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CHAPTER 41

Valentine's Day

      SO SHE got up and made coffee. Set the table. Made breakfast. No matter what's happening, people have to eat.

      Shark came in with Ferd and Fred and Raton. He was looking a little hangdog. "When we're done, could I just take a bite out to Gallatin? I don't think he feels too good this morning."

      Lucy said he could, and Shark promised to bring the dishes back afterward.

      Once the men had eaten and gone, Lucy got out a sack of split peas and measured three cups into a kettle of water to soak. Then she went to check on Uncle Bob, but he was still asleep.

      Leaving his room, she hesitated at the foot of the stairs. After last night, she wasn't certain she wanted to face Normalade. But of course, there was the baby to think of. So she went up.

      "You awake?" Lucy rapped on the bedroom door. "You want some breakfast?"

      Normalade didn't open the door. "Bring it on a tray."

      Later, when Lucy brought up her breakfast, the door was still shut, and Normalade shouted through it, "Leave the tray on the floor; I'll get it when I'm ready."

      Lucy bit back her irritation. "Guess she thinks I got that coming." Then the thought followed, reluctantly honest, "Guess I do." That was hard; she hated being in the wrong.

      Downstairs, Uncle Bob's room was now dazzling with sunshine, and his eyes were open. "Morning, honey," Lucy said. "You ready for a bite to eat?" She didn't really expect an answer, but you never knew when he might surprise you.

      She got him up and half-carried him to the bathroom. He seemed lighter than ever. "Wish he'd eat more," she thought.

      Before putting him back to bed, she fluffed up the pillows and smoothed the covers "Okay now, I'm going to go cook. Don't you run off while I'm gone."

      Lucy decided to make Uncle Bob a soft-boiled egg, which he always liked. And since he kept refusing toast, she mixed him up some oatmeal. Sometimes he'd eat that, if she put a lot of honey in it. Anyway, it was worth a try.

      "I'm going to call Doc. Swerengen tomorrow, soon as the excitement's over at work," she told herself. "And I'm going to get him down here, even if I have to go bring him myself. No matter what he says, Uncle Bob's not snapping out of it."

      When everything was ready, she carried the food back to his sunshiney bedroom. "Guess you remember that tonight's the Valentine's party," Lucy said as she sat down on the bed. She reached for the egg cup, cracked the shell, and offered him a spoonful.

      After a long pause, he opened up for it.

      "Last night, we had the best crowd I ever saw on a Tuesday — or any other time. Wish you'd been there."

      She offered a second bite of egg.

      "You know, when I first saw those boys from the band, I had my doubts about them," Lucy was stirring the oatmeal thoughtfully. "But last night, everybody was just hanging on the music they made."

      The spoon in Lucy's hand grew still. A patch of sunlight was spilling across her shoulders, warming the faded quilt around her. "Shark's brother sings like an angel!"

      The thought came back to her: "But he's leaving." and her small pleasure in the sunshine chilled away like gray weather. Gallatin, Gallatin . . . the word was a pain in her chest. Like a bruise.

      What's the point of it all? Going to work, pouring beer, scraping to pay bills — shouldn't there be more to life than that?

      She glanced at the old man's impassive face. "Maybe he feels that way, too," she thought. "There's nothing worth keeping in his life either." She felt too desolate even to cry.

      Uncle Bob never opened for a second bite of egg, and he wouldn't eat his oatmeal. Simply closed his mouth against it. "Won't you have even one little bite?" she urged. "How're you going to get strong again if you don't eat?"

      The oatmeal clung to the spoon, gluey and slimy. Lucy put the spoon down again. Well of course he didn't want it. How could he? Oatmeal was horrible stuff!

      Yet he'd starve if he didn't eat. "Listen, Uncle Bob, what if I made you a nice dish of hot grits — how about that! With plenty of butter in it? Or hot toast and jam?" But as she said the words, a wave of nausea washed over her. Why would anybody want to eat any of that!

      He continued to stare indifferently at the wall.

      "Our lives are just falling apart here," Lucy whispered. "I wish I knew what to do for us, but I don't. Do you, Uncle Bob?"

      It was as if he was deaf and couldn't hear her. Finally she gathered the dishes back on the tray and carried them away to the kitchen.

      You had to keep doing the next chores, that was all.

      She was drying dishes when Normalade came down.

      "Morning," Lucy said, as pleasantly as she could.

      "I don't want to talk to you," Normalade answered coldly. "I'm leaving to go to Mama's right now, and you're going to take me."

      "Oh, but I . . ."

      Normalade caught her right up. "But you what!"

      "I can't. When Bobby left last night, he took the truck."

      Normalade glared. "Well you know where he is, so you can just go call him up, and get him over here, and . . ." Then she stopped. "No, never mind — I don't want him now. I'll make Mama come for me."

      She went into the front room, and Lucy could hear her talking on the phone.

      Lucy finished putting away the dishes and started to dust. By the time she worked her way to the front room, Normalade was off the phone, and the TV was on. But Normalade was not watching the little moving figures, she was bending over Uncle Bob's desk.

      "Normalade?"

      She whirled, turning so quickly that she forgot to put down Lucy's purse, which was open in her hands.

      Lucy stood stock-still, too astonished even to protest. And after giving her one terrible look, Normalade went back to rummaging, until at last she found the coin purse where Lucy kept her money. She spilled the contents into her hand. "Is this all you got? Only five dollars?"

      Lucy nodded.

      "Well, I need more than this. Where do you keep it? I know it's not in the desk here; I already looked."

      That was too much. "Keep it? I don't keep money at the house, for heaven's sake. Even if I had any money, which I don't. Every cent we have is at Cowboy Bob's, and it all goes to pay our bills with. You know that."

      "Where do you keep it," Normalade asked again.

      Lucy put her hands on her hips. "Listen, Normalade, enough is enough. What's the matter with you?"

      "The matter is that I'm fed up with all this. And with all of you, too. And I'm going to make some changes. I never got anything at all out of this family, even after I had your goddam baby, and there's stuff I need. Stuff that costs money."

      "And I just told you I don't have any money," Lucy came right back at her. "None of us have any money. And as a matter of fact, we got less than none, because we owe the beer man a fortune. So I can't give you what I haven't got."

      Normalade threw the purse back to her — at her. "Well, I don't give a damn! I know you're a liar anyway — and I'm not going to live like this any more. I want my share."

      She started upstairs. "And I'm leaving, and you can all go to hell!" But she took Lucy's coin purse and the five dollars and change with her.

      Lucy started dusting so hard that she almost knocked over a lamp. "Sometimes I just hate her. Maybe we have been mean to her, but the way she acts — she really had it coming."

      However, as she cooled down, she continued to think about it. "But that's no excuse for what Bobby's done to her — or for my lying and covering up for him; two wrongs don't make a right." Then she added wryly, "And I shouldn't use getting mad as a way to get out of feeling guilty."

      And then, at that very moment, Lucy had a sudden, odd feeling. It was as if she'd just remembered something. And yet, for the life of her she couldn't put her finger on what it was.

      As the morning dragged by, the feeling stayed with her. It didn't go away while she cut up carrots and onions and celery and dropped them into the kettle of split peas to cook up with the ham-bone. And she still had it while she hung the clothes, and cleaned the kitchen, and swept the porch, and did the ironing. But it never got any clearer, staying just below her consciousness like a splinter that itched and bothered her.

      By noon, the soup was ready. Lucy finished off the ham, making sandwiches. And she added the last of the meat scraps to the soup for flavor.

      Just as the band members came in to eat, the phone rang. It was Swan.

      "Lucy? Could you possibly come in right away? Or soon, at least? There's a big crowd already, and Bobby's not feeling too good, and we need help here."

      "I'm just now making lunch, but when that's done I'll —" Then she stopped, realizing that this was not a day when Normalade would be available to watch Uncle Bob. "No, I got to call Mrs. Panadero first, and see if she can come early. I'll call you back as soon as I reach her."

      "Never mind calling, just come as soon as you can."

      Lucy hung up, trying to think whether she had Mrs. Panadero's phone number. Finally she called Gene and Melida to get it. Melida said she didn't think her Aunt Delia even had a phone, but she offered to run over and give her Lucy's message as soon as her own lunch was over. Melida was a nice person.

      Gallatin hadn't come in to eat with Fred and Ferd and Raton and Shark, but nobody mentioned his absence. The band members were busy planning what they would do tomorrow when they got back to Albuquerque.

      After the rest had finished and gone, Shark lingered.

      Lucy looked at him. "What."

      "About my brother . . ."

      For an instant, hope flamed up: had Gallatin sent her a message?

      "He wouldn't say, exactly, but . . . listen — whatever happened between you and him, please don't be mad at him. I know he would never go to hurt you. It's just that . . . he is what he is, that's all."

      Looking at his flushed, earnest face, she came back to reality. No, she realized, there was no final word for her from Gallatin. And there would be none; Shark was simply trying to be kind. "You don't have to defend him to me," she said dully and went back to the dishes. Then, over her shoulder she added, "Take the rest of the sandwiches out to him, if you want. But remember to bring back the plate."

      "Yes'm." And he was gone.

      Lucy washed up. Then, making a tray for Uncle Bob, she cut up the last slice of ham and put it in a bowl that had been warming in the oven. Over that, she dished the rich soup and floated some toast in it.

      Uncle Bob didn't appear to have moved since she left him this morning. What did he think about all day, lying there so still?

      She took him to the bathroom and then washed his hands and face. After that she tried to feed him the soup, patiently holding out the spoon again and again. When he wouldn't take it. She didn't try coaxing him, just did the things that needed to be done, silent and automatic as a stranger. After all, what difference did it make whether she spoke or not to a man who wouldn't ever answer.

      She almost left it that way.

      But when she got to the door, she had to stop. Because by now, she had finally located that splinter in her mind. And she couldn't go off and leave him, all by himself in this silent room, without telling him what she knew.

      So she went back and sat down on the bed again. "You know Uncle Bob, I've been trying to understand what it was that made you so mad at me."

      Her finger began tracing and retracing the pattern of stitching on the faded quilt. "Because, although I could understand your being irritated about the chili, it really wasn't bad enough for you to hit me. And then to punish me this way."

      No answer.

      "But then, today, I realized something. And funny though it may seem, it was Normalade who made me understand it."

      Still nothing.

      "You see, I was really angry with her today. And later on, as I calmed down, it dawned on me that the biggest part of that anger came out of my feeling guilty over something that had happened between us. And from that, I began thinking about you and me . . ."

      He lay like a stone.

      "I realized that we're very much alike, you and I. We both want to look out for the people we love, and we want to help work things out for them, and we both really hate being in the wrong. And when I understood that, it came to me how really terrible you must have felt when things began to go bad with the money." She gave him a quick glance. "I know about the problem with the beer man, by the way."

      Uncle Bob still hadn't stirred. And yet — it was almost as if he was listening now. "So I think maybe you'd been worrying over that for a long time. Feeling bad that you'd saddled us with a problem you couldn't solve. And I think that's the real reason you got so mad at me."

      She frowned a little, following the turns of her own thought. "And then, after what happened that night, I think it was just too much, and you couldn't deal with it any more. And that's why you went away from me."

      Now Lucy dared to look at him. His eyes were still turned toward the wall, but — had he moved?

      "Anyway, that's what I thought. And if I was right — then I want you to know that what with this Valentine's party, I think we'll make enough extra to pay off a big part of that bill right away."

      Staring right at him, willing him to hear her, she raised her voice. "Did you hear me, Uncle Bob? Are you listening to me? I'm telling you that things are going to be all right now. You don't have to worry any more — okay?"

      Even now, he didn't move or look at her. But something within her was bursting open, and sorrow and understanding were spilling out. "And . . . I know people say how I work here at home all day and then I go to the cafe and work there all night, and all that — but that's okay too. And I want you to know it. It's not just because I promised Mama I would look after you two. It's because you needed me. Like you still need me now. I want to look after you, not just because Mama made me, or even because I'm grateful to you for taking us in all those years ago. It's because I've loved you and Bobby all these years, and I still do — even if you won't look at me or talk to me."

      She had begun crying as she spoke, speaking so intensely that her whole body was shaking. She was shaking inside. As this rush of emotion washed through her, it was as if . . . she had awakened. As if she had grown suddenly taller. And it was as if the whole room suddenly contained more light and air than before.

      Of course it did. Because she had indeed grown, in some way, larger. She had grown up just now, and this was her air. And her light. She had earned it.

      In that moment of increase, all her angers and griefs were to same degree diminished. This was what Mama had meant. She was the grown-up now, and poor Uncle Bob was only a sad, bad child. He needed her tenderness. And so did Bobby. So did they all. She could forgive the others, too; she could forgive them all, entirely. Because now . . . she was big enough to do it. She had grown up at last, and it had set her free.

      Slowly, the transcendent moment passed. There were tears on her face, but that was all right too. Even though the realities of her life were unchanged, she'd be all right now. She knew who and what she was.

      Calmly, she leaned over and kissed him, salting his cheek with her drying tears, "So never mind, Uncle Bob," she said gently, "I'll love you and care for you as long as you need me, even if you never talk to me again."

      Then she took up the tray and left him lying on the bed in the bright room, looking at the bare white wall.

      Mrs. Panadero was waiting for her in the hallway; she had come as soon as Melida gave her Lucy's message.

      So Lucy went in early. Leaving the last of the dishes, she rode in with Shark.

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