When She Was Good by Philip Roth Read Free Book Online Page A

glass of the front door.
    Myra, flustered, said to her daughter, “And is that what Alice Bassart is going around telling people?”
    “Isn’t that what
happened?
”
    “No!” said Myra, covering her blackened eye. “It was an accident—that he didn’t even mean. I don’t
know
what happened. But it’s over!”
    “Once, Mother, just once, protect yourself!”
    “—All I know,” Berta was saying, “are you listening to me, Willard? All I know is that it sounds to me as if he is planning to put his fist through that fifteen-dollar glass.”
    But Willard was saying, “Now first off, I want everyone here to calm down. The fellow has been away three whole days, something that has never happened before—”
    “Oh, but I’ll bet he’s found a warm corner somewhere, Daddy Will—with a barstool in it.”
    “I know he hasn’t!” said Myra.
    “Where was he then, Mother, the Salvation Army?”
    “Now, Lucy, now wait a minute,” said Willard. “This is nothing to shout about. As far as we know he has not missed a day of work. As for his nights, he has been sleeping at the Bill Bryants’, on their sofa—”
    “Oh, you
people!
” Lucy cried, and was out of the room and into the front hallway. The rapping at the glass stopped. For a moment there was not a sound; but then the bolt snapped shut, and Lucy shouted, “Never! Do you understand that? Never!”
    “No,” moaned Myra. “No.”
    Lucy came back into the room.
    Myra said, “… What—what did you do?”
    “Mother, the man is beyond hope! Beyond everything!”
    “A-men,” said Berta.
    “Oh, you!” said Lucy, turning on her grandmother. “You don’t even know what I’m saying!”
    “Willard!” said Berta sharply.
    “Lucy!” said Willard.
    “Oh
no
,” cried Myra, for in the meantime she had rushed past them into the hallway. “Duane!”
    But he was already running down the street. By the time Myra had unlocked the door and rushed out on the porch, he had turned a corner and was out of sight. Gone.
    Till now. Lucy had locked him out, and Whitey had watched her do it to him; through the glass he had seen his pregnant eighteen-year-old daughter driving shut the bolt against hisentering. And had never dared return after that. Until now, with nearly five years gone and Lucy dead … He must be waiting down in that station twenty minutes already. Unless he had become impatient, and decided to go back where he came from; unless he had decided that maybe this time he ought to disappear for good.
    —The pain shot down Willard’s right leg, from the hip to the toe, that sharp sizzling line of pain. Cancer! Bone cancer! There—again! Yesterday too he had felt it, searing down his calf and into his foot. And the day before. Yes, they would take him to the doctor, X-ray him, put him to bed, tell him lies, give him painkillers, and one day when it got too excruciating, ship him off to the hospital and watch him waste away … But the pain settled in now, like something bubbling over a low flame. No, it was not cancer of the bone. It was only his sciatica.
    But what did he expect sitting outside like this? The shoulders of his jacket were covered with snow; so were the toes of his boots. The first sheen of winter glowed on the paths and stones of the cemetery. The wind was down now. It was a cold, black night … and he was thinking, yes sir, he would have to pay attention to that sciatica, no more treating it like a joke. The smart thing was probably to take to a wheelchair for a month or so, so as to get the pressure off the sciatic nerve itself. That was Dr. Eglund’s advice two years ago, and maybe it wasn’t such a silly idea as it had seemed. A nice long rest. Throw an afghan over his knees, settle down into a nice sunny corner with the paper and the radio and his pipe, and whatever happened in the house, let it just roll right by him. Just concentrate on getting that sciatic nerve licked once and for all. Surely that is a right you have