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Show 7-3 Mother was staring at Father, her hands clenched on the back of her rocking chair. Her knuckles were white, her hands red. "What does he look like?" she asked quietly. "Like a burn patient. A lot of scar tissue. His eyes are ok, but his nose is partially gone and his mouth is only partially reconstructed. They couldn't do any more just now because of the severity of the burns." For one moment, his arm tightened around my shoulder. "It looks pretty angry now, red and sore. In time, the high color will fade. But he will never have a normal face. The scarring is very deep and the features will never be normal." "And this is the man Annie is going to see?" She looked down at me. "How did you meet him, Annie?" "He was sitting on a bench and I sat down next to him. He's really nice, Mother. You'd like him." "Lawrence, what are these men doing out? I thought they would be in the wards, in beds. When I suggested Annie visit you there, I never thought she would be seeing the men." "Well, Katherine, you've never come to visit so you don't know what the men are doing or how they look or what kind of people they are." Father clipped out these last words and I looked up at him. He never used that tone with Mother but saved it for the rare occasions when he was really angry. And that was never with Mother. "I know Larry. And I'm sorry. But you know how I feel, how I am about things like that." Mother turned away from us and looked out into the cooling yard. "I can't face it," she whispered. "You can't ask that of me." |
