Tinkers

The Monday after the seizure that made Howard late coming home, he is nervous about going out again, anxious about another seizure. The only seizure that George ever witnesses occurs on Christmas Day, 1926, during dinner. Kathleen makes a ham for the family and Howard begins to slice it. Suddenly, the convulsions begin and he falls, hitting and cutting his head on a chair. The younger children are ushered out, but Kathleen needs George’s help. She has him hold a spoon in his father’s mouth, but when the pressure from Howard’s teeth breaks the spoon, George falls on top of Howard. The spoon’s pieces are in his father’s mouth and when he tries to get them out, Howard ends up biting George’s hand and George is badly hurt. Kathleen wedges a stick into Howard’s mouth, freeing George. George is distressed by these events and thinks of running away.

Later that night, Kathleen sits up in bed, lamenting the loss of her youth. She doesn’t believe that she was ready to be a mother, so she resents her children and refuses to coddle them. She wants to toughen them and make them independent, but she doesn’t know if she does so because she loves them or not.