Jane Smiley - Early Warning

He might pat his belly with regret, but when he stepped into the kitchen after kicking off his boots on the back porch, the Parkerhouse rolls cooling on the table looked damn good, buttery little half-circles, crispy on the bottom and the top. You didn’t have to put another dab of butter on them. He shouted, “Lois?” But there was no answer, so he went through to the living room and looked out the window. Lois had set Annie’s playpen on the porch, in the middle of a patch of sunlight. Poppy, the six-month-old spaniel puppy, was in there with Annie, sort of flopped on the toddler’s legs, with her head back and her tongue hanging out. Annie was stroking Poppy on the chest with both her hands — nicely, as Joe had taught her. Annie seemed to be a real dog-lover — if there was a dog in the room, she wanted to be with it.

Lois got good cream from the Whiteheads, who had several Jerseys. She thought chickens were disgusting, but eggs were divine, and she didn’t waste her egg whites on angel-food cake — she preferred meringues and soufflés. As for the yolks, well, nothing like a smooth hollandaise or some vanilla ice cream. When Rosanna came over on her birthday, and Lois served chocolate mousse with whipped cream instead of angel-food cake, Rosanna didn’t say a disapproving word, ate every last bite. Lois’s Joy of Cooking had already fallen to pieces; Minnie had bought her Betty Crocker , which Lois read after dinner as if it were a novel. Then Minnie brought home a copy of a magazine for gourmets, which were people who liked to eat, and Lois pondered these recipes, whispering words to herself—“mortadella,” “tagliatelle,” “scaloppini.” She made one recipe, noodles with a fancy sauce. They had all the ingredients (beef, pork, veal, bacon, onion, carrots, celery), except for something called a truffle, which Minnie maintained was like a mushroom. At the end, she stirred in some Jersey cream. It was good.

Now Joe saw her looking up into the butternut trees, though they wouldn’t blossom for another month. Her mother had baked with butternuts all the time, and so, last fall, she had done it herself, and Joe had to admit that the cookies were delicious. Rosanna wouldn’t taste one; she had said, “Is there poison ivy in the salad, then?”

Lois saw him and called out, “Did you see my rolls? I think they turned out fine.”

To go with the Parkerhouse rolls, she had warmed up the pot roast from the night before with the last of the spinach. There was less than a cup of peas — the first of the season — but they were sweet, light, and delicious. For dessert (how could Lois serve a meal without dessert?), there were some shortbread cookies. Joe took only one of those. Annie ate happily — a serving of pot roast, a spoonful of peas, half a roll, half a cookie, a cup of milk. Like Lois, she was lean and tall. Lois herself ate only a roll, a bite of pot roast, and some peas.

Joe said, “Are you feeling okay, Lo?”

Lois shrugged, then said, “Okay enough. Just not hungry.” She reached over and wiped Annie’s mouth. Then she said, “I have something to tell you.” She said it in her normal way, calmly and straightforwardly.

Joe waited.

Annie wiggled, and said, “Down!”

“Down, please!” said Lois.

“Please!” said Annie.

Joe stood up and removed the tray of the high chair and set Annie on her feet. She ran into the living room. Lois said, “I’m pregnant.”

Joe sat down again, and pushed away his plate. Then he said, “How long?”

“Couple months.”

“So…due in November?”

“Mid-November.”

Joe nodded, got up from his chair, and carried his plate into the kitchen, where he set it on the drainboard. He went out the back door. The weather was warming up — a nice breeze from the west was fluttering through the daffodils and the apple blossoms. He stepped into his boots. He thought about putting his jacket back on, but decided he wasn’t going to be needing it. Two more days of warm weather and he could plant the long field north of the house that had been in beans last year. Corn this year. Not seed corn, but field corn. Mid-November. Well, that was a good time. All the fall work would be done by then. Annie would be almost three. Joe had heard that three years was a good space between two kids. Close enough to be friends (eventually), but far enough apart not to be in each other’s business every minute of the day. On balance, the news was good. Joe pushed his cap back and headed for the barn, trying not to be too happy, trying to remember a farmer’s first principle, that many things could go wrong, to focus on the fact that there were a few things that he could stand to fix on the planter — little things, nothing major. But he skipped a few strides, just because he couldn’t contain himself.

—

THIS YEAR, Frances Upjohn had talked Andy into spending August on Long Island — the Upjohns had a big place on Gin Lane in Southampton — but Andy had refused to be a guest for thirty-one days, so, because they were late getting started, all they could find was a house in Sag Harbor, and nowhere near the beach, which was fine, said Andy, because she hated the beach. It was a dark place, facing north, with beat-up summer-house furniture. Frank came Friday nights, went home Sunday nights; today he was looking after the boys while Andy and Janny went shopping.

Frank sat about halfway up the stairs, nursing a beer, watching them. They had eaten lunch, and now they were watching TV, Richie rolled up in his blanket and Michael sitting cross-legged. Neither was quite as far along as their cousins Timmy and Deanie had been at their age — Frank had to admit that Timmy was a phenomenon in some ways, the son Frank would never have. When Timmy was two and a half, which was what Richie and Michael were now, he had liked to get up on the back of the couch and walk along, pretending he was on a tightrope, his hands above his head. Richie and Michael ran around, but Richie sometimes stumbled and fell for no reason, and Michael had a sort of rolling gait — nothing efficient. Andy told him he was too critical of them, but he liked them better than he liked Janny, who was stiff and remote, the spit and image of his father right down to the tip of her rather large nose. She had started kindergarten early, though, and could now read “at fourth-grade level,” and that would serve her well. He could send her off to Rosemary Hall for high school, then Radcliffe, and then her equally boring uncle Henry could find her something to do.

No, it was true, Frank thought. You didn’t have to be a farmer or the son of a farmer to know that breeding was always a gamble. He and Andy should have begotten a race of gods and goddesses. He finished his beer and called down to the boys, “Wanta have a contest?” Richie, with rounded, placid eyes, looked up the stairs.

Frank moved a couple of armchairs, then pushed most of the dining-room chairs against the wall. He took one of them and set it in the middle of the kitchen. The boys were still lolling. He turned off the TV — it was one he hadn’t seen before coming to this house, a portable GE with a clock. He took each of the boys by the hand and stood them up. Richie knew better than to cry when Frank took his blanket away from him and tossed it toward the stairs.

Frank said, “Okay, fellas, here’s the course. You start here, at the bookcase, and then you run to the green chair — that’s the green chair — turn right — this way”—he demonstrated right—“and then run straight into the kitchen and go around the chair, and come back to this spot.” With his toe, he pointed out the threshold between the dining room and the living room. He said, “Let’s try it.”

Still grasping the boys, he led Michael and half dragged Richie over to the bookcase. Then he trotted them (slowly) toward the center of the room, turned right at the green chair, and trotted them (even more slowly) through the dining room into the kitchen. Michael stumbled as they went around that chair, but regained his feet right away. Frank exclaimed, “Come on, boys! This is the home stretch! Put on some speed!” He dropped their hands, and they half ran across the “finish line.”