CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Well, the kids are gone now, and I'm sorry that they were hurt, but I'm also very proud of the way they squared their little shoulders and faced up to what was happening. We had it all made up that there wouldn't be any crying spell when it got right down to the final goodbye. You've got to hand it to them; they didn't let out one whimper. Oh, they had tears coming out, all right -- everyone of them. I could tell that the instant they kissed me, but not one let on that they were doing it.
So now they are gone, separated for the first time. I sure feel guilty some about not telling them about how they would be living apart but I guess they pretty well understood anyway; they're pretty smart kids.
I know Edie wouldn't be liking it much if she were here, but it just isn't easy these days to find a place big enough to hold five kids together like a family, especially when their real folks aren't around to watch them. I did keep them out of an orphanage; that's one promise I didn't have to break to Edie.
So they are gone, and it's going to take some doing to get them all gathered up into a flock again, and I have no idea when that will be. Someday, I guess. But it will happen, you can roll sevens on that. I don't have the energy I once had, and I don't move as quick, neither. But I'll get it done. We'll be together again.
Miss Owens thinks so too. She sure has been helpful in getting things organized lately. It was she who brought me this tape recorder machine and suggested I tell my whole life story just like I lived it. She said other people could maybe learn something from it. But I can't exactly see it that way, because they have their own problems to pay attention to. Anyway, to be truthful, I don't think I'm cut out to be much of a writer. I guess I didn't study hard enough those few years I was in school. Besides, talking isn't really writing.
But I've tried, anyway. I started out to tell about all the people I hated -- all the busybodies who kept sticking their noses into my affairs, but it didn't turn out that way, because I couldn't remember that much about them. Then, too, there are some things a man just can't put down on public record about his life, especially when his children may someday read the account. Then there are other things I wasn't going to tell and did, because they just plain slipped out. Maybe if I could have seen all the words down on paper, I could've done a better job--maybe not. Anyway, I've about said my piece, and it's too late to back up.
Pretty soon Miss Owens will be back to cart me off to this place where they teach you how to walk with a white cane, and give you a chance to learn a new trade. She says that I'm qualified to do several things, but I've made up my mind to take up piano tuning, because it sounds like the thing I'd like to do.
I never realized before how sound can be so important...especially, the one the Old Hairy Wolf is making right now. He's out there close, wailing like a jilted lover, just crying his heart out. I guess the fool just let himself get too old to understand that he doesn't scare me anymore. I'm an optimist, not like some people who have to run to prayer books to get away from their wolf. Or others who have to run off to a doctor and swallow a bunch of pills to escape, and still others who try to drown the beast in alcohol. I guess maybe if I had been one of those I would have had an easier time of it. But he's out there now like always, and I hate his guts more than ever, because he won't bite me as he has all the people I've loved. I'm just going to ignore him, I'll just pretend he isn't there.
And while I'm pretending and while I'm waiting for Miss Owens I guess I'll tell you about Edie. I wasn't going to, because it still makes me feel bad to think of that day. I don't think a man who loves can ever escape a memory like that.
Back there in Chicago Edie got so depressed and our arguing got so bad that we could hardly kiss each other goodnight. I knew she would never be happy again until she had a place where she could grow flowers and make things pretty. I convinced her, finally, that we should build a home of our own. But that idea got to be a real contest, too. It got so our living room began to look like the inside of a scout's tent on a paper drive, what with all the stuff she laid-in during the planning stage.
Then one evening after the kids were in bed, we...
------
Excuse me. Someone's at it again. Boy! I wish I had a quarantine sign to hang on the front door. A great big one that says 'NO KNOCKERS ALLOWED'. People don't seem to care how loud they bang away any more. If they only knew how that noise hurts my ears.
But I'm not going to answer it this time. This knocker sounds too vicious to me. It's probably a man from the electric company, come to try and collect the last three months bill, and I'm not going to take the chance on out-talking him. He can just come back next week like all the rest of them.
There now, he's gone. That was sure a close one.
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So, anyway, Edie and I were sitting in the middle of the floor trying to reach a decision about the design of a fireplace for the new home. It was a hot July evening, like only a Chicago evening in July can be, and a very poor time to be thinking about fireplaces. I was feeling exceptionally nervous for some reason, just like in the past when the wolf was dogging my tail. But Edie blamed it all on the weather.
Then she said something about ice cream, and I looked at her real funny, because Edie wasn't much of an ice cream eater unless she was pregnant. Then I said something about our fireplace going up in the smoke of a hospital bill, and she just busted a gut laughing. I don't think I ever saw her laugh so hard.
Anyway, after she got over her laughing spell, she just insisted that we had to have some ice cream to eat. She said it would do us both good to know that she could eat it without being pregnant. She jumped in the automobile and hurried off to get some.
I sat there staring at pictures of fireplaces and feeling real contented for a while, because Edie was getting her old enthusiasm back. I sat there for an hour, and all of a sudden I started shaking. I knew the wolf had come again.
The telephone rang. A policeman told me that Edie had been in an automobile accident and taken to the hospital.
I was so excited that I took off running down the street, before I had sense enough to hail a cab.
When I got to the hospital, they had taken Edie to an upstairs room. I had seen war casualties that looked better. She was busted up pretty bad. She had angry cuts and scrape marks all over her face. Her hair had been chopped out in chunks, where the doctors had done miles of stitching. I was glad that she was covered with sheets so I couldn't see the rest of her. I was sick enough as it was.
The doctors had loaded her with dope, and she was only half-conscious when I sat down beside her bed. But she knew what had happened. "Oh, Hank," she cried. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be, honey. It was only and accident."
She cried a little. "You're right, Hank," she said, trying to smile and not making it. "I drive too fast."
"Don't talk, honey. Save your energy."
"Oh, Hank. Hold my hand. I'm scared."
"Don't be, Honey. The Good Lord will take care of you."
"That's what I'm scared of."
I took her hand. It didn't feel right. I was scared.
"Oh, Hank, it hurts," she said, and the tears tumbled out of her eyes. "It hurts worse than having a baby."
"You'll get over it."
Then the dope began to catch up to her. She said, "Hank, take good care of the children." She forced a real smile then.
"Sure I will, honey. Don't worry about them. Just rest."
Then a soft summer breeze wafted through the partially opened window and stirred the antiseptic odors of the room, until they stank as an animal's lair, humid and rank, with the discarded bones of a fresh prey and the afterbirth of a new brood born. And Edie slept.
I held her had for hours and felt it grow cold, as though her warmth escaped with each metallic plunk from the sanguine chandelier that hung high above her other arm. I stood, I sat, I stooped and squirmed, but never once let go, as my love breathed heavy and struggled through the loneliest fight in the world in the bed before me.
Then suddenly she opened her eyes. They glowed for an instant. She smiled.
I smiled.
The whistle of a train echoing through the stone canyons fare across the city drifted through the window like the awesome howl of a hunting wolf.
Her lips quivered...opened...closed, as though she whispered my name.
And the light in my Edie's twinkling eyes went out forever.
And I cried.
THE END
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