A Death in the Family - James Agee [97]
He stared at his mother. “Why not?” he asked.
She looked at him with extraordinary closeness and despair, and said, “Because God wanted him.” They continued to stare at her severely and she went on: “Daddy was on his way home last night—and he was—he—got hurt and—so God let him go to sleep and took him straight away with Him to heaven.” She sank her fingers in Catherine’s springy hair and looked intently from one to the other. “Do you see, children? Do you understand?” They stared at her, and now Catherine was sharply awake.
“Is Daddy dead?” Rufus asked. Her glance at him was as startled as if he had slapped her, and again her mouth and then her whole face began to work, uncontrollably this time, and she did not speak, but only nodded her head once, and then again, and then several times rapidly, while one small squeaky “yes” came out of her as if it had been sneezed out; then suddenly sweeping both of them close against her breasts, she tucked her chin down tightly between the crowns of their heads and they felt her whole body shaken as if by a wind, but she did not cry. Catherine began to sniffle quietly because everything seemed very serious and very sad. Rufus listened to his mother’s shattered breathing and gazed sidelong past her fair shoulder at the sheet, rumpled, and at a rubbed place in the rose-patterned carpet and then at something queer, that he had never seen before, on the bedside table, a tangle of brown beads and a little cross; through her breathing he began once more to hear the quarreling sparrows; he said to himself: dead, dead, but all he could do was see and hear; the streetcar raised and quieted its grim, iron cry; he became aware that his cap was pushed crooked against her and he felt that he ought to take it off but that he ought not to move just now to take it off, and he knew why his Aunt Hannah had been so mad at him. He could no longer hear even a rumor of the streetcar, and his mother’s breathing had become quiet again. With one hand she held Catherine still more closely against her, and Catherine sniffled a little more comfortably; with the other hand she put Rufus quietly away, so that she could look clearly into his eyes; tenderly she took off his cap and laid it beside her, and pushed the hair back from his forehead. “Neither of you will quite understand for a while,” she said. “It’s—very hard to understand. But you will,” she said (I do, he said to himself; he’s dead. That’s what.) and she repeated rather dreamily, as if to herself, though she continued to look into his eyes, “You will”; then she was silent, and some kind of energy intensified in her eyes and she said: “When you want to know more—about it” (and her eyes became still more vibrant) “just, just ask me and I’ll tell you because you ought to know.” How did he get hurt, Rufus wanted to ask, but he knew by her eyes that she did not mean at all what she said, not now anyway, not this minute, he must not ask; and now he did not want to ask because he too was afraid; he nodded to let her know he understood her. “Just ask,” she said again, and he nodded again; a strange, cold excitement was rising in him; and in a cold intuition that it would be kind, and gratefully received, he kissed her. “God bless you,” she groaned, and held them passionately against herself; “both of you!” She loosened her arms. “And now you be a good boy,” she said in almost her ordinary voice, wiping Catherine’s nose. “Get little Catherine dressed, can you do that?” He nodded proudly; “and wash and dress