Lost Read Free Page B

doors, faintly etched now with light. No sound came from the other side. Grasping one of the handles, she slid the door until she could slip inside. She noticed in a glance that the room was empty of flowers.
    A single bedside lamp burned on an end table, its dark lampshade capturing much of the light. The oxygen tent was gone. The couch had been pushed up beside the wicker lounger, and on the couch a shape moved. Inching forward, she saw that it was her mother, nestled alongside Sherman. She was murmuring to him when she saw Mamie. They stared at each other. Quiet as a cat, Mamie stopped at the foot of the lounger, rigid. Finally, her mother broke the silence. “Sherman, look who’s here,” she said, her voice croaky but kind. “Mamie’s come to say good night.” Slowly she lifted her face from his. “Look how much better he is today. The color’s come back to his cheeks. He’s so much better—so much better off here at home where we can take care of him. What a fine boy he is. So strong. Mamie, don’t be scared. Come on around here and say good night. Come on, now. He’s fast asleep. He can’t hurt you.”
    With her hand trailing on the wicker, Mamie moved slowly up along the side of the lounger toward the place her mother had indicated with a nod.
    â€œNow see,” her mother said even more quietly, “that wasn’t so hard, was it? Go ahead. Tell him good night.” The stench of antiseptic and perspiration was stifling.
    Everything seemed terribly wrong; nothing was the same as it had been. She could not see that Sherman was breathing at all. The sheets did not move upon his body, and his head—his lolling head was enormous with bandages. As she stood trembling at the bedside, peering over at his swollen, almost unrecognizable face, she was dumbstruck with how thoroughly everything had changed. Even her mother had suddenly been transformed. In the three days she had stayed in the room, her hair had turned white in places and her eyes smoldered in her gaunt face.
    Tears ran loose in Mamie’s eyes. “Mama,” she said, bracing herself. She stammered for breath; then she blurted it out: “Mama, is he still dead?”
    Shooting across the narrow width of the lounger, her mother’s hand sank into Mamie’s hair, clasped the back of her head, and pulled her down across the white sheets until their faces were inches apart. “Don’t you ever say that,” she whispered sharply. “Don’t you ever. He’s not dead and he’s not going to die. You know how I know? Because”—wincing under her grip, Mamie begged to be let go, but her mother only tightened her hold—“because the good Lord tells us he will not give us something we cannot bear and—and I can’t … bear … it.” All at once, she sounded absolutely exhausted. Her fingers relaxed their grip and Mamie pulled away with such force that she fell on the floor. She picked herself up and stared at her mother, but she didn’t cry any more; she backed away, blinking the tears from her eyes.
    Her mother had returned her attention to Sherman, crooning to him and straightening the bedclothes around him. Watching them while she rubbed her sore scalp, Mamie realized that she was completely on her own. She’d wanted to go to her mother, had waited these three days to sit on her lap and tell her everything—the truth about what she and Sherman had done together. But she couldn’t now. She would do his bidding as he had asked, as he had taught her. She was afraid to tell her father, afraid of what he might do, and now that her mother had given herself to Sherman, there was no one left to tell it to—except, maybe, the Chinaman.
    The next morning, in the hour before daybreak, Mamie awoke quite suddenly for no explainable reason. She sensed someone near, watching her, almost asking her to turn around. She peered through