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Show 20-7 I sat at the table, waiting for Ruth. I didn't want to disturb Mother, didn't want her to get up until Ruth was here. The house was never this quiet. No music, no piano, no wireless, no voices. Maybe loving music made it harder for Eric to face the guns. Maybe no sound was better. I wondered if Andrew had hated the guns. He hadn't mentioned them the day, the only day, he had ever talked to me about the war. How loud was a gun? Many guns? How loud would they have to be to hurt a man so badly? Hurt him worse than Andrew had been hurt. A sound. Crunching from the driveway. Ruth. "Ruth? I'm in here. Come quick." We sat on the porch that evening, Ruth, Mother and I. Ruth had gone up to Mother as soon as she arrived but came down to tell me she was asleep. We had eaten dinner together and had sat talking quietly until Mother came out on the porch, just at twilight, her dark fringed shawl wrapped around her tightly. She sat beside Ruth on the porch swing and they rocked together, gently, quietly. No one spoke for a time. The sound of the cicadas was softer than in high summer. I wondered if they were dying off in the cool nights. I was never sorry to see them go. Their sound meant hot nights when no one could sleep. "Did Larry tell you everything?" Mother's voice. Soft, slipping under the creak from the swing. "Yes, everything." "Annie, you too?" I was sitting on the steps, looking out to the street, and I could hardly hear her. I had an urge to yell at her, to match her stillness with noise. I was angry at her and yet I was ashamed for feeling it. So I turned and spoke to her, only a bit too loud. "Yes, Father told me all about Eric." |
