Eventide (Plainsong #2)(14)

Huh, Raymond said. Well, I never heard of it. So have you been making any friends up there?

Not too many. I talk with this one girl some. And the apartment manager, she’s always around.

No young boys?

I’m too busy. I’m not interested anyway.

And how about my little girl. How’s Katie?

She’s fine. I put her in the university day care while I’m in class. I think she’s starting to get used to it. At least she doesn’t complain anymore.

Is she eating?

Not like at home.

Well. She needs to eat.

She misses you, Victoria said.

Well.

I miss you too, she said.

Do you, honey?

Every day. You and Harold both.

It isn’t the same around here, I can tell you. Far from it.

Are you all right? she said.

Oh yeah. We’re doing okay. But here, now I better put Harold on. I know he wants to say hello. And you take care of yourself now, honey. Will you do that?

You too, she said.

Harold came out from the kitchen and took up the phone while Raymond went back to start the dishes. Harold and Victoria talked about the weather and her classes again, and he asked why she wasn’t out having fun since it was Saturday night, she should be doing something to enjoy herself on a Saturday night, and she said she didn’t feel like going out, maybe she would some other weekend, and he said weren’t there any good-looking boys at that college, and she said maybe there were but she didn’t care, and he said well, she better keep her eyes open, she might see one she liked, and she said well, she doubted that, and then she said: But I hear you did all right at the sale barn last week.

Not too bad, Harold said.

I hear you got almost ninety-two. That’s really good, isn’t it.

I’m not going to complain. No ma’am.

I know how much it means to you.

Well, he said. Now what else about you? You need any money yet?

No. That’s not what I was calling for.

I know. But you be sure to say so. I got a feeling you wouldn’t tell nobody even if you did.

I’m all right for money, she said. It’s just good to hear your voice. I guess I was feeling a little homesick.

Oh, he said. Well. And since Raymond was making enough noise doing dishes that he couldn’t hear what Harold was saying on the phone, he told Victoria how much his brother missed her and how he talked about her every day, speculating on what she was doing there in Fort Collins and making suggestions as to how the little girl was faring, and as he went on in this vein it was clear to the girl that he was talking as much about himself as he was his brother and she felt so moved by this knowledge she was afraid she was going to cry.

After they hung up Harold went back to the kitchen where Raymond was just emptying the dishpan, pouring the water out into the sink. The clean dishes were drying in the rack on the counter. How’d she sound to you? Raymond said.

She sounded to me, Harold said, like she was kind of lonesome.

I thought so. She didn’t sound quite right to me.

No sir, she didn’t sound quite like herself, Harold said. I reckon we better send her some money.

Did she say something about that?

No. But she wouldn’t, would she.

That wouldn’t be like her, Raymond said. She never would say anything about what she wanted even when she was here.

Except for the baby sometimes. She might of said something about her once in a while.

Except for Katie. But it wasn’t just money, was it.

It wasn’t even about money, Harold said.

The way she sounded. The way her voice was.

No, it wasn’t money that made her voice sound that way. It was the rest of it too.

Well, I reckon she’s kind of lonesome, Raymond said. I’m going to say she kind of misses being here.

I guess maybe she does, said Harold.

Then for the next half hour they stood in the kitchen, leaning against the wooden counters drinking coffee and talking about how Victoria Roubideaux was doing a hundred and twenty-five miles away from home, where she was taking care of her daughter by herself and going to classes every day, while here they themselves were living as usual in the country in Holt County seventeen miles out south of town, with so much less to account for now that she was gone, and a wind rising up and starting to whine outside the house.





8


WHEN ROSE TYLER CAME OUT FROM THE KITCHEN TO THE front door of her house on a weekday night in the fall, the sky above the trees was heavily clouded and there was the smell in the air of rain coming, and on the doorstep under the yellow porch light stood Betty Wallace with the two children and out in the yard in the dry grass in the shadow of a tree was Luther Wallace looking big and hulking and dark.

Betty, Rose said. Is something the matter?

I didn’t want to bother you this time of night, Betty said. But I got an emergency. Could you drive me and my kids over to my aunt’s house? She looked out at Luther in the front yard. He’s being mean to me.

Do you want to come inside?

Yes. But he don’t have to. I’m mad at him.

Perhaps he better come too so we can all talk this over.

Well, he better behave hisself.

Rose called to Luther and he came up on the porch. He looked sad and disturbed. Even in the cool night air he was sweating, his great wide face as red as flannel. I never done nothing to her, he said.