Cora
is a morning person. Her sister, Janice, hardly feels conscious
till late afternoon. Janice nibbles fruit and berries and complains
of her stomach. Cora eats potatoes with butter and sour cream. She
likes being fat. It makes her feel powerful and hides her wrinkles.
Janice thinks being thin and willowy makes her look young, though
she would admit that -- and even though Cora spends more time outside
doing the yard and farm work -- Cora's skin does look smoother.
Janice has a slight stutter. Normally she speaks rapidly and in
a kind of shorthand so as not to take up anyone's precious time,
but with her stutter, she can hold peoples' attention for a moment
longer than she would otherwise dare. Cora, on the other hand, speaks
slowly, and if she had ever stuttered, would have seen to it she
learned not to.
Cora bought a genuine Kilim
rug to offset, she said, the bad taste of the flowery chintz covers
Janice got for the couch and chairs. The rug and chairs look terrible
in the same room, but Cora insisted that her rug be there. Janice
retaliated by pawning Mother's silver candelabras. Cora had never
liked them, but she made a fuss anyway, and she left Janice's favorite
silver spoon in the mayonnaise jar until, polish as she would, Janice
could never get rid of the blackish look. Janice punched a hole
in each of Father's rubber boots. Cora wears them anyway. She hasn't
said a single word about it, but she hangs her wet socks up conspicuously
in the kitchen.
They wish they'd gotten married
and moved away from their parent's old farm house. They wish, desperately,
that they'd had children -- or husbands, for that matter. As girls
they worked hard at domestic things: Canning, baking bread and pies,
sewing . . . waiting to be good wives to almost anybody, but nobody
came to claim them.
Janice is the one who worries.
She's worried right now because she saw a light out in the far corner
of the orchard -- a tiny, flickering light. She can just barely
make it out through the misty rain. Cora says, "Nonsense."
(She's angry because it's just the sort of thing Janice would notice
first.) Cora laughs as Janice goes around checking and rechecking
all the windows and doors to see that they're securely locked. When
Janice has finished, and stands staring out at the rain, she has
a change of heart. "Whoever's out there must be cold and wet.
Maybe hungry."
"Nonsense," Cora says
again. "Besides, whoever's out there probably deserves it."
Later, as Cora watches the light
from her bedroom window, she thinks whoever it is who's camping
out down there is probably eating her apples and making a mess.
Cora likes to sleep with the windows open a crack even in weather
like this, and she prides herself on her courage, but, quietly,
so that Janice, in the next room, won't hear, she eases her windows
shut and locks them.
In the morning the rain has
stopped, though it's foggy. Cora goes out (with Father's walking
stick, and wearing Father's boots and battered canvas hat) to the
far end of the orchard. Something has certainly been there. It had
pulled down perfectly good, live, apple branches to make a nest.
Cora doesn't like the way it ate apples either, one or two bites
out of lots of them, and then it looks as if it had made itself
sick and threw up not far from the fire. Cora cleans everything
so it looks like no one has been there. She doesn't want Janice
to have the satisfaction of knowing anything about it.
That afternoon, when Cora has
gone off to have their pickup truck greased, Janice goes out to
take a look. She also takes Father's walking stick, but she wears
Mother's floppy pink hat. She can see where the fire's been by the
black smudge, and she can tell somebody's been up in the tree. She
notices things Cora hadn't: Little claw marks on a branch, a couple
of apples that had been bitten into still hanging on the tree near
the nesting place. There's a tiny piece of leathery stuff stuck
to one sharp twig. It's incredibly soft and downy and has a wet-dog
smell. Janice takes it, thinking it might be an important clue.
Also she wants to have something to show that she's been down there
and seen more than Cora has.
Cora comes back while Janice
is upstairs taking her nap. She sits down in the front room and
reads an article in the Reader's Digest about how to help
your husband communicate. When she hears Janice come down the stairs,
Cora goes up for her nap. While Cora naps, Janice sets out grapes
and a tangerine, strawberries and one hard-boiled egg. As she eats
her early supper, she reads the same article Cora has just read.
She feels sorry for Cora, who seems to have nothing more exciting
than this sort of thing to read (along with her one hundred great
books), whereas Janice has been reading How Famous Couples Get
The Most Out Of Their Sex Lives. Just one of many such books
that she keeps locked in her bedside cabinet. When she finishes
eating, she cleans up the kitchen so it looks as if she hadn't been
there.
Cora comes down when Janice
is in the front parlor (sliding doors shut) listening to music.
She has it turned so low Cora can hardly make it out. Might be Vivaldi.
It's as if Janice doesn't want Cora to hear it in case she might
enjoy it. At least that's how Cora takes it. Cora opens a can of
spaghetti. For desert she takes a couple of apples from the "special"
tree. She eats on the closed-in porch, watching the clouds. It looks
as if it'll rain again tonight.
About eight-thirty they each
look out their different windows and see that the flickering light
is there again. Cora says, "Damn it to hell," so loud
that Janice hears from two rooms away. At that moment, Janice begins
to like the little light. Thinks it looks inviting. Homey. She forgets
that she found that funny piece of leather and those claw marks.
Thinks most likely there's a young couple in love out there. Their
parents disapprove and they have no place else to go but her orchard.
Or perhaps it's a child running away. Teenager, maybe, cold and
wet. She has a hard time sleeping, worrying and wondering about
whoever it is, though she's still glad she locked the house up tight.
The next day begins almost exactly
like the one before, with Cora going out to the orchard first and
cleaning up -- trying to -- all the signs of anything having been
there, and with Janice coming out later to pick up the clues that
are left. Janice finds that the same branch is scratched up even
more than it was before, and this time Cora has left the vomit (full
of bits of apple peel) behind the tree. Perhaps she hadn't noticed
it. Apples -- or at least so many apples -- aren't agreeing with
the lovers. (In spite of the clues, Janice prefers to think that
it's lovers.) She feels sorry about the all-night rain. There's
no sign that they had a tent or shelter of any kind, poor things.
By the third night, though,
the weather finally clears. Stars are out and a tiny moon. Cora
and Janice stand in the front room, each at a different window,
looking out towards where the light had been. An old seventy-eight
record is on. Fritz Kreisler playing the Bach Chaconne. Janice says,
"You'd think, especially since it's not raining...."
Cora says, "Good riddance,"
though she, too, feels a sense of regret. At least something unusual
had been happening. "Don't forget," Cora says, "the
state prison's only ninety miles away."
Little light or no little light,
they both check the windows and doors and then recheck the ones
the other had already checked, or at least Cora rechecks all the
ones Janice had seen to. Janice sees her do it, and Cora sees her
noticing, so Cora says, "With what they're doing with genetic
engineering, it could be anything at all out there. They make mistakes,
and peculiar things escape. You don't hear about it because it's
classified. People disapprove, so they don't let the news get out."
Ever since she was five years old, Cora has been trying to scare
her younger sister, though, as usual, she ends up scaring herself.
But then, just as they are about
to give up and go off to bed, there's the light again. "Ah."
Janice breathes out as though she had been holding her breath. "There
it is."
"You've got a lot to learn,"
Cora says. She'd heard the relief in Janice's big sigh. "Anyway,
I'm off to bed, and you'd better come soon, too, if you know what's
good for you."
"I know what's good for
me," Janice says. She would have stayed up too late just for
spite, but now she has another, secret reason for doing it. She
sits reading an article in Cosmopolitan about how to be more
sexually attractive to your husband. Around midnight, even from
downstairs, she can hear Cora snoring. Janice goes out to the kitchen.
Moves around it like a little mouse. She's good at that. Gets out
Mother's teakwood tray, takes slices of rye bread from Cora's stash,
takes a can of Cora's tuna fish. (Janice knows she'll notice. Cora
has them all counted.) Takes butter and mayonnaise from Cora's side
of the refrigerator. Makes three tuna fish sandwiches. Places them
on one of Mother's gold-rimmed plates along with some of her own
celery, radishes, and grapes. Then she sits down and eats one sandwich
herself. She hasn't let herself have a tuna fish sandwich, especially
not one with mayonnaise and butter and rye bread, for a long time.
It's only when Janice is halfway
out in the orchard that she remembers what Cora said about the prison
and thinks maybe there's some sort of escaped criminal out there
-- a rapist or a murderer, and here she is, wearing only her bathrobe
and nightgown, in her slippers, and without even Father's walking
stick. (Though the walking stick would probably just have been a
handy thing for the criminal to attack her with.) She stops,
puts the tray down, then moves forward. She's had a lot of practice
creeping. She's been creeping up on Cora ever since they were little.
Used to yell, "Boo," but nowadays creeping up and standing
very close and suddenly whispering right by her ear can make Cora
jump as much as a loud noise. Janice sneaks along slowly. Has to
step over where whoever it is has already thrown up. Something is
huddling in front of the fire, wrapped in what at first seems to
be an army blanket. Why it is a child. Poor thing. She's
known it all the time. But then the creature moves, stretches, makes
a squeaky sound, and she sees it's either the largest bat or the
smallest little old man she's ever seen. And with wings. She's wondering
if this is what Cora meant by genetic engineering.
Then the creature stands up
and Janice is shocked. He has such a large penis that Janice thinks
back to the horses and bulls they used to have. It's a Pan-type
penis, more or less permanently erect and hooked up tight against
his stomach, though Janice doesn't know this about a Pan's penis,
and anyway, this is definitely not some sort of Pan.
The article in Cosmopolitan
comes instantly to her mind, plus the other, sexier books that she
has locked in her bedside cabinet. Isn't there, in all this, some
way to permanently outdo Cora? Whether she ever finds out about
it or not? Slowly, Janice backs up, turns, goes right past her tray
(the gleam of silverware helps her know where it is). Goes to the
house and down into the basement.
They'd always had dogs. Big
ones for safety. But Mr. Jones (called Jonesy) had died a few months
ago, and Cora is still grieving, or so she keeps saying. Since the
dog had become blind, diabetic, and incontinent in his last years,
Janice is relieved that he's gone. Besides, she had her heart set
on something small and more tractable, some sort of terrier, but
now she's glad Jonesy was large and difficult to manage. His metal
choke collar and chain leash are still in the cellar. She wraps
them in a cloth bag to keep them from making any clanking noises
and heads back out, picking up the tray of food on the way.
As she comes close to the fire
she begins to hum. This time she wants him to know she's coming.
The creature sits in the lowest fork of the tree now and watches
her with glinting red eyes. She puts the tray down and begins to
talk softly as though she were trying to calm old Jonesy. She even
calls the thing Mr. Jones. At first by mistake and then on purpose.
He watches. Moves nothing but his eyes and big ears. His wings,
dangling along his arms, are olive drab like that piece she found,
but his body is a little lighter, especially along his stomach.
She can tell that even in the moonlight.
Now that she's closer and less
startled than before, she can see that there's something terribly
wrong. One leathery wing is torn and twisted. He's helpless. Or
almost. Probably in pain. Janice feels a little rush of joy.
She breaks off a bit of tuna
fish sandwich and slowly, talking softly, she holds it towards his
little clawed hand. Equally slowly, he reaches out to take it. She
keeps this up until almost all of one sandwich is eaten. But suddenly
the creature jumps out of the tree, turns away, and throws up.
Janice knows a vulnerable moment
when she sees one. As he leans back on his heels between spasms,
she fastens the choke collar around his neck and twists the other
end of the chain leash around her wrist.
He only makes two attempts to
escape: Tries to flap himself into the air, but it's obviously painful
for him; then he tries to run. His legs are bowed, his gait rocking
and clumsy. After these two attempts, he seems to realize it's hopeless.
Janice can see in his eyes that he's given up -- too sick and tired
to care. Janice thinks he must be happy to be captured and looked
after at last.
She leads him back to the house
and down into the basement. Her own quiet creeping makes him quiet,
too. He seems to sense that he's to be a secret and that perhaps
his life depends on it. It was hard for him to walk all the way
across the orchard. He doesn't seem to be built for anything but
flying.
There is an old coal room, not
used since they got oil heat. Janice makes a bed for him there,
first chaining him to one of the pipes. She gets him blankets, water,
an empty pail with a lid. She makes him put on a pair of her underpants.
She has to use a cord around his waist to make them stay up. She
wonders what she should leave him to eat that would stay down. Then
brings him chamomile tea, dry toast, one small potato. That's all.
She doesn't want to be cleaning up a lot of vomit.
He's so tractable through all
this that she loses all fear of him. Pats his head as if he were
old Jonesy. Strokes the wonderful softness of his wings. Thinks:
If those were cut off, he'd look like a small old man with long,
hard fingernails -- misshapen, but not much more so than some other
people. And clothes can hide things. Without the dark wings, he'd
look lighter. His body is that color that's always described as
cafˇ au lait. She would have preferred it if he'd been clearly
a white person, but, who knows, maybe a little while in the cellar
will make him paler.
After a last rubbing of his
head behind his too-large ears, Janice padlocks the coal room and
goes up to her bedroom, but she's too excited to sleep. She reads
a chapter in Are You Happy with Your Sex Life? The one on:
How to turn your man into a lusting animal. ("The feet of both
sexes are exquisitely sensitive." And, "Let your eyes
speak, but first make sure he's looking at you." "Surrender.
When he thinks he's leading, your man feels strong in every
way.") Janice thinks she will have to be the one to take the
initiative, though she'll try to make him feel that he's the boss
-- even though he'll be wearing the choke collar.
For a change, Janice wakes up
just as early as Cora does. Earlier, in fact, and she lies in bed
making plans. She gets a lot of good ideas. She comes downstairs
whistling Vivaldi -- off-key as usual, but she's not doing it to
make Cora angry this time. She really can't whistle on key. Cora
knows that Janice knows Cora hates the way she whistles. Cora thinks
that if Janice really tried, she could be just as in tune as Cora
always is. Cora thinks Janice got up early just so she could spoil
Cora's breakfast by sitting across from her looking just like Mother
used to look when she disapproved of Father's table manners. And
Cora notices, even before she makes her omelet, that one can of
tuna fish is missing and her loaf of rye bread has gone down by
several slices. She takes a quart of strawberries from Janice's
side of the refrigerator and eats them all, not even bothering to
wash them.
Janice doesn't say a word. She
doesn't care, except that Jonesy might have wanted some. Janice
is feeling magnanimous and powerful. She feels so good she even
offers Cora some of her herb tea. Cora takes the offer as ironic,
especially since she knows that Janice knows she never drinks herb
tea. She retaliates by saying that, since they're both up so early,
they should take advantage of it and go out to the beach to get
more lakeweed for the garden.
Janice knows that Cora decided
this just to make her pay for the tuna fish and bread, but she still
feels magnanimous -- kindly to the whole world. She doesn't even
say that they'd already done that twice in the spring, and that
what they needed now were hay bales to put around the foundations
of the house for the winter. All she says is, "No!"
It's never been their way to
shirk their duties no matter how angry they might be with each other.
When it comes to work, they've always made a good team. But now
Janice is adamant. She says she has something important to do. She's
not ever said this before, nor has she ever had something important
to do. Cora has always been the one who did the important things.
This time Cora can't persuade Janice to change her mind, nor can
she persuade her that there's nothing important to be done -- at
least nothing more important than lakeweed.
Finally Cora gives up and goes
off alone. She hadn't meant to go. She's never gone off to get lakeweed
by herself, but she goes anyway, hoping to make Janice feel guilty.
Cora knows something is going on. She's not sure what, but she's
going to be on her guard.
As soon as Janice hears the
old pickup crunch away on the gravel drive, she goes down in the
basement, bringing along Father's old straight razor (freshly sharpened),
rubbing alcohol, and bandages. Also, to make it easier on him, a
bottle of sherry.
Cora comes back, tired and sandy,
around six-thirty. Her face is red and she has big, dried sweat
marks on her blue farmer's shirt, across the back and under the
arms. She smells fishy. She's so tired she staggers as she climbs
the porch steps. Even before she gets inside, she knows odd things
are going on. There's the smells...of beef stew or some such, onions,
maybe mince pie, and there, on the hall table, a glass of sherry
is set out for her. Or seems to be for her. Or looks like sherry.
Though the day was hot, these fall evenings are cool, and Janice
has laid a fire in the fireplace, and not badly done. Cora always
knew Janice could do it properly if she set her mind to it. Cora
takes the sherry and sits on the footstool of Father's big chair.
It's one of the ones Janice had covered in a flowery pattern. Looks
like pinkish-blue hydrangea. Cora looks at the fire. Thinks: All
this has got to be because of something else. Or maybe it's going
to be a practical joke. If she lets down her guard, she'll be in
for big trouble. But even if it's a joke, might as well take advantage
of it for as long as she can. The sherry relaxes her. She'll go
up and shower -- if, that is, Janice has left her any hot water.
For several days, Mr. Jones
is in pain. Janice is glad of it. She knows how a wild thing --
or even a not-so-wild thing -- appreciates being nursed back to
health. (As soon as he's better, she hopes to bond him to her in
a different way.) She hopes Mr. Jones was too drunk to remember
about the...amputation...whatever you call it. (Funny, he only has
three fingers on each hand. She'd not noticed that at first.)
Cora is still suspicious, but
doesn't know what to be suspicious about. The good food is going
on and on. After supper, Janice cleans up and doesn't ask for help
even though she's done all the cooking. And Janice disappears for
hours at a time. Goes up to take her nap -- or so she says -- but
Cora knows for a fact that she's not in her room. After the dishes
are cleaned up in the evenings, Janice sews or knits. It's not hard
to see that's she's knitting a child-sized sweater and sewing a
child-sized pair of trousers. At the same time, she's working on
a white dress, lacy and low-necked. Cora thinks much too low-necked
for someone Janice's age. But perhaps it's not for Janice. Maybe
Janice has some news she's keeping from Cora. That would be just
like her. Someone is getting married or coming for a visit. Or maybe
both.
Mr. Jones is getting better.
Eating soups, and nuts, and seeds, and keeping everything down,
finally. Janice is happy to see that his skin has faded some. He
might pass for a gnarled little Mexican or maybe a fairly light
India Indian. And he's beginning to understand some words. She's
been talking to him a lot, more or less as she used to talk to old
Jonesy. He knows good boy and bad boy and sit, lie down, be quiet....
She thinks he even has the concept of, "I love you." She's
never said that to any other creature before, not even to the pony
they'd had when they were little. She's been doing a lot of patting,
back rubbing, scratching under the chin and behind the ears. Though
he's always wearing a pair of her underpants tied up around his
waist, and though she hasn't yet tried the stroking of the "exquisitely
sensitive" feet, every now and then she notices his penis swelling
up even larger than it already is.
One night, after rereading the
chapter "How to Turn Your Man into a Lusting Animal,"
she puts on her flowery summer nightgown (even though the nights
are colder than ever, and they haven't started up the furnace yet).
She puts on lipstick, eye shadow, perfume, combs her hair out and
lets it hang over her shoulders.... (She's only graying a little
bit at the temples. Thank God, not like Cora, she's almost completely
gray.) She goes down into the cellar with a glass of sherry for
each of them. Not too much, though. She's read about alcohol and
sex.
She tells him she loves him
several times, kisses him on the cheeks and then on the neck, just
below the choke collar. Finally she kisses his lips. They are thin
and closed up tight, and she can feel the teeth behind them. Then
she rolls her nightgown up to her chin. She hopes he likes what
he sees even though she's not young anymore. (If anything, he mostly
looks surprised.) But no sooner has she lain herself down beside
him than it's over. She's even wondering, did it really happen?
Except, yes, there's blood, and it did hurt. But this isn't at all
like the books said it would be or should be. She's read about premature
ejaculation. This must be it. Maybe later, when he knows more words,
they can go for therapy. But -- oops -- there he goes again, and
just as fast as before. After that he falls asleep. She not only
didn't get any foreplay, but no afterplay, either. She's wondering,
where's the romance in all this?
Well, at least she's a real
woman now. She hasn't missed all of life. She may have missed a
lot, but no one can say she's missed all, which is more than Cora
can say. Janice thinks she is, and probably permanently -- at least
she hopes so -- one up on Cora. She's joined the human race in a
way Cora probably never will, poor thing. Janice will be kind.
Janice hardly ever drives. She
has always left that to Cora. She knows how, but she's out of practice.
Now she has several errands to do. She wants a nice pin-striped
suit, though she wonders if they come in boys' sizes -- a suit like
her father would have worn. She wants a good suitcase, not one from
the five-and-ten. Shiny shoes big enough for rough claws, though
she's cut those claws as short as she could, using old Jonesy's
nail clippers. Since Mr. Jones looks sort of Mexican, she'll get
him a south-of-the-border Panama hat and dark glasses.
It only takes a couple of days
for Janice to get her errands done, and then a couple more to get
the guest room ready: Aired out, curtains washed, bed made. (Good
it's a double bed.) She whistles all the time and doesn't even remember
that it bothers Cora.
Cora watches the preparation
of the guest room but refuses to give Janice the satisfaction of
asking any questions. It's easy to see that Janice wonders why Cora
isn't asking. Once Janice started to tell her something but then
turned red to her collar bone and shut up fast.
Janice has continued making
good suppers of Cora's favorite foods. Cora is still waiting for
the practical joke to come to its finale, but even...or especially
if it doesn't end, she knows something's up. She hasn't let down
her guard, and she's snooped around -- even in the basement, but
not in the coal room. Up in the attic she did find a large...very
large piece of stiff leather, dried blood along its edges and so
brittle she couldn't unfold it to see what it was. It gave her the
shivers. Pained her to see it, though she couldn't say why. Perhaps
it was the two toenails or claws that were attached to each corner.
She's thought of throwing the dead-looking thing out in the garbage,
but after she saw those claws that were part of it, she couldn't
bring herself to touch it again.
Everything is ready, but Janice
knows Jonesy needs a little more experience and training. She wants
to pretend to go down and pick him up at the airport in Detroit.
Cora, if she hears about it, will never let Janice go there by herself.
But Cora mustn't be there. For lots of reasons, not the least of
which is that Janice wants the trip to be like a honeymoon. They
could sneak out in the middle of the night and they could take two
or three or even more days coming back. Maybe a couple of days enjoying
the sights of Detroit. Jonesy could learn a lot.
Janice has never dared to even
think of going on a trip like this before, but with Jonesy she wouldn't
be alone. She sees herself, dressed in her best, sitting across
from him (he'll be wearing his pin-striped suit) in restaurants,
going to motels, movies, even.... She'd look right doing these things.
Like all the other couples. They'd hold hands at the movies. They'd
stroll in the evening after their long drive. Can he stroll? She'll
get him a silver-handled walking stick in Detroit. Better than Father's
cane. He may be a cripple, but he'll look like a gentleman, and
the better he looks, the more jealous Cora will be.
Janice leaves a note for Cora
mentioning the airport in Detroit.
And it started out being a wonderful
honeymoon. Janice kept the choke collar under Jonesy's necktie and
shirt, running the chain down inside his left sleeve so that when
she held his hand she could also hold the chain just to make sure.
She also found a way to hold the back of his shirt so she could
give a little pull on it, but she seldom had to use any of these
techniques. And how could he try to escape, hobbling as he does?
Unless he learns to drive the pickup? But Janice wouldn't be a bit
surprised if he could learn to drive it. Even before they get to
Detroit, Jonesy is dressing himself, uses the right fork in fancy
restaurants, can eat a lobster just as neatly as anyone can. (Though
he throws it up afterwards.)
Janice keeps a running conversation
going, just as if they were communicating. She keeps saying, "Don't
you think so, dear?" hoping nobody will notice that he doesn't
even nod. Lots of husbands are like that. Even Father didn't answer
Mother, lost as he was in his own thoughts all the time. But Mr.
Jones doesn't look lost in his thoughts. And he doesn't look as
if he feels hopeless anymore. He looks out at everything with such
intelligence that Janice is considering calling him Doctor Jones.
In Detroit (they are staying
at the Renaissance Center), Janice gets the good idea that they
should get married right there in City Hall. Before she even tries
to do it, she calls Cora up. "I got married," she says,
even though it hasn't happened, and whether it ever does or not,
Cora will never know the difference. "And isn't it funny, I'm
Mrs. Jones, and I call him Jonesy just like old Jonesy."
Cora can't answer. She just
sputters. She's been lonelier without Janice than she ever thought
she would be. She has even wished the little light was still flickering
in the orchard. She'd gone out there, hoping to find another nest.
Partly she'd just been looking for company. She'd even left the
doors unlocked and her window open. But then she'd put two and two
together. She's had all these days to wonder and worry and wait,
and she's been down in the basement where the coal-room door had
been carelessly left open. She's seen the pallet on the floor, the
bowl of dusty water, the remains of a last meal (Mother's china,
wine glasses), three pairs of Janice's underpants, badly soiled.
And she remembers that piece of folded leather with the dried blood
on it, and she gets the shivers all over again. Cora knows she's
been outmaneuvered, which she never thought could ever come about,
but she suddenly realizes that she doesn't care about that anymore.
She sputters into the phone,
and then, for the first time -- at least that Janice ever knew about
-- Cora bursts into tears. Janice can tell, even though Cora is
trying to hide it. All of a sudden Janice wants to say something
that will make Cora happy, but she doesn't know what. "You'll
like him," she says. "I know you will. You'll love
him, and he'll love you, too. I know him well enough to know he
will. He will."
Cora keeps on trying to hide
that she's crying, but she doesn't hang up. She's glad, at last,
to be connected to Janice, however tenuously.
"I'll bring you something
nice from Detroit," Janice says.
Cora still doesn't say anything,
though Janice can hear her ragged breathing.
"I'll be back real soon."
Janice doesn't want to break the connection either, but she can't
think of anything else to say. "I'll see you in two days."
It takes four. Janice comes
home alone by taxi after a series of buses. (The pickup is going
to be found two weeks later up in Canada, north of Thunder Bay.
Men's clothes will be found in it, including a Panama hat, dark
glasses, and a silver-handled cane. The radio will have been stolen.
There will be maps and a big dictionary that had never belonged
either to Cora or Janice.)
As Janice staggers up the porch
steps, Cora rushes down, her arms held out, but Janice flinches
away. Janice is wearing a wedding ring and a large, phony diamond
engagement ring. She has on a new dress. Even though it's wrinkled
and is stained with sweat across the back, Cora can see it was expensive.
Janice's hair is coming loose from its Psyche knot, and now she's
the one who's crying and trying to pretend she's not.
Cora tries to help Janice up
the steps. Even though Janice stumbles, she won't let her help,
but she does let Cora push her on into the living room. Janice collapses
onto the couch, tells Cora, "Don't hover." Hovering is
something Cora never did before. It's more like something Janice
would do.
Even after Cora brings Janice
a strong cup of coffee, Janice won't say a single word about anything.
Cora says she'll feel better if she talks about it, but she won't.
She looks tired and sullen. "You'd like to know everything,
wouldn't you just," she says. (What other way to stay one up
than not to tell?...than to have secrets?)
Cora almost says, "Not
really," but she doesn't want to be, anymore, what she used
to be. Janice hasn't had the experience of being in the house all
alone for several days. There's a different secret now that Janice
doesn't know about. Maybe never will unless Cora goes off someplace.
But why would she go anyplace? And where? Besides, being one up,
or getting even, doesn't matter to Cora anymore. She doesn't care
if Janice understands or not. She just wants to take care of her
and have her stay. Maybe, after a while, Janice will come to see
that things have changed.
Cora goes to the kitchen to
make a salad that she thinks Janice will like. She sets the dining
room table the way she thinks Janice would approve of, with Mother's
best dishes, and with the knives and forks in all the right places
and both water glasses and wine glasses, but Janice says she'll
eat later in the kitchen and alone and on paper plates. Meanwhile
she'll take a bath.
After Cora eats and is cleaning
up the last of her dishes, Janice comes in wearing her nightgown
and Mother's bathrobe. As she leans to get a pan from a lower shelf,
the bathrobe falls away. When she straightens up again, she sees
Cora staring at her. "What are you ogling?" she says,
holding the frying pan like a weapon.
"Nothing," Cora says,
knowing better than to make a comment. She's seen more than she
wants to see. There are big red choke collar marks all around Janice's
neck.
But something must be
said. Cora wonders what Father would have done. She usually knows
exactly what he'd do and does it without even thinking about it.
Now she can't imagine Father ever having to deal with something
like this. She can't say anything. She can't move. Finally she thinks:
No secrets. She says, "Sister." And then...but it's too
hard. (Father never would have said it.) She starts. Again, she
almost says it. "Sister, I love...."
At first it looks as if Janice
will hit her with the frying pan, but then she drops it and
just stares.