More in Anger by J. Jill Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

And in the face of her daughter’s intolerance during these lopsided conversations, and in some perverse if futile attempt to make her daughter stay long enough to love her, Opal became stubborn, as if keeping her daughter there long enough would change her mind, would make her want to spend time with her mother. But still Pearl’s body leaned and pulled towards the doorway, which Pearl herself seemed not to notice, but Opal did, and went on talking even more, as if stopping would give Pearl the opportunity she longed for, but in her nervousness she would bungle the words andsound as stupid as Pearl believed her to be. If she stopped, Pearl would escape, and Opal would be alone with the terrible images of her brother dying, coupled with the knowledge that her own daughter so clearly disliked and maybe even hated her.
    It was all bad in those days.
    Staring at her spot on the floor, Pearl said nothing, but she undoubtedly heard every word, seethed inside, silently screamed at her mother to shut the h - e -double- l up, until eventually, finally, Opal wound down, and started to cry. Escape was at hand.
    â€œMay I go now, Mother?”
    â€œYou are heartless,” Opal accused her, hating the whine in her voice. “You haven’t been down to see your uncle since you got back. You haven’t even called him on the telephone. And I thought you liked your aunt Mabel Maude. If not your little cousins.”
    â€œYour descriptions are so vivid, Mother, that I don’t need to see them.”
    â€œThey would like to see you.”
    â€œI detest smoking.”
    â€œI think you should go for a visit.”
    â€œLet May take my regards.”
    â€œHeartless,” Opal said again.
    Pearl looked at her coldly. Gave a huge, exasperated sigh. “I’ll go with Dad. When he goes.”
    â€œPearl—”
    â€œMother? I have art history to read. I ought to be through the Renaissance by now.”
    â€œThen go, you wretch!” Opal cried out angrily, gesturing with her hands to brush her daughter towards the door. “Go on. Getout of my sight. Don’t make me look at you. Don’t let me keep you from the blessed Renaissance.”
    Art history. English literature. As if Opal, because she had not gone to university, was therefore feeble-minded. As if her not going were a result of her own stupidity, not that of others. Well, it had not been her choice, she would have said if her daughter had cared to know. This daughter of hers knew nothing of her mother’s struggles, her mother’s thwarted desires, and likely wouldn’t care anyway. Pearl had been handed her education on a silver platter, just as Lillie had been handed hers. After considerable work by Opal, the both of them. But at least Pearl took her education seriously. Too seriously, perhaps.
    By the end of July, Jimmy no longer left the bedroom, and the sounds of his suffering permeated the walls of the house and wafted through the doorways and out the windows into easy earshot of the neighbours. Mabel Maude said that every window of the house had to be open day and night to ensure they didn’t all roast to death, and to get fresh air, even hot fresh air, circulating inside the house.
    Jimmy lay thin and pale and weak, barely able to cough. He had been such a big man, too big, in fact, for a long while after he and M&M married. She was even better than Opal with pies and cakes, and oh, how Jimmy had loved his coconut cream! And now he had wasted away to jutting bones and hollowed eyes, and he turned his face away from food. Mabel Maude had grown thin as a shadow as well; she was worn and tired all the time now. Opal brought her flowers from her garden, and the tall stalks of bright gladiolus blossoms resting against M&M’s pale face as shecradled them like a baby made her look more grandmother than mother.
    Opal came into Jimmy and Mabel Maude’s the back way one morning to see how their garden was