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Show Motherlunge a novel 20 But did he, as his widower father often suggested to him in those early years, make the most of this opportunity within the Buttrey's Company, striving to work his way up, joining the Rotary Club or the Masons so as to make potentially useful business connections? Was his handshake firm? Did he have the manager and his wife to his apartment for dinner occasionally? Or did he perhaps think that a psychiatric institution-as they were far more humane than they used to be, not like The Snake Pit or similar, staffed by trained doctors and achieving miraculous results in hundreds of people every single day-might not be a suitable place for Dorothy, for a while? Walter considered these and others of his father's suggestions. But his mind would never stay on them. He couldn't do them. For one thing, he didn't want to give his father the satisfaction. For another, his father's voice on the phone reminded him powerfully that he was already forgetting the sound of his mother's voice. Most of all, he just couldn't. Standing in his stained apron, piling potatoes and turnips and parsnips, he couldn't focus on these bright and reasonable suggestions. He felt too dark, buried. Every day he felt himself reaching deeper downward-on purpose, he had to admit; it was good and quiet there-a human tuber. By this time, Alva had moved in with them permanently. To her new acquaintances at the grocery store, he overheard her explaining that Dorothy had continuing poor health and needed a great deal of rest; she (Alva) felt so fortunate to be able to help. |