For almost a year now, Nancy has planned to clean out William’s room. She should have done it years ago, and she has emptied closets and drawers. But she wants this to be Jack’s room, for Jack to feel that he has a home here. He shouldn’t have to live in his father’s shadow.
She still can’t bear to throw out William’s things, though, so she heads up to his room with spare boxes from the liquor store. At some point, she thinks, Kat and Jack will want to know more about their father, and all these things from his childhood will still be here for them to discover. Photos in frames, baseball gloves. A school pennant. His diplomas. An old wooden bat.
Gerald pops his head in the doorway. He and Linda are leaving in the morning to go south, first to Baltimore for a week and then to Mississippi for the month of July. Nancy insisted that they take her new car, with its roomy trunk and that fancy air-conditioning. Nancy had thought they would be working with others to help integrate the schools. Instead, they’ll be teaching in a summer school. I thought you were interested in education policy, she said last night at dinner. If you want to teach, why not do that here? I am interested in policy, Gerald said. But this is a way we can actually be helpful. By working in the classroom, with children who need help. Teaching them things like their constitutional rights. Nancy frowned. She doesn’t like the idea of him in a strange classroom. Will all the children be colored, she wanted to ask, but didn’t. She’s never been to Mississippi. She can’t imagine it, really, except that it will be hot. Will you be safe, she said finally, turning to Linda, and they both laughed. Will you, Mother? Gerald said. Don’t worry about us.
But she does. She looks at him critically, trying to see him as he is now. How difficult that is to do with your own child, to not always see him as the boy he once was. His hair is darkening a bit, she has noticed lately, and he does hunch over, just like Ethan, but how well he looks! He’s been outside since school got out, helping to build some new structures around campus. There’s a vigor to him now. Linda has been a wonderful addition to his life, although, honestly, do they need to go all the way to Mississippi to create change? She’s going to miss him terribly. And she’s not happy that they’re traveling together like this and not married. She told all her friends that he’s going alone. Honestly, what is the boy waiting for?
In the morning, she packs up a picnic basket for them, and when he’s not looking, she puts three tins of cookies and muffins in the trunk, whispering to Linda so she knows where they are. It’s a long drive. Gerald and Linda come out the back door together, their arms piled with books and blankets, already sweating but with wide grins. He opens the car door for Linda and bows, holding his arm to the side, after she gets in. What a gentleman he is. It should make her content to see him like this, so grown up, such a confident man, and it does, but it also, inexplicably, makes her want to cry. Instead, she stands on her tiptoes to kiss him goodbye. Moving to the shade by the back door, she waves until they are out of sight.
As she pulls on her gloves to do the breakfast dishes, she wonders again about why they haven’t gotten married. She knew right away that Ethan was the one for her. Oh, they had their ups and downs, and he could be such a pill, but she’s never even thought about anyone else. She’d known it, too, when she saw him at that dance, all those years ago, sitting at the table. When she’d held her palm up against his, skin touching skin.