The Optimist's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

Joe Boy Bush from Bruintown,” a man retorted, turning around from the television screen. “He was laying there going without water and he reached himself over and bit that tube in two and drunk that glucose. And drunk ever’ drop that was in it. And that fool, in two weeks he was up out of that bed and they send him home.”
    “Two weeks! Guess how long they’ve held us here!” cried Fay.
    “If they don’t give your dad no water by next time round, tell you what, we’ll go in there all together and pour it down him,” promised the old mother. “If he’s going to die, I don’t want him to die wanting water.”
    “That’s talking, Mama.”
    “Ain’t that true, Archie Lee?”
    But Archie Lee lay on the couch with his mouth open.
    “There’s a fair sight. I’m glad his dad can’t walk in on us and see him,” said the old woman. “No, if Dad’s going to die I ain’t going to let him die wantingwater!” she insisted, and the others began raggedly laughing.
    “We’ll pour it down him!” cried the mother. “He ain’t going to stand a chance against us!” The family laughed louder, as if there could be no helping it. Some of the other families joined in. It seemed to Laurel that in another moment the whole waiting room would dissolve itself in waiting-room laughter.
    Dr. Courtland stood in the doorway, the weight of his watch in his hand.
    When Laurel and Fay reached him, he drew them into the elevator hall. The door to Judge McKelva’s room stood closed.
    “I couldn’t save him.” He laid a hand on the sleeve of each woman, standing between them. He bent his head, but that did not hide the aggrievement, indignation, that was in his voice. “He’s gone, and his eye was healing.”
    “Are you trying to tell me you let my husband die?” Fay cried.
    “He collapsed.” Fatigue had pouched the doctor’s face, his cheeks hung gray. He kept his touch on their arms.
    “You picked my birthday to do it on!” Fay screamed out, just as Mrs. Martello came out of the room. She closed the door behind her. She was carrying a hamper.She pretended not to see them as she drummed past on her heels.
    Laurel felt the Doctor’s hand shift to grip her arm; she had been about to go straight to the unattended. He began walking the two women toward the elevators. Laurel became aware that he was in evening clothes.
    At the elevator he got in with them, still standing between them. “Maybe we asked too much of him,” he said grudgingly. “And yet he didn’t have to hold out much longer.” He looked protestingly at the lighted floors flashing by. “I’d been waiting to know how well that eye would see!”
    Fay said, “I knew better than let you go in that eye to start with. That eye was just as bright and cocky as yours is right now. He just took a scratch from an old rose briar! He would have got over that, it would all be forgotten now! Nature would have tended to it. But you thought you knew better!” Without taking her eyes from him, she began crying.
    Dr. Courtland looked at her briefly, as if he had seen many like Fay. As they were leaving the elevator among all the other passengers, he looked with the ghost of a smile into Laurel’s face. In a moment he said, “He helped me through medical school, kept me going when Daddy died. A sacrifice in those days. The Depression hit and he helped me get my start.”
    “Some things don’t bear going into,” Laurel said,
    “No,” he said. “No.” He took off his glasses and put them away, as if he and she had just signed their names to these words. He said then, “Laurel, there’s nobody from home with you. Would you care to put up with us for the rest of the night? Betty would be so glad. Trouble is, there’s goings-on, and of course more to follow. Dell—our oldest girl’s eighteen—”
    Laurel shook her head.
    “I’ve got my driver waiting outside, though,” Dr. Courtland went on. “As soon as you-all finish at the office, I’ll send you where