Chapter III: His Mother

IT was Saturday evening. His mother was coming in the morning. Norman looked anxiously about his apartment, and spent an hour emptying ash-trays, picking up cigarette stubs from the hearth, and getting his bureau drawers in order. He found that he had forgotten to send off his laundry this week. Well, he could buy some new shirts on Monday....

He sat down, seeing his apartment with his mother’s eyes. She would probably find fault with the work of his cleaning-woman. She would smile when she saw that bureau drawer full of bright chintz which he had bought for curtains, forgetting that there was nobody he could ask to sew them for him.... Mrs. Case, it was true, had asked if there was anything they could do to help him get settled in his new place. But he couldn’t have asked them to make his curtains....

He had telephoned Mrs. Czermak to let her know that his mother was coming, and would probably be over to see the baby in the morning. The news had seemed to upset her....

Well, there was nothing else to do to-night. He would read a while and then go to bed and get some sleep. His mother was arriving on the early train....

He had happened to see a copy of the Apocrypha in a bookshop window, and had bought it out of curiosity, to see who St. Thecla was. But for some absurd reason that apocryphal girl saint had reminded him in a perverse way of Isabel. He did not want to be reminded of Isabel.... To-night he opened the book, read a little of the story of Thecla, and fell to wondering about Isabel. She had been going to sail for France on the eleventh. That was four days ago. (It was curious what a perfect calendar his mind unconsciously was in these matters: it was four days ago that he had bought this book, too.) Was she on shipboard now? Or had she impatiently gone long before, and was she in Paris at this moment?

Not that it made any difference to him....

But he had a queer troubled dream that night, in which both Isabel and Monica figured--Isabel as a dim figure in the background, hiding her face, and Monica, warm and near and dear, holding out her hands to him appealingly....

The alarm clock sounded.... In an hour he must meet his mother at the station. An hour. Then he could go on sleeping for five minutes longer.... He wanted to finish that dream....

He was awakened by an insistent ringing of the door-bell, and sprang up in confusion, looking at his watch. Good heavens!--he had overslept nearly two hours.... Was that his mother now? He threw on a dressing-gown and went to the door.

“Mother!” he cried out contritely.

“Good morning, Norman. You always were a sleepy-head.” She kissed him. “It’s nice to see you, my boy.”

“And I didn’t meet you!” He seized her suitcase and packages. “How awful of me! Come in!”

“That was all right,” she said. “What a nice place you have. As a matter of fact, I was rather glad you didn’t come. I went over to see the baby.”

“Oh! You did?”

“Yes. He’s a very nice baby, Norman. He looks exactly like you.”

“You--you liked him?”

“Of course. Now, Norman, go and have your bath and get dressed, and I’ll get some breakfast.”

“I’m sorry, Mother--I’m afraid there’s not a thing in the house.”

“I brought everything. I stopped at a delicatessen. Go along, I’ll find the kitchen. You’re still half asleep. You need a good cup of coffee.”

It wasn’t quite the way he had expected it to be.... But then, nothing ever was, he reflected as he hurried through his bath and into his clothes. She had simply and calmly walked in and taken possession....

“Are you almost ready?”

“Yes, Mother. In three minutes.”

He could smell the appetizing odors of bacon and coffee.

“All right. I’ll put the eggs in.”

That was just like her....

He felt half admiring and half resentful of such a mother.