A Death in the Family by James Agee

Author:James Agee [Agee, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

ANDREW HAD SHUT THE DOOR but they could hear him, trying to talk quietly. He was talking, indeed, very quietly, close to the mouthpiece with his hand around it; even so, Mary and Hannah could hear most of what he said. They did not want to listen, but they couldn’t help it.

He said, “I want to make a long-distance call, please,” and the quietness of his voice made them listen the more carefully. It was full of covered danger.

“Hello? Hello, is this long distance? Long distance I want to call Ralph Follet, Ralph, Follet, F, O, L, L, E, T, no, Central, F, as in father—F, O,—have you got that?—L, L, ET. FOLLET. At LaFollette, Tennessee. No, I haven’t. Thank you. I said, thank you.”

“I don’t see how his mother’s going to bear it,” Mary said, in a subdued voice. “I said I just don’t see how Jay’s mother is going to bear it,” she told her mother.

“Her own husband right at death’s door,” she said to Hannah, “and now this. He was just the apple of her eye, that’s all.”

“Hello?”

“She has a world of grit,” Hannah said.

“Ralph? Is this Ralph Follet?”

“If she hadn’t she wouldn’t be alive today,” Mary said.

“Ralph, this is Andrew Lynch.” They sat very still and made no pretense of not listening.

“Yes. Andrew. Ralph, I have to tell you about Jay.” Hannah and Mary looked at each other. With everything that Andrew said, from then on, they realized in a sense which they had failed to before, that it had really happened and that it was final.

“Jay died tonight, Ralph.

“He’s dead.

“He died in an auto accident, on the way home, out near Powell’s Station. He was instantly killed.”

Mary looked down into the whiskey and began to tremble.

“Instantly. I have a doctor’s word for it. He couldn’t even have known what hit him.

“It was concussion of the brain, Ralph. Concussion—of the brain. Just so hard a shock to the brain that it killed him instantly.”

“They mustn’t tell his father,” Mary said suddenly. “It’ll just kill his father.”

“I don’t see how they can avoid it,” Hannah said. “Mary says they mustn’t tell his, Jay’s, father,” Hannah told her brother. “In his condition the news might kill him. I told her I simply don’t see how they can avoid it. They’ll have to account for coming away to the funeral, after all.”

“Just tell him he’s hurt,” Joel said.

Mary hurried into the hall. “Andrew,” she whispered loudly. With a contortion of the face which terrified her he slapped his hand through the air at her as if she had been a mosquito. “Just that one place, on the point of the chin,” he was saying. He turned to Mary, but the voice held him and he turned away. “He may have driven for miles that way. They don’t know. They looked all around and quite a distance up the road—yes, of course with flashlights—and they couldn’t find it.” Again she heard the voice, squirming like a wire. “No, they haven’t any idea.

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