They Call Me Patrice

Someone was coming up the stairs now. She shrank back a little in the chair. She was a little frightened, a little nervous again. Now there would be no quick escape from the moment’s confrontation, as at the railroad station. Now came the real meeting, the real blending, the real taking into the fold. This was the real test.

“Patrice dear, supper’s ready whenever you are.”

You take supper in the evening, when you’re home, in your own home. When you go out in public or to someone else’s home, you may take dinner. But in the evening, in your own home, it’s supper you take, and never anything else. Her heart accepted the trifling word as a talisman.

She jumped from the chair and ran over and opened the door. “Shall I...  shall I bring him down with me, or leave him up here in the crib?” she asked, half eagerly, half uncertainly. “I fed him at five, you know.”

Mother Hazzard slanted her head coaxingly. “Why don’t you bring him down just tonight, anyway? It’s the first night. Don’t hurry, dear, take your time.”

In the dining room Mother Hazzard was leaning forward, giving a last-minute touch to the table. Father Hazzard was returning his glasses to their case. A third person was in the room, somebody with his back half to her.

He turned when he heard her come in. He was young and tall and friendly-looking. A camera-shutter clicked in her mind and the film rolled on.

“There’s the young man!” Mother Hazzard reveled. “There’s the young man himself! Here, give him to me, let me put him in his own highchair. We’ll prop him up with pillows. You know Bill, of course.”

He came forward, and she half-offered her hand, hoping that if it was too formal the gesture would remain unnoticed.

He took her hand in both of his and held it warmly buried like that for a moment or two.

“Welcome home, Patrice,” he said quietly. Something about the straight, unwavering look in his eyes as he said it made her think she’d never before heard anything said so sincerely, so simply, so loyally.

And that was all. Mother Hazzard said, “You sit here, from now on. Do you think he’s high enough in that chair? I told them it’s coming right straight back if there’s the slightest—”

Father Hazzard said unassumingly, “We’re very happy, Patrice,” and sat down at the head of the table.

Whoever Bill was, he sat down opposite her.

The cook peeked through the door for a minute and beamed. “Now this looks right! This what that table’s been needing. This just finishes off that empty si—”

Then she quickly checked herself, and whisked from sight again.

Mother Hazzard glanced down at her plate for a second, then immediately looked up again smiling. The hurt was gone, it had not been allowed to linger.

They didn’t say anything memorable. You don’t say anything memorable across the tables of home. Your heart speaks, and not your brain, to the other hearts around you. She forgot after awhile to notice what she was saying, to weigh, to reckon it. That’s what home is, what home should be. It flowed from her as easily as it did from them. She knew that was what they were trying to do for her. And they were succeeding. Strangeness was already gone, never to return. Other things could come — she hoped they wouldn’t. But never strangeness, the unease of unfamiliarity.

“I hope you don’t mind the white collar on that dress, Patrice. I purposely saw to it there was a touch of color on everything I picked out; I didn’t want you to be too—”

“Oh, some of those things are so lovely. I really hadn’t seen half of them myself until I unpacked just now.”

“The only thing that I was afraid of was the sizes, but that nurse of yours sent me a complete list of measurements.”

“She took a tape measure to me one day, I remember now, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was for—”

“Which kind for you, Patrice? Light or dark?” Mr. Hazzard asked.

“It really doesn’t—”

“No, tell him just this once, dear; then after that he won’t have to ask you.”

“Dark, then, I guess.”

“You and me both.”

Bill spoke a little less frequently than the others. Just a touch of shyness, she sensed. Not that he was strained or anything. Perhaps it was just his manner; he had a quiet, unobtrusive way about him.

But who exactly was he? She couldn’t ask outright. She’d omitted to at the first moment, and now it was too late. No last name had been given, so he must be—

I’ll find out soon, she reassured herself. I’m bound to. She was no longer afraid.

Once she found he’d just been looking at her when her eyes went to him, and she wondered what he’d been thinking while doing so. And yet not to have admitted that she knew, that she could tell by the lingering traces of his expression, would have been to lie to herself. He’d been thinking that her face was pleasant, that he liked it.

And then after a little while he said, “Dad, pass the bread over this way, will you?”

And then she knew he was Hugh Hazzard’s brother.