A Death in the Family - James Agee [47]
“Just in case,” she murmured.
Hannah decided not to ask her what she had said.
“There’s ZuZus,” Mary said, and got them from the cupboard. “Or would you like bread and butter? Or toast. I could toast some.”
“Just tea, thank you.”
“Help yourself to sugar and milk. Or lemon? Let’s see, do I have le ...”
“Milk, thank you.”
“Me too.” Mary sat down again. “My, it’s frightfully hot in here!” She got up and opened the door to the porch, and sat down again.
“I wonder what ti ...” She glanced over her shoulder at the kitchen clock. “What time did they leave, do you know?”
“Walter came for us at quarter after ten. About twenty-five after, I should think.”
“Let’s see, Walter drives pretty fast, though not so fast as Jay, but he’d be driving faster than usual tonight, and it’s just over twelve miles. That would be, supposing he goes thirty miles an hour, that’s twelve miles in, let’s see, six times four is twenty-four, six times five’s thirty, twice twelve is twenty-four, sakes alive. I was always dreadful at arithmetic...”
“Say about half an hour, allowing for darkness, and Walter isn’t familiar with those roads.”
“Then we ought to be hearing pretty soon. Ten minutes. Fifteen at the outside.”
“Yes, I should think.”
“Maybe twenty, allowing for the roads, but that is a good road out that far as roads go.”
“Maybe.”
“Why didn’t he tell me!” Mary burst out.
“What is it?”
“Why didn’t I ask?” She looked at her aunt in furious bewilderment. “I didn’t even ask! How serious! Where is he hurt? Is he living or dead.”
There it is, Hannah said to herself. She looked back steadily into Mary’s eyes.
“That we simply have to wait to find out,” she said.
“Of course we have,” Mary cried angrily. “That’s what’s so unbearable!” She drank half her tea at a gulp; it burned her painfully but she scarcely noticed. She continued to glare at her aunt.
Hannah could think of nothing to say.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said. “You’re perfectly right. I’ve just got to hold myself together, that’s all.”
“Never mind,” Hannah said, and they fell silent.
Hannah knew that silence must itself be virtually unbearable for Mary, and that it would bring her face to face with likelihoods still harder to endure. But she has to, she told herself; and the sooner the better. But she found that she herself could not bear to be present, and say nothing which might in some degree protect, and postpone. She was about to speak when Mary burst out: “In heaven’s name, why didn’t I ask him! Why didn’t I? Didn’t I care?”
“It was so sudden,” Hannah said. “It was such a shock.”
“You would think I’d ask, though! Wouldn’t you?”
“You thought you knew. You told me you were sure it was his—in the head.”
“But how bad? What!”
We both know, Hannah said to herself. But it’s better if you bring yourself to say it. “It certainly wasn’t because you didn’t care, anyway,” she said.
“No. No it certainly wasn’t that, but I think I do know what it was. I think, I think I must have been too afraid of what he would have to say.”
Hannah looked into her eyes. Nod, she told herself. Say yes I imagine so. Just say nothing and it’ll be just as terrible for her. She heard herself saying what she had intended to venture a while before, when Mary had interrupted her: “Do you understand why J—your father stayed home, and your mother?”
“Because I asked them not to come.”
“Why did you?”
“Because if all of you came, up here in a troop like that, it would be like assuming that—like assuming the very worst before we even know.”
“That’s why they stayed home. Your father said he knew you’d understand.”
“Of course I do.”
“We just must try to keep from making any assumptions—good or bad.”
“I know. I know we must. It’s just, this waiting in the dark like this, it’s just more than I can stand.”
“We ought to hear very soon.”
Mary glanced at the clock. “Almost any minute,” she said.
She took a little tea.
“I just can’t help wondering,” she said, “why he didn’t say more. ‘A serious accident,’ he said. Not a ‘very’ serious one. just ‘serious.’ Though, goodness knows, that