A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [25]
“Do you know what I could do with the—hundred or so dollars it’s going to cost?” Howard said with no trace of irritation in his voice. “I could get a better—”
“Don’t be silly. You’ll want a suit when Emma graduates from high school, from college, and gets married.”
She had no idea what moved her son. He was always silly, wasn’t he? First of all, he was under the impression that he could buy a suit for one hundred dollars, and second, he got up at 4:30 every morning because he longed to get out to the barn and milk animals the size of the Parthenon. Nellie was sure that Howard would soon outgrow his fantasy about the dairy farm, that that dream life of his wasn’t too much different than a boy spending hours moving a tractor around in the sandbox, making his own engine noises. A person could get by without depriving a cow of what was rightfully hers; we could all drink calcium-fortified orange juice and soy milk. My ears burned, my cheeks felt hot when I thought too much about her. I couldn’t forgive her for the way she treated Howard—as if she thought he was begging for candy. Okay, sweetheart, here’s one hundred thousand dollars for your farm. Don’t eat it in one sitting or you’ll get a tummyache. She had the wicked habit of generously giving and then chiding us for not using the money wisely. Sometimes she literally threw cash at us, and other times we felt we would have to get down on our knees and beg to get a nickel out of her. I should have been grateful, inwardly and outwardly, for her occasional spontaneous showers. No matter how much I prepared myself, how well I thought I had steeled myself against her, against my own irritation, I was always amazed, as if for the first time, by her little speeches, her slights, her apparently careless generosity that later implied a condition or two.
Howard was adept at concealing his exasperation, but I knew him well enough to understand that the steady gaze he now turned on me was his way of pleading for help. I shrugged my shoulders and pushed my plate back. She wanted him to look nice. Her son was going to smell of manure and have a dirty face at church; he wasn’t going to put his best foot forward and no one would know what a good, smart boy he was. I could see the worry in her puckered face. Her son’s wife was a disgrace, and he wasn’t going to look as if he was separate from her. Nellie was tired, and she was growing old. To her credit she had said very little about Lizzy’s death, and giving her the benefit of the doubt, the suit business was probably her way of trying to make it all right for us. I did feel a little bit sorry for her. He had already jeopardized the cows’ productivity and comfort by milking two hours earlier, so why not oblige her? “I’ll drive,” I said to Howard. And to Nellie I murmured, “We’ll find him something presentable.”
On the way to town I couldn’t keep from saying my usual line: “Someday we have to stop taking her money.”
“I know.” It was characteristic of him to speak in monosyllables when there might be an argument.
At the men’s store in Blackwell, Hutchin’s, conveniently open late on Fridays, Howard tried on three suits, all of which were big around the middle and too short in the sleeves. Although he is color blind he picked out a respectable gray-and-green ensemble. “This isn’t pink, is it?” he whispered. The saleswoman reminded him that he needed shoes and a tie, a shirt and socks. She winked at me as if to say, We are on the same side. We have a mutual interest in dressing the senseless mannequin. When it dawned on her that something was wrong with me, that I was feebleminded or deaf, she turned her back and addressed Howard as if she had only just recognized his genius for matching socks to ties.
We sat for fifteen minutes scratching our legs and thumbing through the Reader’s Digests while the suit was being altered. The seamstress lived right around the corner and was called from her supper for the emergency. For all our bad luck there was a speck of good fortune. I found a fashion magazine with a scratch-and-sniff perfume