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CHAPTER 10

More Night Visions

      LUCY HAD just begun to doze when a door slammed upstairs, and soon afterwards, somebody came banging down the steps and into the living room.

      The lamp went on by Uncle Bob's chair, and Lucy saw it was Bobby. She sat up in bed and called, "What's the matter?"

      He began pacing around the room. "I'm not going to stand for this! What the hell gets into her." He was a big man, and strong-looking, but just now, with his troubled dark eyes and tousled hair, he didn't look very different from the little boy who came to Lucy for protection when bigger kids picked on him.

      And Lucy reacted just as she always had. She got up and went to him to him, to comfort him. "Maybe I can do something?"

      "What the hell can you do, Sis?"

      Nevertheless, he let her lead him to the sofa, and he sat down beside her. "Goddamit, She acts like she hates me."

      Lucy put a hand on his back and patted him. It had been a long time since he'd come to her this way. "Now you know that's not true."

      "Well it is. Only time she's ever nice is when she wants something. And if I can't give it to her — tonight she was after me for money, and to take off work. And when that baby started crying . . . she damn well drove me out. Kept saying I was no good to her any more, and I better go sleep somewhere else from now on. And then she —" His eyes flashed and he stopped abruptly.

      "Well, never mind what else she said. But she threw up to me that I was at Gene's party while she was having the baby."

      Lucy kept patting him, but she said nothing. It didn't seem too unreasonable for Normalade to resent that.

      "But how was I supposed to know last night was the night?" he demanded, shaking his head. "And Gene works for me. And Tagg paid for everything, even the beer for Godsake! All I brought was some Goddam leftover chips and salsa."

      He did have a point there. "She'll calm down." Lucy said encouragingly.

      "She'll calm down? What about me," he muttered. "Why the hell should I have to take this? Who the hell does she think she is, wanting to throw me out of my own house."

      "She's been through a lot Bobby. Having a baby is . . ." That was a hard sentence to finish. "You wait, everything will be fine, once she gets her strength back. Just you be sweet to her."

      Before Lucy could finish, he interrupted furiously, "Me be sweet to her? I'll tell you something: tonight she said she's going to name the baby Hero Wagonwright! Said she won't call him Vance at all, because he wasn't my child! Only hers and not mine!"

      He began dragging his hands through his hair, almost as if he wanted to tear it out. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? If that's not my baby — then who in hell is he, I'd like to know? Whose baby is that she'd got upstairs in my bed!"

      Lucy swallowed. "Oh, no." she said hastily, "That's not what she . . . Listen, I was with her the whole time that baby was being born — right there. And she was talking about nobody but you."

      He got up. "Yeah? Then why'd she say a thing like that if it's not true? Did it maybe — just slip out?"

      "Bobby, listen. She's just overtired. That's all in the world it is."

      He shook his head. "We wouldn't of gotten married so quick if she hadn't been — you know." He glanced aside. "And now I'm thinking maybe she's made a fool out of me."

      "Bobby, don't say that!"

      His voice was quiet now, and thoughtful. "Why would she say it wasn't my baby." All his life, Bobby had had a short fuse. Get mad, explode, then forgive and forget; that was it. But the anger Lucy saw in him now was entirely different.

      "Take it easy, Bobby. You're taking something Normalade said in anger — said out of pure meanness — and turning it all wrong in your mind."

      And of course, she thought, that had to be all it was. "Think about it, she said almost the exact same thing this morning, when you were arguing over his name. Said it in front of her mother and all of us, too. So you know it can't mean anything."

      He shook his head. "Sis, I know you'd put things right for me if you could, but this is something I got to work out for myself. Because I'm beginning to think I — I made a big mistake with my whole life." And with that, he got up and started out of the living room.

      She followed him, so upset and sorry for him that she was ready to cry. "Bobby, don't go off when you're — "

      She was expecting him to go back to upstairs to have it out with Normalade, but instead he was at the front door. And Lucy, almost in panic, ran after him. "Bobby, what're you —"

      He paused at the open door, but he only long enough to lean over and kiss her on the cheek. "Don't worry, I'm just going over to Tagg's. If you need me, call over there. Any time."

      He sounded so tragic that Lucy wanted to smack him. "Don't you take off like this! You sit down and let's talk about —" She was angry herself now, nearly sobbing. He had to stop this foolishness.

      But he was already out on the porch.

      She stood in the doorway and called after him, "You can't go like this!"

      Already down the steps, he stopped and looked back at her so kindly that she thought for a minute he'd changed his mind. But he only said, "Watch me; I'm doing it."

      Then he got in the pickup and drove away.

      Lucy stood there in the open doorway, in her nightgown, and watched the truck's lights glimmering down the road until they were out of sight in the dusty dark.

      And as she stood there, she could hear a thin wailing coming from the room upstairs. The baby was still crying, poor little soul.

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