Collected Stories of Carson McCullers by Carson Mccullers

voice.
    "Come on now. Here's your milk."
    Out of her sleepy haze a question came that she had not intended to ask, that she had not even been consciously thinking about: "Where's Mother?"
    Miss Whelan held the glistening bottle in her plump hands. As she poured the milk it frothed white in the sunlight and crystal frost wreathed the glass.
    "Where—?" Constance repeated, letting the word slide out with her shallow release of breath.
    "Out somewhere with the other kids. Mick was raising a fuss about bathing suits this morning. I guess they went to town to buy those."
    Such a loud voice. Loud enough to shatter the fragile sprays of the spirea so that the thousands of tiny blossoms would float down, down, down in a magic kaleidoscopic of whiteness. Silent whiteness. Leaving only the stark, prickly twigs for her to see.
    "I bet your mother will be surprised when she finds where you are this morning."
    "No," whispered Constance, without knowing the reason for the denial.
    "I should think she would be. Your first day out and all. I know
I
didn't think the doctor would let you talk him into coming out. Especially after the time you had last night."
    She stared at the nurse's face, at her white clad bulging body, at her hands serenely folded over her stomach. And then at her face again—so pink and fat that why—why wasn't the weight and the bright color uncomfortable—why didn't it sometimes droop down tiredly toward her chest—?
    Hatred made her lips tremble and her breath come more shallowly, quickly.
    In a moment she said: "If I can go three hundred miles away next week—all the way to Mountain Heights—I guess it won't hurt to sit in my own side yard for a little while."
    Miss Whelan moved a pudgy hand to brush back the girl's hair from her face. "Now, now," she said placidly. "The air up there'll do the trick. Don't be impatient. After pleurisy—you just have to take it easy and be careful."
    Constance's teeth clamped rigidly. Don't let me cry, she thought. Don't, please, let her look at me ever again when I cry. Don't ever let her look at me or touch me again. Don't, please—Ever again.
    When the nurse had moved off fatly across the lawn and gone back into the house, she forgot about crying. She watched a high breeze make the leaves of the oaks across the street flutter with a silver sheen in the sun. She let the glass of milk rest on her chest, bending her head slightly to sip now and then.
    Out again. Under the blue sky. After breathing the yellow walls of her room for so many weeks in stingy hot breaths. After watching the heavy footboard of her bed, feeling it crush down on her chest. Blue sky. Cool blueness that could be sucked in until she was drenched in its color. She stared upward until a hot wetness welled in her eyes.
    As soon as the car sounded from far off down the street she recognized the chugging of the engine and turned her head toward the strip of road visible from where she lay. The automobile seemed to tilt precariously as it swung into the driveway and jerked to a noisy stop. The glass of one of the rear windows had been cracked and plastered with dingy adhesive tape. Above this hung the head of a police dog, tongue palpitating, head cocked.
    Mick jumped out first with the dog. "Looka there, Mother," she called in a lusty child's voice that rose up almost to a shriek. "She's
out.
"
    Mrs. Lane stepped to the grass and looked at her daughter with a hollow, strained face. She drew deeply at her cigarette that she held in her nervous fingers, blew out airy grey ribbons of smoke that twisted in the sunshine.
    "Well—" Constance prompted flatly.
    "Hello, stranger," Mrs. Lane said with a brittle gaiety. "Who let you out?"
    Mick clung to the straining dog. "See, Mother! King's trying to get to her. He hasn't forgotten Constance. See. He knows her good as anybody—don't you, boyoboyoboy—"
    "Not so loud, Mick. Go lock that dog in the garage."
    Lagging behind her mother