Afterward, she sat quietly and ate, watching me feed Panther and eating something myself as I did so. I couldn't stand the way Baby Celeste glared at me. It was Mama's angry face transposed on her face like some mask she could take off and put on at will.
"We've got to behave ourselves," I lectured, and help Mama. She's not feeling well, and not behaving will only make her feel worse. Celeste."
Her normally sweet lips tightened in the comers, but she didn't say, "Okay," or anything. She finished eating and then, without my telling her to do so, began taking things back into the kitchen.
Panther ate, but he was uncomfortable. I wondered what Be
tsy was doing and when she would return. Until I had a good talk with Mama, there was little I could do to make Betsy happy and keep her from making trouble for us. I thought. I settled Panther in his crib and then I looked in on Mama. She had turned her head and had her eyes open, but she was staring at the ceiling.
"Mama, how are you? Are you hungry? I made some dinner for you.' She didn't reply.
"Ill bring it up," I said, thinking that when she saw it, she would be pleased and begin to speak.
Baby Celeste followed me about, but was as silent as Mama, not responding to anything I said or asking for anything. I fixed Mama's pillows so I could sit her up. She was limp and did nothing to help. Even after I put the tray before her, she just stared in silence.
"You've got to eat and drink something. Mama. You have to." I began to feed her. She looked at me and she chewed slowly.
Good. I thought, she's coming around. I fed her as much as she would take and made her drink as much water as I could, but then she just turned her head and closed her eyes. All the while Baby Celeste sat on the floor listening and watching. I adjusted Mama and her pillows again, then carried out the tray.
"Let's go downstairs, Celeste," I told her. "I'll read with you."
I continued down the stairs to the kitchen, my mind reeling with worry and confusion. It took me a few minutes to realize Baby Celeste hadn't followed. After I had taken care of the dishes and silverware. I went back upstairs, expecting she had remained in Mama's bedroom, She hadn't. I looked into her bedroom, and to my surprise I found she had prepared herself for sleep and was in bed. It was truly as if she was tuned in to Mama's every mood, every feeling. Suddenly, that frightened me. Instinctively, I thought that wasn't good.
I attended to Panther, talking and playing with him for a while until he, too, drifted off to sleep. then I went downstairs and sat in Grandfather Jordan's chair and waited with a trembling heart for Betsy's eventual return. It was like anticipating a tornado. The silence was ominous.
"Daddy," I whispered at the darkness outside our windows. "Come to me. Help me. Help us."
I held my breath and listened and waited. but I heard nothing beside the pounding of my heart, thumping like a distant drum.
For some strange reason. I began to hum Mama's song. Then I sang it softly.
"If you go out in the -woods today.,."
I sang myself to sleep and didn't wake up until the whole house shook with Betsy's laughing, drunken entrance, slamming the front door. She stood in the hallway looking in at me, her body swaying. I was about to speak when a young man with dirty-blond hair, dressed in a dark blue athletic shirt and jeans, stepped up beside her and put his arm around her waist. He had tattoos over both his forearms. They looked like snakes twisting into what looked like chain links.
Betsy had gone directly to a clothing store and bought herself a new blouse-and-jean outfit with a pair of pink and white shoes. The blouse was halfopen, revealing her breasts almost down to the nipples.
"There he is, my stepbrother," she said, and laughed.
I was holding my breath in expectation. What had she told this stranger? "Hi there," he said, waving and then laughing.
"This is..." She turned and looked at the young man. His eves were set close above a thick nose that looked as if it had once been broken. "Was it Brad or Tad, I can't remember," she said, and laughed.
"Tad." He lifted his right hand to wave at me again.
"Brad is with a rock-and-roll band called..." Betsy looked at him, her eyes turning in her head like loose marbles.
"The Hungry Hearts!"
"Yeah. the Hungry Hearts. They're good, Maybe I'll take you to hear them one night when you're not working in your garden or chopping wood or painting poles." She laughed again. Then she seemed to sober up instantly and step a bit forward. "Did you get what had to be done, done?" she demanded.
"Yes," I lied. I thought, under the
circumstances, it was the wisest thing for me to do.
"Good. Good. Noble here is perfect," she told Tad. Then she tued on his arm. "C'mon. We'll use his room tonight. You don't mind, do you. Noble? I don't want to wake up you know who," she said in a conspiratorial tone.
I looked away and shook my head. She probably hadn't told him that Panther was her child.