In Cold Blood - Truman Capote [13]
go home. And - it's important always to have with you something of your own. That's really yours." The doorbell rang. It was Jolene's mother. Mrs. Clutter said, "Goodbye, dear," and pressed into Jolene's hand the paper fan. "It's only a penny thing - but it's pretty." Afterward Mrs. Clutter was alone in the house. Kenyon and Mr. Clutter had gone to Garden City; Gerald Van Vleet had left for the day; and the housekeeper, the blessed Mrs. Helm to whom she could confide anything, did not come to work on Saturdays. She might as well go back to bed - the bed she so rarely abandoned that poor Mrs. Helm had to battle for the chance to change its linen twice a week. There were four bedrooms on the second floor, and hers was the last at the end of a spacious hall, which was bare except for a baby crib that had been bought for the visits of her grandson. If cots were brought in and the hall was used as a dormitory, Mrs. Clutter estimated, the house could accommodate twenty guests during the Thanksgiving holidays; the others would have to lodge at motels or with neighbors. Among the Clutter kinfolk the Thanksgiving get-together was an annual, turnabout to-do, and this year Herb was the appointed host, so it had to be done, but coinciding, as it did, with the preparations for Beverly's wedding, Mrs. Clutter despaired of surviving either project. Both involved the necessity of making decisions - a process she had always disliked, and had learned to dread, for when her husband was off on one of his business journeys she was continually expected, in his absence, to supply snap judgments concerning the affairs of the farm, and it was unendurable, a torment. What if she made a mistake? What if Herb should be displeased? Better to lock the bedroom door and pretend not to hear, or say, as she sometimes did, "I can't. I don't know. Please." The room she so seldom left was austere; had the bed been made, a visitor might have thought it permanently unoccupied. An oak bed, a walnut bureau, a bedside table - nothing else except lamps, one curtained window, and a picture of Jesus walking on the water. It was as though by keeping this room impersonal, by not importing her intimate belongings but leaving them mingled with those of her husband, she lessened the offense of not sharing his quarters. The only used drawer in the bureau contained a jar of Vick's Vaporub, Kleenex, an electric heating pad, a number of white nightgowns, and white cotton socks. She always wore a pair of these socks to bed, for she was always cold. And, for the same reason, she habitually kept her windows closed. Summer before last, on a sweltering August Sunday, when she was secluded here, a difficult incident had taken place. There were guests that day, a party of friends who had been invited to the farm to pick mulberries, and among them was Wilma Kidwell, Susan's mother. Like most of the people who were often entertained by the Clutters, Mrs. Kidwell accepted the absence of the hostess without comment, and assumed, as was the custom, that she was either "indisposed" or "away in Wichita." In any event, when the hour came to go to the fruit orchard, Mrs. Kidwell declined; a city-bred woman, easily fatigued, she wished to remain indoors. Later, while she was awaiting the return of the mulberry pickers, she heard the sound of weeping, heartbroken, heartbreaking. "Bonnie?" she called, and ran up the stairs, ran down the hall to Bonnie's room. When she opened it, the heat gathered inside the room was like a sudden, awful hand over her mouth; she hurried to open a window. "Don't!" Bonnie cried. "I'm not hot. I'm cold. I'm freezing. Lord, Lord, Lord!" She flailed her arms. "Please, Lord, don't let anybody see me this way." Mrs. Kidwell sat down on the bed; she wanted to hold Bonnie in her arms, and eventually Bonnie let herself be held. "Wilma," she said, "I've been listening to you, Wilma. All of you. Laughing. Having a good time. I'm missing out on everything. The best years, the children - everything. A little while, and even Kenyon will be grown up - a man. And how will he remember