The Painted Table(38)

By the time Nels comes home, two days later, Joann has returned to her usual preoccupied, but less episodic, self.

“Muzzy,” Nels calls out as he comes in the door. “I see you’ve been busy. I bet it’s nice to have a big garage to paint in, and park your car too.”

Since her dad is gone much of the time, Saffee concludes that he must be unaware of the extent of her mother’s disturbed behavior. She decides to inform him.

On Sunday afternoon Joann is in her bedroom nursing a headache. Although Saffee is hesitant to talk behind her mother’s back, she marks her page of David Copperfield and summons courage. She trudges to the living room and plops onto the sectional beside Nels, who is reading the newspaper.

“Daddy,” she says, hushed, “I need to talk to you about something important.”

Nels shifts his toothpick to the other side of his mouth and glances at her.

“Mother was really scary the other day when you were gone, all mixed up.”

“Whatdya mean, mixed up?” He puts down the paper.

“In the garage, painting the table again, she was talking crazy, and paint was flying all over. It was awful, Daddy. I didn’t like it!”

“Ahh. She’s okay. Dere’s nuttin’ wrong. She even learnt how to drive.”

“Daddy, listen! It wasn’t normal. April was scared too. Mother acts so strange sometimes.”

“Nah. She jus’ gets nervous and excited about things. Her biggest problem? She thinks too much.” He reopens his paper. “You jus’ be sure to be a good girl. Don’t go gettin’ edgewise with ’er. Everything’ll be fine.”

“Daddy.” Saffee is indignant at his assessment and warning. “It’s not my fault she’s so mixed up.” Although conversations with her father are usually less than satisfying, she is not going to give up. “I think she needs to go to some kind of doctor or something.”

Nels, who doesn’t know anyone who medicates mood changes, and wouldn’t think much of anyone who does, scowls. “Nah. Listen, I tol’ you.” He takes the toothpick from his mouth and jabs the air for emphasis. “Dere’s nothin’ wrong with her.”

Saffee reminds him that he isn’t here all the time to witness his wife’s behavior. She complains that she and April are at a loss to know what to do when she gets “all funny.” She suggests that perhaps there are hospitals for . . .

“Now don’ talk nonsense. She’s never goin’ to one a dem places.”

Nels returns to his paper and toothpick. Saffee knows when to say no more but her mind churns. David Copperfield meets a world full of curious people. Had Dickens known her parents, perhaps he would have numbered them with the lot.




In November, the girls take their first ride in the car with their mother at the wheel. She drives at a careful speed, pumping the accelerator. Saffee, up front, hears April whisper in the backseat, “Wow, herky-jerky.” They both notice that Joann looks in the rearview mirror almost as much as out the front window. Is she afraid someone behind is following too closely? Or criticizing the way she drives? Twice Joann activates the windshield wipers instead of the turn signals and, worse, doesn’t seem to notice them scraping back and forth.

“Mom!” Saffee yells, embarrassed that someone might see them. “It’s not raining.”

Later Joann asks, “Saffee, what about that morning chorus practice at school? I suppose I could take you.”

“No. I don’t think I’ll go this year, Mom. Maybe next year.”

A few days later Joann’s right ankle is in a plaster cast. While looking in the rearview mirror as she approached an intersection, she hit a stopped car.

She never drives again.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE



RESPECTFULLY YOURS





. . . and then the tree caught fire and the whole school burned down to the ground . . .”

In the next room, Saffee surrenders her concentration. Even the great Captain Ahab, harpoon in hand, must defer to Joann when she mentions fire.

It seems that Joann is suggesting to April that out of respect for all who have perished in fires ignited by candles on Christmas trees, the Kvaales should no longer plug in strings of electric bulbs on their tree.

“Never?” April asks.

“Well, I think not,” her mother says.

“Let’s go tell Saffee,” April says, and hurries into the living room, followed more slowly by Joann, on crutches.

“Saffee, Mom thinks . . .”

“I heard, but we don’t use candles,” Saffee scoffs. “That was the olden days.”

“But houses and schools and nursing homes and everything burned to the ground!” April says.