A BETRAYAL

By Delbert R. Gardner

Mayo was sleeping on the couch in the landlady's apartment when his mother returned from working the late shift at the restaurant. She shook him lightly by the shoulder and he drifted lazily toward consciousness. He had been dreaming that they were again living in the little house on Willow Street with his father, and for a while he imagined that he could hear his parents in their room across the hall talking in low tones, not quarreling, before it was time to wake him for school. But his mother shook him again, and he realized where he was; his mother had been talking to the landlady, who had a rather masculine voice.

"Come on, dear," his mother said. "It's time to go upstairs to your own bed."

Drowsily the boy arose, fumbled his feet into his slippers, and followed his mother upstairs to their small apartment.

"Did you see your father today?" It was the same question the woman had been asking almost every night since they had moved to the apartment.

"No," said Mayo.

His mother removed his dressing gown and sat on the edge of the bed with him. "If you do see him, you must promise me you won't go with him. Do you understand?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm afraid he'll kidnap you. Your father hates me and would do anything to hurt me--even if he had to hurt you to do it. If you get in his car, I know I'll never see you again." She put her hands on the boy's thin shoulders and turned him to face her. "You don't want that, do you, darling?" she demanded fiercely. "You don't want to leave Mother, do you?"

Mayo shook his head. "Of course you don't," she cried triumphantly. She pressed him tight against her breast. "Then promise me you won't let your father take you away from me. Promise!"

"I promise," said Mayo, half stifled in her grasp. "Don't cry, Mother." The woman was weeping in little choking gasps that sounded almost like laughter.

"Oh, what would Mother do without her little man? How could she ever go on?" She yielded herself to an ecstasy of sobbing, and soon the boy was weeping too.

The next day the principal came into the fourth-grade classroom and asked Mayo to come to his office. Following wordlessly, the boy wondered for which of his misdeeds he was about to be punished. As they entered the office, a tall sandy-haired man jumped up from his chair and came toward Mayo with a broad grin on his face.

"Mayo! So there you are, partner!" he exclaimed, putting his big hands on the boy's shoulders. "I was beginning to think I'd never find you. I've looked in every other school in the city, and this one was my last hope. How about giving your old Dad a hug?"

Unable to grasp the fact that his father stood there in the flesh, Mayo remained immobile, speechless.

"Is this your father, Mayo?" asked the principal.

Mayo stared at the man for a long minute, then nodded, whereupon his father swept him up and hugged him to his chest. The man's face was rough, fragrant with the piney odor of after-shave lotion which the boy remembered.

"By George, for a minute there, I thought you'd forgotten me," said the man. "Well, it has been a long time--over two months." Standing Mayo on the floor, he visually measured the boy's height. "Growing like a weed," he said proudly. "I'll bet you're three inches taller than when I last saw you. Your mother must be feeding you all right, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"'Yes, sir,'" mimicked the man. "You didn't use to be so formal with me. Is that what they teach you in school? Well, never mind, son. I know you're a little nervous. How's your mother?"

"All right."

"Where are you living?" The boy was silent. "Don't you want to tell me?" the man asked reproachfully. "I can find out from the school records."

"I--I wasn't supposed to tell," Mayo faltered.

The man sighed. "All right, then. Could you tell me, Mr. Johnson?" he asked the principal.

"I'll tell you," said Mayo. "It's 172 Elm Street."

"That's my boy," grinned the man. "Mr. Johnson, would you mind too much if Mayo took the rest of the day off? I haven't seen him in a long time."

The principal smiled. "I have no objection, Mr. Dewey, if you don't try to make it a habit."

Mayo and his father spent an hour at the zoo, then went to the top of Reservoir Hill and flew a kite. As the kite danced high on the light April breeze, Mayo almost forgot that his parents were separated. Some of the old intimacy that he had felt with his father returned, and he was happy. But as they drove down the hill in the lengthening shadows, Mayo remembered that he had broken his promise to his mother, and he began wondering how to explain it.

Seeing the boy's worried look, his father said, "What's the matter, son? Aren't you happy?" Mayo said nothing. "Well, I haven't been happy either, believe me. I've missed you, boy--and your mother too. When I came home that night to a cold, dark house, it was like the end of the world to me. If it hadn't been for the hope of finding you again, I don't know what I would have done--that and the fact that I knew you didn't want to go."

He squeezed Mayo's knee with affection. "You tried to tell me, didn't you, boy? You didn't want me to go to work that day. I thought it was just childishness at the time but I realized afterward that you were trying to tell me. I never forgot that, Mayo; it was that more than anything else that kept me going."

In the warmth of his emotion, he turned a corner sharply, so that the tires gave a little squeal. "I know she made you go," he said, his voice loud and trembling. "You didn't want to go, but she made you. She was just waiting for her chance. She wouldn't ask me for a separation--no, that would have been too kind! She had to sneak away while I was working, without a word of warning, because that was the way she could hurt me the most."

He turned another corner into a street that Mayo did not recognize, and suddenly the woman's tearful warning popped into the boy's head. He began to suspect that his father intended to kidnap him, with all the sinister connotations which that word conveyed.

"Well, if she thinks she can keep my boy away from his own father," shouted the man, "she'd better think again! I've got something to say about that, and I'm not going to let her get away with it!"

The fierce intensity of his father's voice, the strangeness of the neighborhood, and the fears of his mother all combined to convince Mayo that his suspicions were correct. Terror shrilled in his wail: "Where are you taking me?"

His father looked at him in surprise. "Why, I'm taking you home."

"Let me out, let me out!" the boy screamed. Wrenching open the door, he leaped into the street. He tried to run, but his feet could not keep up with the fleeing pavement, and he pitched forward on his face. The asphalt struck his forehead so forcibly that he lost consciousness.

When he awoke to the insistent throbbing of his head, Mayo saw his father, pale and anxious, hovering near. "He's awake!" said the man gratefully. "My God, Mayo, you gave me an awful scare!"

A doctor came into the boy's range of vision on the other side of the bed. "I think he's going to be all right--just badly shaken up. Of course, he'll have to stay here for several days to be on the safe side. How's your head, son?"

"It hurts!" Mayo began to weep.

"Now, now, it's going to be all right. Here, drink this, like a good boy." The doctor held a glass to the boy's lips. Mayo drank half the contents, then turned away. Soon he forgot the pain and slept.

The next time he awoke, his mother's face was very near, her eyes bright with tears. "Hello, darling." She put her wet cheek against his face. "It's going to be all right, dear. Mother's baby boy is going to be fine." Mayo put an arm around her neck and sobbed in his weakness. The woman soothed him for a few minutes, then dried his tears with a dainty handkerchief, before dabbing at her own eyes.

"Your father's here," she said with a smile. "Don't you want to say something to him?" As she leaned back in her chair, he saw his father standing at the foot of the bed, his face careworn and defeated.

"Hello, Daddy," said Mayo. The man's face was briefly lighted by a smile as he came to the side of the bed and shook hands with his son.

"Hello, Mayo. I'm mighty glad you're feeling better." The man paused, seeming at a loss for words. Finally he said, "I'm sorry if I scared you yesterday, son. Are we still pals?"

Choked with emotion, the boy nodded. His mother took hold of his other hand. "I really can't understand what possessed you to jump from the car, dear," she said in a mild tone of reproof. "There's no need for you to be frightened of your own father. You might have been killed, and think how bad that would have made us both feel."

"But--but--" Mayo began to protest; then, realizing the futility of it, he finished lamely, "I'm sorry."

"It's all right, partner," said his father. "We'll just forget about it. The important thing is that you're going to be okay."

For a few moments nothing further was said. The two parents remained on either side of the bed, holding the boy's hands. Finally the woman glanced at her husband with the pride of possession in her smile, then turned back to Mayo.

"Darling," she said brightly, "would you be happy if Mother and Father went back together, and we could all live again in the house on Willow Street?"

The man cleared his throat and plucked absently at the bedclothes with his free hand. "We've decided to give it another try, son, for your sake as well as ours. How does that strike you?"

Looking from one to the other, Mayo asked, "For real?"

"For real," confirmed his father.

Searching for words to express his approval, Mayo eventually settled for "That's good." But his happiness was dampened by the suggestion of triumph in the bright smile of his mother and the knowledge of betrayal that darkened his father's eyes. He knew his father had forgiven him, but he also realized, with a stab of guilt, that their relationship could never again be quite the same as it had been. Something had broken.