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The Painted Table(59)

By:Suzanne Field


He seems to be imploring her to understand. It stings that her mother would throw away baby pictures, but their loss is of little consequence in the face of the shame and frustration her dad carries. It seems he is sharing the news of moving because he considers the Miller’s Ford house to still be her home, but it is not.

“Oh, Daddy.” Her compassion triggers anger. It rises up, overflows. She knows she shouldn’t say it, in this public place or anywhere, but she does. She leans forward and hits the table with an open hand. “Daddy!” She doesn’t care if others hear. “Why don’t you just leave her?”

It is as if she slapped him. His stricken face turns deeper red and he glares at her. Placing both hands on the table, he leans forward and declares, “When I married your mother, I promised to stick with her through thick and thin, and I will.”

It is a defining moment that Saffee will never forget. She is ashamed of herself, saying what she had no right to say.

She has never been prouder of her father.

Oh, God, in spite of me, redeem the time for my family.

A few moments pass as both struggle to regain composure. In those moments, she sees him as more than her teasing but sometimes stern father. More than the back-slapping, extroverted, good-old-boy he shows the world. Beyond his simple ways, he is both tragic and noble. He will not chuck his burden, he will shoulder it.

Finally, she says, “You’ve been ‘batching’ it for a long time, haven’t you, Daddy?”

“I get by,” he says.

Saffee once heard when a classmate’s mother was dying of cancer that for weeks friends and neighbors brought the family casseroles and home-baked bread and desserts, showing love and support. Various afflictions seem to merit this kindness, but not mental illness. Secrecy doesn’t lay groundwork for others to reach out.

Saffee pushes her hamburger aside and circles a french fry in a blob of ketchup. Memories flash. Vivid is the day her father returned from the navy and he and her mother needlessly argued about April’s paternity. Saffee has long suspected that Joann naively planted the suspicion with unfounded innuendo. Now Saffee sees that those hot words in San Francisco, that branded her earliest remembrance of him, had come from his hurt, and hurt had come from his love.

Until this moment, youth’s capacity for ingratitude had hidden that it was out of love and duty that Nels worked so diligently to provide a comfortable material life for his disabled family. She also sees that, wise or unwise, his denial of Joann’s need for psychiatric help, allowing skepticism of the treatment she might receive, had also stemmed from love. He had only been trying to protect her.

What unfulfilled expectations had her dad brought to marriage? What were his dreams? She had never thought to ask or even wonder. But here, across the table, his impassioned declaration of loyalty has shown her what she did not understand in her youth—that his love for her mother superseded any dream.

Conviction stabs her. How much greater is this love from husband than has been from daughter? Daughter, who tries to hide the very existence of an unfortunate mother.

Nels interrupts her reflections. “Actually,” he says, “I’ve been thinkin’ for some time we better move. Last summer, when Mother was doin’ good, we picked out a trailer in Red Bridge.”

A french fry stops midway to Saffee’s mouth. “A trailer?”

“Guess they don’t call ’em trailers no more—mobile home, I mean.”

Nels tells her that the house is jointly owned and Joann, in her current state, refuses to sign over the papers. He’ll move to Red Bridge anyway and sell the house later. It will be more convenient because the mobile home park is only eight miles from the state hospital.

The conversation has drained them both. It is clear that Saffee won’t be telling her dad about Jack today. It doesn’t seem to be the right time to bring up a boyfriend. A boyfriend she really cares about, who has hinted at marriage. Anyway, how could anyone marry Sapphire Kvaale, the girl with the deranged mother? If Jack knew about her, he might run the other way. Her dad has been the epitome of loyalty to a demented wife. If need be, could she expect that of Jack? Or any man?





CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN



FLOATING FREE





More than once Jack has said that he’d like to meet Saffee’s parents. She’s been to his home several times—James and Harriet Andrews are gracious and lovely. Shouldn’t he know that her family members, now more like acquaintances than intimates, are not like his? Not like his at all. Saffee is longing to be known, yet frightened to be known. Finally, she resolves to quit sidestepping her family credentials and tell him all.