It was a hot night. Bobby was excited and cross. He was going away to school the next day. His two trunks stood open on the floor of his room. Outside the windows the dry leaves rustled in the murky night. Some rain drops splattered against the lifted glass. Then there was silence, save for the occasional rattle of twigs in the darkness. An automobile slipped by with the long soft sound of rubber tires sucking damp asphalt. When the branches of the trees parted, the lights in the house opposite seemed to draw nearer. Bobby disliked their spying.
He clattered up and down the stairs and through the halls in the still house where one could hear the clocks tick.
Depressed and resentful, Julia had kept herself from the boy and his preparations. He encountered her outside his door. She was passing quietly, trying not to be seen. "Gee whizz, Aunt Julia, I haven't got anybody to help me!" Julia realized that she was hypocritical in her determination to keep away from him. "I don't see why you can't help me, Aunt Julia."
Julia clasped her long pale fingers together in front of her black dress. She smiled. Bobby doesn't know! Oh, Laurence, how can you! "Hadn't you better do it alone, Bobby? Then you'll know where everything is." She was thinking how proud his throat looked above his open collar. His sun-burned neck was full and slender like a flower calyx. She found something pathetic in his small hard face: his short straight nose, his sulky mouth, his round chin, his eyes that saw nothing but their own desires. She loved him. He hurt her so, hard beautiful little beast. She walked through the door, into his domain that recalled his school pennants and baseball bats. "What a trunk! You haven't left room for clothes, child."
"Well, gee whizz, Aunt Julia, I've got to take my boxing gloves and my hockey sticks, and there's not anything in yet." She crouched by the trunk and began to lift his treasures from it. "I'm afraid this will all have to be taken out."
Bobby stepped on her trailing skirt as he peered into the trunk. "Gosh, Aunt Julia, it's so long!" He added, "You're so darn slow."
"Have you asked May to help you?"
"Gosh, Aunt Julia, I don't want her! She never will help me anyway."
"I'm afraid you don't help her very much." Julia glanced over her shoulder. Her smile apologized for her severity.
"Well, gee, when she wants me to help her it's always some fool girl's thing. She's not going away to school."
Laurence, climbing the stairs slowly, heard their talk. He had hidden himself for the evening, and was on his way to bed. He went to the door and looked in. Julia saw him, and clambered to her feet, tripping over her skirt. Laurence concentrated his attention on Bobby. "Not through yet?"
"Well, darn it, Dad, I've got to get everything in these two measly little trunks. I just can't do it."
Laurence came forward. "Oh, yes, you can." He squatted beside the heap of clothes. Julia stepped back like an intruder. She watched his hands, with their gestures of delicacy and tension, moving among the scattered objects. His sweet sneer seemed graven on his face. Everything about him, his clumsy humped shoulders, the spread of his hams straining the cloth of his trousers, was full of her knowledge of him that he would not admit. Bobby ran about the room bringing things to his father. Rain fluttered out of the darkness and made threads of motion on the silvered glass. "You'd better shut that window, Bobby." Bobby struggled with the sash. "Gee whizz, Dad, it's so hot in here!"
Julia wanted to leave them, but could not. She felt blank, and excluded, as though they had thrust her out into the obliviousness of the night. She was tired of the disorder of her inner life, but there was an intoxication in desperation vivid enough to make remembered peace seem dead and unreal. The only peace she could look forward to would come in going on and on to the numbness of broken intensity. When one became God, one destroyed in order to accomplish one's godhead. By destruction one brought everything into one's self. But she was heavy with the everything that she had become. It was too much. Only Laurence remained outside her. He would not have her. He was more than she, because he would not take her and become her. Love could not annihilate him. She understood the strategy of crucifixion, but could not accomplish it.
Laurence was rising stiffly to his feet. "Better, eh?"
Bobby was grudgingly appreciative. "There's a lot more. I'm much obliged. I guess it's all right."
Laurence settled his cuffs about his wrists and, drawing out a crumpled handkerchief, brushed dust from his small hands. "Well, that will do until morning anyway. Anything we can't find room for we'll send after you. You'd better get to bed now."
Julia said, "Good-night, Bobby, dear." "Good-night." Bobby did not see her face. "Good-night, Robert." "'Night, Dad."
Julia followed Laurence out. Still he did not look at her. He was relieved by the certainty of Bobby's departure, and willing to acknowledge that he owed Julia some compensation. "Well, I suppose we'll miss the kid."
"I shall." They were before Julia's door. She hesitated with her hand on the knob. "Won't you come in and talk to me a minute, Laurence?" He avoided her eyes again and stiffened weakly to resist her tone. "Pretty late, isn't it?" He noted her trembling lips. I can't bear that mouth. "Isn't it time you got to sleep?" "I can't sleep."
Then he had to meet her gaze. He was lost in it. He smiled wryly. "All right." With a sense of groping, he followed her in. He wanted the strength to keep her out of his life forever. When she exposed her misery to him, it was as if she were showing him breasts which he did not desire.
Julia said, "Sit down, won't you, Laurence? I feel almost as if you had never been here." Why did she treat him like a guest! He knew her suffering gaze was fixed on him steadily. Laurence, self-entangled, was ashamed to defend himself. He hated her because he loved her. He was jealous of the virgin quality of his pain, and he must give it up for her to ravage in a shared emotion. It was as if her hands, sensually understanding, were reaching voluptuously for his heart.
"You've changed your furniture around." He fumbled in his pocket for a cigar. Julia was closer. He could feel her movement closer to him. He could no longer hide himself.
Julia knelt by the side of his chair. "Are you sending Bobby off to get him away from me, Laurie?"
I shall have to look at her. I can't! I can't! "What an idea, Julia!"
"Laurie, don't punish me! It's killing me to be shut out of your life."
His head was bent over his unlit cigar, as he rolled it endlessly in his fingers. A tear splashed on his hand—his own tear. He wondered at it. He was helpless. "Laurie, my darling! I love you, whether you love me or not!" She was pressing his head against her. His lost head. It lolled. It was hers. Everything was hers. She had taken him, and was exposing his love for her. This would be the hardest thing to forget. Could he ever forget? He gave himself limply to her exultance. "You've killed me, Julia. What is there to forgive? Yes, I love you. I love you." They leaned together. How easily she cries! They love each other. "Oh, Laurie, my darling, my darling! Thank you! Thank you!" She was kissing his hands. He writhed inwardly. My God, not that! EvenIcan't bear it! "Don't, Julia. Please don't." "I want to be yours, Laurie—oh, won't you let me be yours?" "Julia, I'm anything. I'm broken. I don't know." He was weeping through his fingers. She pulled them apart, and pressed her lips to his face and his closed eyes.
After a time they were calm. She was tender to his humiliation. When he lit the cigar which he had recovered from the floor, she sat at his feet and smiled. He recognized his need of her now. It was dull and persistent. Yes, God forbid that I should judge anybody. I love her.
"Laurie?"
"Julia?" His furtive eyes admitted the sin she put on them.
"Dear Laurie! I love you so much."
Unacknowledged, each kept for himself a pain which the other could not heal. Each pitied the other's illusion, and was steadied by it into gentleness.