The Calm Man Read online

herhusband comes and puts his arms around her. He holds her close. If theylove each other they are so happy, so very happy, they break down andcry."

  "I am too pleased to do anything so fantastic, Sally," he said. "When achild is born no tears should be shed by its parents. I have examinedthe child and I am pleased with it. Does not that content you?"

  "No, it doesn't!" Sally almost shrieked. "Why do you stare at your ownson as if you'd never seen a baby before? He isn't a mechanical toy.He's our own darling, adorable little baby. _Our child!_ How can you beso _inhumanly_ calm?"

  He frowned, put the baby down.

  "There is a time for love-making and a time for parenthood," he said."Parenthood is a serious responsibility. That is where medicine comesin, surgery. If a child is not perfect there are emergency measureswhich can be taken to correct the defect."

  Sally's mouth went suddenly dry. "Perfect! What do you mean, Jim? Isthere something _wrong_ with Tommy?"

  "I don't think so," her husband said. "His grasp is firm and strong. Hehas good hearing and his eyesight appears to be all that could bedesired. Did you notice how his eyes followed me every moment?"

  "I wasn't looking at his eyes!" Sally whispered, her voice tight withalarm. "Why are you trying to frighten me, Jim? If Tommy wasn't anormal, healthy baby do you imagine for one instant they would haveplaced him in my arms?"

  "That is a very sound observation," Sally's husband said. "Truth istruth, but to alarm you at a time like this would be unnecessarilycruel."

  "Where does that put you?"

  "I simply spoke my mind as the child's father. I had to speak as I didbecause of my natural concern for the health of our child. Do you wantme to stay and talk to you, Sally?"

  Sally shook her head. "No, Jim. I won't let you torture me any more."

  Sally drew the baby into her arms again and held it tightly. "I'llscream if you stay!" she warned. "I'll become hysterical unless youleave."

  "Very well," her husband said. "I'll come back tomorrow."

  He bent as he spoke and kissed her on the forehead. His lips were icecold.

  For eight years Sally sat across the table from her husband atbreakfast, her eyes fixed upon a nothingness on the green-blue wall athis back. Calm he remained even while eating. The eggs she placed beforehim he cracked methodically with a knife and consumed behind a tiltednewspaper, taking now an assured sip of coffee, now a measured glance atthe clock.

  The presence of his young son bothered him not at all. Tommy could bequiet or noisy, in trouble at school, or with an _A_ for good conducttucked with his report card in his soiled leather zipper jacket. It wasalways: "Eat slowly, my son. Never gulp your food. Be sure to takeplenty of exercise today. Stay in the sun as much as possible."

  Often Sally wanted to shriek: "Be a father to him! A real father! Getdown on the floor and play with him. Shoot marbles with him, spin one ofhis tops. Remember the toy locomotive you gave him for Christmas after Igot hysterical and screamed at you? Remember the beautiful little train?Get it out of the closet and wreck it accidentally. He'll warm up to youthen. He'll be broken-hearted, but he'll feel close to you, then you'llknow what it means to have a son!"

  Often Sally wanted to fly at him, beat with her fists on his chest. Butshe never did.

  _You can't warm a stone by slapping it, Sally. You'd only bruiseyourself. A stone is neither cruel nor tender. You've married a man ofstone, Sally._

  He hasn't missed a day at the office in eight years. She'd never visitedthe office but he was always there to answer when she phoned. "I'm verybusy, Sally. What did you say? You've bought a new hat? I'm sure it willlook well on you, Sally. What did you say? Tommy got into a fight with anew boy in the neighborhood? You must take better care of him, Sally."

  There are patterns in every marriage. When once the mold has set, a fewstrange behavior patterns must be accepted as a matter of course.

  "I'll drop in at the office tomorrow, darling!" Sally had promised rightafter the breakfast pattern had become firmly established. The desire tosee where her husband worked had been from the start a strong, brightflame in her. But he asked her to wait a while before visiting hisoffice.

  A strong will can dampen the brightest flame, and when months passed andhe kept saying 'no,' Sally found herself agreeing with her husband'ssuggestion that the visit be put off indefinitely.

  Snuff a candle and it stays snuffed. A marriage pattern once establishedrequires a very special kind of re-kindling. Sally's husband refused tosupply the needed spark.

  Whenever Sally had an impulse to turn her steps in the direction of theoffice a voice deep in her mind seemed to whisper: "No sense in it,Sally. Stay away. He's been mean and spiteful about it all these years.Don't give in to him now by going."

  Besides, Tommy took up so much of her time. A growing boy was always aproblem and Tommy seemed to have a special gift for getting into thingsbecause he was so active. And he went through his clothes, wore out hisshoes almost faster than she could replace them.

  Right now Tommy was playing in the yard. Sally's eyes came to a focusupon him, crouching by a hole in the fence which kindly old Mrs.Wallingford had erected as a protection against the pryinginquisitiveness of an eight-year-old determined to make life miserablefor her.

  A thrice-widowed neighbor of seventy without a spiteful hair in her headcould put up with a boy who rollicked and yelled perhaps. But peep-holespying was another matter.

  Sally muttered: "Enough of that!" and started for the kitchen door. Justas she reached it the telephone rang.

  Sally went quickly to the phone and lifted the receiver. The instant shepressed it to her ear she recognized her husband's voice--or thought shedid.

  "Sally, come to the office!" came the voice, speaking in a hoarsewhisper. "Hurry--or it will be too late! Hurry, Sally!"

  Sally turned with a startled gasp, looked out through the kitchen windowat the autumn leaves blowing crisp and dry across the lawn. As shelooked the scattered leaves whirled into a flurry around Tommy, thenlifted and went spinning over the fence and out of sight.

  The dread in her heart gave way to a sudden, bleak despair. As sheturned from the phone something within her withered, became as dead asthe drifting leaves with their dark autumnal mottlings.

  She did not even pause to call Tommy in from the yard. She rushedupstairs, then down again, gathering up her hat, gloves and purse,making sure she had enough change to pay for the taxi.

  The ride to the office was a nightmare ... Tall buildings swept past,facades of granite as gray as the leaden skies of mid-winter, beehivesof commerce where men and women brushed shoulders without touchinghands.

  Autumnal leaves blowing, and the gray buildings sweeping past. DespiteTommy, despite everything there was no shining vision to warm Sally fromwithin. A cottage must be lived in to become a home and Sally had neverreally had a home.

  One-night stand! It wasn't an expression she'd have used by choice, butit came unbidden into her mind. If you live for nine years with a manwho can't relax and be human, who can't be warm and loving you'll begineventually to feel you might as well live alone. Each day had been likea lonely sentinel outpost in a desert waste for Sally.

  She thought about Tommy ... Tommy wasn't in the least like his fatherwhen he came racing home from school, hair tousled, books dangling froma strap. Tommy would raid the pantry with unthinking zest, invite otherboys in to look at the Westerns on TV, and trade black eyes for marbleswith a healthy pugnacity.

  Up to a point Tommy _was_ normal, _was_ healthy.

  But she had seen mirrored in Tommy's pale blue eyes the same abnormalcalmness that was always in his father's, and the look of derisivewithdrawal which made him seem always to be staring down at her from aheight. And it filled her with terror to see that Tommy's mood couldchange as abruptly and terrifyingly cold ...

  Tommy, her son. Tommy, no longer boisterous and eager, but sitting in acorner with his legs drawn up, a faraway look in his eyes. Tommy seemingto look right through her, into space.
Tommy and Jim exchanging silentunderstanding glances. Tommy roaming through the cottage, staring at histoys with frowning disapproval. Tommy drawing back when she tried totouch him.

  _Tommy, Tommy, come back to me!_ How often she had cried out in herheart when that coldness came between them.

  Tommy drawing strange figures on the floor with a piece of coloredchalk, then erasing them quickly before she could see them, refusing tolet her enter his secret child's world.

  Tommy picking up the cat and stroking its fur mechanically, while hestared out through the kitchen window at rusty blackbirds on thewing ...

  "This is the address you gave me, lady. Sixty-seven Vine