Francis sat silent at his place, opening and closing his hand on the memory of an eye blinking against his palm. Sometimes in bed he held himself to be sure he hadn’t been cut. Sometimes when he held himself he thought he felt a blink.
Grandmother was changing rapidly. She was increasingly contentious and could not keep household help. Though she was short of housekeepers, it was the kitchen where she took personal charge, directing Queen Mother Bailey to the detriment of the food. Queen Mother, who had worked for the Dolarhydes all her life, was the only constant on the staff.
Red-faced in the kitchen heat, Grandmother moved restlessly from one task to the next, often leaving dishes half-made, never to be served. She made casseroles of leftovers while vegetables wilted in the pantry.
At the same time, she became fanatical about waste. She reduced the soap and bleach in the wash until the sheets were dingy gray.
In the month of November she hired five different black women to help in the house. They would not stay.
Grandmother was furious the evening the last one left. She went through the house yelling. She came into the kitchen and saw that Queen Mother Bailey had left a teaspoonful of flour on the board after rolling out some dough.
In the steam and heat of the kitchen a half-hour before dinner she walked up to Queen Mother and slapped her face.
Queen Mother dropped her ladle, shocked. Tears sprang into her eyes. Grandmother drew back her hand again. A big pink palm pushed her a
way.
“Don’t you ever do that. You’re not yourself, Mrs. Dolarhyde, but don’t you ever do that.”
Screaming insults, Grandmother with her bare hand shoved over a kettle of soup to slop and hiss down through the stove. She went to her room and slammed the door. Francis heard her cursing in her room and objects thrown against the walls. She didn’t come out again all evening.
Queen Mother cleaned up the soup and fed the old people. She got her few things together in a basket and put on her old sweater and stocking cap. She looked for Francis but couldn’t find him.
She was in the wagon when she saw the boy sitting in the corner of the porch. He watched her climb down heavily and come back to him.
“Possum, I’m going now. I won’t be back here. Sironia at the feed store, she’ll call your mama for me. You need me before your mama get here, you come to my house.”
He twisted away from the touch on his cheek.
Mr. Bailey clucked to the mules. Francis watched the wagon lantern move away. He had watched it before, with a sad and empty feeling since he understood that Queen Mother betrayed him. Now he didn’t care. He was glad. A feeble kerosene wagon light fading down the road. It was nothing to the moon.
He wondered how it feels to kill a mule.
Marian Dolarhyde Vogt did not come when Queen Mother Bailey called her.
She came two weeks later after a call from the sheriff in St. Charles. She arrived in midafternoon, driving herself in a prewar Packard. She wore gloves and a hat.
A deputy sheriff met her at the end of the lane and stooped to the car window.
“Mrs. Vogt, your mother called our office around noon, saying something about the help stealing. When I come out here, you’ll excuse me but she was talking out of her head and it looked like things wasn’t tended to. Sheriff thought he ought to get ahold of y’all first, if you understand me. Mr. Vogt being before the public and all.”
Marian understood him. Mr. Vogt was commissioner of public works in St. Louis now and was not in the party’s best graces.
“To my knowledge, nobody else has saw the place,” the deputy said.
Marian found her mother asleep. Two of the old people were still sitting at the table waiting for lunch. One woman was out in the backyard in her slip.
Marian telephoned her husband. “How often do they inspect these places? . . . They must not have seen anything. . . . I don’t know if any relatives have complained, I don’t think these people have any relatives. . . . No. You stay away. I need some Negroes. Get me some Negroes . . . and Dr. Waters. I’ll take care of it.”
The doctor with an orderly in white arrived in forty-five minutes, followed by a panel truck bringing Marian’s maid and five other domestics.
Marian, the doctor, and the orderly were in Grandmother’s room when Francis came home from school. Francis could hear his grandmother cursing. When they rolled her out in one of the nursing-home wheelchairs, she was glassy-eyed and a piece of cotton was taped to her arm. Her face looked sunken and strange without her teeth. Marian’s arm was bandaged too; she had been bitten.
Grandmother rode away in the doctor’s car, sitting in the backseat with the orderly. Francis watched her go. He started to wave, but let his hand fall back to his side.
Marian’s cleaning crew scrubbed and aired the house, did a tremendous wash, and bathed the old people. Marian worked alongside them and supervised a sketchy meal.
She spoke to Francis only to ask where things were.