Rain by Michael Mcdowel

Author:Michael Mcdowel [Mcdowel, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Fiction
ISBN: 9780380827923
Publisher: Avon Books
Published: 1983-01-02T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 80

Oscar's Pajamas

So, without telling Oscar, Elinor made the appointment with the doctor at Texas A&M Hospital, and one day in February she said to her husband, "Oscar, pull on your pants, we're going for a ride." While Oscar was dressing, Elinor and Zaddie stripped the bed. Sammy Sapp and Malcolm took Oscar's five feather mattresses and his four favorite pillows and somehow fitted them into the trunk and the back seat of the Lincoln Continental, leaving enough room for Elinor to squeeze in the back.

"We're just going to Pensacola for supper," Oscar called out to Miriam and Malcolm, who, as Sammy whispered to him, were standing on the front porch of their house. "But y'all don't wait up."

Every ten miles Oscar turned and asked, "Elinor, are we in Pensacola yet?"

"Not long, Oscar. Sammy, what does that sign say just ahead?"

"'Pensacola. Ten miles.'"

"Be patient, Oscar, we'll be there before you know it."

This obvious game tickled Oscar, and he kept it up at wearisome length all the way to Texas. Elinor had booked the largest suite in the biggest hotel in Houston, and Sammy and three bellboys carried up the mattresses and put them in the place of the regular ones. Elinor made up the bed herself, and informed the maids that she would continue to do so.

Oscar saw the doctor the next day, and the doctor pronounced him worse. An operation was more dangerous now than it would have been years before, the chances of total blindness greater. On the other hand, Oscar was nearly blind now, and the operation could not therefore be regarded as much of a gamble.

"He'll do it," said Elinor, and Oscar nodded reluctant agreement.

The operation was performed a week later. Oscar and Elinor and Sammy meantime remained in the hotel, none of them happy to be away from Perdido for so long. The operation was performed, and Oscar emerged from it totally blind.

The mattresses were put back into the car, and Oscar and Elinor, with Sammy behind the wheel, headed back to Perdido. "That supper in Pensacola disagreed with me, Elinor," was all that Oscar said.

As Elinor led Oscar up the sidewalk to the house, she said to him, "We're not going to keep this a secret, Oscar. You know that."

Oscar nodded. "When people see me fall headlong down the town hall steps, they're just gone know."

But things were better for Oscar after that, as it turned out. No vision at all was only a little less than what he had got along with before, and at least now there was no disheartening deterioration. He no longer had to make any pretense about his need for help about the house. He had an excuse not to talk to visitors. All his subterfuges and fictions were laid aside with his thick-lensed eyeglasses; he had need of none now. He didn't come down to dinner at all anymore, but remained in his sitting room with Zaddie for company.

Elinor did not seek to halt Oscar's withdrawal into his own world.

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