Jane Smiley - Early Warning

Her room was off the kitchen. She was stuck there, either in her bed (very comfortable) or in the easy chair Claire moved in for her. It took her three days to start covering her ears every time Paul talked. If she could have gotten up and closed the door, she would have.

“These eggs are overdone. Did you boil them by the timer? Are you sure? Oh, I’ll eat them anyway. Don’t worry about it. It’s fine. I’ll just have toast. The underside of the toast is too dark. Just one more piece, and watch it this time. Only a little butter. Yes, that’s enough. Well, just a smidgen more. I guess I’m not hungry after all.” How Paul could have possibly reminded Claire of Walter, Rosanna could not imagine.

Then: “What’s the temperature again? No, the outside temperature. Sixteen! Okay, I think Brad needs both the hat and the scarf, and be sure his mittens are pulled up under his sleeves, and then his sleeves pulled down. There was a child Herb Barker saw last week, his feet were frostbitten. Grayson, is your sweater buttoned? Show me! That’s a good boy. Sixteen degrees is sixteen below freezing. Can you count to sixteen? No, don’t use your fingers. Good boy.”

Rosanna could have ascended on billows of rage at the sound of his voice, so she scrunched down under the covers and put her fingers in her ears; she must have dozed off, because, the next thing she knew, Claire was standing over her, saying, “Are you hungry, Mama? I have your breakfast.”

Claire looked neat and clean, and she stood there like one of those maids no one in Iowa had, ready to obey orders.

It was as bad at supper — dinner, Paul called it. Claire was sent to get this and that: Gray dropped his fork, he needed a clean one; Brad’s bib was dirty from lunch; could she heat up the green beans, they were cold; this was butter; really, margarine was better. Chew each bite twenty times, Gray; don’t talk while eating, you could choke; you know what “choke” means? Get something caught in your throat and not be able to breathe — very dangerous. Brad, this is a bean. Say “bean”! A bean is very nutritious. Gray, say “nutritious”! That means “good for you.” Sit straight up in your chair. If you loll back, you are more likely to choke. That’s a good boy.

Claire said nothing. Rosanna imagined her sitting at her end of the table, eating between trips to the kitchen (Rosanna could hear her footsteps), smiling like she didn’t have a thought in her head, and so, the next day, Rosanna called Minnie and said, “Anything is better than this.” Minnie came and picked her up and took her home, where Joe set a bed up in the living room right across from the television. But she didn’t turn it on — she was grateful for every single moment of silence.

—

ANDY THOUGHT she had had a good session with Dr. Smith — just talking, very calm, a few fake dreams. They hadn’t practiced any Kama therapy in several weeks, because Dr. Smith was too busy with what he was writing to concentrate. And then the drive home was quite pleasant. When she pulled into the garage, she saw that both Frank’s and Nedra’s cars were gone, and she would be alone — also something to look forward to. She went up to her room, changed into shorts (it was quite warm for May), and entered the kitchen as the phone rang.

Normally, she would not have picked up, but she wasn’t thinking, and she was all the more sorry that she had when she heard Janet’s breathless voice. “I wanted to tell you before you heard on the news.”

“Heard what on the news?”

“We’re striking,” said Janet. “We’re not going to any classes, and I’m taking incompletes in all my courses. But also we’re marching on Washington. That’s the part you might see on the news. I could end up in jail. You don’t have to bail me out. I would rather stay.”

Andy felt her good mood slip away. She almost hung up right there, but then she said, sharply, “I don’t understand this at all. What are you protesting, Janet?”

“The murders at Kent State. Those kids were nowhere near the National Guard, and they were completely unarmed.”

Andy never watched the news, and she had tossed the morning paper on the hall table without looking at it. It wasn’t the first time she was maybe the last person in the United States to know about something — Dr. Smith never discussed “ephemeralities.” But Frank and Janet found her ignorance annoying, so Andy said, “Such a sad thing.”

“It’s worse than sad, Mom! Though Eileen told me her mom said those kids deserved what they got. Can you believe that? She’s a terrible Nixon-supporter. Eileen might disinherit herself.”

Andy didn’t know who Eileen was, either. She said, “Unarmed people who get shot never deserve it.” However, Andy thought, if they had any sense, they would expect it.

“Will you let me stay in jail if they arrest me?”

“Well, of course. But try not to get arrested.”

“I don’t know what to try,” said Janet. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s in Frankfurt.” That, she made up.

There was a pause, and Andy began, “Are you—” But Janet had hung up. She’d meant to ask what Janet intended to do for the summer.

She washed her hands at the kitchen sink and plugged in the coffeemaker. She came upon Nedra’s doughnut stash, and she looked at the doughnuts — pink, chocolate, maple — for three or four moments before putting them back where she found them. She looked out the back door at the lawn, which needed cutting. On the hall table, the paper was folded together. She carried it into the kitchen. There was the boy, flat on his stomach, his head turned away, his feet flopped to one side, his arm folded under his chest. It could be any boy, any boy at all. Andy put her hand over the picture and then took it away. There was the girl, her arms out, kneeling over the boy, her mouth open in a scream. Andy put her hand over the picture again. There was no reason in the world for this picture to affect her, Andy. It was not her business, and anyway, she was inured to death, was she not? Dr. Smith said she was the least in touch with her feelings of anyone he had ever met; just look at the way she kept coming back to the murder of the woman she had never met, but skated over Tim’s death, the death of the darling boy, as if she didn’t care. Perhaps she had no feelings beyond nerve endings. Was that possible? But this picture…She took her hand away again, and stared. Moments before, that boy had been alive. Now he was dead. Someone his own age had shot him. Andy stared at the picture. She did not read the article — no need for that.

—

THE FIRST TIME, Claire was at Hy-Vee, beginning her Saturday’s shopping. She ran into Dr. Sadler in cereal (he was buying Frosted Flakes, which Paul wouldn’t allow in the house). Yes, he had been lightly flirting with her for years by now, but maybe he had never expected to get beyond that. He gave her a kiss on the cheek, which, by turning her head, she transformed into a kiss on the lips, and a passionate one. They left their carts in cereal and went straight to his house, four blocks away. She was home two hours later with her groceries and the news that she hadn’t been able to find any lamps to match the new couch — she’d looked everywhere. Paul related all the things he had done with Gray and Brad in her absence, not a flicker of suspicion, and it went like that for seven weeks, as if a slot had opened up in the normal progression of time that was dedicated to the advancement of their affair.

Claire had no shame, no remorse, no fear. Dr. Sadler was in charge of those emotions. Week by week, date by date, he got more tormented and more handsome. The first time seemed like a game they were both playing — hide and seek, don’t let the grown-ups know. They laughed most of the time — that he climaxed within a minute was hilarious, that they did it again and the corner of the contour sheet popped off with the violence of their lovemaking was wonderful. He admired Claire, her patience and her good nature, and her eyes, especially since she’d gotten the contacts — they were beautiful, riveting, such a strange color, not exactly brown, a cat’s eyes; he wanted her to keep them open while they were making love. He was wonderful to look at also — the sunlight flickering over his triceps, the shadows of his ribs, the indentation along the side of his gluteal muscles. When they were finished making love, he gave her treats in bed — leftover mu-shu pork, Popsicles, once a mai tai, which she’d never had before (Paul didn’t allow food out of the kitchen, he was suspicious of leftovers, and he would not go to a Chinese restaurant). What did Claire want to do? Dr. Sadler did it. Just kiss? He would kiss her a thousand times. Just let her touch it and look at it? He smiled while she explored. He had no inhibitions — he thought getting rid of those was what medical school was for — but, more than that, he was curious, curious about her. In her dating life, she had never met a man who was curious about her, and over the seven years of their marriage, Paul had grown suspicious of her inner life, not curious about it. If she said what she wanted for breakfast, for example, he met every response with an objection: if she wanted pancakes, eggs were more nutritious; if she wanted eggs, waffles would be a change.