The Writing on the Wall A Novel - By W. D. Wetherell Page 0,56
the first real smile I’d seen yet.
I sat down on our beanbag chair so he was in between me and the TV screen and though I pretended to watch it what I mostly did was watch him. Part of what I felt was what any mom would feel if her boy was going off to war proud and apprehensive but after that it got more complicated. Vietnam sat off in this numb zone that had something to do with television and something to do with politics and since I never had time for either of those things it could have been Mars they were talking about. No one in town had ever been sent there. It would have worried me more if he had been going to Germany to face all those Russian missiles and tanks.
Loving Danny losing Danny had worn me out I’m not ashamed to admit that. Both before and after his brother’s death Andy was just THERE he wasn’t the kind of boy you worried about and so it was hard to worry about him now. He had his arm hooked over the back of the couch to keep from sliding off onto the carpet but he kept inching lower and lower anyway and it was pretty funny how limp he became how slack. I thought to myself well that’s Andy for better or worse. That’s Andy and he’s all I have left in the world and I love him more than I ever thought.
“This next one’s my favorite,” he said and just like that he was sitting ramrod straight on the couch. “Is it nine yet?”
He didn’t look like he could bear waiting. He patted the couch made a space for me and once the program came on talked a mile a minute telling me what it was about.
“The Man from Uncle,” he said. “They’re good guys and what’s funny is one of them is a Russian and yet they work together stamping out world crime. See? There he is! Ilya Kuriagin. Uncle is the agency they work for. Here’s the other one, Napoleon Solo. They’re getting their assignment, hold on to your hat!”
He was still watching TV when I went to bed and he may have been there all night because when I got up in the morning he was back on the couch though now he wore a black t-shirt not a white one. If that’s how he wanted to relax during his leave it was fine by me though later in the morning I asked him to help me gather blueberries and of course he hopped right up. He was good at picking he could hold cupfuls in his hands but I was pretty good myself so we soon started a competition to see who could fill their bucket up first.
He took a shower after that went back to the TV. About four I heard somebody at the front door. August! I hadn’t seen her since Lilac’s baby and as we stood on the porch she filled me in on the news. They had cleared brush for a field. Their berries were spectacular. There was a new calf. Luddy was adorable. Granite had come back from Canada with the sweetest weed yet.
“That’s wonderful,” I told her. “But you must be tired from your walk. Come inside with me there’s a little surprise.”
I led her down the hall to the TV room but all there was of Andy was an empty depression in the couch. “Wait here,” I told her and went out to the kitchen then up to his room but there was no sign of him. That confused me but since I hadn’t told August about him yet I took her back outside. I’d been meaning to introduce her to Therese LaBombard and I figured now was as good a time as any and when I walked her up there the two of them immediately hit it off. August had learned French at private school and Therese spoke Quebecois but they managed to understand each other all right and Mrs. L. gave her a blueberry ketchup recipe that had been in her family for years.
I walked August a little way in toward the hills and stood watching until she was out of sight. When I went back into the TV room Andy sat slumped on the couch.
“Where’d you disappear to?” I said. I figured he was shy with so pretty a girl.
“I didn’t disappear anywhere, Mom. I’ve been right here all afternoon.”