âIâve been gone a long time, havenât I?â he said; and that was all he said.
He walked out of my room. My mother looked at me and went out. After a little while she came back and she looked at me again. Her voice wasnât quite as soft and sweet as it generally was when she said, âJohnny, these last three years while your father has been away, I have tried to do the best I can for you. But if ever I hear you shout and scream again, just because a doctor is trying to examine your leg, and say it was all your fatherâs fault because he came back and made you leave Wyomingâif ever â she said, âyou do such a thing again, I wonât speak to you. Iâll never speak to you. Weâre going to France. I want to go to France. Even if you donât seem to, I want to be with your father!â
After that, somehow, something changed between my mother and me. She remained just as sweet and pleasant as ever, but it was as if a thin curtain or shade had been pulled down between us. The worst part of it was, I blamed my father for it. I know it was wicked of me to think thatâbut I couldnât help it. I lay in that bed in New York, most of the time alone while my mother and father were running around in New York, having a gay time for all I knew. I thought how much better it had been back in Wyoming before my father returned, when the whole house and ranch more or less circled around me.
Well, we stayed about four days in New York. Afterwards, my father went to Washington. From there he flew to France. My mother and I had two more days of it, and it was pretty dismal. I wanted to go back home. I said if sheâd agree to go back home Iâd even let her take me to San Francisco where the doctors there could tinker with my leg.
On that subject she spoke a lot more sharply than she ever did before my father came home. She said it was silly for me to talk that way. I was big enough to understand there wasnât anything so dreadfully wrong about my leg that couldnât be fixed. It could go on this way for six months or a year, possibly, maybe two years. There was a chance Iâd grow out of the trouble. She and my father had talked about it together, before he departed. The thing was, it wasnât good for me to stick to bed all the time and wait to see whether Iâd grow out of the trouble. The operation wouldnât take very long; in the hands of a top-notch specialist, the job was simple andâshe saidâit hadnât ought to hurt too much. It wouldnât hurtâshe saidânearly as much as my father had been hurt. By having it done in France, we could all be together instead of having the family split up once more. She thought I should be glad to go to France. She didnât understand why I acted this way.
I turned my face away from her when I said, âNobody likes me any more.â
Well, youâd have thought that might have brought some sort of response because I felt as low as dust. Do you know what happened? She laughed. Yes sir, my own mother. She laughed. I never heard such a heartless thing.
It was because my father had come back and filled her head with ideas about France and the two had made plans of their own, leaving me out. There I was sick, practically alone in New York, in bed, my leg hurting, wanting sympathy and kindness and maybe a big dish of chocolate ice cream or a promise from my mother Iâd get a bicycleâand all that happened was my own mother laughed at me.
Perhaps if I died, theyâd think back and feel sorry and wish they hadnât acted as mean as they had. After I died, Iâd probably haunt them. It would serve them right.
I nearly did die, too, on that boat, although nobody but I realized it. I never have been so almighty sick in my life as I was on that boat going to France. Sick? Now Iâm writing it down, even at the thought of how sick I was, I turn green around the gills and