You’re his mother came to be a familiar utterance. Rebecca did not want to think it was an accusation.

“Mom-my? C’n I sleep with you, Mom-my?”-there came Niley wanting to crawl into bed with her.

Rebecca protested, “Oh, sweetie! You have your own bed like a big boy, don’t you?”

But Niley wanted to sleep with Mom-my, he was lonely he said.

There were things in that room with him, that scared him. He wanted to sleep with Mom-my.

Rebecca scolded, “All right for now, but when Daddy is back you won’t be able to sleep here. Daddy won’t spoil you like I do.”

She hauled the child up inside the covers. They would snuggle together and drift off to sleep listening to WBEN Radio Wonderful in the next room.

42

It was the first week of October 1959. Twelve days after the man in the panama hat. Now came less seductively HAZEL JONES HAZEL JONES ARE YOU HAZEL JONES in the clamor and burnt-rubber stink of the assembly line at Niagara Tubing, Rebecca was beginning to forget.

She was a practical-minded young woman. She was the mother of a small child, she would learn for his sake to forget.

And then, Tignor returned.

She came to the Meltzers’ to pick up Niley, and was told by Mrs. Meltzer that Tignor had already been there, he’d taken the boy home.

Rebecca stammered, “Here? Tignor is-here? He’s back?”

Edna Meltzer said yes, Tignor was back. Hadn’t Rebecca known her husband was coming home that day?

It was shameful to Rebecca, to be so exposed. Having to say she had not known. She hated it, that Edna Meltzer should see her confusion, and would speak of her pityingly, to others.

She left the Meltzers’ house, she ran the rest of the way home. Her heart knocked in her chest. She had expected Tignor the previous Sunday, and he had not come, and he had not called. She had wished to think that he would come to Niagara Tubing to pick her up and drive her home…Niles Tignor in his shining car, at the curb waiting for her. In the new-model silver-green Pontiac at which others would glance in admiration. There was something wrong here, Rebecca could not think what it was. He has taken Niley away. I will never see Niley again.

But there was the Pontiac parked at the end of the weedy driveway. Inside, there was Tignor’s tall broad-backed figure in the kitchen, with Niley; firing questions at Niley in his ebullient radio-announcer voice-“And then? Then what? What’d you do? You and ”Mom-my‘? Eh?“-that meant he was talking but not listening, in an elevated mood. The kitchen smelled of cigar smoke and a fresh-opened ale. Rebecca stepped inside, and was stunned to see that something had happened to Tignor…His head was partially shaved. His beautiful thick metallic hair had been shorn, he looked older, uncertain. His eyes swung onto her, he bared his teeth in a grimace of a smile. ”You’re back then, girl, are you? From the factory.“

It was one of Tignor’s senseless remarks. Like a boxer’s jab. To throw you off balance, to confuse. There was no way to reply that would not sound guilty or defensive. Rebecca murmured, yes she was back. Every night at this time. She came to Tignor, who had not moved toward her, and slid her arms around him. For days she had had such mutinous thoughts of this man, now she was stricken with emotion, she wanted only to hide her face against him, to burrow into his arms. Niley was jumping about them chattering of Dad-dy, Dad-dy. Dad-dy had bought him presents, did Mommy want to see?

Tignor did not kiss Rebecca, but allowed her to kiss him. His jaws were stubbled. His breath was not fresh. He appeared slightly disoriented, as if he’d come to the wrong house. And possibly he was looking over her head, squinting toward the door as if half-expecting someone else to appear. He was stroking her back and shoulders, rather hard, distracted. “Baby. My girl. You missed your old husband, eh? Did you?” Roughly he pulled off the scarf she’d tied around her hair, shook out her hair that was tangled, not very clean, to fall halfway down her back. “Uh. You smell like burnt rubber.” But he laughed, he kissed her after all.

Rebecca hesitated to touch Tignor’s head, stroke his hair, that was so changed. “See you looking at me, eh? Shit, I had a little accident, over in Albany. Had to have a few stitches.”

Tignor showed her, at the back of his head, where his hair had been shaved to the scalp, an ugly raw-looking scab of about five inches in length. Rebecca asked what kind of accident and Tignor said, with a shrug, “The kind that won’t be repeated.”

“But, Tignor-what happened?”

“I said, it won’t be repeated.”

Tignor had tossed his valise, suitcase, jacket onto chairs in the kitchen. Rebecca helped him carry these into the bedroom at the rear of the house. This room, to Rebecca the special room of their house, she kept in readiness for her husband’s unpredictable return: the bed was made, and covered with a quilted spread; all her clothes were neatly hung away in a closet; all surfaces were free of dust; there was even a vase of straw flowers on the bureau. Tignor stared at the interior of the room as if he’d never seen it before.

Tignor grunted what sounded like Mmmm!

Tignor pushed Niley outside the bedroom, to whimper at the shut door. Suddenly he was aroused, excited. He half-carried Rebecca to the bed, she was kissing him as he pulled at her clothes and his own, and within minutes he’d discharged his pent-up tension into her eager body. Rebecca clutched at his back that was ridged with fleshy muscle. She bit her lower lip to keep from crying. Her voice was low, near-inaudible, pleading. “…love you so, Tignor. Please don’t leave us again. We love you, don’t hurt us…”

Tignor sighed with massive pleasure. His face with its curious broken symmetry glowed warm, ruddy. He rolled over onto his back, wiping his forehead with a brawny forearm. Suddenly he was exhausted, Rebecca felt the heaviness in all his limbs. At the latched door Niley was scratching and calling Dad-dy? Mom-my? plaintive as a starving cat. Tignor muttered irritably, “Quiet the kid, will you? I need to sleep.”

That first night. Tignor’s return, she had so long awaited.

Not wanting to think what it meant. How long he would be with her this time.

Rebecca left the bedroom silently, carrying her clothes. She would bathe before making supper. She would bathe, and wash her lank greasy hair, to please him. She walked unsteadily as if she’d been mysteriously wounded. Tignor’s lovemaking had been hard, harsh, expedient. He had not made love to her for nearly six weeks. Almost she felt as if this had been the first time, since Niley’s birth.

That massive wound of childbirth. Rebecca wondered if you could grow in again, heal completely. Had Hazel Jones ever married? Had Hazel Jones had a baby?

Niley needed to be assured, Daddy was really home, and would be staying home for a while; Daddy was sleeping now, and did not want to be disturbed. Still, Niley begged to peek through the crack of the doorway.

Whispering, “Is that him? Is that Dad-dy? That man?”

Later, after supper, Tignor was drinking, and repentant. He had missed them, he said. His little family in Chautauqua Falls.

Rebecca said lightly, “Just one ”little family‘? Where are the others?“

Tignor laughed. He was watching Niley struggle with the shiny red wagon he’d brought for him, too large and unwieldy for a three-year-old.

“There needs to be some changes in my life, Jesus I know. It’s time.”

He’d bought lakeshore property up at Shaheen, he told her. And he was negotiating a deal, a restaurant and tavern in Chautauqua Falls. And there were other properties…Ruefully Tignor stroked the back of his head, where his scalp was scarred. “This accident was some bastard tried to kill me. Skimmed my head with a bullet.”