In the morning we ate breakfast on trays and told the stories of the night and May Garth called the bank and told them she could not come in. No one went to work and no one went to school. The night moved on into the day. I was among friends.

At three o’clock that afternoon I returned to my apartment. I had no idea what was going to happen. I had never run away from a husband before or gone home to be forgiven. I was going to have to make it up as I went along. I took May Garth with me for a shield.

Chapter

19

The apartment was empty when we got there. It looked as if it had been deserted for weeks. Now that I had been gone for a day the whole place had lost its charm. The gravel driveway seemed rutted and poor. The yard with its wildflowers seemed overgrown and tacky. The half-finished cobbler’s bench sitting in the yard seemed embarrassing. Who would be married to someone who refinished furniture in the yard? (Of course, if Charles William had been doing it, I would have thought it was artistic.) I opened the door, and May Garth followed me into the living room.

“That’s our sectional sofa Momma bought us,” I said. “I used to like it but I hate it now. I hate that color green.”

“When do you think he will be home?” She sat down on the sofa and began to play with her eyes. She had a brand-new pair of contact lenses, the first any of us had ever seen, and she seemed to take them in and out at least every other hour. “I think I better get these out. They’re starting to bother me.” I sat down on the other half of the sofa and watched as she dug around in her eye and finally retrieved first the left and then the right lens. She laid one on top of the other and put them on the edge of a crystal ashtray.

“I ought to empty those ashtrays,” I said. “I have to clean this place up before he gets home, May Garth. You want to play some music while I do it? I’ve got a lot of records but no forty-fives anymore. I burned them up driving home from Vanderbilt. I won the freshman writing contest there, did I ever tell you that?”

“There’s a car,” she said. “I heard a car.” She stood up and looked out the window. A dark blue Pontiac was pulling up beside my car. “Is that him? Is that Malcolm?”

“Yeah. And his old roommate, Phinias. I guess Phinias brought him home.” Malcolm and Phinias got out of the car and came walking up the path. They were talking to each other with their heads bowed. I went to the door and opened it.