Rock Island Line. David Rhodes
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away—” God help me, please help me, I am a wreck of a man.
It was in this condition July would have first seen his father, had John come out of the bus at that time. But a large woman getting baggage from the overhead rack forced him back into his seat. Angry and frantic, he looked out the window again. This time he saw his son standing behind her against the wall, and it was as though he had not known before and had just been told: Did you know, you have a boy, old enough to talk and understand, with a complete personality of his own. Here he is. He’s yours.
He’s a pretty good-looking boy, he thought, staring out of the besmudged window. He stands well, making no trouble . . . no idea what a man would think in a bunker—what he would do to save his own miserable life, the extent to which he would go . . . The woman with her bags bumped on down the aisle, and John slid out of his seat. At the door he stopped and gathered as well as he could all the loose ends and stepped down, reminding himself over and over: Be careful. Nothing can be taken for granted. Make no assumptions.
July felt his mother’s hand tighten and tremble as the uniformed man stepped down from the huge metal bus onto the ground. “John,” she called, and he came slowly over, carrying a cloth bag, holding his hat in his hand. Dark moons like blue wounds under his eyes, ugly hairs on his face, smelling clothes. The man held out his hand and at first July was afraid to touch it, even though pressed to by his mother. The knuckles and joints and veins were so awful. July touched it and wanted to cry: it was so hard. Then the hand squeezed and he felt the power, the child-crushing strength that lay dormant like a crouching panther, controlled only by the sallow face’s intention. Red lines in his eyes.
They went over to the car, and his mother wanted “Daddy” to drive. No, he said, he didn’t want to. He sat next to July’s window, July next to his mother behind the wheel. They left the station and headed home. The stranger looked suspiciously at the telephone poles and houses, at the dashboard and at July’s mother’s feet. His smell overpowered July’s mother’s. He spoke once on the ride home, asking about Grandma, only he called her Mom. The rest of the time he was silent.
Once home, he remained standing in the driveway, looking suspiciously at everything outside as though it might grow wings and flap away into outer space. The bird feeder (which his mother had carefully filled before they drove to the bus station) seemed to hold him mesmerized. His mother waited silently for him inside the opened door to the house. Finally, he came toward them with his cloth bag. July rushed to the door, slammed it and locked him outside so that he could never come in. He looked back to his mother, whose face was a betrayal of her erupting emotions: fear, hatred, sorrow and despair. She sank to the sofa.
The doorbell rang. “Go away,” July shouted.
“Please,” came from outside, and the word cut through the door and into July’s throat. There was sadness and loneliness unimaginable in an older person. “Please,” he repeated, and July opened the door. “Thanks, July,” he said and put out his hand again. July took it and squeezed as hard as he was able.
“Ouch,” said John.
Tears ran down Sarah’s cheeks as she tried to stand up from the sofa. “Go outside and play now,” she said.
July left, glad to be out of the oddly electric house. He knew “Daddy” had been joking, but still felt as though he could smash rocks with his fists. He closed the door and stood outside it.
“Would it be all right ...” John was saying inside.
“I hope you’re never satisfied,” said his mother.
July left to play in the empty garage across the street.
FIVE
In 1948, Della Montgomery was prevailed upon by John to quit her country home, where she had lived alone since the death of her husband, and move into John’s house in town, where (as she suspected) she could be watched more closely.
Coming up that first day, carrying her personal belongings in a shopping bag (a truckload would come later), she stopped on the porch with her son and his family, looked at them all, put her hand on the wooden railing and jumped over it, landing three feet away on the ground, walked up the step, picked up her bag again and went inside the house.
“How old is Grandma?” asked July.
“Seventy-three,” said Sarah. “I think she’s telling us she doesn’t need help.”
“She’s still seventy-three,” said John, and went in with a chair.
Della took for her place the little downstairs bedroom off the living room, flat against the back yard, with three rather large windows, done in a delicate broad-petaled flower print on a yellow-and-blue background. In it she had her two chairs, single iron bed, round rag rug, bureau and mirror, fish tank full of tiger barbs and silver neons, eight hung-up dresses, a pole lamp and a night table filled with odds and ends, from toothbrushes to things that meant a great deal to her. Settling into bed that first night, many thoughts came into her head. There were unfamiliar house noises, but there were other people in it. John and Sarah were upstairs. July too. She closed her eyes and pictured lying in the bedroom in her own house. This is better, she thought, and went soundly to sleep.
On the third night she was thinking quite happily to herself about the many things she had to do tomorrow when she heard a noise that frightened her and she got up, put on her robe and went out into the living room. It was almost like a cry. She went over to the stairway leading upstairs and carefully opened the door. Yes, it was clearer now, but less frightening, though strange and eerie. The crying rose and fell, then rose to an unearthly wail; then it fell away to moaning and stopped. The house became silent again and filled with her thoughts. She closed the door and went over to the couch and sat there in the darkness, listening. Perhaps a half-hour later she heard a door open, then feet descending the staircase. It was July, and she watched him open the door and cross over into the kitchen, walking with the blind determination of someone not completely awake. He put on the light, took a bottle of milk from the refrigerator, poured out a glass and sat at the table, drinking it with both hands. Della got up and went into the kitchen. July gave a little start, then relaxed.
“Hi, Grandma,” he said.
“Do you think I could have a glass of that milk?” she asked.
“Sure. Here, I’ll get it,” and he got another glass from the dish drain and began filling it.
“Only half, now,” said Della. “Or there won’t be enough for cereal in the morning.”
July handed it to her and they both drank.
“July,” she said cautiously, “do you ever hear things at night?”
“Sure.”
“What kind of things?”
“I don’t know what they all are.”
“Do you ever hear crying?”
“I don’t know . . . I don’t think so, Grandma. One time I heard voices, though, but Dad said it was the wind. Once I heard thumping whirring, but that was the antenna wire.”
“Did you hear anything tonight?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You must have, think hard.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
They put their glasses away and separated. Three nights later they met again. This time the noise began while they were together in the kitchen. “That. There, that. Do you hear it?” asked Della.
“That? That’s Mom,” said July, and put the milk back. “She always sounds like that, sometimes.”
“Go on to bed now, July,” said Della, and went back to her room and sat in the chair next to the window. She stared and thought for a long time, about