The Painted Table(50)

Saffee’s heart pounds. Her feet are rooted to the edge of the Petersons’ yard as if paralyzed. She presses her fists hard against her cheeks, not believing the surreal nightmare unfolding in the glare of the yard light. How can this wild woman be her mother? The woman who bore her, raised her, has gone completely mad. “Mother, stop!” she yells. “Daddy, do something!”

April clings to her sister and cries. Joann struggles with the policeman as he tries to guide her toward the squad car. A second car arrives and another officer hastens to assist.

“Bingo! Quiet!” Mr. Peterson yells.

Nels, breathless and pale, circles his arms around his wife. “I’ve got ’er,” he shouts over the din. “I’ll take ’er home now.”

“No, Nels,” the officer says, trying to still Joann’s writhing while his partner clamps cuffs around her wrists, “not this time. I’m sorry. Assaulting an officer, destruction of property—that’s criminal offense. I have to take her in. We’ll hold her until you get arrangements with one of the hospitals.”

With tears in his eyes, Nels looks at his wife already in the squad car, secured behind a black grill that separates the backseat from the front. He sees terror on her face and he stretches his arms toward her. “Oh, Joann,” he says, his voice a mixture of grief and helplessness. “Why didja do it, Joann?”

The policeman looks sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Nels. We’ll take her to the holding tank at the jail for now and we’ll see she gets transportation to some place. Like I told you before, you’ll first have to get a court order from a judge to commit her. Too bad it’s the weekend.”

The officer’s voice carries to April and Saffee in the crisp night air. Too horrified to go closer to the police car, closer to their mother, they have not moved. They know their dad is mortified. Keeping Joann’s peculiarities out of the public eye has always been imperative. It’s obvious now that others know; the policeman called her by name. Saffee’s teeth chatter. She feels as if she might vomit.

Mr. Peterson leaves his porch and hurries across the yard. “I’m sorry, Nels. We had to call them, you know. I tried you first, but there was no answer. Look!” He sweeps his arm over the side yard. “She pulled up all Millie’s chrysanthemums, right up by the roots. They was growing right over there.” He points to the foundation of his house. “When I let Bingo out, he started barking like crazy, and then I saw her slashing that knife around, hacking away at them plants.” Mr. Peterson swings his arms back and forth as if he needs to help Nels imagine the scene. “You know, Nels, I couldn’t go deal with nobody with a knife. I had to get help. You understand, don’tcha, Nels?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Nels shakes his bent head. “I unnerstan’ . . . I’ll make up the damage to ya, Peterson.”

An officer suggests that Nels ride in the other car to the station. As he gets in, he calls over his shoulder, telling his daughters to go home. They needn’t be told. Sobbing, adrift in swirling emotion, Saffee and April run back into the dark orchard, toward their empty house, as if pursued. Black low-hanging limbs reach out to scratch them. April trips and falls, face to the cold ground.

“Ick! Yuck!”

“What’s the matter, April? Get up.”

“It’s the rotten apples!” On her knees, April scrapes soft mush from her face in disgust and whimpers, “This is what our life has become, Saffee, rotten apples!”

Looking down at her, never-before-opened floodgates of caring swell within Saffee. Sniffling, she pulls off her gloves, kneels, and wipes away tears and musky apple flesh from April’s cheeks. She sinks to the ground and the older cradles the younger in her arms. Tells her not to cry. Tells her everything is going to be okay.

“No, it’s not. They took Mom to jail!” April burrows her head in Saffee’s chest. “Saffee, I don’t get it. Mommy’s always treated me . . . sort of special. I always used to feel like, you know, like I was her pet or something. We had good times together. But now she’s changed. Now she’s so mean, but I don’t want her to go to jail. It’s so confusing and awful.”

Saffee slowly rocks her sister back and forth. Dry leaves, carried in sudden, crazy whirlwinds, pelt their faces. She reminds April that the policeman said something about having their mother committed, and that must mean to a hospital. Perhaps there she will finally get some help. “I know things will be better, April—sometime.”

“How do you know?”