Machine Dreams

As the doorknob turned and the door swung open, he realized she might have wakened out of sleep to loud and unexpected sounds. “Mom,” he called, “it’s just me, Billy.”
    “Billy?” She was at the door, her face in shadow. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing’s wrong. Everything is fine.”
    “What do you mean? Don’t you have classes tomorrow?” She opened the door wide and stepped back to let him enter.
    “No, not tomorrow. I’m sorry I woke you up.” He took hisjacket off and hung it over the newel post, and hugged her. “You’re turning in early these days.”
    “I wasn’t really sleeping.” She looked at him confusedly. “Did you eat dinner? Are you hungry?”
    “No, I’m not hungry.”
    She drew her robe closer around her, the long red woolen robe he remembered from last year and other years. She’d worn it every night, sitting in a straight-backed chair in the small den, reading or knitting while the television droned low in a corner. Last winter, Billy had come in late to find his father asleep in the downstairs bedroom, and Jean in the den with both doors of the little room shut,
to keep the heat in.
Sometimes he sat down with her to watch the last of the eleven o’clock news or a few minutes of a late movie. She was quiet and relaxed; Billy felt as though they were alone in the house. Later he walked upstairs soundlessly on the carpeted steps; Danner was at college and the whole upstairs was his domain.
    “I don’t even have a bed made for you,” Jean said. “I’ll have to get some sheets out of the closet.” She turned.
    “Mom,” he said, and waited until she faced him. “I withdrew from school today.”
    “You what?” She sat down on the piano bench in the living room.
    “Here’s the refunded tuition, and I’ll pay you back for the dorm costs.” He took two hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and, standing beside her, put the money on top of the piano.
    She made no move and only stared at him, bewildered.
    He sat down on the couch opposite her. “I knew during the summer that I’d made plans for school because there was really no other choice, with the draft. I was accepted and I thought I should go, give it a chance. The longer I went to classes, the surer I was—that I don’t know what I want to do.”
    “Billy, no nineteen-year-old kid has to decide in the first semester of college what he wants to do. You’re there to take your time and find out what you want to do.”
    “I found out I don’t want to be in school.”
    “When you find yourself in basic training you may wish you were in school.”
    He smiled at her. “That doesn’t work anymore, Mom. No more school deferments after December. Wouldn’t matter if I was number one on the honor roll. Quitting school doesn’t affect my draft status one way or the other.” He paused, watching her. He didn’t want to sound fresh. “Listen, it’s a waste of money for me to go to college right now.”
    The tick of the kitchen clock was loud in the house. She looked at him angrily. “Since it’s my money, why don’t you let me decide when it’s wasted. And I know they didn’t give you any refund this late.”
    He didn’t answer.
    She sighed. “Isn’t it a waste to quit now, when the semester is nearly over?”
    His eyes were tired and he fought the impulse to touch them. He felt as though he’d been en route to this house for weeks. “When I really decide, for myself, that I want to go to school, I want to start clean. These grades, these courses some adviser signed me up for at registration, mean nothing to me.”
    His mother looked at him levelly. “Were you failing, Billy? Why didn’t you tell me if you were having trouble? You always said you were doing fine.”
    “I was. My grades weren’t good but I wasn’t failing.” Now he did rub his eyes, and he touched his forehead. He could smell Kato on his hand, the perfumed, musky smell of her neck and throat. He didn’t want to think about her now; he wanted to talk to Jean and make her understand. “Mom, if it turns out my number is high, I want to work for a year. I’ll get a job, either here or maybe farther south, and save some money. If my number is low and I go into the army, I don’t want to have spent these weeks going to classes. Either way, I did the right thing.”
    Jean’s hands were open in her lap. She looked down at her palms and said slowly, “Is this my fault? Have I made things so confusing?”
    “No, Mom. Maybe I