“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You and your imagination. Go on. Do something constructive.”
She marched away. I looked at the closed door a moment and then went downstairs to make the coffee as she had ordered. When she still hadn’t come down, I started making Daddy’s favorite omelette with cheese and put up some toast. I got the tray ready and went out front to get Daddy’s newspaper and put it on the tray. As long as I kept busy, I could keep from crying and trembling. Just as I cut the toast in four quarters, Cassie appeared.
“What are you doing? All I told you to do was make the coffee,” she said, marching in quickly.
“I thought … I’d do more to help.”
She poked a fork into the omelette.
“This is way overcooked for Daddy. He hates dry eggs,” she said, and poured the omelette into the garbage disposal.
“But I timed it,” I protested.
“Obviously, you timed it wrong, Semantha.”
She started on a new omelette.
“You might as well eat that toast yourself. It will be cold and dry. Make yourself your own breakfast.”
She prepared another omelette, and when she poured it onto the dish, I thought it didn’t look any different from the one I had made, but I was afraid to comment. I just ate a little cereal and fruit and nibbled on my toast as she worked. She poured the coffee into a pot, and for a moment, I thought she was going to complain about the coffee, too.
“Is the coffee all right?
“It’s a little weak, but he won’t know the difference this morning,” she replied.
“But I measured it just the way you do.”
“You didn’t put enough in one or two of the spoonfuls, Semantha. Forget about that for now,” she said.
I noticed she had prepared enough toast and enough omelette for herself as well. She started for the stairway.
“You’re going to eat up there, too?”
“Of course. Would you have him eat alone this morning of all mornings? Start on the house when you’re finished in here,” she ordered.
“Start on the house?”
“The dusting, vacuuming, polishing furniture. I want to take the curtains down in the living room today and clean them as well. The piano looked dusty to me yesterday, but I didn’t have time to get to it,” she added. “It will bring happiness to Daddy when he sees how well we can look after everything, with or without Mother.” She continued up the stairway. She had a soft, pleasing smile on her face. Was that for Daddy’s benefit, or did she really enjoy all of this?
I moved quickly to the foot of the sta
irs and called up to her before she reached the top.
“What?”
“What about Mother? Aren’t we going to the hospital?”
“We’ll see. If she’s still in a state of shock or something, there might not be any point to our going. Daddy will be calling the doctor this morning. Just get on to your work. It’s not a holiday from school. We’re home because we have to be.”
“I know.”
“Good. I’m glad you know.”
I looked up after her for a moment. Why wouldn’t we go to the hospital if Mother was still in a state of shock? Maybe our presence, our talking to her, would help bring her out of it faster. I don’t care what Cassie thinks, I thought. I’m going to the hospital, with or without her.
For the time being, however, there was nothing for me to do but what Cassie had told me to do. I returned to the kitchen and cleaned up what I could and then got the vacuum cleaner, the polishing cloths, and polish and started on the living room, keeping one eye and one ear toward the stairway, anticipating Daddy’s coming down. I couldn’t understand his sleeping in this late. I concluded it was because of the sleeping pill, or pills, he had taken.
I had finished with the vacuuming and started on the furniture when Cassie appeared. She had come downstairs so quietly I hadn’t heard her.