Read Online Music Makers by Kate Wilhelm - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kate Wilhelm
Tags: General Fiction
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to the bathroom. After he finishes in there and is ready for bed, Mom will have a bath and go to bed. And the house will be peaceful and quiet until I go up. The best time of day, when they’re both in bed.
He can manage in the bathroom and his bedroom. There are rails and handholds everywhere, but it’s always a long process, and apparently a grueling one for him. When he comes out in his flannel pajamas with a lap robe around him, he looks exhausted. Around three in the morning he’ll be up again, and then at eight, until a nap. That’s a good hour also. Sometimes my mother and I have a cup of coffee and talk a little, although neither of us has much to say. All day she is on full alert, aware when he’s moving, when he’s settling down for a nap, when he goes in to get ready for bed. She is constantly straining to hear him, and I never say anything when she has that intent look on her face. By the time he’s in bed, she is too tired to stay up longer than it takes for her bath. Fatigue alone won’t insure her sleep. She has sleeping pills as well.
And this is how it will be forever, I think, for her, for him, and for me, or until one of is dead and the other two are free to do something else, or are forced to. Without me, they would have to move, sell the land, go somewhere else. Whenever I call Eleanor in Seattle, there is a baby or a small child crying for attention in the background. She can’t help out. No one knows where my brother is.
If he would just die, I could take Mom with me, rent an apartment, get my old job back perhaps, and start living again. If she goes first, I’ll call county authorities to come take him away. One of his rages will be proof enough that he is insane. But as long as there are three of us, the pattern that has been established is how it will continue to be.
And I yearn for the night train, a trip to anywhere.
During one of our quiet afternoons I asked Mom if she ever heard a train whistle in the middle of the night.
She looked puzzled, then averted her gaze. “I did once,” she said after a moment, as if an elusive memory had come into focus. “A long time ago, when Eleanor was little. A trick of my ears, I guess. There’s no train close enough to hear.”
“Only one time?”
She nodded. “I was pregnant again and there were other things on my mind.”
Pregnant with me, I realized. Had I from the safety and comfort of the womb first heard it with her thirty years ago?
This time when I hear the train I get up. I already have on heavy wool socks, and pull on my boots. I put on my robe, and take my down jacket from the closet. We had to keep our coats and jackets in our rooms, not in the family closet by the front door, where they were in his way. I don’t have a light on, but I don’t need one, the light seepage from under the door is enough. I find my gloves on the closet shelf and put them on. All my actions are dreamlike, unhurried. There’s no need to hurry. The night train is always on time and so are the passengers.
I am at the bottom of the stairs when he comes out of the bathroom in his robe, with the lap robe on his legs. He is turning to go back to his room when I take the handles of the chair and guide it the other way.
“What the hell are you doing? Goddamn it, let go! Take me back to bed!” His voice is loud as I wheel him to the front of the house, then reach around him to open the door. Mom won’t hear him, not with her hearing loss, and the sleeping pill, behind a closed door. He is yelling hoarsely, with a note of panic in his voice.
The cold air takes my breath away and he cries out, then is gasping, pleading. I feel as if I’m floating down the ramp, and turn onto the driveway. Mr. McHenry keeps it plowed all winter.
It isn’t far to the end of the driveway, fifty or sixty feet, and the train is drawing closer, the whistle like a piercing scream. I stop at the edge of the road and set the brake, and Dad is crying and cursing.
I leave
He can manage in the bathroom and his bedroom. There are rails and handholds everywhere, but it’s always a long process, and apparently a grueling one for him. When he comes out in his flannel pajamas with a lap robe around him, he looks exhausted. Around three in the morning he’ll be up again, and then at eight, until a nap. That’s a good hour also. Sometimes my mother and I have a cup of coffee and talk a little, although neither of us has much to say. All day she is on full alert, aware when he’s moving, when he’s settling down for a nap, when he goes in to get ready for bed. She is constantly straining to hear him, and I never say anything when she has that intent look on her face. By the time he’s in bed, she is too tired to stay up longer than it takes for her bath. Fatigue alone won’t insure her sleep. She has sleeping pills as well.
And this is how it will be forever, I think, for her, for him, and for me, or until one of is dead and the other two are free to do something else, or are forced to. Without me, they would have to move, sell the land, go somewhere else. Whenever I call Eleanor in Seattle, there is a baby or a small child crying for attention in the background. She can’t help out. No one knows where my brother is.
If he would just die, I could take Mom with me, rent an apartment, get my old job back perhaps, and start living again. If she goes first, I’ll call county authorities to come take him away. One of his rages will be proof enough that he is insane. But as long as there are three of us, the pattern that has been established is how it will continue to be.
And I yearn for the night train, a trip to anywhere.
During one of our quiet afternoons I asked Mom if she ever heard a train whistle in the middle of the night.
She looked puzzled, then averted her gaze. “I did once,” she said after a moment, as if an elusive memory had come into focus. “A long time ago, when Eleanor was little. A trick of my ears, I guess. There’s no train close enough to hear.”
“Only one time?”
She nodded. “I was pregnant again and there were other things on my mind.”
Pregnant with me, I realized. Had I from the safety and comfort of the womb first heard it with her thirty years ago?
This time when I hear the train I get up. I already have on heavy wool socks, and pull on my boots. I put on my robe, and take my down jacket from the closet. We had to keep our coats and jackets in our rooms, not in the family closet by the front door, where they were in his way. I don’t have a light on, but I don’t need one, the light seepage from under the door is enough. I find my gloves on the closet shelf and put them on. All my actions are dreamlike, unhurried. There’s no need to hurry. The night train is always on time and so are the passengers.
I am at the bottom of the stairs when he comes out of the bathroom in his robe, with the lap robe on his legs. He is turning to go back to his room when I take the handles of the chair and guide it the other way.
“What the hell are you doing? Goddamn it, let go! Take me back to bed!” His voice is loud as I wheel him to the front of the house, then reach around him to open the door. Mom won’t hear him, not with her hearing loss, and the sleeping pill, behind a closed door. He is yelling hoarsely, with a note of panic in his voice.
The cold air takes my breath away and he cries out, then is gasping, pleading. I feel as if I’m floating down the ramp, and turn onto the driveway. Mr. McHenry keeps it plowed all winter.
It isn’t far to the end of the driveway, fifty or sixty feet, and the train is drawing closer, the whistle like a piercing scream. I stop at the edge of the road and set the brake, and Dad is crying and cursing.
I leave
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