In An Arid Land Read Online Free Page B

it. Maybe."
    "Oh yes, good," he said, bright and hopeful. "You really should get out more. You shouldn't sit in that house and brood."
    "I don't brood, Alfred."
    They looked at each other through their eyeglasses and it seemed they had reached an understanding.
    All day long she thought about it and then she thought about what Jorge would think of it and then she thought only of Jorge. She thought of him deeply, intensely, selfishly. By day's end she had fashioned in her mind a model of anger and resentment toward him. If you left me you must not have loved me and if you did not love me then you must have wanted to leave me. Isn't death, after all, simply a giving up, a getting out?
    At home, after the boys have eaten their dinner in silence and been put to bed early, she goes to her room and broods in the darkness. Her body is cold and hollow. She feels weak, too weak to make decisions, too weak even to lie down, to sleep. She doesn't want to go to dinner with Alfred Dunn, she doesn't want to go to dinner with anybody; she wants Jorge to come home.
    The moon is up again. At the window she looks out at the street, at the huge live oak in the yard. Jorge would have liked that tree. He was a great tree climber, an adventurer. It is then that she notices a dark figure on the sidewalk. She puts on her glasses and sees Mr. Morris standing there, resting against his cane. He is studying the house; he seems to be searching the windows for something. She steps back into the deeper shadow of her safe place and watches.
    He is like a dead man come to life, a wandering shade, the pure image of loneliness. His bald head shines in the moonlight and his clothes hang on him loosely. Now he is looking down, as if in thought. Perhaps he is lost and confused, can't recall the way home. An odd and disturbing notion, for he has found his way home: to this house where he lived all those years with a wife he must have loved. Here it was they raised their children and tended their gardens and slept together in this very room. She wonders if this is what he is thinking, if this is what he is
    remembering, and if in the vapors of his senility he is searching for the key to come inside.
    Soon he turns and shuffles away, tapping the sidewalk with his cane, and once again the night is empty.

    "When is Daddy coming home?" Gabe wants to know.
    It is the weekend. They are all on the front porch, the broad deep porch that first attracts the eye when you approach the house. Miguel is playing with his turtles but he won't allow Gabe to join him and Gabe is bored and angry and frustrated. He wants Daddy to play with him, though Mama will do. But Mama is busy; she is reading reports; she has a meeting of district recruiters on Monday and she is not prepared.
    "When is Daddy coming home?" he asks again, demanding and violent this time. He stalks to Angelica's chair and shakes it.
    She glances at him and answers without thinking, "Never."
    Now Miguel stops his playing and looks up. They are both staring at her. Never has she said never. Never has she so directly stated the cold simple fact of it. Still, she is surprised by their response. She thought they had accepted the fact; she thought that after so much time they would have forgotten. Now she sees, as she has not seen before, her own face in the faces of these two young ones: the eyes of doubt, the brows deep and furrowed by the mystery of it.
    None of them says a word. She drops her papers to the porch and snatches Gabe into her arms; she beckons Miguel to her side; she clutches at them both. Together they send up a wail of misery as the tears course down their cheeks.
    And here is Mr. Morris standing on the porch steps. The boys don't notice him but Angelica is startled by his presence. She did not see him approach; he is simply there. At first this scene must strike him as humorous these three small people huddled together and weeping in broad public daylight. There is a hint of a smile on his dry thin