Mohawk

given food or warm clothing or medicine, but the time is past for the William Gaffneys. Once somebody might’ve done something, and nobody did. But that should
not
be a burden upon you. I don’t think you could do anything for a William Gaffney now. I doubt anyone could.”
    “Then it wouldn’t be too bad if you didn’t try?”
    “It would probably be no good either way.”
    Randall went to bed early that night, but he remained awake long after his mother locked up the house and turned off all the lights. The house and street were silent, and there was no way the boy could’ve known that his grandfather lay awake a floor below and that Wild Bill Gaffney was also the subject of Mather Grouse’s thoughts. Any more than he could’ve known that Mather Grouse would have to get out of bed and down on all fours, the cold seeping up through his palms and pajama knees until he was as icy as the hardwood floor he knelt upon, his ragged breathing tugging at him like some insistent beast.

17
    Thanksgiving dawns gray and cold in Mohawk. Even Kings Road looks bleak, its tall skeleton oaks black as stumps after a forest fire, its groomed hedges stripped, looking like piles of balanced sticks. The golf course is deserted, the flag on the eighth green beside the Wood home flapping briefly before falling limp again. Diana Wood has prepared a turkey to place in the oven for the midafternoon meal, a huge bird that will take a very long time to cook. Diana cannot imagine how she and her mother and husband—none of them big eaters—will be able to make much of a dent in the animal. Already she knows that today will be one of her mother’s bad days.
    At eight-thirty, Milly cannot decide whether she will get up or not. She is cross with her sister’s husband because Mather Grouse has vetoed Milly’s suggestion that the two families celebrate the holiday together at the Wood home. It infuriates her that there should be so few means at her disposal to implement her will. Instead of getting people to do what she wants them to, she often has to satisfy herself with making them wish they had, and this constitutes a cruel diminution of power. Of course Mather Grouse has always been a tough nut to crack, always so insular and self-sufficient.No doubt her sister torments him for being so obstinate, but he will allow himself to be badgered only so far before calling a halt to it. The only way Milly can think of to get back at him is to have her daughter Diana rush her to the hospital. Her feet are swollen and she knows that if she complains of pain, her daughter will take her in at once. The flaw in this plan is that, once there, Diana will prove considerate and refuse to inform the Grouses until certain they’ve completed their holiday meal. She might not call at all, unless the situation is an obvious emergency, and Milly herself is doubtful she can parlay her swollen feet into a true crisis. The alternative to the hospital is to remain in bed and watch the parade on her portable set. Later she can always refuse to eat when Diana brings in the tray. That wouldn’t be getting back at Mather Grouse exactly, but it would make her opinion known. A species of retribution, even if imprecisely focused. Milly wishes she weren’t hungry.
    “How about handing me my coat?” Dan says when his wife glides in from the kitchen.
    Diana frowns. “It’s cold out. Why don’t you relax and watch the parade?”
    “I’m feeling blue. The Rockettes can only make it worse.”
    Diana ignores him, listening. “Is that Mother again?” Theirs is a large house and her mother’s room is at the other end. The old woman is capable of making herself heard, but she prefers to call feebly so that she can relate to her daughter how many pleas she made before anyone bothered to heed them.
    “Take a pillow and smother her, will you?”
    “That’s not funny, even in joking.”
    “You’re absolutely right. I’d never joke about such a thing.”
    Diana stops to think. Despite long years under the same roof, she has never sufficiently understood her husband’s humor to feel confident about responding to it. What angers her is that he uses it to distance himself from her. She pulls his windbreaker from the closet and tosses it at him. “I’m sorry I’m no Rockette.”
    Dan realizes he has somehow contrived to hurt her feelings, that maybe he intended to. “What’s the matter, sweet?”
    Diana shrugs. “I’m sorry. I thought that was your