My Name Is Lucy Barton

29

That night in the hospital, the last night my mother stayed with me — she had been there five days — I thought about my brother. I remembered then how I had come across a group of boys in the field by the school, I must have been about six years old, and I saw that there was fighting, that a kid was being hit by a group of boys. The boy being hit was my brother. His face looked like he was paralyzed with fear, and in fact he did not seem to move, he was crouched while these boys hit him. I saw this only briefly, because I turned and ran away. I thought too — that night in the hospital — how my brother had not had to go to the war in Vietnam because his number in the lottery was a good one. Before he found out, I remember hearing my parents speaking at night, and I heard my father say: The army will kill him, we can’t let it happen, the army will be terrible for him. And it was soon after that, we found out that my brother’s number was a good one. But my father loved him! I saw this that night.

And then I remembered this: There was a Labor Day when my father took me, alone — I don’t know why I was alone with him; I mean, I don’t know where my brother and sister were — to Moline, about forty miles away. Perhaps he had business there, though it is hard to imagine what possible type of business he had anywhere, let alone in Moline, but I do remember being there with him for the Black Hawk Festival, and we watched the dancing of the Indians. The Indian women stood in a circle around the men, and the women only took little steps while the men danced with much commotion. My father seemed keenly interested in watching the dancing and the festivities. There were candied apples for sale, and I wanted one desperately. I had never had a candied apple. My father bought one for me. It was an astonishing thing for him to have done that. And I remember that I couldn’t eat the apple, I couldn’t get my small teeth into the red crust, and I felt desolation, and he took it from me and he ate it, but his brow became furrowed, and I felt that I had caused him worry. I don’t remember watching the dancers after that, I remember watching only my father’s face, so high above me, and I saw his lips become reddish with the candied apple that he ate because he had to. In my memory I love him for this, since he did not yell at me, or make me feel bad for not being able to eat the apple, but took it from me, and ate it himself, even with no pleasure.

And I remembered this: that he was interested in what he was watching. He had an interest in it. What did he think of those Indians who were dancing?

—

I said suddenly, as the lights started to come on throughout the city, “Mommy, do you love me?”

My mother shook her head, looked out at the lights. “Wizzle, stop.”

“Come on, Mom, tell me.” I began to laugh, and she began to laugh too.

“Wizzle, for heaven’s sake.”

I sat up and, like a child, clapped my hands. “Mom! Do you love me, do you love me, do you love me?”

She flicked her hand at me, still looking out the window. “Silly girl,” she said, and shook her head. “You silly, silly girl.”

I lay back down and closed my eyes. I said, “Mom, my eyes are closed.”

“Lucy, you stop it now.” I heard the mirth in her voice.

“Come on, Mom. My eyes are closed.”

There was a silence for a while. I was happy. “Mom?” I said.

“When your eyes are closed,” she said.

“You love me when my eyes are closed?”

“When your eyes are closed,” she said. And we stopped the game, but I was so happy—

—

Sarah Payne said, If there is a weakness in your story, address it head-on, take it in your teeth and address it, before the reader really knows. This is where you will get your authority, she said, during one of those classes when her face was filled with fatigue from teaching. I feel that people may not understand that my mother could never say the words I love you. I feel that people may not understand: It was all right.