Ann Beattie - Burning House

Uncle Cal came into the kitchen and took cheese out of the refrigerator.

“I’m going to grill some French bread with cheese on top,” he said. “Will anyone share my lunch?”

“Give me whatever you’re having,” Ena said.

“No, thank you,” Elizabeth said.

“Not good for me, but I love it,” Uncle Cal said to Nick. “You?”

“Sure,” Nick said.

“You watch it so it doesn’t get too brown,” Uncle Cal said, smoothing Brie over the two halves of bread. “I’m going out for a second to clear my lungs.”

Nick looked out the window. Uncle Cal was bending forward, cupping his hands, lighting a cigarette. He had only taken one puff when a car pulled into the driveway.

“Is that Hanley’s truck?” Ena called.

“It’s just a car,” Nick said.

“I hope it isn’t someone coming to express sympathy unannounced,” Ena said. She was still wearing her pajamas, and a quilted Chinese coat.

Nick watched as a boy got out of the car and Benton went to talk to him. Benton and the boy talked for a while, and then Benton left him standing there, Jason circling his car with one arm down, one arm high, buzzing like a plane. Benton pushed open the kitchen door.

“Where do you want the wood stacked?” he called.

“Is that Hanley Paulson?” Ena asked, getting up.

“It’s his son. He wants to know where to put the wood.”

“Oh, dear,” Ena said, pulling off her jacket and going to the closet for her winter coat. “Outside the kitchen door where it will be sheltered, don’t you think?”

Benton closed the kitchen door.

“Where’s Hanley?” Ena said, hurrying past Nick. Still in her slippers, she went onto the lawn. “Are you Hanley’s son?” Nick heard her say. “Please come in.”

The boy walked into the kitchen behind Ena. He had a square face, made squarer by dirty blond bangs, cut straight across. He stood in the kitchen, hands plunged in his pockets, looking at Ena.

“Where would you like the wood, ma’am?” he said.

“Oh,” she said, “well, Hanley always stacks it at my house under the overhang by the kitchen door. We can do the same thing here, don’t you think?”

“It’s ten dollars extra for stacking,” the boy said.

When the boy left the kitchen, Ena went out behind him. Nick watched her standing outside the door as the boy went to his car and backed it over the lawn. He opened the back hatch and began to load the wood out.

“This is very dry wood?” Ena said.

“This is what he gave me to deliver,” the boy said.

Jason put his arms up for a ride, and Benton plopped him on his shoulders. Jason’s dirty shoes had made streaks down the front of Benton’s jacket. Uncle Cal put his arm through Olivia’s, and the two of them began to walk toward the back of the property. Nick watched Ena as she looked first toward Uncle Cal and Olivia, then to Benton and Jason, charging a squirrel, Benton hunching forward like a bull.

“Everyone has forgotten about lunch,” Ena said, corning back into the kitchen. She broke off a piece of the cooked bread and took a bite. She put it on the counter and poured herself a drink, then went back into the living room with the piece of bread and the glass of bourbon and sat in her chair, across from Elizabeth.

“Hanley Paulson would have come in for coffee,” Ena said. “I don’t know that I would have wanted that young man in for coffee.”

Nick tore off a piece of bread and went into the living room. Ena was knitting. Elizabeth was reading. He thought that he might as well get the plane that night for California. He got up to answer the phone, hoping it was Ilena, but Elizabeth got up more quickly than he, and she went into the dining room and picked it up. She spoke quietly, and he could only catch a few words of what she said. Since Ena could hear no better than he could, he did not think she was crying because the phone calls expressing sympathy about Wesley’s death made her remember. He felt certain that she was weeping because of the way things had worked out with Hanley Paulson’s son. It was the first time he had ever seen Ena cry. She kept her head bent and sniffed a little. Elizabeth was on the phone a long while, and after a few deep sniffs Ena finally raised her head.

“How do your parents like Scottsdale, Nickie?” she said.

“They like it,” he said. “They always wanted to get away from these cold winters.”

“The winter is bad,” Ena said, “but the people have great character. At least they used to have great character.” She began to knit again. “I can’t imagine why Cal would leave that fabulous house in Essex for that monstrosity in East Hampton. You always liked it here, didn’t you, Nickie?”

“I was hoping it would snow,” he said. “But I guess with just my cowboy suit, I’m not really prepared for it.”

Uncle Cal came into the living room and asked Ena if he should tip Hanley Paulson’s son. Ena told him that she didn’t see why, but Nick could tell from Uncle Cal’s expression that he intended to do it anyway.

“He wants to know if it’s all right to take a few of the pumpkins,” Uncle Cal said. Before Ena answered, he said: “Of course I told him to help himself.”

“We’re going to play baseball,” Jason shouted, running into the living room. “And I’m first at bat, and you’re first base, and Nick can pitch.”

Olivia came in and sat down, still in her coat, shivering.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Uncle Cal said to Ena. “He’s just taking a few pumpkins we don’t have any use for.”

“Come on,” Jason said, tugging Nick’s arm. “Please.”

“Leave him alone if he doesn’t want to do what you want him to do, Jason,” Elizabeth said. She had just come back into the room.

“Who was that on the phone?” Ena said. She took a drink of bourbon. Nick noticed that she had put a sprig of mint in the glass.

“That person named Richard. He read something from a book called An Exaltation of Larks .” Elizabeth shook her head. “He’s the one you call The Poet, isn’t he, Cal? Wasn’t the man who called two days ago and read that long poem by Donne named Richard?”

“It’s not a practice I’ve ever heard of,” Ena said. “I think it was the same man.”

“Come on,” Jason whined to Elizabeth. “Aren’t you going to come out and play baseball?”

“I wasn’t invited.”

“You’re so touchy,” he said. “You’re invited. Come on.”

Nick and Elizabeth got their coats and walked out the back door into the cold. Benton had found a chewed-up baseball bat in the back of the garage, and a yellow tennis ball. As they got into position to play, Hanley Paulson’s son passed through the game area, carrying an armful of pumpkins. The back hatch of his car was open, and there were already about a dozen pumpkins inside. He closed the hatch and started the car and bumped down the driveway, raising his fist and shaking it from side to side when Uncle Cal waved goodbye.

Looking at his watch, Nick wondered if it could be possible that the boy had stacked all the wood and gathered the pumpkins in only half an hour. It was amazing what could be accomplished in half an hour.

The night before Nick left for L.A., there was a big dinner. Ena cooked it, saying that it was to make up for the Thanksgiving dinner she hadn’t felt like fixing. Everyone said that this dinner was very good and that on Thanksgiving no one had been hungry.

“I would have made a pumpkin pie, but the pumpkins disappeared,” Ena said, looking across the table at Uncle Cal.

“What do you mean?” he said. “The kid took two or three pumpkins. There must be a dozen left out there.”

“He took all the pumpkins,” Ena said.