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By Root 856 0

gasped, “I’ve got to sit down,” and looked timidly towards her aunt, who at the same moment saying, in a broken voice, “Sit down, Mary,” was at her other side, her arm around her waist and her face as bleached and shocking as a skull. She put an arm tightly around each of them and felt gratitude and pleasure, in the firmness and warmth of their moving bodies, and they walked three abreast (like bosom friends, it occurred to her, the three Musketeers) to the nearest chair; and she could see Andrew twist it towards her with his outstretched left hand, and between them, slowly, they let her down into it, and then she could see only her aunt’s face, leaning deep above her, very large and very close, the eyes at once intense and tearful behind their heavy lenses, the strong mouth loose and soft, the whole face terrible in love and grief, naked and undisciplined as she had never seen it before.

“Let Papa know and Mama,” she whispered. “I promised.”

“I will,” Hannah said, starting for the hall.

“Walter’s bringing them straight up,” Andrew said. “They know by now.” He brought another chair. “Sit down, Aunt Hannah.” She sat and took both Mary’s hands in her own, on Mary’s knees, and realized that Mary was squeezing her hands with all her strength, and as strongly as she was able. She replied in kind to this constantly shifting, almost writhing pressure.

“Sit with us, Andrew,” Mary said, a little more loudly; he was already bringing a third chair and now he sat, and put his hands upon theirs, and, feeling the convulsing of her hands, thought, Christ, it’s as if she were in labor. And she is. Thus they sat in silence a few moments while he thought: now I’ve got to tell them how it happened. In God’s name, how can I begin!

“I want whiskey,” Mary said, in a small, cold voice, and tried to get up.

“I’ll get it,” Andrew said, standing.

“You don’t know where it is,” she said, continuing to put aside their hands even after they were withdrawn. She got up and they stood as if respectfully aside and she walked between them and went into the hall; they heard her rummaging in the closet, and looked at each other. “She needs it,” Hannah said.

He nodded. He had been surprised, because of Jay, that there was whiskey in the house; and he was sick with self-disgust to have thought of it. “We all do,” he said.

Without looking at them Mary went to the kitchen closet and brought a thick tumbler to the table. The bottle was almost full. She poured the tumbler full while they watched her, feeling they must not interfere, and took a deep gulp and choked on it, and swallowed most of it.

“Dilute it,” Hannah said, slapping her hard between the shoulders and drying her lips and her chin with a dish towel. “It’s much too strong, that way.”

“I will,” Mary croaked, and cleared her throat, “I will,” she said more clearly.

“Just sit down, Mary,” Andrew and Hannah said at the same moment, and Andrew brought her a glass of water and Hannah helped her to her chair.

“I’m going to have some, too,” Andrew said,

“Goodness, do!” said Mary.

“Let me fix us a good strong toddy,” Hannah said. “It’ll help you to sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Mary said; she sipped at her whiskey and took plenty of the water. “I’ve got to learn how it happened.”

“Aunt Hannah,” Andrew asked quietly, motioning towards the bottle.

“Please.”

While he broke ice and brought glasses and a pitcher of water, none of them spoke; Mary sat in a distorted kind of helplessness at once meek and curiously sullen, waiting. Months later, seeing a horse which had fallen in the street, Andrew was to remember her; and he was to remember it wasn’t drunkenness, either. It was just the flat of the hand of Death.

“Let me pour my own,” Mary said. “Because,” she added with deliberation while she poured, “I want it just as strong as I can stand it.” She tasted the dark drink, added a little more whiskey, tasted again, and put the bottle aside. Hannah watched her with acute concern, thinking, if she gets drunk tonight, and if her mother sees her drunk, she’ll half die of shame, and thinking, nonsense.