and Mick was Howardâa sheepish expression on his pimply, fourteen year old face. "Hello, Sister," he mumbled after a gangling moment. "How do you feel?"
To look at the three of them, standing there in the shade from the oaks, somehow made her more tired than she had felt since she came out. Especially Mickâtrying to straddle King with her muscular little legs, clinging to his flexed body that looked ready any moment to spring out at her.
"See, Mother! Kingâ"
Mrs. Lane jerked one shoulder nervously. "MickâHoward take that animal away this instantânow mind meâand lock him up somewhere." Her slender hands gestured without purpose. "This instant."
The children looked at Constance with sidelong gazes and moved off across the lawn toward the front porch.
"Wellâ" said Mrs. Lane when they were gone. "Did you just pick up and walk out?"
"The doctor said I couldâfinallyâand he and Miss Whelan got that old rolling chair out from under the house andâhelped me."
The words, so many of them at once, tired her. And when she gave a gentle gasp to catch her breath, the coughing started again. She leaned over the side of the chair, Kleenex in hand, and coughed until the stunted blade of grass on which she had fastened her stare had, like the cracks in the floor beside her bed, sunk ineffaceably into her memory. When she had finished she stuffed the Kleenex into a cardboard box beside the chair and looked at her motherâstanding by the spirea bush, back turned, vacantly singeing the blossoms with the tip of her cigarette.
Constance stared from her mother to the blue sky. She felt that she must say something. "I wish I had a cigarette," she pronounced slowly, timing the syllables to her shallow breath.
Mrs. Lane turned. Her mouth, twitching slightly at the corners, stretched out in a too bright smile. "Now
that
would be pretty!" She dropped the cigarette to the grass and ground it out with the toe of her shoe. "I think maybe I'll cut them out for a while myself. My mouth feels all sore and furryâlike a mangy little cat."
Constance laughed weakly. Each laugh was a huge burden that helped to sober her.
"Motherâ"
"Yes."
"The doctor wanted to see you this morning. He wants you to call him."
Mrs. Lane broke off a sprig of the spirea blossoms and crushed it in her fingers. "I'll go in now and talk to him. Where's that Miss Whelan? Does she just set you out on the lawn by yourself when I'm goneâat the mercy of dogs andâ"
"Hush, Mother. She's in the house. It's her afternoon off, you know, today."
"Is it? Well, it isn't afternoon."
The whisper slid out easily with her breath. "Motherâ"
"Yes, Constance."
"Areâare you coming back out?" She looked away as she said itâlooked at the sky that was a burning, fevered blue.
"If you want me toâI'll be out."
She watched her mother cross the lawn and turn into the gravel path that led to the front door. Her steps were as jerky as those of a little glass puppet. Each bony ankle stiffly pushing past the other, the thin bony arms rigidly swinging, the delicate neck held to one side.
She looked from the milk to the sky and back again. "Mother," her lips said, but the sound came out only in a tired exhalation.
The milk was hardly started. Two creamy stains drooped from the rim side by side. Four times, then, she had drunk. Twice on the bright cleanliness, twice with a shiver and eyes shut. Constance turned the glass half an inch and let her lips sink down on an unstained part. The milk crept cool and drowsy down her throat.
When Mrs. Lane returned she wore her white string garden gloves and carried rusty, clinking shears.
"Did you phone Doctor Reece?"
The woman's mouth moved infinitesimally at the corners as though she had just swallowed. "Yes."
"Wellâ"
"He thinks it bestânot to put off going too long. This waiting aroundâThe sooner you get settled the better it'll be."
"When, then?"
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