A Collection of Strangers by Dolores Hitchens

Author:Dolores Hitchens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2021-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Davie stood in the dimness at the far end of the room and watched the pool area through a small opening in the draperies. It had seemed for a while that the day might stay sunny and clear, but now the clouds were back, and the bench on which his dad sat with Mr. Caldwell was in a big puddle of shadow. The water rippled a little with a shivering motion, and some eucalyptus leaves sped out, turning like sailplanes before they dropped to make more ripples still. His dad looked mad and unhappy, and Mr. Caldwell had a pipe out and was filling it from a pocket pouch while he listened.

Davie knew what his dad must be telling Mr. Caldwell because his mother had explained it to him in the kitchen a short while ago.

She was dressed the way she was when she went to town, a suit and nylons and high heels, but she wasn’t really going to town because of her hair and the way her face looked. She was dressed up for some reason to stay home. She poured coffee for herself—Davie was making bread and jam—and her hands shook. She didn’t look at Davie while she talked to him.

“Your father is going to crucify me now, Davie; he’s going to get back at me because I grieved for Cootie and he thinks I neglected him and the rest of you, and I insulted his mother, and in some way I don’t comprehend I’m the reason his mother had to die. He’s going to throw me to the police.”

The tone was kind of broken; only there was a coldness there, too, and Davie didn’t believe what she had said about his dad until now, until he saw his dad out there talking to Mr. Caldwell, telling Mr. Caldwell something that made Mr. Caldwell want to stop and fill his pipe while he got used to it.

“I’m not asking for your loyalty,” his mother had gone on. “Not yours and not Suzie’s and God knows not Vicky’s. Perhaps what he says is true and I don’t deserve any loyalty, any defense whatever. I did all that I did out of perversity and meanness, out of hatred. I hate you all—he says. So I don’t ask anyone to stand up for me.”

Davie had moved away from her because she made him feel so uncomfortable and he couldn’t understand what she really wanted him to do. Was he supposed to fight off the cops? What with? And besides, it was illegal. A cop went where he wanted and took away whomever he chose. So what could he do? She ought to talk to his dad and try to get his dad not to turn her in for whatever it was—Davie didn’t believe, either, that she could really have killed his grandmother. Wouldn’t the cops know that? He had gone into the family room, and his mother had stood on one foot and sipped her coffee, her eyes almost shut and her un-made-up face gray and withered.

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