Mark Dunn - We Five

“And this is that opportunity. Ruth, dear, do you love this man?”

“Not in the way I’m expected to. But he and I are becoming very good friends— close friends.”

Vivian Colthurst nodded as she dunked. She tapped the doughnut on the rim of her cup to keep it from dripping on its way to her mouth. She thought for a moment and then asked, “Won’t he be disappointed when he finds out you aren’t the kind of woman he thinks you are?”

Ruth smiled and shook her head. “He knows how I am. And I know how he is. It’s the kind of arrangement a lot of people like us are making these days. Society dictates that we must hide who we are, so if we find someone we’re fond of with whom to do our hiding, why shouldn’t we be with that person?” Ruth touched Vivian’s hand. There was nothing in the gesture that one might not see on any given day between two female friends. But the touch meant something very special for these two friends.

Vivian Colthurst spoke softly and without smiling. “Why shouldn’t you be with that person, you ask. Because you should be with this person — the person sitting right across from you.”

Ruth shook her head. “I don’t want a Boston marriage, Vivian. I want a Winnemac marriage. I think Cain does too, or he wouldn’t have asked me to go with him. Besides, Mohalis is only a short interurban ride from Zenith. You’ll continue to see me and I’ll continue to see you. And there will be a nice advantage to your seeing me there : we’ll be removed from the curious looks and the outright scowls of all those men and women of the ‘Sanctified Spirit,’ who are quick to judge in the name of their blessed Jesus.” Ruth laughed. “Good gracious God, Vivian, leave it to you to pick a profession which offers no romantic flexibility whatsoever. You might as well give up your job as choir director for Sister Lydia and, and join a convent!”

Vivian tried to hold back, but Ruth had gotten the better of her and she acknowledged the comical irony in her situation with a shrug and a grin. “Your Mr. Pardlow—” said Vivian when the feeling of merriment had somewhat subsided, “—he’s been sitting in that ward right next to his friend all this time?”

Ruth nodded. “He told me he thinks somebody should be there for those moments when Pat wakes up — so one of the nurses can be called to give him another shot of morphine to put him back to sleep again.”

“Is Pat talking? Does he say anything during those moments when he’s awake?”

“Not much. Cain says that once or twice he asked for his mother.”

“And where is his mother?”

“She’s dead. But in his delirium he doesn’t seem to know this.”

“And the boy’s father?”

“In Hollywood. He’s a carpenter. He works in pictures. But I don’t think anyone’s been able to reach him.”

“Then it’s good that Cain is there.”

Ruth nodded.

Cain had moved his chair away from the bed and put it against the wall to give Sister Lydia more room. She spoke a few words to Pat, who could not hear her; the latest dose of morphine having placed him into a deep, almost coma-like sleep. Then she knelt next to the bed and clasped her hands prayerfully. “Kneel with me, Molly,” she entreated. “You too,” she said to Cain, over her shoulder. The three knelt together as Sister Lydia DeLash Comfort prayed first for Pat’s speedy recovery and then for the redemption of his soul, should God decide instead to take him home. Molly nodded and amened as tears coursed down her cheeks. Next to her, Cain also nodded, his own eyes moist, his throat constricting as he fought the urge to blubber unmanfully in the presence of these two women and all the men bedded in the crowded ward.

That night Maggie and Molly telephoned all over Zenith in search of their missing parents. Molly was sure the two middle-aged lovers — one a fugitive and the other a very likely accessory after the fact — had found one another and were now hiding somewhere in town. Maggie wondered if they’d blown town altogether. She wondered this because Clara had failed to come home. When Maggie returned from the hospital that night, she found their house unchanged from the state it had been in earlier in the day. She also found no new hurriedly scrawled missive pinned to the Hoosier.

Nor had Molly’s father left his daughter a single word as to his whereabouts. Molly knew why. Once he surfaced, he’d be nabbed by the police right away, a hot warrant for his arrest having been issued shortly after the incident.

As Molly sat on the edge of Maggie’s bed, fighting sleep, Maggie made mention of her Uncle Whit’s cabin in the northern woods of Minnesota. “He doesn’t go there anymore, but he never sold it. He once told Mama and me we could use it whenever we liked.”

“You think that’s where they might have gone?” asked Molly, holding her white muslin nightgown bunched in her hand. She had quickly packed up this and a few other night things from the apartment she shared with her father, which now sat empty and tomb-like, the shattered window a jagged reminder of what had happened there, the concrete ledge outside still littered with splinters of broken glass.

Maggie nodded. “The police would have no knowledge of the place. Mama’s had hardly any contact with Uncle Whit since his divorce from my aunt. It would be the perfect spot for the two of them to hide out.”

“But for how long?” asked Molly.

“Long enough for us to go there and help them figure out what they should do. If it were me, I’d leave the country altogether and go to Canada.”

Molly got up. Her look had turned dark and angry. “Why would I even want to help Dad after what he’s done? And your mother is nothing like the M-O-T-H-E-R in that disgustingly saccharine Eva Tanguay song.”

“Let’s respect a rule here, Molly. You may vilify your father and I may vilify my mother but we aren’t permitted to cross -vilify.”

Molly laughed sardonically. “Even though that’s all you’ve been doing since those two discovered they had feelings for one another?”

Maggie took the bait. “And how right I was. I knew your father wasn’t over his drinking. I just didn’t realize how dangerous he became when he got himself totally sozzled.”

Molly shot daggers at Maggie, and Maggie shot daggers back. “Do you want me to go?” Molly finally asked between clenched teeth.

“Only if you want to. Let it not be said I turned my back on you in your time of need.”

A silence passed. Then Molly began to think aloud. “I probably should go. I’m not a baby. I am quite capable of spending the night in my own apartment alone. Besides, if Dad’s going to be sitting in a jail cell for the next twenty or thirty years, I should probably start getting used to being by myself.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t think they’d keep him in that jail cell for anywhere near that long.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Pat’s probably going to die, so your dad will more than likely get the noose.”

“I hate you so much right now, Maggie, I can’t even see straight.”

“Then by all means rid yourself of me by leaving. Don’t let me stop you.”

“I’m going to ’phone for a taxi, if it’s all right with you. I’ll leave a nickel on the table.”

“You do whatever you like,” said Maggie, quickly turning away. Then just as quickly she swung back around. “You know, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t fallen for Pat — if you hadn’t done the very thing that sinister game expected you to do.”

“Pat wasn’t playing the game like the others. I just know it.”