Thirty-three

Scotty did not go back to school.
His parents talked seriously and lengthily to their own doctor and to a specialist at the University Hospital -- Mr. McKinley was entitled to a discount for members of his family -- and it was decided it would be best for him to take the remainder of the term off, spend a lot of time in bed and, for the rest, do pretty much as he chose -- provided, of course, he chose to do nothing too exciting or too debilitating.
His teacher and his school principal were conferred with and everyone agreed that, if he kept up with a certain amount of work at home, there was little danger of his losing a term.

Scotty accepted the decision with indifference and did not enter the arguments.

He was discharged from the hospital after a two-day checkup and he and his parents had what Mr. McKinley described as a "celebration lunch" at the cafeteria on the campus.
Rachel wore a smart hat and, because she had been warned recently about smoking, puffed at her cigarettes through a long ivory holder stained with lipstick.
Scotty's father sat sprawled in his chair, angular, alert as a cricket, looking about at the huge stainless-steel appointments of the room with an expression of proprietorship.

Teachers -- men who wore brown suits and had gray hair and pleasant smiles -- came to their table to talk shop and to be introduced to Scotty and Rachel.
Rachel was polite, Scotty indifferent.
They ate the cafeteria food with its orange sauces and Scotty gazed without interest at his food, the teachers, the heroic baronial windows, and the bright ranks of college banners.
His father tried to make the food a topic.

"The blueberry pie is good, Scotty.
I recommend it".
He looked at his son, his face worried.
Scotty murmured, "No, thanks", so softly his father had to bend his gaunt height across the table and turn a round brown ear to him.
Scotty regarded the ear and the grizzled hair around it with a moment of interest.
He said more loudly, "I'm full, old Pop".
He had eaten almost nothing on the crested, three-sectioned plate and had drunk about half the milk in its paper container.

"He's all right, Craig", Rachel said.
"I can fix him something later in the afternoon when we get home".

Since his seizure, Scotty had had little appetite;
yet his changed appearance, surprisingly, was one of plumpness.
His face was fuller;
his lips and the usually sharp lines of his jaw had become swollen-looking.
He breathed now with his mouth open, showing a whitely curving section of lower teeth;
he kept his eyes, with their puffed blurred lids, always lowered, though not, apparently, focusing.
Even his neck seemed thicker and, therefore, shorter.
His hands, which had been as quick as a pair of fluttering birds, were now neither active nor really relaxed.
They lay on his lap, palms up, stiffly motionless, the tapered fingers a little thick at the joints.
Altogether he had, since the seizure, the appearance of a boy who overindulged in food and took no exercise.
He looked lazy, spoiled, a little querulous.

Rachel had little to say.
She greeted her husband's colleagues with smiling politeness, offering nothing.
Mr. McKinley, for all his sprawling and his easy familiarity, was completely alert to his son, eyes always on the still face, jumping to anticipate Scotty's desires.
It was a strained, silent lunch.

Rachel said, "I'd better get him to bed".

The doctors had suggested Scotty remain most of every afternoon in bed until he was stronger.

Since Mr. McKinley had to give a lecture, Rachel and Scotty drove home alone in the Plymouth.
They did not speak much.
Scotty gazed out at ugly gray slums and said softly, "Look at those stupid kids".
It was a Negro section of peeling row houses, store-front churches and ragged children.
Rachel had to bend toward Scotty and ask him to repeat.
He said, "Nothing".
And then: "There are lots of kids around here".

Scotty looked at the children, his mouth slightly opened, his eyes dull.
He felt tired and full and calm.

Thirty-four

the days seemed short, perhaps because his routine was, each day, almost the same.
He rose late and went down in his bathrobe and slippers to have breakfast either alone or with Rachel.
Virginia treated him with attention and tried to tempt his appetite with special food: biscuits, cookies, candies -- the result of devoted hours in the tiled kitchen.
She would hover over him and, looking like her brother, anxiously watch the progress of Scotty's fork or spoon.

"You don't eat enough, honey.
Try to get that down".

Rachel, observing, would say, "He has to rediscover his own capacity.
It'll take time".

Virginia and Rachel talked to each other quietly now, as allies who are political rather than natural might in a war atmosphere.
Both watched Scotty constantly, Rachel without seeming to, Virginia openly, her eyes filled with concern.
Scotty was neutral.
He did not resent their supervision or Virginia's sometimes tiring sympathy.
He ate what he felt like, slept as much or as little as he pleased, and moved about the draughty rooms of the house, when he was not in bed, with slow, dubious steps, like an elderly tourist in a cathedral.
His energy was gone.
He was able, now, to sit for hours in a chair in the living room and stare out at the bleak yard without moving.
His hands lay loosely, yet stiffly -- they were like wax hands: almost lifelike, not quite -- folded in his lap;
his mouth hung slightly open.
When he was asked a question or addressed in such a way that some response was inescapable, he would answer;
if, as often happened, he had to repeat because he had spoken too softly, he would repeat his words in the same way, without emphasis or impatience, only a little louder.

He had not mentioned Kate.
He had not even thought about her much except once or twice at night in bed when his slowly ranging thoughts would abruptly, almost accidentally, encounter her.
At these times he felt a kind of pain in his upper chest, but it was an objective pain, in no way different from others in intensity and not different in kind;
it was like the bandaged wound on the back of his head which occasionally throbbed;
it was merely another part of his weakness.
He was calm, drugged, and lazy.
He did not care.

Rachel mentioned Kate.
She said, "I notice the girl from across the street hasn't bothered to phone or visit".

Scotty said, "That's all right.
Kate's all right".
He thought about it briefly, then deliberately turned the talk to something else.

Once, sitting at the front window in his parents' room, he saw Kate come out of her house.
She was with Elizabeth.
They were far off and looked tiny.
The heavy branches in his front yard would hide and then reveal them.
They turned at the bottom of Kate's steps and moved off in the direction of the park.
He thought he saw -- it awakened and, for a moment, interested him -- that Elizabeth held a leash in her hand and that a round fuzzy puppy was on the end of the leash.
Then they disappeared and Scotty got up and went into his own room and got into bed.
By the time he was under the covers he had forgotten about seeing Kate.

The doctor, since Scotty was no longer allowed to make his regular trips into town to see him, came often and informally to the house.
He would sit, slim-waisted and spare, on the edge of Scotty's bed, his legs crossed so elaborately that the crossed foot could tap the floor.
Scotty did not mind the doctor's unsmiling teasing as he used to.

"Husky young man", he said with mock distaste.
"I imagine you're always battling in school".

"I don't go to school any more".

"Pardon"?
The doctor had to bend close to hear;
his delicate hand, as veined as a moth's wing, rested absently on Scotty's chest.
Scotty said the same words more loudly.
"Oh.
Well, we're taking a little vacation, that's all".
He turned unsmilingly to Rachel.
"I think by the end of next week he could get out in the air a little.
He could now but the weakness is very definite;
it would exhaust him further and unnecessarily.
He'll be stronger soon".
His stethoscope was on the table by Scotty's bed and he picked it up and wagged it at Scotty.
He said fussily, "Just keep the cap on those strong emotions".
The stethoscope glinted silver in the darkening room.
"I'll drop by again in a few days".

Rachel stayed on after the doctor had gone.
She smoothed the covers on Scotty's bed and picked things up from the floor.
She did not touch him.
Scotty watched with disinterest.
He did not speak.
He had no desire to.

She said, "Do you think you'll miss school"?

He had noticed how formal and irritably exact Rachel had grown.
He did not care.
He felt her irritability did not concern him, yet he knew he would not care even if it did.
He shook his head.

"We've had any number of calls about you.
You could win a popularity contest at that school without any trouble.
Miss Estherson called twice.
She wants to pay you a visit.
She says the children miss you.
Apparently you were the light of their lives".

Scotty shrugged slightly.
Rachel came close to the bed, bent as if she would kiss him, then moved away.
She was frowning.
"That doctor annoys me".
She seemed to speak to herself.
"Do you suppose his self-consciousness is characteristic of the new Negro professionals or merely of doctors in general"?

She turned to him again.
"Well, Mrs. Charles -- Sally -- has phoned too.
She was very worried".
Rachel's tone was dry.
"She didn't really say" -- She glanced away at the floor, then swooped gracefully and picked up one of Scotty's slippers.
"I mean, do you feel like seeing Kate"?

Scotty said, "I don't know".
It was true.
He did not.
There was the slight pain, but it was no different from the throbbing in his head.

"Well, there's time, in any case.
We'll wait till you're stronger and then talk about it".
She put the slipper neatly by its mate at the foot of the bed.

Scotty said, "Okay".

This time Rachel kissed him lightly on the forehead.
Scotty was pleased.

His father was a constant visitor.
Scotty would hear the front door in the evening and then his father's deep slow voice;
it floated up the stairs.

"How's Scotty"?

And Rachel's or Virginia's reply: "better.
He's getting plenty of rest".

"Is his appetite improved"?
Or: "Does he get exercise"?

The exchange was almost invariable, and Scotty, in his bed, could hear every word of it.
He never smiled.
It required an energy he no longer possessed to be satirical about his father.
His father would come upstairs and stand self-consciously at the foot of the bed and look at his son.
After a pause, during which he studied Scotty's face as if Scotty were not there and could not study him too, Mr. McKinley would ask the same questions he had asked downstairs.

Scotty would reply softly and his father, apologetically, would ask him to repeat.

"I'm eating more", he would say.
Or: "I walk around the house a lot".

"Perhaps you should get out a little".

"I'm not supposed to yet".
He was not irritated.
He did not mind the useless, kindly questions.
He looked at the lined face with vague interest;
he felt he was noting it, as if it were something he might think about when he grew stronger.

Mr. McKinley examined everything with critical care, seeking something material to blame for his son's illness.

"Have you got enough blankets"?
And another time, without accusation: "You never wore that scarf I bought you".