Some Sweet Day by Bryan Woolley Page A

one, he was in dress uniform and was grinning. In the other, he wore a helmet and was holding a rifle, and his face was smeared with black grease paint. My mother told us it was taken when he was training for night fighting. She had kept those pictures on her chest of drawers and had shown them to people who came to visit us. But a few weeks after the accident, she took them down and locked them in her cedar chest, and only occasionally took them out and looked at them. I never knew why.
    I was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to build a windmill with my Tinker Toys, and Mother came in and sat down across from me. She watched me for a while, and then she said, “I don’t believe you’ve got enough Tinker Toys there to finish the job, Gate.”
    â€œWell, you can build a windmill with them. There’s a picture of one right here on the box.”
    â€œYes, but that’s what you can build if you have the big box. You’ve got the little one. See? Here’s one that shows a motor operating something. You don’t have a motor in yours.”
    â€œWell, what should I build then?”
    â€œHere’s a good one. Try a giraffe.”
    â€œOkay.” I started taking the windmill apart.
    â€œI’ll help you,” Mother said. She scooted her chair over by mine, and we sat there together, pulling the sticks and knobs apart.
    â€œYour daddy’s coming home,” she said quietly.
    â€œHe is? When?”
    â€œPretty soon. Soon as he gets out of the hospital.”
    â€œTo stay?”
    â€œYes, to stay.” She was peering at me very closely, as she did when trying to find out if I was lying about something.
    â€œCan we go back to the farm then?”
    â€œMaybe. I don’t know. I don’t know how things are going to be.”
    â€œThings will be just like they used to be, won’t they? Before Daddy went to the Army?”
    Mother sighed. She had been twiddling with a Tinker Toy stick, staring at it. Now she looked at me again. “Things never are just like they used to be, Gate,” she said. “I don’t know how they’ll be, but they won’t be just like they used to be.”
    â€œDaddy’s all right, isn’t he?”
    â€œI don’t know. He hasn’t told me.” She sighed again. “Well, that’s enough of that,” she said. “Let’s build this giraffe.”
    Belinda and Rick and I were waiting at the gate when the mail truck drove up. We’d been waiting a long time, and it was almost dark. The driver got out, pulled Daddy’s suitcase out from among the mail bags, and carried it to the porch. “Well, kids,” he said as he passed us, “there’s your daddy!”
    Daddy sat in the truck, looking at us through the windshield. We hung back, kind of bashful, not knowing what to do or say. He didn’t wave or smile or anything. We didn’t either. It was hot and still, and we were standing there in just our shorts. Sweat was popping out on our foreheads.
    â€œIs that Daddy?” Rick whispered to me.
    â€œYes,” I whispered back.
    The driver started back now, and Mother and Gran were with him. Mother was carrying Cherry Ann. Gran was whispering something to the driver. They were hurrying.
    The truck door opened now, and I could see two feet under it, and then two walking sticks. Daddy scooted out slowly and stood beside the truck. The door slammed. He was bent. He stood there, hunched over the sticks, his gray felt hat pushed back from his face, his red-and-blue necktie hanging untied around his neck. Mother ran, Gran ran, we all ran. There was a lot of kissing and hugging and crying, and nobody even saw the mail truck leave.
    â€œHot, ain’t it?” Daddy said. “Ought to be good for the oats.”
    He lay on his back on the floor and lifted Cherry Ann into the air and made funny noises, as he used to do with Rick. But he never laughed at her gurglings.