Machine Dreams

had sense enough to take care of things and it was useless expecting him to. She’d had her daughter at seventeen, and her husband had died in a mine accident when she was thirty; she never did marry again but had a boyfriend for years. He kept a room downtown but spent most of his time with her—she cooked and cleaned for him and cajoled him and entertained him—she said she was no fool, she owned her house and her car and why on earth should she marry again.
    We’d moved out to the other house by the time you were born, but Gladys was around a lot all those first few years. When you and Billy were toddlers, we’d dress you both up every summer afternoon and take you somewhere. You were like two dolls, done up in matching blue and white piqué sunsuits. We’d show you off to her neighbors in town. Mrs. Talbot, across the street from Gladys, would sit on her leafy porch and shake her head. She thought I took too many pains keeping my children so clean. Especially Billy. “You wash that child too much—you’re going to sap his strength. You’re washing his strength away.”
    Gladys and I would take you both down to the train station. The trains were still running then. Patchen, the engineer, would hold Billy on his lap and drive the engine back and forth acrossthe yard. Then he’d hand him back to me covered with soot and crowing. Those engines were coal burners, dirty and loud. You were three. While Billy rode, you stood without a word and never took your eyes from that square of filthy window in the cab. I remember Patchen’s old striped hat and those yellow gauntlets he wore—elbow-length padded gloves covered with coal dust. He would say to me, “Best let that boy alone. A boy can raise himself.” Gladys said she’d never raised a boy, but she doubted they could fix their own meals or mend their own clothes any more than a man could.
    She was there the night you almost died of pneumonia—you were five months old. Your father was out of town and there was a blizzard; the phone lines were down and the car was drifted in. You couldn’t seem to breathe if we laid you down, so we kept you awake all night, upright, to keep your lungs from filling—took turns walking the hall and holding you. You were so small but you’d open your mouth when you felt the spoon near your face; you wanted that bitter medicine. By dawn we were giving you whiskey with an eyedropper, a drop at a time. Gladys walked a mile through that deep snow to get to a working phone, and the doctor came by seven. Somehow you were better and he said just to keep you at home, it would only be worse to try to get you to town.
    Stayed way below zero that whole December and January, one storm after another. If you hadn’t been breast-fed from the beginning, I don’t think you would have made it. Several people lost young babies that winter—influenza and pneumonia. Adults got sick and didn’t get well till spring.
    I was always afraid when you were sick because you couldn’t take drugs—you never could—allergic to sulpha and penicillin, and almost anything affected you badly. You were always so strong, but if you really got sick it was a matter of luck that you didn’t get worse and worse.
    You couldn’t even take motion-sickness pills. Once in summer Gladys and I took her old Plymouth up to Ohio to visit Jewel and my brother—you were a little over a year old and Billy would be born in two months. Gladys did all the driving because I was toopregnant. We weren’t on the road an hour before you went crazy on those pills—thrashing and screaming, throwing yourself against the dash. “We’ve got to stop,” Gladys said. “She’s going to bounce that baby right out of you.” So Gladys walked up and down the road with you while I sat and sweated on those prickly car seats; they were wooly and as full of springs as an overstuffed chair. When she brought you back, you had quieted and your eyes were glazed; you went into such a sound sleep that I was worried to death.
    You were always too sensitive. Everything that passed through you showed. That’s why I don’t know how you can take the kind of life you have, always moving around. You’ve got too much guts for your own good, and one of these days you’ll come to a dead halt. Sometimes I’m afraid for you; I feel responsible. I stayed married all those years until you and Billy were grown—I only kept going to make you safe. It turned out I couldn’t keep anyone safe. Not