Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [204]
“Oh, thank God!” Nellie said. She was crying and laughing, and she still clung to Susan’s arm. Susan pried loose her hand, and holding Betsy’s small wet paw she went on down the path. By the time she reached the shingle, they were off the bridge. Evaporating tears were very cold on her cheekbones. She said something gentle to Betsy, transferred her hand to Nellie’s, and held out her arms to Ollie. With one white look upward at his father, he came into them. She could not hold him against her naturally because of her great belly; she had to hold him against her hip. One hand was on his whitey-brown hair. Over the top of his head she looked at Oliver, red with exertion, his shirt wet, his eyes like blue stones. As if restoring the circulation of his hands, he hung them at his sides and shivered the arms from the shoulders.
“Oh, Ollie,” Susan said, “why did you do such a thing? Why did you cross by yourself? You know you’re forbidden to.”
He said nothing.
“He’s safe,” Oliver said. “That’s what matters.”
But she was all to pieces, and her agitation came out as blame. “Have you learned a lesson?” she said to Ollie’s double crown. “Has it taught you something? Next time I might not be looking out the window . . .”
Then she remembered what else she had seen out the window. Her head turned, and there was Mrs. Briscoe, who must have stood in her tracks during the whole excitement, just starting toward them. Susan took Ollie by his thin shoulders and shook him. “What was it she sent you for? She did send you, didn’t she?”
He looked away, he said nothing. She shook him hard enough to rattle his teeth, furious at the stubborn wordlessness that was so exactly like his father’s. “Didn’t she!”
Held away and forced to glance up, he said, “Yes ma’am.”
“Why? What for?”
“Sue . . .” Oliver said.
She ignored him. “What for?”
“She’d left something on the other side. She was afraid to go get it herself.”
“That package you were carrying.”
“Yes. I . . . It slipped, Mother! When the bridge wobbled it just slipped and fell in the river, I couldn’t hang onto it. I could have come across easy except for the package. It kept slipping.”
“No you couldn’t. Don’t even begin to think you could. What was in the package?”
“Sue, can’t this wait?” Oliver said. “Let’s get you out of the sun.”
“What was it?” Susan said. “Was it a bottle?”
She cut her eyes aside to watch Mrs. Briscoe plowing through the gravel. She had sweated half-moons under her gingham arms, and her face, at a hundred yards away, was already fixing itself in an expression she obviously hoped was agitated concern.
“What kind of a bottle?” Ollie said. He was staring at her. So was Oliver. Nellie held Betsy off to one side.
“A whiskey bottle?”
“I don’t know,” Ollie said. “It wasn’t big. I could carry it easy, only it kept slipping.”
“Where was it? Where did she tell you to look for it?”
“On the poles over the shed door.”
“Yes,” Susan said, and straightened up. “Not exactly left by accident.” She pressed down on Ollie’s shoulders. “You shouldn’t have gone. You knew better. But it isn’t really your fault. It’s that . . .”
Bunion footed, wearing her look of a supposedly house-broken dog which is called upon to explain a puddle on the floor, Mrs. Briscoe labored toward them. Susan turned her back squarely and met Oliver’s eyes.
“Is that it?” he said “How’d you get onto it?”
“I saw her. She’s got another bottle buried down there on the beach. I saw her drinking from it.” She turned Ollie toward the house. “Come along. I don’t want to speak to her. You’ll have to take her back, Oliver.”
“Then who do we get?”
“I’d rather have nobody.”
“You can’t have nobody. It might take five or six hours to get the doctor out here.”
“Mrs. Olpen will come in an emergency.”
“She couldn’t stay. She’s got five of her own to look after.”
“Please!