Part 14 (1/2)
”I sure do.”
”Sister,” said Miriam, ”will you stay on here with me? Be my mama?”
Sister dug into the second piece of pie. ”Let me think about it, Miriam. Let me put that idea under my pillow.”
Next morning at breakfast, the first thing Miriam said to Sister was: ”Did you decide?”
”No, and I don't want to be pestered about this, either. You have no right to ask me to leave Early just so you can do what you want.”
”Then you're leaving?”
”Not yet.”
”When?”
”I said that I don't want to be pestered about this.”
”When can I ask you again if you've made up your mind?”
160.
”Never.”
”Then what do I say to Elinor when she comes over here and wants to carry me off?”
”I'll deal with your mother, Miriam. Just stop asking me about it.”
Miriam said no more. And her evil day was postponed, because Sister did not return to Chattanooga. She remained in Perdido a week beyond the reading of the will, then two weeks, then a month. The girl, lived, however, in continual suspense, because Sister never would say how long she intended to remain in the house that had been deeded to Miriam.
Next door, Oscar worried. He thought it was time for Sister to return home, and for Miriam to move into the front room. He mentioned his misgivings to Elinor, who said, ”Leave it alone, Oscar. Don't push things.”
”What do you mean, Elinor? What is there to push? Is there something you know about that you're not telling me?”
”n.o.body's told me anything. If I were you, though, I'd just leave Sister and Miriam alone for the time being.”
”I have,” protested Oscar. ”And now I just want to know how long this 'time being' is going to go on. Do you know?”
”I do not.”
”I'm gone have to go over there.”
Elinor didn't waste any more words in an attempt to dissuade her husband, and that evening he knocked on the front door of his daughter's house. Sister let him in. He hadn't been inside the house for five years. ”Sister, can I speak to Miriam for a minute?”
”Of course, Oscar. Let me go upstairs and get her.”
In a few minutes, Miriam came down alone. ”h.e.l.lo, Oscar,” she said, pointedly eschewing the appellation ”Father.”
”h.e.l.lo, honey. I came over because I thought there were a few things we ought to talk about.”
161.
”All right,” said Miriam, seating herself in the mahogany platform rocker which her grandmother had often occupied. Oscar sat in a corner of the blue sofa, where he had so often been placed as a child.
”Miriam, darling,” Oscar began, ”your mama and I need to figure out what's going to become of you.”
”How do you mean?”
”Where you're going to go and what you're going to do, now that Mama's dead.”
”I'm not going to do anything,” Miriam replied calmly. ”I'm not going to go anywhere.”
”You mean you don't want to come over and live with your mama and Frances and me?”
”No, sir. I have my own room here, and I don't want to leave.”
”You'd have your own room next door. Elinor says you could have the front room.”
”I don't want that room-or any room in that house. I just want to stay here. This is my house. Grandmama left it to me because she wanted me to live here. And that's exactly what I intend to do.”
”But what happens when Sister goes back to Chattanooga? What would people in this town think if they heard I was allowing a sixteen-year-old girl to live all by herself in a big house like this?”
”They could think whatever they wanted,” returned Miriam. ”What do I care what people think? I don't intend to leave, and n.o.body can make me.”
”Your mama and I could make you,” said Oscar. ”We're your parents.”
Miriam looked directly at her father. ”I suppose you could make me. I suppose you could rope me to the bed. I suppose you could stick food down my throat till I swallowed it.”
”You don't want to live with us?” Oscar asked his daughter, plaintively.
”Of course, I don't.”
”Why not?”
162.
”You didn't want me when I was born. And now it's too late.”
For a few moments, her father sat stunned.
”That was.,. sixteen years ago... darling!” Oscar faltered when he had recovered himself. ”And Mama wanted a little girl of her own. You're not sorry we gave you to Mama, are you?”
Miriam made no reply.
”You cain't still be upset about that, not after all these years. You know how much your grandmama loved you. You know how happy you were with Sister and Mama. We would never have let you go if we hadn't thought you were gone be happy as the day is long.”
Miriam looked at her father impa.s.sively and said nothing.