rest of her supper, ravenously, then went back into the parlor and ate his own. His father had not moved from the window. Lucas ate his father's portion as well, and went to bed.
There was nothing for breakfast, though his father sat at table, waiting. Lucas said, 'Father, will you get food for Mother and yourself while I'm at work?'
His father nodded. Lucas took the last ten pennies from the tin in the cupboard. He saved three for himself, for his lunch, and put the other seven on the table for his father. He thought his father could go out and buy something to eat. He thought his father could do that.
He would find out today when he was to be paid. He was sure Jack had meant to tell him but had been too taken up with managing the works. He resolved as well to ask Jack about the nature of what the machines were making, what the housings housed. He wondered if he would find the courage to ask so many questions all at once.
The workday passed. Align, clamp, pull, pull again, inspect. In the afternoon Lucas began to discern a faint sound as the teeth of the machine bit down, a lesser noise within the machine's greater one. He wondered if it was a new sound or simply an aspect of the machine's usual noise, inaudible to him until he'd grown accustomed to the machine's complexities of being. He listened more carefully. Yes, there it was amid the crunching of the metal teeth into the softer metal of the plate, all but lost in the slalom of the rollers, the swish of the belt there was another sound, barely more than a whisper. Lucas leaned in close. The whisper seemed to emanate from deep within, from the dark place under the turning wheel, just past the point at which teeth embedded themselves in iron.
He leaned in closer still. He could hear it but not quite hear it. From behind him, Tom said, 'Somethin' wrong with yer machine, there?'
Lucas righted himself. He hadn't thought Tom noticed him at all. It was surprising to know he was so visible.
'No, sir,' he said. Quickly, with a show of diligence, he loaded another plate.
He didn't see Jack until day's end, when Jack came to him, said, 'All right, then,' spoke to Dan, and went into the chamber of the vaults. Lucas passed through a moment of dreamlike confusion he thought he had reentered the previous day, had only imagined it was Thursday and not Wednesday. In his bafflement he forgot to ask Jack when he would be paid. He resolved to ask tomorrow.
He left the works and made his way home. On Rivington he passed a madman who screamed about a rain (or was it a reign?) of fire. He passed a bone that lay in the gutter, knobbed at either end, ivory-colored, offering itself like something precious.
He wanted to go to Catherine again but forced himself home instead. When he let himself into the apartment, he found his mother standing in the middle of the parlor, on the carpet she had paid too much for. It seemed for a moment only a moment that she was herself again, that she had made supper and put the kettle on.
She stood transfixed in her nightgown. Her hair flowed to her shoulders; wisps of it stood around her head in wiry confusion. He had never seen her so, in the parlor with her hair undone. He remained dumbly at the entrance, uncertain of what to do or say. He saw that his father stood at the window with his breathing machine, looking not out at the street but into the room. He saw that his father was frightened and confused.
He said, 'Mother?'
She stared at him. Her eyes were not her own.
'It's Lucas,' he said. 'It's only Lucas.'
Her voice, when she spoke, was low. She might have feared being overheard. She said, 'He mustn't sing to me no more.'
Lucas glanced helplessly at his father, who remained standing at the window, looking into the room, watching intently the empty air before his eyes.
His mother hesitated, searching Lucas's face. She seemed to be struggling to remember him. Then, abruptly, as if pushed from behind, she fell forward. Lucas caught her in his arms and held her as best he could, awkwardly, with one hand under her left arm and the other on her right shoulder. He could feel the weight of her breasts. They were like old plums loosely held in sacks.
'It's all right,' he said to her. 'Don't worry, it's all right.'
He got a better purchase on her limp form. He worked his right arm around her waist.
She said, 'I know what language you sing in now.' 'Come back to bed. Come along, now.' 'It isn't right. It isn't fair.' 'Hush. Hush.'
'We done what we could. We didn't know what'd happen.'
'Come, now.'
Lucas snaked his arm farther around her, supporting her under her opposite armpit. At his direction, she walked unsteadily with him into the bedroom. He set her down on the bed. He pulled her legs up, arranged her as best he could, with her head on the pillow. He drew the counterpane over her.
'You'll feel better if you sleep,' he said.
'I can't sleep, I never will. Not with that voice in my ears.'
'Lie quietly, then. Nothing will happen.' 'Something will. Something does.'
He stroked her hot, dry forehead. It was as impossible to tell time in the bedroom as it was at the works. When she was quiet, when she slept or did not sleep but was quiet and breathing steadily, he went out of the room.
His father hadn't moved. Lucas went to the window and stood beside him. His father continued staring at the empty air. Lucas saw that the seven pennies still lay on the tabletop, untouched.
He said, 'Father, are you hungry?'
His father nodded, breathed, and nodded again.
Lucas stood with his father at the window. The ashman ambled by, dragging his bin. Mr. Cain shouted, 'No place, everyplace, where's the string of pearls?'
'I'll get you something,' Lucas said.
He took the pennies, went out, and found a man selling a cabbage for three cents, and a woman selling a hen's egg that, after some argument, she let him have for four. It seemed it might be propitious that his mother had asked after chickens and he had gone out and found an egg.
He cooked the egg and boiled the cabbage, and set a plate before his father. He was seized by an urge to take his father's head in his hands and knock it sharply against the table's edge, as Dan did with his machine at the works, knocking it when it threatened to seize up, ringing his wrench against its side. Lucas imagined that if he tapped his father's head against the wood with precisely the correct force he might jar him back to himself. It would be not violence but kindness. It would be a cure. He laid one hand on his father's smooth head but only caressed it. His father made noises when he ate, ordinary slurpings combined with low moans, as if feeding were painful to him. He lifted a spoonful of cabbage to his mouth. A pallid green string dangled from the spoon. He slurped, moaned, and swallowed. He took a breath, then ate again. Lucas thought, Four across, six down.
