The Optimist's Daughter - Eudora Welty [11]
“I ain’t going to tell him that,” said the old woman.
“Tell him you ain’t got too much longer to stay,” suggested one of the sons.
“Ask him if he knows who you are,” said the wizened-looking daughter.
“Or you can just try keeping your mouth shut,” said Archie Lee.
“He’s your dad, the same as mine,” warned the old woman. “I’m going in because you skipped your turn. Now wait for me! Don’t run off and leave me.”
“He don’t know I’m living,” said Archie Lee, as the woman trudged through the doorway in Indian moccasins. He tilted up the bottle: Mr. Dalzell’s son, long lost.
Fay sobbed the louder after the old woman went.
“How you like Mississippi?” Mr. Dalzell’s family asked, almost in a chorus. “Don’t you think it’s friendly?” asked the wizened daughter.
“I guess I’m used to Texas.”
“Mississippi is the best state in the Union,” said Archie Lee and he put his feet up and stretched out full length on the couch.
“I didn’t say I didn’t have kin here. I had a grandpa living close to Bigbee, Mississippi,” Fay said.
“Now you’re talking!” the youngest girl said. “We know right where Bigbee is, could find it for you right now. Fox Hill is harder to find than Bigbee. But we don’t think it’s lonesome, because by the time you get all of us together, there’s nine of us, not counting the tadpoles. Ten, if Granddad gets over this. He’s got cancer.”
“Cancer’s what my dad had. And Grandpa! Grandpa loved me better than all the rest. That sweet old man, he died in my arms,” Fay said, glaring at Laurel across the room. “They died, but not before they did every bit they could to help themselves, and tried all their might to get better, for our sakes. They said they knew, if they just tried hard enough—”
“I always tell mine to have faith,” said the wizened daughter.
And as if their vying and trouble-swapping were the order of the day, or the order of the night, in the waiting room, they were all as unaware of the passing of the minutes as the man on the couch, whose dangling hand now let the bottle drop and slide like an empty slipper across the floor into Laurel’s path. She walked on, giving them the wide berth of her desolation.
“Wish they’d give Dad something to drink. Wash his mouth out,” said the old mother coming back—Laurel nearly met her in the door.
“Remember Mamie’s boy?” Another family had come in, grouping themselves around the Coke machine. The man who was working it called out, “He shot hisself or somebody shot him, one. He begged for water. The hospital wouldn’t give him none. Honey, he died wanting water.”
“I remember Joe Boy Bush from Bruintown,” a man retorted, turning around from the television screen. “He was laying there going without water and he reached himself over and bit that tube in two and drunk that glucose. And drunk ever’ drop that was in it. And that fool, in two weeks he was up out of that bed and they send him home.”
“Two weeks! Guess how long they’ve held us here!” cried Fay.
“If they don’t give your dad no water by next time round, tell you what, we’ll go in there all together and pour it down him,” promised the old mother. “If he’s going to die, I don’t want him to die wanting water.”
“That’s talking, Mama.”
“Ain’t that true, Archie Lee?”
But Archie Lee lay on the couch with his mouth open.
“There’s a fair sight. I’m glad his dad can’t walk in on us and see him,” said the old woman. “No, if Dad’s going to die I ain’t going to let him die wanting water!” she insisted, and the others began raggedly laughing.
“We’ll pour it down him!” cried the mother. “He ain’t going to stand a chance against us!” The family laughed louder, as if there could be no helping it. Some of the other families joined in. It seemed to Laurel that in another moment the whole waiting room would dissolve itself in waiting-room laughter.
Dr. Courtland stood in the doorway, the weight of his watch in his hand.
When Laurel and Fay reached him, he drew them into the elevator hall. The door to Judge McKelva’s room stood closed.
“I