Rabbit, Run - John Updike [115]
Feeling dizzy, she hangs up. This is a mistake, but she thinks on the whole she’s been clever enough. She thinks she deserves a drink. The brown liquid spills down over the smoking ice cubes and doesn’t stop when she tells it to; she snaps the bottle angrily and blot-shaped drops topple into the sink. She goes into the bathroom with the glass and comes out with her hands empty and a taste of toothpaste in her mouth. She remembers looking into the mirror and patting her hair and from that she went to brushing her teeth. With Harry’s toothbrush.
She discovers herself making lunch, like looking down into a food advertisement in a magazine, bacon strips sizzling in a pan at the end of a huge blue arm. She sees the BB’s of fat flying in the air like the pretty spatter of a fountain in a park and wonders at how quick their arcs are. They prick her hand on the handle and she turns the purple gas down. She pours a glass of milk for Nelson and pulls some leaves off of a head of lettuce and sets them on a yellow plastic plate and eats a handful herself. She thinks she won’t set a place for herself and then thinks she will because maybe this trembling in her stomach is hunger and gets another plate and stands there holding it with two hands in front of her chest wondering why Daddy was so sure Harry was here. There is another person in the apartment she knows but it’s not Harry and the person has no business here anyway and she determines to ignore him and continues setting lunch with a slight stiffness operating in her body. She holds on to everything until it is well on the table.
Nelson says the bacon is greasy and asks again if Daddy go away and his complaining about the bacon that she was so clever and brave to make at all annoys her so that after his twentieth refusal to eat even a bit of lettuce she reaches over and slaps his rude face. The stupid child can’t even cry he just sits there and stares and sucks in his breath again and again and finally does burst forth. But luckily she is equal to the situation, very calm, she sees the unreason of his whole attempt and refuses to be bullied. With the smoothness of a single great wave she makes his bottle, takes him by the hand, oversees his urinating, and settles him in bed. Still shaking with the aftermath of sobs, he roots the bottle in his mouth and she is certain from the glaze on his watchful eyes that he is locked into the channel to sleep. She stands by the bed, surprised by her stern strength.
The telephone rings again, angrier than the first time, and as she runs to it, running because she does not want Nelson disturbed, she feels her strength ebb and a brown staleness washes up the back of her throat. “Hello.”
“Janice.” Her mother’s voice, even and harsh. “I just got back from shopping in Brewer and your father’s been trying to reach me all morning. He thinks Harry’s gone again. Is he?”
Janice closes her eyes and says, “He went to Allentown.”
“What would he do there?”
“He’s going to sell a car.”
“Don’t be silly. Janice. Are you all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Drinking what?”
“Now don’t worry, I’m coming right over.”
“Mother, don’t. Everything is fine. I just put Nelson into his nap.”
“I’ll have a bite to eat out of the icebox and come right over. You lie down.”
“Mother, please don’t come over.”
“Janice, now don’t talk back. When did he go?”
“Stay away, Mother. He’ll be back tonight.” She listens and adds, “And stop crying.”
Her mother says, “Yes you say stop when you keep bringing us all into disgrace. The first time I thought it was all his fault but I’m not so sure any more. Do you hear? I’m not so sure.”
Hearing this speech has made the sliding sickness in her so steep she wonders if she can keep her grip on the phone. “Don’t come over, Mother,” she begs. “Please.”
“I’ll have a bite of lunch and be over in twenty minutes. You go to bed.”
Janice replaces the receiver and looks around