The Professor looked at Jeff. “In the bathroom,” Jeff told him.
“He needs a doctor,” Brother Thomas said. “We can give him a couple of aspirin to bring down the fever, but he needs a doctor. His own doctor might make a house call — I don’t want to take him outside in this weather.”
“I could try calling her family, to see if they know where she is.”
“I think you’d better do that,” Brother Thomas said. His round face looked sternly at the Professor, and then he hurried out to get the aspirin for Jeff. The Professor put his hand on Jeff’s forehead again, before going downstairs. When they had both gone, Jeff rubbed his hands over his chest, because coughing made it hurt. Brother Thomas gave him two aspirins with a glass of water, and he sank back into sleep.
There was a third man in the room when he woke up again, a youngish man. “Do you remember me?” Jeff shook his head. “Well, I wouldn’t recognize you either. You’ve grown.” He opened his bag and put a thermometer into Jeff’s mouth. He took out a flashlight and looked into Jeff’s eyes and ears. He read the thermometer and said, “Hmmmm.” He listened to Jeff’s chest, front and back, with a stethoscope. He looked down Jeff’s throat.
“We gave him two aspirins an hour ago,” Brother Thomas said.
The doctor nodded. He took out a pad and wrote something on it, then ripped off the page. He wrote something on the second page and ripped that off too. He handed them both to the Professor. Jeff watched.
“My name’s Baker,” the doctor said to Jeff. He sat down on the bed, beside Jeff. “You’re pretty sick, bronchial pneumonia, and you’ll need to stay in this bed for at least three days. No school for a week. Is that going to break your heart?” He smiled at Jeff. Jeff nodded to show he understood. “I want to see you in my office next Friday afternoon. Believe it or not, you’re going to feel much better by then. You’ve got some shots to catch up on, young man.”
Jeff nodded. The three men left the room. Dr. Baker started to talk while they were on the stairs, quick and questioning, but Jeff couldn’t distinguish the words.
He slept most of that day. Either the Professor or Brother Thomas came into Jeff’s room to give him spoonfuls of medicine, every two hours, and ask him if he wanted a cup of tea or some Coke. By Sunday afternoon, he did feel better. In the evening, when the sky beyond Jeff’s window was black, Brother Thomas came in with a tray, which he put down on the table beside Jeff. He told Jeff to sit up and then rearranged the pillows behind him. He put the tray across Jeff’s thighs and sat down in a chair pulled up beside the bed. It was a chair from the living room, a rocking chair, that the Professor had brought up earlier.
There was clear chicken soup on the tray and a slice of unbuttered toast and a glass of Coke. Jeff tried the soup. He wasn’t hungry, but he felt empty.
“It’s been a shock for your father, your being sick,” Brother Thomas said. His brown eyes watched Jeff. Jeff swallowed quickly so that he could apologize. “It’s good for him,” Brother Thomas said, “but it is a shock. I never even thought to ask whether he was sending you for checkups. And I’ll bet you haven’t been to a dentist either.”
“I didn’t need to,” Jeff said. He started to cough again, and Brother Thomas lifted the tray up until he had finished.
Brother Thomas ttched as he put the tray back down. “Well, you’re a pair of blessed innocents. And you never asked about your mother, did you?”
Jeff shook his head.
“Do you know anything about her? I don’t.”
“Her name’s Melody,” Jeff said. “She has long black hair and she’s beautiful. She has gray eyes.”
“She’s living with her family, in South Carolina. I know that much more. Your father wasn’t pleased to talk to her.” Jeff kept his face empty. “Are they divorced?”
“I don’t know,” Jeff said.
“You ought to get him to tell you about her,” Brother Thomas advised. “It would be good for him; anyone can see that.”
But Jeff knew better than that, although he didn’t argue.
Jeff stayed in bed for four days, and the Professor or Brother Thomas came to read Ivanhoe to him. They brought him books from the library and, when he could go downstairs, Brother Thomas gave him three paperbacks in a set, The Lord of the Rings. “This will keep you busy while you have to stay inside,” Brother Thomas said. The long solitary hours did go by quickly as Jeff read the story of unlikely heroes in another world, of magic and love, of battles against unremitting evil, the long, arduous journey, of friendship and betrayal.
On Friday, Dr. Baker gave Jeff a complete checkup, two shots, and asked if his father was with him.
“No sir, he has a class,” Jeff answered. The doctor looked up from the file he was writing in and said, “Well, then, I’ll expect you in here for a checkup around your next birthday. That’ll be September. You’ll be twelve.”
“Yes, sir,”
“Do you have any questions you want to ask? Anything that’s worrying you?”
“No, sir.”
Well, if you think of any. How do you do in school?”
“OK,” Jeff told him. He did not want to say that his grades had been drifting down, that his teachers said he was “lazy” or “dreamy.”
The doctor nodded and closed the file. “Don’t disappear on me again, all right?” Jeff nodded. “You look like a normal enough kid to me; you’re doing fine. No problems. I’ll see you next September, unless you need me in between.”
“Thank you,” Jeff said, leaving.
When he got home, his father was waiting. “Everything OK?” the Professor asked.
Jeff nodded.
“I’m really sorry, Jeff,” the Professor said then, his mild eyes apologetic behind their glasses. “I don’t know what I was doing, letting that happen.”
“It’s OK, really. It doesn’t make any difference, really. And I liked the books,” Jeff told him. If his father started worrying about him that would be a change, and you couldn’t tell what would happen when things changed.
“I just didn’t know about the checkups,” the Professor said. He sounded discouraged. Jeff felt alarmed. He remembered that his father didn’t like to apologize, didn’t like to feel sorry; he remembered the way the Professor got all shriveled up when he had made Melody unhappy or angry.
“I’m sorry,” he had said, “I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not, you don’t even understand what I’m talking about, you don’t have any feelings at all,” she answered, her eyes spilling over tears.
“I’m sorry,” the Professor had said, again.
Jeff tried to reassure his father: “It doesn’t make any difference.” He hoped that was true. “The doctor says I’m a normal enough kid. That’s exactly what he said.”
* * *
A month later, the whole thing was forgotten. Jeff had caught up the schoolwork, his cough had disappeared, and everything was back to normal, except that Brother Thomas came around more frequently than before, often bringing the ingredients for a dinner which he and Jeff would cook together, as well as the inevitable bottle of wine. As the brief Baltimore spring deepened into the heat of premature summer, the Professor spent an unusual amount of time typing in his study, but that was the only other difference, and like the first, it was no real difference. Jeff relaxed, gradually convinced that his being sick hadn’t ruined everything.
But in May his father told him, over their dinner of pork chops and rice, that Melody wanted him to spend the summer with her.
Jeff took a long time answering. “Where?”
“In Charleston, South Carolina,” the Professor told him, neatly cutting the meat from the bone of his third pork chop. “Her family is down there,” he said.
Jeff tried to think of what he was supposed to say.
“Is that all right with you?” his father asked, salting his rice.
Jeff looked at the Professor’s expressionless face. He hoped he was answering the right thing when he said, wit
hout expression, “Yes.”
CHAPTER 2JEFF DEBARKED from the plane at Charleston as the sun was going down. The crowd of people from the plane hurried, and he let himself be carried along by them. It was hot, so hot he was not surprised to see palm trees along the cyclone fencing that ordered the runways, hotter because he wore his school uniform to travel in, the gray flannel pants and blue blazer, the white shirt and the striped tie. He moved along with the crowd toward a pink one-story building with a glass tower on top of it, the airport. The sky over this flat countryside was soaked with the colors of the setting sun, and Jeff stepped out of the line of traffic to look at it for a minute.
A hot, reddish gold shone at the horizon and faded out to orange pink about a third of the way up the arc of the sky. The flowerlike heads of the taller palm trees turned into black silhouettes to the west. Wispy stray clouds drifted across the western sky.
Jeff found the baggage claim area without trouble, by following the general drift of traffic. Unlike the Baltimore airport an hour and a half to the north of him, this airport would be hard to get lost in. “Melody will meet you,” the Professor had told him as they’d waited for Jeff’s plane to be announced. “Just let me know when you’re returning and I’ll pick you up,” he had said. Jeff had the return portion of his ticket — paid for, but the flight unspecified — in the inside pocket of his blazer. He had shaken the Professor’s hand and he had not looked back as he walked through the passageway to his plane. He didn’t even look back to see if the Professor had waited for him to look back; and once you were on your plane it was impossible to see into the plate glass windows of the observation area if there was someone watching for you or not.
At the luggage claim Jeff picked out his father’s battered leather suitcase and went to the waiting area. This was a big room, with two long walls of windows and two short walls of ticket counters. He sat on a plastic chair, his suitcase at his feet.
Outside the window to the runway, the sun went down and the sky turned dark. Outside the opposite window, cars pulled up, their twin headlights unnecessary on the brightly lit unloading area. People moved through the big air-conditioned room, some arriving, some leaving, meeting and parting. A voice overhead announced planes. Jeff waited. He had thirty dollars in his pocket, twenty from his father and ten from Brother Thomas to bring back a bottle of local wine. Jeff kept an eye on his suitcase and on the clock. He wasn’t hungry, he wasn’t tired. He waited.
And he waited. The room was less crowded now, and the twin headlights drove up less frequently. The air grew quiet, except for an occasional low-toned conversation. Jeff sat motionless, his legs side by side, his hands in his lap, his mind empty; and waited.
A rush of sweet air washed around him, enveloped him; a voice murmured half-laughing, half sad. “Oh Jeffie, Jeffie.” He closed his eyes as his cheek came to rest on her shoulder and her flowery scent flowed around him. Her arms wrapped around him and he could feel her hands on his back. He tried to grab at all the sensations at once, the sound of her voice, honey sweet with its lazy vowels (“I’m so sorry to be so late, I was — it doesn’t matter, I was just afraid you’d give up on me and go back, and then there was a traffic jam and — Oh, my little boy”), her arms around him holding him close, the perfumed air she carried with her. He remembered.
“But let me look at you. Aren’t you going to kiss me? Haven’t you missed me? Aren’t you going to hug me? Jeffie? Are you angry? Don’t be angry at me.”
He lifted his head and opened his eyes.
“You’re all grown up,” she said. One hand stayed on his shoulder; the other touched his cheek, brushed his hair back from his forehead. It was like — the sunshine on the first day of real spring.
“Look at you, grown up. But you look pale. Oh Jeffie, have you been terribly unhappy?” Her eyes filled with tears, which flowed down over her cheeks in a thin line. “I’m so happy to see you,” she said, touching his cheek again.
Jeff’s heart hurt him, it was so full with the warmth and sweetness. The warmth seemed to run along his bloodstream. He felt his eyes fill with tears. She smiled. “Not so grown up after all, are you. I’m glad.” She smiled right into his eyes. Jeff felt his mouth quiver. “But aren’t you going to say anything? Haven’t you got anything to say?” Her lips brushed his cheek, the palm of her soft hand held his other cheek, and his heart thudded so painfully in his chest that he knew if he had to stand his legs would be too weak to support him. “Say something,” she insisted.
Every painful beat of Jeff’s heart was saying something — Mommy — but he couldn’t speak.
“Then at least sit back and let me look at you.” She held both of his hands in both of hers and sat staring at him. He stared back. “Well, what do you think of me?” she finally asked.
“Beautiful,” Jeff said. His voice croaked a little, so he cleared his throat and said it again, “You’re so beautiful.” He felt like a man must who has been kept in a dungeon for years and years, and he steps out into the sunlight for the first time. He couldn’t possibly have said what he felt. And she was beautiful, too; so beautiful she took his breath away. Her long black hair curved smoothly down along the sides of her face, until it was gathered back to form a gleaming circle at the top of her head. Her eyes — he had forgotten how dark the outer circle of gray in her eyes was and how the lighter gray shone within that circle. Her black eyelashes framed her eyes, and her curved black eyebrows made another circle. Her oval face, her small straight nose, her smiling mouth, the high cheekbones and the tanned skin — “I’d forgotten how beautiful you are,” he said softly.
She laughed, a sound like honey, and stood up, still holding onto both of his hands. He stood in front of her, noticing vaguely that she wore a dress and noticing clearly how small her waist was, how long and slender her tanned arms and legs. “Oh, Mommy,” he said, and he reached out to hug her, wrapping his arms around her neck, just as he now remembered he had done when he was little, before she went away.
She held him close against her. The top of his head came to her ears. “You’re tall,” she said.
Jeff shook his head. “I think you’re short,” he corrected her.
At that she laughed again and stepped back while the sound still sang in his ears. “Get your suitcase, the car’s outside and parked where it’s illegal. Didn’t you have any pictures of me?” Jeff held his suitcase at the end of one arm. She tucked her hand in under his other arm and kept looking at him. “But your father must have a couple, didn’t you ask him?”
Jeff shook his head.
“You goose.” She smiled at him, like sunlight, again. He had been afraid she would be angry. “You silly, silly goose. We’ll have to give you some. And take some of you, for me. I almost didn’t recognize you. I had to study you for a minute, you’re so different. Then I saw the suitcase. I thought you’d be looking for me,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Jeff said. “I was just waiting.”
He had hurt her feelings, so he added quickly, “It doesn’t matter; I don’t care.”
“And everything’s all right now,” she said. “I’m here, and you’re here, and we’re back together again. I’m so happy,” she said, her voice singing the words as they stepped out into the night air.
She made Jeff sit in the back seat of the car, an old four-door sedan. “Children should always sit in the back,” she said to him. “And strap yourself in. Children are so light, if there’s a wreck they fly around inside the car. The back is the safest place.” He did what she asked, gladly. He sat in the right hand corner, where he could look across to her as she drove. “I have to make a stop,” she said, pulling out onto a highway. “Do you mind?”
“No.” Jeff wouldn’t mind anything.
“How do you like Charleston?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t seen any of it.”
She laughed again, as if he had said something funny. He thought he ought to ask her a question, so he did. “Is this your car?”
“No, heavens, I don’t have enough money to buy a car. A friend of mine lets me use it when he’s out of town. I couldn’t afford to insure a car, I can barely afford to buy gas, but I don’t mind. Detroit doesn’t have any of my money, and neither do the fat-cat oil companies — most of the time. And that keeps my personal pollution contribution down.”
Jeff was remembering more about her with every minute. He watched her hands on the steering wheel and wondered about the rings she wore; the lights overhead and from passing trucks flashed over her hands, lighting them purple and yellow. She turned off the highway after a few minutes and negotiated a number of turns before stopping in front of a small one-story house, one of a row of similar houses, each with a chain link fence around it. She turned around in her seat to ask, “Do you want to wait in the car or come in?”
“I’ll wait,” Jeff decided.
“You better come in, we may be a while,” she told him. She opened the low gate for them and then took his arm again as they went up the walk to the small porch. A yellow light, covered with the bodies of bugs, shone over the door.
Inside, two women sat at a kitchen table, folding letters into a pile of envelopes. Most of the house was taken up by this kitchen, which had a sofa at the wall farthest away from the stove and sink, with a small TV set on the coffee table. “Mel,” the women said, “we were wondering where you were.”
“I was meeting someone,” Jeff’s mother said. “The man in my life; let me introduce him, Jefferson Greene. This is Phoebe.”
“Hello,” Jeff said, to a young woman whose short, curly dark hair framed her face. Phoebe nodded at him.
“And Willa.” Jeff said hello to Willa whose brown hair curled like Phoebe’s into fuzzy curls.
“Sit down, Jeffie, my goodness,” his mother told him. He sat obediently in one of the two empty chairs at the table. She took the other. “My son,” she announced.
Jeff stared at her. She had sounded so proud and glad as she said that. Her big eyes moved from one to the other of the people at the table. A smile teased at her mouth.