Margaret from Maine (9781101602690) Read Free Page A

of sawed-off shotguns, had decided the rifleman had one of those for a weapon, although he called it a saw-chuck shotgun without knowing better. The soldier with the saw-chuck shotgun was Gordon’s favorite, although he resisted having favorites for fear it would prejudice the war games and make them hollow. Still, he often wondered if the saw-chuck soldier wasn’t a little like his father, who also lay on his belly in the white bed, and whose snoring reminded him of sawing, which probably had something to do with that type of rifle.
    He slept a little more, and then finally he felt a hand on his forehead, then lips. He opened his eyes. His mother sat on the edge of the bed, a white terry cloth robe wrapped around her. She wore her hair up in a towel, and Gordon saw a drop of water fall from her neck to her shoulder.
    â€œMorning, buster,” she said.
    â€œMorning, Mom,” he answered.
    â€œYou ready to wake up? Grandpa Ben said he’s coming in to have coffee with you soon.”
    He nodded.
    â€œWhere are we going today?” she asked him.
    He knew the answer, but he felt shy suddenly and wouldn’t reply.
    â€œTo the hospital,” she said, filling it in for him. “To see Daddy.”
    â€œDaddy,” the boy repeated.
    â€œThat’s right, sweetheart. Grandpa is finishing up with the cows. I’ve run a bath. Will you jump in and I’ll be in in a second to help you wash, okay?”
    He nodded.
    He didn’t want to get up until she left, for fear of knocking the soldiers out of their positions. The red plaid curtain lifted and fell. His mother brushed his hair back one more time, then stood and walked out of the room. He grabbed the saw-chuck shotgun guy from near his armpit and carried it with him when he went toward the bathroom.
    * * *
    On the back porch, Margaret stopped to smell the lilacs. They were common lilacs, purple, and smelled like wind mixed with something floral and difficult to name. She breathed deep and stretched her back. She liked what she wore—a simple cotton dress that hung smoothly around her frame—and she was glad she’d allowed her friend Blake to talk her into buying it. It was a good run-errand dress. She had a sweater to put over it if the hospital proved too cold. Blake had been right. Blake was usually right about such things.
    She turned to go back inside, but then paused for a moment more beside the lilacs. Thomas loved lilacs; he cut them each spring, bringing them inside in bundles that he left in a small watering can beside their bed. There they stayed, trembling with each footstep over the bare wooden floors of the bedroom, the moisture of the can occasionally sweating a moat onto her bedside table. Even with them so near, she could not depend on smelling them. The scent rose and fell, disappeared altogether at times, then suddenly reappeared at the fluff of a blanket or the tuck of a pillow.
    She cupped one of the lilac heads in her hand and brought it to her nose. Yes, the scent was there. She had already cut a half dozen and put them in the car for Thomas. She had no idea if Thomas could sense such things, but it couldn’t hurt, and maybe, she liked to think, in some small, primitive part of him he still recorded sensations like these.
The doing of it would be the good of it,
she liked to quote.
    Back in her kitchen, she watched Gordon row through his bowl of Cheerios. Benjamin, large and red and smelling softly of cattle, sat beside the boy, drinking coffee. Benjamin drank his coffee black, as Thomas had taken it, and she liked that in the Kennedy men. She went to the sink and rinsed out her coffee cup and set it to dry on the drainer.
    â€œDo you have an appointment to see anyone over there?” Ben asked.
    â€œI’m going to try to catch Dr. Medios. That’s why I want to move along. He has early rounds.”
    â€œI never understood why hospitals have to start up so early in the