper she had prepared. They were able to eat quite a lot while she told them about her decision to go to Denver. They listened to her without saying anything since Guthrie had already told them about it. She said she wanted them to come visit her soon and that her leaving was going to be better for everyone, including the two of them, even if they couldn’t see it yet, because soon she’d be able to act like their mother again, and then when she was feeling completely better they would all decide what to do next, didn’t they think that would be all right? They didn’t know, they said. Maybe, they said. She said she guessed that would have to do, that it was about as much as she could hope for right then.

After supper they played a game of blackjack which she had taught them a year ago. She went to the closet and opened her purse and took out some coins and they used these to bet with, determining for the sake of the game that the coins were all the same worth, even the quarters and pennies. During the card game she sat across from them on the carpet with her stockinged legs folded back to the side and her dress covering her knees. She acted as though she were happy, as though they were having a real party, and made little jokes to tease them, and once she stood up and brought each of them more cake from the kitchen and they ate it sitting on the floor together. They watched her with their heads down and smiled when she said things.

Later they put on their pajamas in the bathroom and then went into her bedroom and got into the bed that she used.

She undressed in the bathroom too. She brushed her hair and washed her face and put on a long nightgown, then came into the bedroom. She said she’d made up the bed in the other room for them. But they asked to sleep in this room with her. Couldn’t they, this once? They were already in the bed. She stood beside the bed looking at them. They wanted to sleep one on each side of her but she said that would be too hot. She got in on the outside and Bobby lay in the middle with Ike next to him. The ceiling light down the hallway shone in through the half-open door. They settled down and lay quietly. Occasionally a car went by outside on Chicago Street. They talked a little in the dim light.

Mother, are you going to be all right in Denver? Ike said.

I hope so, she said. I want to be. I’ll call you when I get there. Will you call me back sometimes?

Yes, he said. We’ll call you every week.

Does Dad have your number? Bobby said.

Yes, he does. And you know how much I love you, don’t you. Both of you. I want you always to remember that. I’m going to miss you so much. But I know you’re going to be all right.

I wish you didn’t have to go, Ike said.

I don’t understand why you are, Bobby said.

It’s hard to explain, she said. I just know I have to. Can you try to accept that, even if you don’t understand it?

They didn’t say anything.

I hope you can.

After a while she said, Do you have any more questions?

They shook their heads.

Do you think you can go to sleep?

In the night after they were asleep she got up and looked out the window at the front yard and the empty street, at the stark trees that stood in the lawn like arrested stickfigures. She went out to the kitchen. She made coffee and took it to the front room and lay down on the sofa and after an hour or more she went to sleep. But she woke early, in time to wake them and set out cereal, and then she drove them in the car back to the house in the early cold winter morning. She leaned across in the front seat of the car and kissed them both, and Guthrie came out on the porch to meet them, and then she turned the car around and went out the drive onto Railroad Street and drove through Holt, which didn’t take long, and then she was in the country on US 34 driving west to start her next life in Denver.