Kenny's Back. Victor J. Banis
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said it sharper than I meant to, and in a tone I had never used with him before, and it hit home. Even without looking at him, I knew I had hurt him. He didn’t say anything after that.
“Go to bed,” I said finally. I was tired all of a sudden, and mixed up. And the worst of it was, I wanted it too, again, but not badly enough.
Kenny didn’t have any guilt of his own, I’m sure of it, but some of mine rubbed off on him. The next day, it was all different between us. He didn’t look straight at me when we were around each other, and we didn’t say anything more to each other than we had to. When I went to bed that night, I saw him give me a funny looked. He wanted a sign, I know, or some word that told him everything was okay, but I didn’t give him any. He came to bed later and stopped at my room, opening the door and sticking his head inside.
“Mar,” he said in a whisper, “You asleep?”
I wasn’t, but a pretended I was. I never was a good liar. He knew I was pretending, and that must have hurt most of all. He waited a minute or two and then he went on to his own room, and I spent the whole night staring up at the ceiling and wishing he were in bed with me, curled up in my arms.
* * * * * * *
That was the last time he ever came down to my room at night. I came to hate myself for what I had done—not for screwing around like we had, but for hurting him the way I had, and shutting him out. I prayed for weeks that he would try again and I knew if he did that I would say, “yes” without any hesitation.
Right or wrong, good or bad, he had tormented my every dream at night, and through the whole day I couldn’t think of anything but Kenny—loving him, wanting him. I was nearly crazy from it all. I tried everything I could think of to show him how I felt, that it was all right now. A hundred times I suggested we go for a hike in the woods, or go into town together, or wrestle in the barn. He wasn’t having any, though. I had refused him once, something nobody had ever done before, and I wasn’t to have a second chance.
The worst of it was that he wanted it too. He hadn’t lied about liking what we had done. This was a whole new game for him and he wanted to play it to the hilt. But he was stubborn as an ox, and when he played again, it wasn’t with me.
I suppose, in a sense, I was the one who drove him to Dexter Holloman. From that standpoint, I was the cause of the storm that brewed during those following months. When it broke finally, it was sudden and furious, and in the end it swept Kenny away from us.
Strange to say, though, I probably suffered the least when Kenny left, disappearing one day to remain gone for five long years. Not that I didn’t miss him, in a way that none of the others could share, or even imagine; but for me, he had gone earlier.
He had left me after that night in my room. He had come back to Hanover, to the farm, but he had never come back to me.
CHAPTER THREE
It seemed that I had barely closed my eyes when Olsen tapped at my door to wake me. Homecoming or no homecoming, there was work to be done on a farm, even in October, and I had that to see to.
Usually we had the house to ourselves in the morning. There was always the aroma of fresh coffee from below as I cleaned up. It coaxed me along, hurrying me on my way. By the time I finally came down to the kitchen, Olsen would have our breakfast almost ready. There would be just time for me to wake up over the coffee before she set plates of ham and eggs and fresh bread in front of me, a small dish for herself; and then we would eat and talk, never anything too lengthy or serious. She kept up on how the farm was going, and I will give her credit, she knew as well as I did how much hay we would bring in this year, what prices it would fetch, which of the hands was earning his pay with good work and which ones wouldn’t likely be kept on another year.
Sometimes, too, I would hear of how things were going in the house: Mrs. Baker’s health, problems with the plumbing, whatever mattered in her world. It was a pleasant time of day. As mother and son, I suppose Olsen and I weren’t any outstanding success, but I often thought that as partners we worked fine.
I had forgotten though that before he had gone, Kenny had always been there with us during these early morning visits. If anything, he woke earlier than the two of us. It seemed almost as if he resented the time spent on sleeping, although I have never known a man who could fall asleep as quickly as he did, sleep as innocently untroubled, or wake as quickly.
He was there this morning, just the way it had been in the past. I heard his hearty laugh as I was coming down the stairs, too loud as usual, and sounding like he hadn’t one care to his name.
“Pity the poor rabbits,” I thought with a grin. “He’s sure to be out after them today.” The grin faded as I remembered that Kenny would be hunting something more serious than rabbits today.
I don’t know when I had seen Olsen in such spirits. I’m sure she had not looked so young in a long while. Kenny had told some joke or funny story, and the two of them were rocking back and forth in their chairs, their shoulders shaking with laughter. They were eating already, I noticed. I must have been slower cleaning up than usual, I thought, and shrugged away the slight flash of resentment.
“Good morning,” I greeted them, heading straight for the stove and the coffeepot. Olsen started to scramble up, but I shooed her back into her chair. “Sit. I’ll get it,” I said.
“You’re up early,” Kenny said behind me. “I figured you’d sleep till noon.”
It was an odd thing for him to say, odd even allowing for the time that had gone by. He couldn’t have forgotten all those mornings.
“My habits haven’t changed much.” I answered. I turned away from the stove and met his eyes, dark and intense upon me. He looked puzzled and, for just a moment, confused. But he came back with one of his “Fooled you, didn’t I?” grins.
“Haven’t they? You used to take sugar in your coffee and you’re drinking that without any,” he said.
He was right. It was a habit that I had changed, for no particular reason. But fast as his answer was, it didn’t altogether satisfy. Something had begun to trouble me—nothing that I could put my finger on, but it was there like a vague ache in your teeth that you can’t quite find with your tongue. It came and went away and came back again during the days that followed, and with each return it had grown stronger, and more definite.
For the moment, however, there was nothing more than a quick note of discord and then things were all right again and I was relaxing at the table. Olsen got up and fixed my breakfast, all the while keeping up with the conversation. It was easy talk, relaxed and friendly, and it skirted around the questions with which we were all still occupied.
Kenny seemed to me more relaxed than he had been the night before. I found myself wondering how he had slept, what memories the sight of his room might have brought back to him. Had he, like I, remembered those nights when he had left his room and come to mine? But I pushed that thought back to where it had come from. It was one thing to remember, and even to be wishful, but I was not blind. However relaxed he might be, however friendly, it was plain that there was no intimacy between Kenny and me. He talked as he might talk to an acquaintance of the past, but there was nothing more, and I had to face that.
I finished breakfast and lingered longer than usual over coffee. Finally, when it was well past time when I should have been at work, I stood up, hesitating slightly. Knowing Kenny, he was not the sort to loaf around or remain inactive. Even if he were, he had plenty of reasons for being interested in the farm and how it was coming along.
“They’ve just finished with the hay,” I said, concentrating my attention on the last sip of coffee in my cup. “I’m going out there now to see how it’s going. Want to come along?”
As soon as I had said it, I realized that he couldn’t come with me out to the fields, whether he wanted to or not. He was the son of the house by birth and by name, but it was a claim he had forfeited when he had gone, and it was a claim that right now was far from settled. His mother had yet to say whether