through the door and into July’s throat. There was sadness and loneliness unimaginable in an older person. “Please,” he repeated, and July opened the door. “Thanks, July,” he said and put out his hand again. July took it and squeezed as hard as he was able.
“Ouch,” said John.
Tears ran down Sarah’s cheeks as she tried to stand up from the sofa. “Go outside and play now,” she said.
July left, glad to be out of the oddly electric house. He knew “Daddy” had been joking, but still felt as though he could smash rocks with his fists. He closed the door and stood outside it.
“Would it be all right ...” John was saying inside.
“I hope you’re never satisfied,” said his mother.
July left to play in the empty garage across the street.
FIVE
In 1948, Della Montgomery was prevailed upon by John to quit her country home, where she had lived alone since the death of her husband, and move into John’s house in town, where (as she suspected) she could be watched more closely.
Coming up that first day, carrying her personal belongings in a shopping bag (a truckload would come later), she stopped on the porch with her son and his family, looked at them all, put her hand on the wooden railing and jumped over it, landing three feet away on the ground, walked up the step, picked up her bag again and went inside the house.
“How old is Grandma?” asked July.
“Seventy-three,” said Sarah. “I think she’s telling us she doesn’t need help.”
“She’s still seventy-three,” said John, and went in with a chair.
Della took for her place the little downstairs bedroom off the living room, flat against the back yard, with three rather large windows, done in a delicate broad-petaled flower print on a yellow-and-blue background. In it she had her two chairs, single iron bed, round rag rug, bureau and mirror, fish tank full of tiger barbs and silver neons, eight hung-up dresses, a pole lamp and a night table filled with odds and ends, from toothbrushes to things that meant a great deal to her. Settling into bed that first night, many thoughts came into her head. There were unfamiliar house noises, but there were other people in it. John and Sarah were upstairs. July too. She closed her eyes and pictured lying in the bedroom in her own house. This is better, she thought, and went soundly to sleep.
On the third night she was thinking quite happily to herself about the many things she had to do tomorrow when she heard a noise that frightened her and she got up, put on her robe and went out into the living room. It was almost like a cry. She went over to the stairway leading upstairs and carefully opened the door. Yes, it was clearer now, but less frightening, though strange and eerie. The crying rose and fell, then rose to an unearthly wail; then it fell away to moaning and stopped. The house became silent again and filled with her thoughts. She closed the door and went over to the couch and sat there in the darkness, listening. Perhaps a half-hour later she heard a door open, then feet descending the staircase. It was July, and she watched him open the door and cross over into the kitchen, walking with the blind determination of someone not completely awake. He put on the light, took a bottle of milk from the refrigerator, poured out a glass and sat at the table, drinking it with both hands. Della got up and went into the kitchen. July gave a little start, then relaxed.
“Hi, Grandma,” he said.
“Do you think I could have a glass of that milk?” she asked.
“Sure. Here, I’ll get it,” and he got another glass from the dish drain and began filling it.
“Only half, now,” said Della. “Or there won’t be enough for cereal in the morning.”
July handed it to her and they both drank.
“July,” she said cautiously, “do you ever hear things at night?”
“Sure.”
“What kind of things?”
“I don’t know what they all are.”
“Do you ever hear crying?”
“I don’t know . . . I don’t think so, Grandma. One time I heard voices, though, but Dad said it was the wind. Once I heard thumping whirring, but that was the antenna wire.”
“Did you hear anything tonight?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You must have, think hard.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
They put their glasses away and separated. Three nights later they met again. This time the noise began while they were together in the kitchen. “That. There, that. Do you hear it?” asked Della.
“That? That’s Mom,” said July, and put the milk back. “She always sounds like that, sometimes.”
“Go on to bed now, July,” said Della, and went back to her room and sat in the chair next to the window. She stared and thought for a long time, about Sarah and about the sound—about how all the neighbors could not have helped but know, everyone but herself. How in their minds there had never been a mystery; it all had been too obvious. Sensualist. She thought and stared, and finally decided: I could have been like that—Wilson and I—if only I’d cared to open my mouth. The sound is the only difference. Then she went away from the window and fell into an ancient, uninvaded sleep which carried her past breakfast.
It must be remembered that July grew up in a house like this one. His father worked across the street, and if July needed him, was always there, even in the daytime. Sometimes the two of them would go into Iowa City together and walk through the wide-aisled stores, where July would be looking quickly at everyone, thinking that all of them were seeing his father the way he saw him—strong, wise and very funny. And when they went with Grandma, he thought everyone thought she was Grandma. He very simply thought that there was nothing his father couldn’t do, or know how to do, and nothing his mother couldn’t eventually forgive and forget. His father could protect him from anything that could walk or crawl, anything that was physical and might come to get him, and his mother could protect him from his own terrifying thoughts, and the darkness in the hall closet and disease.
They knew him in school then as a friendly yet quiet boy, someone whom all enjoyed being with, and who could play baseball very well, but who wasn’t particularly wanted on your team in a spelling contest. He was better in math. He’d inherited his father’s strength, but it seemed to work more through his determined ruthless will than through his shoulders and arms—an enduring runner, but lacking the speed in short sprints.
One thing everyone remembers about him was the difficulty in getting him to change his mind. If he decided, as he once did in second grade, that yes, it was possible to see air, there wasn’t any moving him. No, the teacher told him, air is clear. You can see everything clearly through it. You can see it on radiators, and coming up from a pavement. That’s heat, they told him. That’s heat waves. No, it’s hot air. And for all the reasoning, he wouldn’t budge, no matter how wrong he was. Most of the teachers would simply tell him that he was just being stubborn,
