The Laughing Matter by William Saroyan

Author:William Saroyan
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

The singing birds woke up the little girl. Eva Nazarenus, they sang. Her father said so. Her father didn’t take her but took Red, and she cried. She was angry at her father. If he could take Red, why couldn’t he take Eva? She wanted to go, she was sure he would take her, and then he didn’t. He just didn’t. He drove off with Red, but not with her. He left her standing there. She was very angry at him. It wasn’t nice, what he did. She had always been able to count on him to be nice. He was the only one she had always been able to count on. Her mother could be nice, but only when she wanted to, not when Eva wanted her to. Sometimes when her mother wanted to be nice, it wasn’t nice for Eva, but after a while it was nice. It took a little while for her to get used to her mother being nice when her mother wanted to, not caring what Eva wanted. Her mother was awful nice. She could be mean, too, though. Sometimes her voice got so hard it scared Eva. Sometimes her eyes got so angry Eva didn’t want to look at them. The next minute, though, her mother was nice again. She was the best mother to have, better than Flora’s, and it was wonderful that out of all the mothers in the world to have Eva Nazarenus had got the best, and so nice that on top of being the best, her mother was her own mother, Eva’s own mother. She felt sorry for all the ones who didn’t have their own mothers. It must be so lonesome for them to have mothers who weren’t their own. Eva had her own father, too. Some girls who had their own mothers didn’t have their own fathers. She had both. She had her own brother, too. And now, here in Dade’s house, in a whole bedroom to herself, she had her own birds. They said her name every morning, as they were saying it now.

She listened to the birds, got out of bed and went to the window to see if she could see the one that was saying it clearest. She saw not one but five birds in the lilac tree outside the window. They were having fun in the morning, hopping from one branch to another, chasing each other, singing, flying away, coming back, and making an awful commotion.

They bored her soon, though, and she felt profoundly sad. Why hadn’t her father taken her? Why hadn’t he been nice when she had been most sure that he would be nice, when she had been most eager for him to be nice? Why had he rejected her, abandoned her, left her all alone, ashamed and crying?

She wondered if Red was awake. It was awful early. She could tell. She always woke up first. Why did she? Still, Red might be awake.

She went to Red’s room and found his eyes open.

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