Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“An elementary school, and a high school, and even a university,” Matthew said.

“What’s a university?”

“A... well, a collection of colleges.”

“College comes after the eighth grade,” Kate said.

“Yes, but a long way after.”

“Can I go to college?”

“Sure.”

“Mommy started college, but then she met Daddy. He was killed, you know. During the war. Were you in the war?”

“Yes.”

“Were you in the navy?”

“No. The army.”

“Daddy was in the navy. Did you ever hear of a place called Guadercanal? That’s where he was killed. It’s in the Pacific someplace. Did you ever hear of it?”

“Yes.”

“Were you ever there?”

“No.”

“Would you like to go there?”

“Not particularly.”

“Neither would I,” Kate said. “Are you going to be my stepfather?”

“I don’t know,” Matthew said honestly.

“You don’t seem at all wicked.”

Matthew laughed. “Did you think I would be?”

“Stepfathers are supposed to be wicked. I read it in the Blue Fairy Book . Did you read that?”

“I think so. When I was a little boy.”

“I can read, you know,” Kate said.

“Yes, I can see that.”

“When did you get your mustache?”

“Oh, I don’t remember exactly. When I was nineteen or twenty, I think.”

“Are you gifted?”

“No, I’m not.”

“But you got a mustache.”

“I guess I was just lucky,” Matthew said.

Kate nodded. “Maybe I’ll be lucky too. Will we pass through Minneapolis?”

“Yes.”

“Grandma and Grandpa took me there once. We had lunch. Could we stop for lunch in Minneapolis?”

“Sure.”

They came out of the lake country and down along the banks of the Mississippi, past St. Cloud and into Minneapolis and the state university, and they had lunch in Charlie’s on Fourth Avenue South, and then drove through to St. Paul, the capitol building shining bright and white in the early afternoon sunshine. May was upon Minnesota and the roads were lined with lady’s-slipper and dandelion, stands of white pine, down through Winona, following the banks of the Mississippi, the river frothy green and white as it rushed to the sea, and across into Wisconsin with Lake Superior high above them now, into the real dairy country and the smell of good fresh cheese permeating the countryside, the glimpse of factories, the giant engines waiting to be shipped farther west and east, the Diesel engines, the turbines, the auto frames, pasteurizing machines, tractors, paper, crossing the Kickapoo, the Indian name sounding on the evening air with echoes of massacres and scalp-taking and the ghosts of pioneers, pushing on to Madison, the town still with the ebbing days of a university semester, twilight in the hills behind the school, and then across the state line into Illinois, hitting Rockford and then cutting over to Waukegan, and the sudden magnificent sight of Lake Michigan and the suburbs falling away one by one, Oak Park, Cicero, the national memory of gangsters of the twenties, bootleg whiskey and machine-gun chatter lingering in the fast-falling night, and then into Chicago itself and the giant buildings and the blood smell of the slaughterhouse, Kate’s eyes wide in her head. They devoured a steak in the Pump Room and went to sleep exhausted at ten.

They cut off the corner of Illinois in the morning, passing into Indiana and the towns of Valparaiso and Plymouth, racing through the rich farmlands of the state, passing through Columbia City and Fort Wayne, another state line falling behind them, the barren stretch of the low flat plains from the border to Akron and suddenly the whir of a city and the smell of rubber hovering in the air pungent and vile, and through to Youngstown and the refineries adding their vibrant glow to the sun’s, and then Pennsylvania, across that entire shabby mining state, the houses covered with coal dust and poverty and dignity, over the Alleghenies and down the bank of the Susquehanna, pushing for Philadelphia before evening fell, passing through Harris-burg and then down through Lancaster and the Pennsylvania Dutch country with the hex signs on the barns and the Amish men in the fields. He was exhausted when they reached Philadelphia and checked into their hotel.

They made New York after ninety minutes of traveling the next morning. She always welcomed you, that city. She sat there on the other side of the river wearing a crown in her hair and smiling with a million banked windows reflecting sunlight, beckoning you to cross the bridges, to drop from the aerial highways and enter her arms, hung with clouds and neon. Busy and frantic, she nonetheless welcomed you the way no other city in the United States did, with the possible exception of San Francisco. She welcomed you simply by her existence, she made you feel this was the end of the journey and not a whistle stop, this was New York, you’d had them all once you’d had her. They stopped for lunch in Mamaroneck, and then pushed on to Talmadge.

By the time they reached the house, they were old friends.

Amanda watched them, feeling peculiarly excluded.

She had the oddest notion, all at once, that the birth of her own child would be completely anticlimactic for Matthew. Feeling bloated and unbeautiful and awkward and hot, as May squashed Talmadge flat under a blistering unseasonal thumb, she watched her husband and the child and was slightly annoyed by their mutual delight with each other. Now that Kate was here, now that her voice filled the house, now that her hand was in Matthew’s, her husband seemed to take on all the stereotyped traits of the new father. Everything the child did seemed to amuse him, and even though Amanda was forced to admit her niece had a delightful sense of humor and a marvelous laugh, which set the timbers of the old house ringing whenever she cut loose with it, she did feel that Matthew’s doting attitude was slightly unbecoming — especially when he was about to become a bona fide father in less than two months. Still Kate’s laugh was contagious, the incongruous raucous bellow of a fat woman watching a stage show. And every time it issued from Kate’s lungs and mouth, Matthew would begin laughing with her, and finally even Amanda, who thought these carryings-on were juvenile and nonsensical, was tempted into laughter, which hurt her back and her extended belly. Kate was a mine of misinformation, and Matthew listened to her solemn pronouncements and answered them with a dignity Amanda found foolish and indulgent.

“Do you know what the most dread disease in the world is?” Kate asked once.

“What?” Matthew said.

“Kansas,” she answered, without a trace of a smile.

“That’s true,” Matthew said, “but Biloxi is even worse,” and the child giggled uncontrollably.

He read to her each night. He bought books by the dozen, and Amanda could hear his voice drifting down from the upstairs bedroom. “The terrible, terrible, awful old cat, the cat who went down to the sea in a hat, now that was the cat, oh you know the cat, the cat who had never once captured a rat,” reading any idiotic story with drama and emotion until finally Kate’s inquiring voice would grow fuzzy with sleep, and he would kiss her and turn out the light and tuck the cover under her neck and say, “See you in the morning, Kate,” and she would say, “Don’t forget. Breakfast,” and he would come tiptoeing downstairs with a smile on his face. Amanda, in her last stages of pregnancy, slept late each morning. The two, Matthew and Kate, would cook breakfast and then sit in the kitchen and chatter like jay birds. Kate would tell him all her plans for the day, and he would feel very much like a father, a very real father who listened to the problems of his young daughter and advised her on how to care for a doll’s broken neck, or what to tell that snotty kid Iris next door, or how to tighten her skates with a skate key, or even how to blow her nose like a lady. He enjoyed his role immensely. She would walk him down the path to the garage, and he would back the car out, and then lean out the window, and Kate would kiss him goodbye and shout, “Will you be back soon?” and he would answer, “For dinner,” and she would yell, “Are you going out tonight?” and he would yell back, “No!” and race to the station.