one another.
Daddy is not supposed to smoke. Daddy has been warned.
A spot on his lung two years before but a benign spot. High blood pressure.
More than once Daddy has declared that he has quit smoking—for the final time.
When Daddy smokes he coughs badly. In the early morning you are wakened hearing him. So painful, lacerating as if someone is scraping a knife against the inside of his throat.
Years ago when you were a little girl Daddy would come bounding into the house—Hey! I’m home.
Calling for you—Hey Vi’let Rue! Daddy is home.
Where’s Daddy’s best girl? Vi’let RUE!
That happy time. You might have thought it would last forever. Like a TV cartoon now, exaggerated and unbelievable.
Now Daddy is showing no inclination to come into the house. (Maybe he has fallen asleep, behind the wheel? A bottle in his hand, that is beginning to tip over and spill its contents …) He has turned off the motor, at least. You are relieved, the poison-pale smoke has ceased to lift from the tailpipe.
He’s coming inside now. Soon.
There is a meal for Daddy, in the oven. Covered in aluminum foil.
Even when your mother must know that Daddy won’t be eating the supper she has prepared for him there is a meal in the oven which, next day, midday when no one is around, Mom will devour alone in the kitchen rarely troubling to heat it in the microwave. (You have seen her with a fork picking, picking, picking at the cold coagulated meat, mashed potatoes. You have seen your mother eating without appetite, swiftly picking at tasteless food.)
It is unnerving to you, the possibility that no one is in the car.
In the driveway, in the dark. Dim reflected light from a streetlight in the wet pavement.
No, there’s no one there!
Somehow, your father has slipped past you. You have failed to see him.
Or, your father has slumped over behind the wheel, unconscious. He has found an ingenious way to divert the carbon monoxide into the car while no one noticed …
The father of a classmate at school has died, a few weeks ago. Shocking, but mysterious. What do you say?
You say nothing. Nothing to say. Avoid the girl, not a friend of yours anyway.
As, at school, your friends have begun to avoid you.
Pretending not to notice. Not to care. Hiding in a toilet stall dabbing wetted tissues against your face. Why are your eyelids so red? So swollen?
But now you have begun to be frightened. You wonder if you should seek out your mother. Mom? Daddy is still in the car, he has been out there a long time … But the thought of uttering such words, allowing your parents to know that you are spying on them, is not possible.
And then, this happens: you see someone leave the house almost directly below, and cross to the car in the driveway.
Is it—your mother?
She, too, must have been standing at a window, downstairs. She’d seen the headlights turning into the driveway. She’d been waiting, too.
Slipping her arms into the sleeves of someone’s jacket, too large for her. Bare-headed in light-falling snow that melts as soon as it touches the pavement, and her hair.
It is brave of Mom to be approaching Daddy, you think. You hold your breath wondering what will happen.
For you, your sisters, and your brothers have seen, numerous times, your father throwing off your mother’s hand, if she touches him in a way that is insulting or annoying to him. You have seen your father stare at your mother with such hatred, your instinct is to run away in terror.
In terror that that face of wrath will be turned onto you.
You are watching anxiously as, at the car, on the farther side of the car where you can’t see her clearly, your mother stoops to open the door. Tugging at the door, unassisted by anyone inside.
And now, what is your mother doing? Helping your father out of the car?
You have never seen your mother helping your father in any way, like this. You are certain.
At first, it isn’t clear that Daddy is getting out of the car. That Daddy is able to get out of the car.
It has become late, on Black Rock Street. A working-class neighborhood in which houses begin to darken by 10:00 P.M.
In early winter, houses begin to lighten before dawn.
Up and down the street, in winter, when the sun is slow to appear, windows of kitchens are warmly lit in the hour before dawn. You will remember this, in your exile.
Well—Daddy is on his feet, in the driveway. He has climbed out of the car with Mom’s assistance, and he does not appear to be angry at her. His shoulders are slumped, his legs move leadenly. The lightness in his body you remember from a time when you were a little girl, the rough joy with which he’d danced about in the garage, teaching your brothers to box, has passed from him. His youth has passed from him. The years of his young fatherhood when his sons and daughters had been beautiful to him, when he’d stared at them with love and felt a fatherly pride in them, have passed.
Transfixed at the window you watch. For the danger is not past yet.
You steel yourself: your father will fling your mother from him with a sweep of his arm, he will curse her …
But no, astonishingly that doesn’t seem to be happening. Instead, your father has allowed your mother to slip her arm around his waist. He steadies himself against her, leaning heavily on her.
Awkwardly, cautiously they make their way toward the house. Taking care not to slip on the driveway where ice is beginning to form, thin as a membrane.
What words have they exchanged? What has your mother said to your father, that has blunted his rage?
You have drawn away from the window. You have let the curtain fall back into place. You do not want either of your parents to glance up, to see you at the window, watching.
It is a remarkable fact, your father leaning heavily upon your mother, who is several inches shorter than he, and must weigh seventy pounds less than he does. Yet she holds him up without staggering, your mother is stronger than you would have imagined.
Together your parents approach the house, walking cautiously, like much older people, in this way you’ve never seen. They pass out of your sight, below. You stand very still waiting for them to enter the house, waiting to hear the door open below, and close, so you can think, calmly—They are both safe now. For now.
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