The Night Remembers

3

“Hi.”

“Hi,” I said.

“Help you?”

“Oh. You don’t know who I am.”

“Gee, no, I don’t.”

“I’m Walsh.”

“Oh, Mr. Walsh. C’mon in.”

“I can hear Hoyt.”

“Yeah. He’s got some kind of rash. Nothing serious but— Why’re we standing out here? C’mon in. I’m Marcia Ramey, by the way. The babysitter you talked to on the phone.”

“Right.”

“Anyways, I’m Marcia and she isn’t back yet.”

“Oh.”

“Shouldn’t be long though.”

The apartment was, as always, impeccable, filled with rattan furnishings and hanging plants and huge abstract paintings done in earth tones and signifying nothing. The modular couch was white, as was the daybed pushed against the wall. The floors had been stripped to bare, beautiful wood and polished with painstaking and neurotic love. It was one of the few places I’d ever been that looked better than magazine layouts.

“You like some coffee?”

“No thanks, Marcia.”

“You want me to get Hoyt?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Like I said, he’s kind of crabby.”

She went and got Hoyt. He wore clean blue pajamas with feet in them. He smelled wonderfully of baby oil and baby powder. She put him on my knee.

“Don’t let him sit too square on his bottom,” she said.

“That’s where the rash is.”

“Uh-huh.”

So we played, Hoyt and I, and I forgot all about Marcia Ramey. I goo-gooed with him, I tickled his chin, I combed his soft blond hair with my fingers, I made silly faces that he took in with his somber blue eyes, and I gave him my comb and let him comb my hair, something he never tires of doing. Hoyt is one of those infants you just know is going to be a linebacker somebody. If you saw him eat, you’d know why.

“He went number two.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Number two. The poop shoot. He went.”

“Hoyt did?”

“Sure, Hoyt. Who else?”

“I guess that’s a good question.”

“Anyway, he made lump-lump.”

“How can you tell from across the room? I can’t tell and he’s sitting in my lap.”

“I’m the oldest of six brothers and sisters. Mom had arthritis so I took care of all of them. You just develop a nose for that kind of thing, no pun intended.”

For the first time, I really looked at Marcia Ramey. She gave the impression of being capable, even athletic, big but in no way fat, attractive if not quite pretty, and filled with the kind of durable good spirits that make you envious. She wore a man’s work shirt and blue jeans and white socks and white Reeboks. She came over and snatched up Hoyt and took him into the bedroom and did what she had to. About halfway through the procedure, she got him laughing, something I hadn’t been able to do.

I decided on the coffee. I was just raising the cup when I heard the key in the doorway.

She came in and said, “Oh. You’re here.”

I knew this wasn’t the time for a joke. I just nodded.

She came in even farther and went over to the couch and sat herself down with a great deal of decorum. Ordinarily, she sort of flings herself onto it.

“How’d it go?”

“Not sure yet.”

“Oh.”

“Wish I was.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I’d just as soon not talk about it while Marcia’s here.”

“I understand.”

“Oh, Walsh, the hell with you. You never act like this and you know it.”

“Like what?”

“Kissing my ass and being so polite.”

“Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

“Get lost. That’s what I’d like you to do.”

She sat there then and really started crying. Her whole body shook.

I went up to the bedroom door and said to Marcia, “You think it’d be all right if I closed this?”

“Faith come in?”

“Right.”

We just sort of stared at each other.

She pantomimed, “Is she all right?” and kept pointing to her mouth as she did so, as if she needed to direct my eyesight as well as my hearing.

I grimaced and shook my head. I closed the door and went back and sat across from Faith.

Today she wore, from the feet up, penny loafers and argyle socks and designer jeans and a mint-green sweater that brought out the green of her eyes. She’s red-haired with freckles. But don’t think of the pug-nosed variety. No, hers is classical beauty — regal, imposing, and, even at times such as these, just a little arrogant. The hell of it is — for her sake anyway — she’d had one of those terrible childhoods that robbed her of any self-confidence her looks might have given her. “I’m only beautiful on the outside,” she’s fond of saying in her dramatic way.

“I’d like you to tell me what the doctor said.”

“He didn’t say anything.”

“He didn’t examine you?”

She kept right on crying. “Yes, he examined me.”

“He didn’t draw some conclusion?”

“Yes, he drew a conclusion.”

“Well, that’s the part I’m interested in. The conclusion part.”

“He said he wasn’t sure.”

“Sure about what?”

“Wasn’t sure if it was cancer or not.”

“Oh.”

So there you had it. The most dreaded word in our vocabulary. Sitting there in this really fine room with rattan and plants and fancy if incomprehensible paintings — and sitting there with a hauntingly good-looking woman — and then the whole thing got spoiled with one little word.

I started trembling. I wanted to cry. If Marcia hadn’t been in the other room, I probably would have.

“I’m sure it’s going to be all right.”

“Please don’t say stuff like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Do you know how infuriating shit like that is?”

“I know and I’m sorry and I won’t say anything like it.”

“Why don’t you just slap me? I’m being such a bitch.”

“You’re perfectly fine.”

“Any other time I was acting like this, you’d at least think of slapping me.”

I decided to be honest. “Kiddo,” I said, “this isn’t any other time.”

I went over and sat down beside her. I took her hand. It was very cold. I had a terrible image that it would feel like this when she died. I hated myself for thinking it.

“Why don’t I fix you some lunch?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t have breakfast.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then at least let me fix you some soup. You don’t even have to drink it. You can just sip it. Like tea or coffee.”

“You’re a pretty decent guy, Walsh, you know that? Even if you won’t admit Hoyt’s your son.”

“You still got all that tomato soup I bought you on sale that time?”

For the first time, she smiled, sniffling as she did so. “You bought me so much of that crap, Walsh, there’ll be soup up there after I’m dead.”

Then she realized what she’d said and started crying again.