Jane Smiley - Early Warning

Oh, it was comfortable on a rainy day to do nothing. To think of that long beach, so flat, so remote from everything. Eloise sighed and yawned, then yawned again. If it stopped raining and she got to the co-op tomorrow, she had to remember Brie. She had a craving for Brie lately, and every night, she thought, Brie, and every day she forgot it. She had left the light on in the bathroom. No, she hadn’t. Brie, she thought, Brie.

—

EMILY HAD TO eat a bowl of Cheerios and some fruit, and she had to drink milk. Emily didn’t mind Cheerios. One of the main things that she held against Mom was that she had to drink four glasses of milk every single day while Mom stood nearby. Mom said, “You are very thin, Emily.” Then she shook her head. In order to make herself happy while she was choking down her milk, Emily watched her dog, Eliza. Emily knew everything about Eliza. Eliza was almost two, a black-Lab/golden-retriever mix; she slept in Emily’s room, right beside the bed (sometimes she worked her way under the bed, and then, when she wiggled, the bed jiggled, which made Emily laugh). She knew how to sit, stay, come, down, and catch a dog biscuit. When Mom told her to do these things, she did them right away. When Emily told her to do them, she lolled her tongue out of her mouth as if she were smiling, and did them, but a little more slowly. Eliza went to the back door and whined. Mom let her out.

Emily jumped off her chair, showed Mom her bowl, and set it next to the sink. Mom said, “Oh, okay.”

Emily walked toward the swings, but really she was watching Eliza, who looked sneaky, the way she looked when she was planning to steal something. Mom always laughed at the stealing — a glove, a shoe, always found in her dogbed.

Emily sat on the swing with her toe on the ground, pushing herself back and forth, her arm hooked around the chain. Eliza went over and lay down under the mulberry tree; Emily bent down and stared at her. In the next yard, Mrs. Gilkisson came out, carrying a bowl; she walked briskly across the yard, and opened the door of the chicken house. A few moments later, she came out, pulled the door, and walked back into her own house.

Now Emily went over to the sandbox and sat down in the middle. She picked up a trowel and began to smooth the sand idly. Eliza got up, walked along the fence, and, when she got to a certain spot in the honeysuckle, slipped through. Emily hadn’t realized a hole was there, but when she went over and pushed aside the honeysuckle, she could see it. Emily stood very still and watched Eliza, who crept along the fence line until she came to the chicken house. She pushed on the door with her nose. The first time it didn’t move, but the second time it did. Eliza went in.

Emily thought that maybe she should shout for Mom, because someone was about to get in trouble. There was noise in the chicken house — the chickens were squawking. Emily got a little afraid. Just then, here came Eliza, out the door. She did not have a chicken in her mouth, and so Emily felt a little less afraid. Even so, she ran back to the swing set and started to swing, pumping. She held tight to the chains, leaned way back, and stuck her legs out as far as they could go, then whipped them back and fell forward. In four strokes, she was pretty high, but she saw Eliza as she came through the fence and headed toward the back of the yard, where the garage was. Emily stopped pumping, let go, and flew out of the swing. She liked doing that.

Eliza had disappeared. Emily looked at the house. No sign of Mom. Emily went very slowly toward the garage, almost tiptoeing. She went around the corner, and there was Eliza, digging with her claws in the dirt. She was digging carefully, using both front feet. Emily watched. The hole she dug was pretty deep, but the ground was soft, so she didn’t have to try very hard. She paused and looked in the hole. Then she went over to something she had set to one side and, very gently, picked it up. She put it in the hole. All this time, Emily had been edging closer and closer, and finally, just before Eliza started filling the hole, Emily was close enough to see what it was. It was an egg, white and perfect. The dirt landed lightly on it and then covered it. When she was finished covering the egg, Eliza turned in a circle and lay down. She stared at Emily with her ears pricked. Emily went over and petted her, and Eliza licked her chin. Emily said, “Okay, Lizie. I won’t tell.”

ON TUESDAY, Lillian had called Debbie and told her about driving herself to the doctor — she sneaked out when Arthur was down at the bottom of the property, digging up bulbs, and went by herself, and felt fine. Didn’t Debbie think that was a good joke? Debbie did, in a way, but then, on Wednesday, her father called her and said that she had better come, and bring Carlie and Kevvie, and Debbie kept saying, almost yelling, that she couldn’t believe this, she couldn’t believe this, and her father was horribly patient, and said that Dean would pick her up at the airport, and Tina was coming Saturday. But she got herself together by dinnertime — she told Hugh quietly enough so that he wouldn’t think she was going crazy, and then she sat with the kids on the couch in the living room, and said that she had something to tell them. Carlie understood — she nodded, and she tightened her grip on Debbie’s hand, but Kevvie just stared at her, his arm looped around his Funshine Bear and his thumb in his mouth. Hugh, standing in the doorway, said, “That’s why they have to go, Deb; they have to see it.”

And so they did, and because it was Lillian Langdon Manning who was counting out her last hours, it wasn’t that bad, and Debbie did not have to take over, which was always her instinct. She could sit in the kitchen and chat with anyone who passed through, give and accept hugs, offer everyone the food that people brought over because they couldn’t think of anything else to do. The weather was beautiful for January. The kids relaxed and played with the other kids; Carlie was solicitous and maternal with Eric, Dean’s two-year-old. She read him an old Raggedy Ann book she found in Tina’s room, and she was willing to read it over and over, which made Debbie proud in a melancholy sort of way.

Yes, Lillian had driven herself to the doctor on Tuesday, but then, Tuesday night, something broke, some little membrane or wire or bolt (depending on how you imagined the brain), and the hallucinations began. She woke up Wednesday morning, turned to Arthur, and said, “Have you seen Arthur?” Arthur had patiently reminded her over and over that he was right there, and now, as she lay in her bed, looking at the windows or at the sunlight on the ceiling, she would say, “Is that a lake?” or “Did you hear that Henry my brother died?”

Her father would pat her mother’s hand and gently say, “No, darling, that’s the ceiling; I’m right here; Henry is fine, you’ll see him tomorrow.” And her mother would nod and say, “I suppose you’re right.”

Allegedly, there was little if any pain, and if pain should begin, there were painkillers, but her mother had told her father weeks ago that she wanted to be conscious as long as she could be.

She had greeted Debbie with a kiss and asked if Carlie and Kevvie were hers and what their names were. Debbie had made a strenuous effort not to compare how her mother processed her presence with how she processed Dean’s presence, or with the number of times she asked if anyone had seen Tim. Her mother had been precisely and exactly herself for Debbie’s entire life, thirty-six years now, and Debbie had found her too disorganized, too yielding, too wrapped up in her husband, too focused on Tim, too affectionate with Janet for most of that time. But since Carlie’s birth, she had liked her better (liked her — she had always loved her to pieces) and had talked to her almost daily, sometimes asking advice, but mostly just listening to the soothing sound of her voice. In fact, it was the sound of her own voice that Debbie heard most when she made those phone calls, but she could not help checking in, seeking the how-are-you’s, the yes-honey’s, the that’s-a-good-idea’s, the love-you’s.