Her mother came out of the house and ran over to her, taking her by the shoulders and putting her protectively behind her leg, silently squaring off against the man from the tractor.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought for a moment”—pause—“that she was someone else.”
“Go away,” the woman said. He turned back to the tractor, then to the hanging clothes. The mother hesitated. “Say, you’re July Montgomery,” she said, and immediately her face became compassionate and she even took a step closer to him. But he backed away.
“I only look like him,” he mumbled.
Lyle Hogue’s car roared into the driveway and Lyle and two others jumped out and ran over to him. At the same time Jack and Bonesy came running through the great swipe in the bean-field. Jack climbed up on the tractor and drove it back out of the yard. Lyle took July by the arm and gently but cautiously led him to the car. The others went to see about the wagon and the baler’s wheel.
They drove the whole way back to July’s car without talking; when they had stopped and it was time for July to climb out and leave, Lyle began: “Look, July, take some time off. Go somewhere and just take it easy for a while. Get yourself straightened around.” July opened the door and stepped out onto the gravel. Lyle got out of the other side. July started to talk, but Lyle cuthim off. “Forget about it. Accidents happen. Nobody was hurt. Forget it. Just try to get yourself together. . . . And, July, I don’t know if this will sound right, and maybe it won’t, but for what it’s worth, I’m sure glad that it wasn’t me what happened to you.” July looked at him with completely vacant eyes, climbed in his car and drove away.
He went back home, parked in the mud and looked in the mailbox. There was a flyer from a hardware store in Iowa City with a recurring little cartoon man who pointed, smiling, to the red-hot specials and buy-the-second-for-only-one-penny deals. He put it back inside and closed the flap door. As an afterthought, he put up the flag, then wondered who he would ever send a letter to. He went to the porch, got a hammer that was lying there on the floor, went back to the road and tore off the flag and threw it into the ditch. Then he took off the box and jumped on it until it was flat. He went inside and read for a second time the note to himself on the refrigerator and fell into a chair at the table, putting his head in his hands.
July slept on the sofa, afraid to go upstairs with her things in the bedroom and bathroom, her shoes in front of the bed. In the morning his neighbor drove by, slowly, he thought, wishing to see in. He closed all the curtains and turned on the lights.
Around noon his Aunt Becky came into the drive and got out of her car. He had hidden from her before. He wanted nothing to do with her now. He despised her. The sight of her walking into his yard, dressed in her clean, fresh-smelling clothes, her hair arranged just so on top of her head, her brown gloves, and that look of anxious concern on her face as she looked around, hoping to see him and offer him comfort, drove him nearly mad with fear, resentment and rage. He carefully reclosed the curtain and went down into the basement to crouch in the moist darkness with his back to the cement foundation. He heard her knock kindly on the front door, wait, knock again and walk back and forth on the porch, then downthe steps and a minute later he could hear her knocking at the back door.
This time she let herself in. Holmes’ feet danced in the kitchen as she met her like an old friend. It made July’s fists draw together the way she talked to the animals, kindly, softly, putting food down for them in case he might have forgotten. The door slammed and he thought she was going. He looked through the basement window. She went to her car, but returned with a box, went back to the kitchen and July could hear her putting things in the refrigerator. Then she went into the living room and parked herself like a century.
A half-hour later a van pulled into the drive and a man got out. His aunt let him in. They talked in murmurs. He returned to the van, brought back a black telephone and was gone again within ten minutes. His aunt waited another two hours, then finally he heard her walk out of the house and watched her get in her car and leave. Then he went upstairs. On the small table before the sofa was a telephone. Next to it was a note: I’ve put this in, July, so that you might call me. Please do. Becky. He read it without touching it, and turned down the dial on the bottom so that he would not be able to hear the ring if someone called him, thereby nullifying in his own mind all that she had tried to do.
He sat on the porch looking out toward the road in front for a long time, noticing that his outlook was becoming increasingly morbid and grim. His terror of living was exceeded only by his terror of death, which kept him trapped forever between despair and misery. He felt the demon of catatonia tighten its grip on his will. His physical sense of himself was weak, pale and impotent. He sat nearly all the rest of the day without moving, got up, went into the house and wandered through the rooms, finally coming to a rest in the bathroom, where he sat looking at the three inches of cold water he’d run into the tub two days
