A Special Providence (26 page)

She finally persuaded him to use her bed, and when he was in it she stretched out on the carpet with a blanket. The hardness of the floor suited her bitter mood; but some time
before dawn she woke up, chilled and cramped, and got into bed with Bobby. He was so warm, and the bed so soft, that she started to cry again as she pressed against him. He woke up and stiffened in her arms.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, dear. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”

She awoke again with the hot sun of morning in her face, and Bobby was now up and dressed and sitting in a chair, looking at her.

“What time is it, dear?”

“I don’t know; a little after eight. What’s the matter, anyway?”

She sat up, feeling gritty from having slept in her clothes. “Eva and I had a dreadful quarrel last night,” she said. “I don’t want to see her. Let’s just wait here till she goes to work.”

“Well, but she’s not going to work. It’s Saturday.”

“Oh dear; that’s right. Let’s stay here anyway, though. You don’t mind, do you?”

“What about breakfast?”

“I’m not hungry. I’ll go out and get you something to eat, though, when I’m sure they’re out of the kitchen.”

“You mean you want to just stay in here? What’s the point of that?”

“Dear,
please
don’t torment me with questions. Just please do as I say.”

“Okay.” He sat looking uncomfortable, and after a moment he said, “What was the quarrel about, anyway?”

“I don’t know; everything.” She went to the dresser mirror and began trying to do something about her hair. “Are they in the kitchen now?” she asked. “Can you tell?”

“I don’t think so. I think they’re out in the living room. I’m not sure.”

“Let’s wait till we’re sure. You can go to the bathroom if you want.”

“I already did.”

One of the doors in her room opened onto the bathroom, which in turn led to the hall near the kitchen. She tiptoed through, spent a long time listening at the hall door, and finally risked it outside. There was nobody in the hall and nobody in the kitchen. On the stove she found a pot of coffee that was still warm, and she poured herself a cup with trembling hands; then she found a box of dry cereal, a bowl, and some milk, which she carried back through the bathroom for Bobby. He ate hungrily, and when he was finished he said, “Are we going to hide in here all day, or what?”

“We’re not ‘hiding,’ dear; we’re simply keeping to ourselves. We’re minding our own business.”

Some time later they heard Eva’s footsteps approaching outside the door, which caused Alice to stiffen. The door couldn’t be locked: Eva could walk right in if she wanted to. But she stopped outside and knocked. Then they heard her voice, sounding stern but shy, as if she had forgotten nothing of last night but was tentatively willing to make amends. “Alice? Are you all right?”

Alice said nothing and placed a forefinger over her lips so that Bobby would keep quiet too.

“Is Bobby in there with you?”

Neither of them answered, and the footsteps went away; but soon they were back.

“Alice,” Eva called. “Owen is driving into town to do some shopping. Is there anything you’d like him to bring you?”

They remained silent, though Bobby smiled in embarrassment, showing he thought it was silly. Then from the window they saw Owen go out to the car and drive away. Alice felt
relieved to have him out of the house; she almost felt she could deal with Eva as long as he was gone.

But she was wholly unprepared for what happened next. The door swung open and Eva came walking in, carrying a tray that held three tall glasses of milk with ice cubes in them. “This has gone on long enough,” she said. “Why don’t we all have something cool to drink.” She set the tray down on a table and confronted Alice with her hands on her hips, looking wounded and patient and ready to accept apologies.

Alice had never seen anyone put ice cubes in milk – she knew Eva must really have been rattled to do a thing like that – and she was infuriated by the look on Eva’s face. “Please leave us alone,” she said. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Oh, Alice. Don’t you think you’re being childish?”

“No.”

“Well, you are. You said a great many cruel things last night. It’s not easy to forget those things. It’s not easy to forgive you, and I—”

“I’m not
asking
your forgiveness. I meant everything I said and I’ll say it again. Your husband is a dirty, filthy—”

“Alice! As long as you’re a guest in my house I—”

“Ha! A guest in your house! I’m a
prisoner
in your house!”

“You’re nothing of the sort. You’re perfectly free to leave at any time.”

“Then I’ll leave today. I’ll leave right now.” And she swept dramatically around to face Bobby. “Go and pack your things,” she said. “Quickly.”

“Alice, try to control yourself. You know you don’t mean that.”

“I most certainly do mean it.” She pulled one of her suitcases from under the bed, opened it, and began stuffing clothes into it with spastic haste. “Go
on
, Bobby,” she said, and he went.

“Alice, this is ridiculous. Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. Please get out of my way.” She swept an armload of dresses from the closet, pressed them into the suitcase, and snapped it shut. Then she started packing her other two bags, and not until all three were packed did she begin to realize the weight of what she was doing: now they would
have
to leave. Where in the world would they go? But her passion carried her along on its own momentum. She took two of the suitcases into the living room and Bobby followed her with the other two, wearing a bashful smile. He apparently didn’t believe what was happening, and neither did Eva.

“Come back here at once, Alice,” she said. “You’re making a complete fool of yourself.”

“I’ll never come back.” Alice took a new grip on the suitcase handles and pushed out through the screen door. On the porch she turned back, aware that this was the moment for some crushing last word, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. She licked her dry lips. “And I hope I’ll never see you again,” she said. Then she crossed the porch, went down the front steps, and out into the hot sunshine. She looked back only once to make sure Bobby was coming; he hurried to catch up with her and they walked side by side down the driveway.

“Where’re we going, anyway?” he asked.

“Never mind. Just come along.”

“You mean you don’t even know where we’re going?”

“We’re going into town. It’s only five miles. We’ll go to a hotel.” How they would ever get out of the hotel was a problem she would deal with later.

They had gone only a few steps up the highway when she had to stop and rest. Her hands were sore from the suitcase handles and she was soaked with sweat. “Let’s rest a minute, Bobby,” she said.

Not far ahead of them now was the beginning of the place where the highway was under repair. The noise of the jackhammers was loud and persistent, and the cloud of white dust looked impenetrable. They would have to walk through it.

“Why don’t you give me the big bags,” Bobby said, “and you take the little ones.”

“No, that’s all right. I’ll manage.”

“Come on,
give
them to me,” he insisted. “I’m stronger than you.”

And she let him take them, surprised and pleased by what he’d said. He
was
stronger than she, and as they lifted the suitcases and trudged on into the heat she felt comforted and protected. She was no longer a woman alone with a little boy. He was someone she could depend on, someone who would take command in a crisis like this.

Her main difficulty now was that she was wearing high heels: they wobbled and threatened to turn her ankles with every step. And her only other pair of shoes, riding in one of the suitcases, had heels that were just as high.

“I’m sorry I have to go so slowly, dear,” she said. “It’s these shoes, you see. I can’t—”

“That’s okay,” he said with his new authority. “You’re doing fine.”

When they reached the excavation they were enveloped at once in the white dust. “I’m going to have to stop again, dear,” she said, but he couldn’t hear her over the noise of the jackhammers. “Bobby,
wait,
” she called, almost in tears, and he turned back, stopped, and put his own suitcases down.

“We’d get there a lot sooner if we didn’t stop so often,” he said.

“I know, dear, but I can’t keep up with you. I’ve got to rest a minute.”

“Okay.”

“Isn’t this dust dreadful?”

“What?”

“This dust I can hardly
breathe.
”

“It’s caliche.”

“What?”

“The dust. It’s called caliche; sort of like chalk. It’s all through this area, just under the topsoil. Uncle Owen told me.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s pretend it isn’t happening,” he said.

“What?”

“I said let’s pretend it isn’t happening. Let’s pretend it’s real cold and we have to walk as fast as we can to keep warm.”

“I’m not very good at pretending, I’m afraid.”

“Come on. And we’ll pretend the dust is a big snowstorm, a blizzard, and we have to get through.”

She was about to say, “Oh, Bobby,
please,
” in irritation, but when she looked into his earnest, sweating face she was won over. What a cheerful, heartening companion he was, and what a good sport! If he could pretend it wasn’t happening, so could she. “All right, dear,” she said.

“Br-r-r!” He shuddered, hugging himself. “We better not stay here any longer or we’ll freeze to death. Let’s get going.”

And hefting their suitcases they set off again, Bobby in the lead. Watching his narrow back as he moved ahead of her in the whiteness, she knew it was a sight she would never forget. An ordinary boy might have complained, might have whined and lagged behind and been a hindrance, but Bobby was no ordinary boy. He was brave and lighthearted and imaginative; he was her own.

“How you doing?” he called back.

“All right, dear.” And she was able to smile. “I’m doing fine.”

Pretend it isn’t happening! And the funny part was that it almost worked. Dizzy and nearly suffocating, with sweat running in streams down her back, she did her best to imagine she was cold, and it almost worked.

One lane of the highway was open for traffic; a steady stream of cars moved eastward, and then, after an interval, the westbound traffic came through. She was afraid that each westbound car would be Owen Forbes on his way back from town, but the cars all proved to contain strangers, some of whose heads swiveled around to stare at the odd spectacle of a woman and a boy toiling along with suitcases in the blaze of afternoon.

“Bobby,” she called. “I’m going to have to stop again.”

“Okay.”

She sat on one of the bags to rest her aching feet. “I think we’ve come about two miles,” she said, “don’t you?”

“I don’t know; it’s so cold it’s hard to tell.”

“Oh, Bobby, you’re wonderful. How would I ever get through this without you?”

“Aren’t you freezing?” he said. “Let’s get moving again.”

And they did. They passed very close to one of the workmen and he stopped his terrible automatic hammer to stare at them: a Mexican or a half-breed of some kind, short and brutal-looking, his face and clothes powdered white. She knew that she herself must be coated white by now – she could taste the dust and feel it in her eyes and nostrils – and when Bobby turned back to call “You okay?”, she saw that his face and hair were white too.

She always said afterwards that God was watching over her that day, giving her the strength to go on; and it was certainly true that she prayed as she walked. “Oh, please, dear God,” she said aloud against the noise of the jackhammers.
“Please
, dear God, help me through this.” And with her teeth clenched tight against the dust she recited: “Oh God, who has prepared for
those who love thee such good things as pass man’s understanding …”

The noise gradually diminished and the dust began to clear: they had come to the end of the excavation. The road ahead had turned into a street now, with close-set houses and shops on either side. They were still far from the center of town, but they were within its outskirts.

A sign a block ahead –
CAFÉ –
made her wonder if they dared to stop there: they would at least be able to sit down, and to drink cold Coca-Colas. But her purse contained exactly seventy-five cents; they had better save it.

Then another sign drew her attention –
TEXACO –
because there would be toilets there. “Bobby,” she said. “Let’s stop at the gas station. We can at least get some water.”

The eyes of the Texaco attendants followed them with curiosity and perhaps suspicion as they trudged around to the back of the station toward the two white “rest room” doors,
MEN
and
LADIES
.

The ladies’ room stank and was unbearably hot, but she stood at its dirty sink for a long time, cupping up handfuls of warm, sweet water and drinking it down as if her thirst could never be slaked. There was no soap and the paper-towel dispenser was broken, but she managed to wash her face anyway, getting rid of most of the dust, and dried it with toilet paper. Her face, in the spattered mirror, was a shocked and wild-eyed ruin.

When she picked up the suitcases and pushed out into the sunshine again she had a dizzy spell and nearly fell down. Bobby was waiting for her, his face gleaming and his wet hair sticking up and out at all angles.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

“Yes, dear. I was just dizzy there for a minute. I’ll be all right. It can’t be very much farther, do you think?”

“Probably not. Let’s get going.”

But there was no way of telling, as they labored down block after block, whether they were heading for the center of town or only moving around its periphery. Sometimes there were glimpses of distant tall buildings ahead; sometimes not.

“I think we
must
be going in the right direction, don’t you?” she said. “Do you remember any of this part of town?”

“No. Let’s just keep going, though.”

And at last, as they reached the end of still another block, they came upon three taxicabs parked at the curb around the corner. “Oh, look, dear,” she said. “Taxicabs!” She scuttled ahead of him, wrenched open the passenger’s door of one of the cabs, dropped her suitcases, and crawled, nearly collapsing, into the wide back seat. The driver, hustling around from the front of the cab, looked worried.