If you survive the night with Susannah, chances are that you will emerge with enough bumps and bruises to draw looks of sympathy from total strangers, and undoubtedly will be a good deal deafer to boot. Susannah thrashes and snores like nobody’s business. When Mama and Papa were alive, we had a sow named Susannah, and its name was no coincidence. It is a pure wonder that Susannah’s precious little Shnookums sleeps with her every night and still survives. But perhaps this explains why the mutt is so high-strung he can catch kites on a windless day.
“Susannah,” I warned her that night for the millionth time, “unless you want to sleep on the floor, stay on your side of the bed. And for pity’s sake, sleep on your left side. Otherwise you sound like a pond full of bullfrogs.”
Despite her claim to tiredness, Susannah had been awake and watching “Murder, She Wrote” on her portable TV. “Dishes done?” she’d asked callously when I entered the room. I said nothing and let her finish the program while I undressed. Just having the TV on, especially on a Sunday night, made me feel guilty.
"Well, if we’re not going to be chatty, all right if I stay up and watch the movie? It’s about this woman who finds out her husband’s having an affair, and she decides to get even by having an affair of her own, except that the man she chooses is the husband of the woman her husband is having an affair with. So, at one point they figure it out and—”
That’s when I made her turn off the TV and scoot over. “Susannah dear,” I said, trying to imitate Mama’s voice, “let’s say our prayers now and get ready for the sandman.”
“Is he cute?”
I simply refused to answer. Cute is not what Susannah is after. John Stutzman, who goes to our church, is cute, and he’s all eyes for Susannah, but she pays him no mind. Not that Susannah goes to our church anymore anyway. My point is that Susannah is turning her back on our people and our traditions to such an extent that, as awful as it is to say so, I am glad Mama and Papa are not here to see it. That old adage about the apple not falling far from the tree is plain baloney. Susannah’s apple rolled out of the orchard and into the world the year Mama and Papa died.
I eventually quit fuming about Susannah and fell asleep. Both she and Shnookums beat me to it, however, and when I did drift off, it was to the alternating rhythm of Susannah’s deep throaty snores and Shnookums’s pitiful pips. At some point I dreamed that I was stranded in a rowboat without oars in the world’s largest frog pond. Maybe it was even an ocean, except that it was shallow enough for cattails and fresh enough for millions of croaking, squeaking, and bellowing frogs. Then, suddenly, all the frogs but one fell silent, and the one, in a startlingly human voice, began to scream for help.
I woke up and turned on the bedside lamp. Not surprisingly, Susannah and Shnookums were still sound asleep. Of course, it wasn’t their dream, but not that it made any difference. It is those with the most on their consciences who sleep the soundest, or haven’t you noticed? Anyway, I was just about to turn off the light and try to go back to sleep when I heard the scream again. This time I was definitely not dreaming.
I put on my slippers and threw on my heavy corduroy robe, which doesn’t at all compromise my modesty, and set out to investigate. The scream seemed to have come from upstairs, possibly from the new wing, above the new dining room. As soon as I had negotiated the impossibly steep stairs, it was immediately clear that I was on the right track. Joel and all three members of the Ream party were standing in the hallway looking toward the new wing.
“What the—” began the Congressman, but I cut him off.
“It’s okay, folks, I’ll take care of this.” I mean, what’s the point of standing around and scratching your head when all you have to do is check something out?
The scream, a sort of garbled “help,” was emitted one more time, and then I immediately knew where it came from. I headed straight for Susannah’s old room, with Joel at my heels.
The door was open, and the reading lamps on either side of the bed were turned on. Centered in the bed, but with her back pressed up against the headboard, was Linda McMahon. She seemed to be staring fixedly at something on the quilt that covered her legs.
“Linda!” Joel pushed past me and raced to the bed.
“Help!” she screamed one more time. So intently was she staring at whatever it was, she didn’t seem to be aware of our presence.
I went around to the other side of the bed and tried to follow the angle of her gaze. She was staring at something just below her knees, at some point in a strip of blue and red calico. Then I saw it too, but, I’m ashamed to say, I started to laugh.