Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

But weeping could not endure for long. The house clamored at her now as it had clamored at her mother. Hannah, thumping in from the kitchen, dried her tears at their source. “What’ll your pa relish for his supper, Miss Joan?” she asked mournfully.

Joan wrenched her mind from its torture to think of her father’s appetite. She must remember there was also her father.

“He’ll be tired coming in — a milk soup, and corn muffins — he likes them—”

“I have a little chicken left over — Frank likes chicken,” Hannah suggested.

There was Francis, too.

“Your ma—” Hannah began.

“I’ll go and ask her,” Joan replied. Upon the stairs she hesitated. She was dragging her steps slowly, hating to go in. Her mother’s vivid eyes would be turned on that door waiting, searching. No use lying to her, no use pretending she had not heard those two words, “hopelessly involved.”

She put her hand upon the knob and swallowed. Her mouth was dry. She was afraid to see her mother’s eyes.

But when she went in the room was in shadow. She had not known that the sun had set in the little while she was away. Her mother’s form was shrunken, a little heap. She could not discern her face.

“Mother!” she cried, moving to the bed.

“Yes,” her mother said. Her voice came up small and tired.

“You frightened me,” she cried in relief. “I couldn’t see you. What do you want for supper, darling Mother?”

“Joan,” her mother said in that small voice, “Joan, do you suppose you could do one thing for me — just one thing?”

“Why, yes — anything,” she answered, surprised, tender. She felt for her mother’s hand and found it. It was not a small hand. Awake it was shapely, beautiful and strong. Now it was asleep. Without life it seemed larger than it was, inert, stiff, difficult to hold, the fingers limp and sprawling. Out of the shadows her mother lifted her head from the pillow, suddenly intense. Her eyes came out to beseech Joan. “Don’t let him come in here by me — make up the bed in the guest room. I’m too … tired …”

She dropped the stiff hand “You mean— Father ?”

“Yes.” Her mother sank back again and Joan could not see her eyes. They were closed in the even pallor of the face vaguely outlined.

“Tell him — I’m — tired,” her mother said with weak urgency.

She had sat down on the bed. Now she rose, aware again of repulsion — that subdued quarreling in the night — was it this? She would not think of it.

“Of course,” she said resolutely, turning to the door. But her mother was not eased yet.

“Don’t let him even come in — not tonight,” she said. “Tell him I’m sleeping — tell him—”

“I’ll tell him,” said Joan, and shut the door behind her. She wanted to hear no more. This was not for her to hear.

But still he must be told. How could she tell him? She wondered, her hands busy about his solitary bed. How tell a man who had slept with his wife for thirty years that he could sleep beside her no more? Before she could plan she heard his steps upon the stair, soft footfalls, the left foot dragging a little. She ran out to meet him at the head of the stairs.

“What did the doctors say?” he asked.

“Dr. Crabbe said he was coming back, but he hasn’t,” she answered, putting him off.

He hesitated, and then moved to go in. Now she must speak, now before he went on. She stood before him, stopping him, her blood beating in her ears. “Father,” she cried above its beating, “Don’t — you mustn’t go in!”

“I mustn’t go in — to my own room?” he said, astonished.

“No — Father — I’ll explain—”

“Did the doctors—”

“No — she did — she — she’d rather you didn’t come in — she wants to sleep — to be alone. I’ve made the other bed for you. She’s very, very tired.”

They looked at each other, father, daughter. The daughter cried at him in her heart, “What have you done to make her so tired?” The father answered with his calm righteous look. His look said, “I have done nothing that is not my right to do.”

But she was stronger than he. Without a word he turned and went downstairs.

She was not herself anymore, not Joan, not a young woman home from college who had been waiting. She was some strange composite creature, more than a sister to Francis, more than a daughter to her father, less than herself. Her mother, lying in her bed, shut into her room, was a secret life to her. She was living secretly there. Though outwardly they called her Joan, though outwardly she was doing the things her mother had always done in the house, her secret, intense life was in the room upstairs. It set a wall about her, it made all else unreal. Now the only reality was this woman, whose body was dying while her mind was full of ferocious life. There was the reality, and it removed her from everything.

It removed her even from the memory of Martin. Sometimes like an echo, far away, she heard music coming from the church, but when she heard it she went steadily on about her moment’s business. She threw open no window to catch a chord or to hear the fragment of a melody. Music — even her own music — she had put aside and why should she stay her feet to listen to the echoes of his music? Nor did she ever hear his name anymore. Her mother had forgotten that the name was once a quarrel between them, and she could forget, for now she had her child back home again, completely returned. And in Joan’s heart there was no name either, and if there was the faintly echoing music she passed without listening to it and went on to what was now her work.

One morning the doorbell rang and passing by on her way upstairs, she opened the door and there he stood, smiling his faint melancholy smile. For a second it was familiar as seeing her own face unexpectedly in a mirror might be familiar. He said, “I’ve waited — I thought surely you would give me a sign — I thought you would come back—”

His voice was known to her. Once she had heard it with ecstasy and painful desire. Now she heard it only as something once known, a voice to which she had once listened but wanted no more to hear. He leaned with both hands on his stick, his hat in his hands, his music rolled under his arm. She stared at his narrow dark aging face, the white sides of his smooth dark hair, his sad hazel eyes, his thin beautiful mouth.

“Come back to me, Joan? I am not changed — I shall never change.”

Strange that his eyes, fixed deeply upon her, were no more than the eyes of a photograph, now put aside! Yes, he was not changed. He would never change. So he was not enough.

“I am busy with my mother now. She’s very ill.” She waited a moment. It was said rudely, like a child, and she thought an instant for something to add to it, to soften it. But when she tried to think of more, there was no more. She stared beyond him into the garden, and saw what she had not seen, that it was a sunny morning, gentle with spring. So after the moment’s waiting she shut the door on him quietly and without anger, and even with a little remorse lest it be too rude. She did not even care enough now to be rude to him or to hurt him.

Then she went upstairs.

At first the village came clustering about her mother. Miss Kinney was often at the door with flowers. “A few flowers, dear Joan — and if there is anything I can do — sit with her a little if you want to go out.”

“Thank you, Miss Kinney,” Joan said.

Mrs. Bradley brought calf’s-foot jelly. “It’s toothsome,” she explained. “Martin’s fond of it. How is she, Joan?”

She looked into Mrs. Bradley’s small stubborn gray eyes. “Thank you, Mrs. Bradley.” But the jelly she would not give her mother. She threw it into the garbage when Hannah was busy in some other room.