I am too her mother, Betty said. You ain’t suppose to say something like that to me. I’m always going to be her mother. I give birth to her, out of my own self.
Oh no, the woman said. That’s not what the court order says. I’m her mother now. And don’t you ever call here again. I’ll call the police. I got enough trouble on account of her without you making it worse.
What kind of trouble? Is something the matter with Donna?
That’s none of your business. The Lord will guide me. I don’t need any help from you. The woman hung up.
Betty put the receiver down and sat motionless on the couch, and presently she began to cry.
Outside the trailer house the snow continued to fall. It fell thickly in the yard and in the street in front and it kept falling until midnight, then it began to diminish and by one o’clock it had stopped altogether. The sky cleared and the cold brilliant stars came out.
Betty woke then, lying on the couch. It was cold in the room and she rose and walked back to their bedroom and pulled off her thin dress and stepped out of her underwear and unfastened her bra. She put on a tattered yellow nightgown and lay down beside Luther in the sagging bed. Shivering and cold, she pulled the blankets up and moved closer to him. Then she began to remember what the woman had said to her. How her voice had been. You want me to put her on the phone and have her tell you herself you’re not her mother anymore. Betty lay in bed beside Luther, remembering. Soon she began to cry again. She cried quietly for a long time and at last fell asleep against his great warm wide bare back.
26
CHRISTMAS EVE OBSERVANCE WAS GENERAL IN HOLT. There were candlelight services at the local churches and family gatherings in the front rooms of the houses overlooking the quiet streets, and out on the east side of town on US Highway 34 the bartender Monroe kept the Chute Bar and Grill open until two o’clock in the morning.
Hoyt Raines was sitting in a back booth with a middle-aged divorcée named Laverne Griffith, a fleshy maroon-haired woman twenty years his senior. She was buying and they were sitting close together on the same side of the booth, their drinks before them next to the ashtray on the scarred wooden table.
The Chute had been decorated for the season. Loops of red and green lights were festooned above the bar and silver tassels hung from the mirror. A half-dozen men were sitting at the bar, drinking and talking, and an old woman was asleep with her head in her arms at a far table. From the jukebox Elvis Presley was singing I’ll have a blue Christmas without you. A man who had been at the bar earlier had put in enough quarters to play the same song eight times over, but then had gone outside and driven off in the night in his pickup.
One of men at the bar turned to look balefully at the jukebox. He turned back to the bartender. Can’t you do something about that?
What do you want me to do about it?
Well, can’t you turn it off or something?
It’ll stop pretty soon by itself. It’s Christmas. You got to enjoy yourself.
I’m trying to. But I’m sick of that goddamn thing.
It’ll run out pretty quick now. Forget it. Let me get you another drink.
Are you buying?
I could.
Make it a double then.
I said it was Christmas. I never said it was old home week.
The man looked at him. What in hell’s that suppose to mean?
I don’t know. It just come to me. Let’s say it means I’ll get you a single drink.
I’m waiting.
You know what? Monroe said. You ought to cheer up. You’re starting to make everyone around here feel bad.
I can’t help it. It’s the way I am.
Well try, for christsake.
In the back booth Hoyt had circled his arm around Laverne Griffith. She picked a cigarette from the pack on the table and put it in her mouth, and he reached the lighter with his free hand and took it and lit it for her. She blew a cloud of smoke and squinted her eyes shut and rubbed them, then she opened her eyes again, blinking, and stared unhappily across the table.
You all right? Hoyt said.