Lives of Girls and Women Read Online Free PDF Page B

the evening of the second day he drove the car into our yard and sat there for a moment, not looking at us. Then he got out slowly and walked with dignity and weariness towards the house. He did not have Diane. Had we ever expected him to get her?
    We were sitting on the cement slab outside the kitchen door. My mother was in her own sling-back canvas chair, to remind her of urban lawns and leisure, and my father sat in a straight-backed kitchen chair. There were only a few bugs so early in the season. We were looking at the sunset. Sometimes my mother would assemble everybody to look at the sunset, just as if it was something she had arranged to have put on, and that spoiled it a bit—a little later I would refuse to look at all—but just the same there was no better place in the world for watching a sunset from than the end of the Flats Road. My mother said this herself.
    My father had put up the screen door that day. Owen was swinging on it, disobediently, to hear the old, remembered sound of the spring stretching, then snapping back. He would be told not to, and stop, and very cautiously behind my parents’ backs begin again.
    Such steadfast gloom hung around Uncle Benny that not even my mother would directly question him. My father told me in an under-tone to bring a chair from the kitchen.

    â€œBenny sit down. You worn out from your drive? How did the car run?”
    â€œShe run okay.”
    He sat down. He did not take off his hat. He sat stiffly as in an unfamiliar place where he would not expect or even wish for a welcome. Finally my mother spoke to him, in tones of forced triviality and cheerfulness.
    â€œWell. Is it a house they are living in, or an apartment?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Uncle Benny forbiddingly. After some time he added, “I never found it.”
    â€œYou never found where they are living?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œThen you never saw them?”
    â€œNo I didn’.”
    â€œDid you lose the address?”
    â€œNo I didn’. I got it down on this piece of paper. I got it here.” He took his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper and showed us, then read it. “1249 Ridlet Street.” He folded it and put it back. All his movements seemed slowed down, ceremonious and regretful.
    â€œI couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find the place.”
    â€œBut did you get a city map? Remember we said, go to a gas station, ask for a map of the city of Toronto.”
    â€œI did that,” said Uncle Benny with a kind of mournful triumph. “You bet. I went to a gas station and I asked them and they said they didn’t have no maps. They had maps but only of the province.”
    â€œYou already had a map of the province.”
    â€œI told them I did. I said I wanted a map of the city of Toronto. They said they didn’ have none.”
    â€œDid you try another gas station?”
    â€œIf one place didn’ have none I figured none of them would.”
    â€œYou could have bought one in a store.”
    â€œI didn’ know what kind of a store.”
    â€œA stationery store! A department store! You could have asked at the gas station where you could buy one.”
    â€œI figured instead of runnin’ all over the place tryin’ to find a map I would be better off just askin’ people to direct me how to get there, seein’ I already had the address.

    â€œIt’s very risky, asking people .”
    â€œYou’re tellin’ me,” said Uncle Benny.
    When he got the heart to, he began his story.
    â€œFirst I asked the one fellow, he directed me to go across this bridge, and I done that and I come to a red light and was supposed to turn left, he told me to, but when I got there I didn’ know how it was. I couldn’ figure out do you turn left on a red light ahead of you or do you turn left on a green light ahead of you.”
    â€œYou turn left on a green