The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [410]
“Please, please, Mrs. Lonigan, don’t say things like that. I love Bill,” the girl beseeched.
“At times like this, we have got to look at the truth, no matter how hard it might be,” Mrs. Lonigan said, each of her words like the thrust of a sword.
Catherine did not reply, and the silence between them was interrupted only by the sighs of their breathing. Catherine began to feel that they had sat, so quietly facing each other, for a long time. And the poor woman. Even though she was treating her this way, Catherine could sense the woman’s sorrow. She was sitting, stiffly erect, her face changing from that hard, cruel look to one of brooding and worry. Then that sad expression would leave her face, and she would narrow her eyes. Her face would seem to grow more thin and to come to an intense point, as she leaned a trifle forward, again directing a calculating and suspicious look at the girl.
Catherine began to feel that the mother was staring clean through her. Upset, she could not return Mrs. Lonigan’s glance. She was looking at her in such a way, so mean, so heartless. It was a double struggle for Catherine not to cry, because in crying she could give herself up to being sad, exhaust herself, and then all that she had on her mind would be forgotten. But she would not, she was determined, cry and expose herself in Mrs. Lonigan’s presence.
Mrs. Lonigan suddenly assumed a possessive attitude, as if to indicate that she was nearer to Studs than Catherine was, an attitude which wordlessly, but like the slash of a sword, told the girl that she was Studs’ mother, and Studs was hers now. Catherine held herself drawn tight, when she could have just screamed to the housetops that Studs was hers, that his child was in her womb, growing and living this very minute. She could have jumped to her feet and let the world know this, and she sat there, her control like a sealed lock over her tongue, lest she do that. And there was Mrs. Lonigan facing her, suddenly turned into a spectacle of heart-break and sorrow. And again, her hard crafty look. The woman was hurting Catherine so deeply that she knew, until her dying day, she would never forgive Mrs. Lonigan. She knew why. The woman sensed it, sensed that she was pregnant.
What could she say? What could she do? Tell her? She wanted to. She had to tell someone, and she feared that her own mother would not understand any more than Mrs. Lonigan would. And she did need someone to talk to now. Someone on whose shoulder she could lay her head and sob, cry her heart out, exhaust herself utterly in tears, until her eyes were so raw that she would enjoy their very chafing. But Mrs. Lonigan was not the one to whom she could talk. Oh, God, she told herself, what could she do?
And still only silence and suspicion between them, blame on the side of the older woman, a wound that was raw and festering into hate on the side of the girl, and between them a continuing silence that was oppressive. Every little sound, the irregular and strident breathing of Mrs. Lonigan, slight movements of the nurse in the sick room, the sounds of life and movement, of men walking and talking outside and of automobiles and playing children were all magnified, and each sound and echo was like a bullet driving terror into this room and this home. Both of them sat,. contained, lest they scream and shout. And still that persisting relentless look of Mrs. Lonigan. God, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, please help, Catherine prayed. She was afraid now even to stand up for fear that Mrs. Lonigan should catch the very slight swellings of her stomach and breasts.
Could she talk with the father? She was afraid to, and he was a man. The idea of telling them made her shudder, and the very thought of it made her feel muddy. Tell them of such a beautiful, intimate thing, so that they could scorn her, call her names, blame her, make it all dirty when it was so clean. She couldn’t do it. But could she sit here forever? If only the telephone would ring, if only someone would come, if only Mrs. Lonigan would be called away. The woman looked at Catherine more and more like a witch.