Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

They all came to the door, all the old people — asking for her mother, missing her. At first they came often. They came expecting to sit by her mother’s bedside, and at first, because they had been middle-aged when she was a child, she thought she must let them have their way. It seemed impossible to say to Mrs. Winters, who had taken over the missionary society and the Ladies’ Aid work, that she could not come in to see her mother. “I’m sure your mother would want to know about the meeting — if she’d listen to me a minute. I won’t stay, but a minute.”

But Joan saw her mother did not care about the missionary meeting any more or want to listen to Mrs. Winters. Her mind was turned now upon her own life. For the first time she was absorbed in what was to happen to herself. Her eyes were dull and empty, staring at Mrs. Winters. “It’s very nice, I am sure,” she said faintly. “I’m very pleased — so pleased — Joan, my feet are cold.”

“You must get well, dear Mrs. Richards,” said Mrs. Winters warmly. “We miss you very much. I can never take your place with the ladies. You have such a way with you — you keep us all laughing so nicely that it isn’t so hard when the collection comes round — there, you dear soul!” She bent and kissed the sick woman, her corsets creaking over her large bosom. “Now you just listen to me!”

But after she was gone Joan saw her mother’s eyes full of wonder, staring at the wall opposite her. “I’m finished with it all,” she said in a half-whisper. “It’s all gone far from me, all I ever used to do. I’m only in this body lying here.”

So after a while Joan kept them all away and soon they forgot and went about their days only remembering sometimes to ask how she did and to murmur or cry heartily, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” or sometimes, on Sunday, when good deeds were natural to think of, they wrote little notes: “We remember you in our prayers, dear friend.”

Prayers! Joan smiled bitterly. At first prayers had gone up from the village like smoke to heaven. Everywhere people were praying for her mother. Her father came home from Wednesday night meetings comforted by the prayers of his people. He went straight to the sick room. “Mary, I wish you could have heard Mr. Parsons’ prayer for you tonight and the ‘Amen’ that went up from the people. It may be the Lord is going to use your illness to stir the people’s souls into life again.” He spoke happily and unusually quickly, his pale guileless eyes beaming. He could bear even his dear wife’s illness if he saw God’s will in it. He hurried downstairs to pour himself out to God gratefully. Joan, listening to his footsteps, thought to herself that one could not be sure about praying. “Do you pray, Mother?” she asked timidly. There was no physical shyness left now between them. She tended her mother’s body as she did her own. But her mother’s soul she had not penetrated. She dared not think of it. Did her mother know she must die?

“No, I don’t pray,” her mother said simply, “I don’t pray anymore. I guess I began to get out of the habit when you children were little. You woke me so early in the morning and at night I was too tired. And it never seemed worth while to pray for myself.”

And so it was after a while with all praying. It became tedious to pray for a woman who steadily grew weaker. It became rebellion against God finally to keep on praying when obviously she would not get well. Even the father at last prayed only thus, “Thy will be done, O God.” Or he prayed, “Help us to be ready for sorrow.” So the mother slipped gradually out of life and out of the minds of the people. She was not yet dead but since she was not seen or heard and since her struggle was solitary, she had no more to do with them. Only Miss Kinney still brought flowers faithfully to her door.

“I won’t come in,” she said, standing drooping upon the threshold, her narrow length topped by her flopping leghorn hat. “Just a nosegay for your dear mother! I love her, you know. She always understood so well about Africa. No one else will ever understand so well as she did — just as though she had been there. She used to see it all, just as it was!”

And so the spring passed, and summer came and it was the grave autumn once more, and it seemed as if her mother had always lain like this, helpless and to be cared for, as if for years she had been in her mother’s place. Rose came home and the summer passed and it was autumn and Rose was gone again.

Now Joan and her mother lived quite alone together. If her father or Francis or even Dr. Crabbe came to see her mother, Joan was the gate through which they must pass. Her father was no more her mother’s husband. She stood between these two, her father and her mother, at first shyly, feeling herself between them, knowing there must be some secret life she interrupted. Then she came to see there was no such secret life. She intercepted nothing, no warmth, no hidden tenderness. Twice each day her father said to her, “Would your mother like to see me?” She went in and asked her mother, “Do you want to see Father?”

Her mother always paused to consider it, bringing her mind back from afar to consider, and her mood changed. Though she had been cheerful now she would say fretfully, “I want to sleep,” or she would say with suspicion, “What does he want?” or sometimes, and usually, she would say, “A little while, perhaps,” and unknowingly she sighed. Then her father went in and they talked. “Well, Mary, how are you today?” “Thank you, Paul, I am about as usual.” “Would you like me to read to you?” “No, thank you, Paul. Joan reads to me a good deal.” He paused, searching his mind for something to tell her, and then he began again carefully, “You will be glad to hear, my dear, that at the mission at South End I have baptized—”

“Yes, dear Paul.” Her eyes closed. Soon he would leave the room on tiptoe to find Joan and say, “She is asleep. She seems to sleep a great deal. It is best, perhaps.”

“It’s best,” she answered, with pity for this unearthly man. In some sort of momentary human warmth she must have been conceived, but there was no human warmth in him now. All significance of him had passed from that room upstairs. It was as though he had never been there at all. The room was given over to her mother, now.

In the evening after supper Francis rose from the table quickly. “Mom ready for me?” She nodded, for she did not come down to supper until her mother was ready for Francis. She had brushed her mother’s hair and put on her fresh bed-jacket and touched her face with rouge. For one evening her mother had asked for the mirror from the bureau. “I want to see how I look,” she said. “I don’t want my son to remember me ugly. I look ghastly—” She stared at herself mournfully.

Joan said playfully. “I could dress you up with a little rouge.” Her mother had never worn rouge. She would have felt ashamed, as though she were aping a worldly woman. But now she looked at Joan with a gleam of the old mischief suddenly shining out of her eyes. “Why not?” she said. “It can’t matter much what I do now. I have to stand or fall by what’s done. A little rouge here and there won’t weight the scales much.”

So laughing together a little sadly, they did it. Joan fetched her rouge pot and touched with delicate faint rose her mother’s wan cheeks, while her mother held the mirror. “It does look nice,” her mother said with great interest. “I do believe I’m a little pretty even yet.” She looked up at Joan shyly and the tears rushed into the girl’s eyes. She bent to kiss her mother quickly and as she bent she caught from her mother’s body that smell of death. No washing with perfumed soaps, no sprinkled scent could hide it. But her mother did not know it was there, since it was the atmosphere in which she must now live. She was sprightly for the moment.