Jane Smiley - Early Warning

Jesse looked back and forth between them.

The truth came out at supper — Frank was looking for farms to buy. He had a friend named Jim someone who had decided that farmland was going to appreciate now that grain prices were up. Jim was thinking of buying himself a farm in the south of France, growing lavender and poppies.

“Staples,” said Joe.

“There are farms in France that only grow plums. Or sunflowers. Or blond cows. You need a couple of those. Blonde d’Aquitaine. Beautiful cattle. Quiet as mice; bigger than Angus, too.”

“Now you tell me,” said Joe. His overalls were roomy on Frank. When Frank brought the truck back, he had put two hundred miles on it.

He left three days later. Joe thought they’d gotten along pretty well. They were certainly too old to wrestle, and maybe even to argue, and they had nothing to argue about. Frank had walked through the fields and looked in the barn. It wouldn’t be Joe telling him what the price of land was these days, it would be some appraiser in Usherton, or even in Des Moines. What made him sad was Jesse’s reaction. The first thing Jesse did was take the rifle out and shoot things — targets, jays, barn swallows, rabbits, squirrels — and the second thing he did was quiz Joe and Rosanna about all of Frank’s adventures. What did he do in the army? Was it true he shot some people? Where did he go besides Italy? Did he really live in a tent over in Ames? Did he really invent gunpowder? Did he really steal German documents at the end of the war? Joe could not set him straight, so Jesse started writing Frank letters, and Frank started writing back, and, sure enough, Jesse asked in August if it was too late to go to Iowa State. Minnie said no, it wasn’t, and that she was proud of him. To Joe she said, “I always thought he was a self-starter. That’s why I didn’t say a word about college. I wanted it to be his idea.” Joe just said, “Well, I’ll miss him.”

—

HENRY HAD NEVER ASKED himself where he got his methodical ways, but as the fall progressed and Rosanna crept toward Chicago bit by bit, he saw that she must have been the source. Her goal was to come in early October, when the trees would be at their peak — she wanted nothing fancy in the way of food or sightseeing, but she did want to go to the Sears Tower and look out at the lake, to walk around the campus and look at the changing leaves. Henry made a reservation at an inexpensive Italian place famous for meatballs, gave her a map with clear instructions for getting from 80 to 55 to Lake Shore Drive and then to his duplex. He scrubbed his kitchen sink, his bathtub, and his baseboards, and he laundered not only the sheets in the second bedroom, but also the bedspread. He walked around sniffing — he could smell nothing untoward. He bought some chrysanthemums (chrysanthema, really) for the hall table, and a nice coffee cake from the bakery. He pretended to himself that all of this was a pain in the neck, but it wasn’t. At what point would he decide that Rosanna had been forced off Lake Shore Drive into Lake Michigan and he needed to call the State Police?

But she was early; she knocked rather than rang the bell, and when he opened the door and saw her neat bun and happy face framed against his neighbors’ maple trees, he was pleased. She had a paper sack with her. She put it under her arm and carried it in. When Henry realized that her change of clothes was in that paper sack, he felt a slight pang that, even though they all knew she was extending her range, no one had bothered to buy her an overnight bag.

She came in talking. “You look thin. But that’s a nice haircut. Oh, look at your couch; I saw that same fabric in Younkers and I liked it. I even said, ‘Henry would like that,’ I really did. So bright. Good for a place like Chicago. Have you talked to Claire? Just call her — I’m not saying a word. Well, I will say one word. Insanity. But you’ll hear all about it. Those boys! Well, they do fine in school, and why wouldn’t they? It’s worth their lives to get A’s. Of course, I’m exaggerating. Jesse shot a starling right off the roof of my house; I nearly jumped out of my skin. It fell with a giant thud onto the top of the TV room — you know, where you all used to sleep. Jesse is taking it back to Ames, or somewhere down there, to be stuffed. I’m glad he’s going to college. He’s doing fine, I must say, for a boy who never opened a book in his life. How you children got to be all so different I’ll never know, but he made a thousand dollars with that field Pioneer planted between my place and theirs, he had those detasselers practically running. He was very good about making sure they had plenty of water — that was a real hot spell. But—”

Henry offered her a glass of the lightest Riesling he had been able to find, and she sat in the oat-colored armchair and sipped it, looking around. Finally, she said the magic words: “This is a nice place. Small, but clean.”

Henry laughed. He said, “How was your trip?”

“My land, until I got to Chicago, it was fine, but there was a car in flames right beside the highway. I never saw such a thing. No one around it. I nearly drove off the road, staring.”

“You could have taken a plane, Ma.”

“Now, why do that when I have a perfectly good car? I did pass the airport, I believe.” Pause. “Chicago is not at all like Minneapolis.”

“Not at all,” said Henry.

Rosanna took a sip of her wine and looked around again. Henry let the silence fill the room as she stared at his bookcases, as ordered as the stacks in a library. She took another sip, then smiled and said, “Well, that scar has almost disappeared.” The tip of Henry’s finger went to the spot just beneath his lip. Rosanna shook her head. “Tsh! What days those were! To think I had to sew that up myself, with you lying in Lillian’s lap and screaming your head off. Good thing I had a spool of silk thread. My goodness!” Then, “I think I’m a little tired. I should wash up, too.”

“You can lie down for an hour or so. I made the supper reservation for six.”

He helped her out of the chair, which was deep, and held her elbow lightly — not offensively — into the bedroom. Then he carried in the paper sack. She was sitting on the bed, looking around. She said, “Now, this is a lovely pattern — we used to call it Wild Goose Chase. I don’t know what they call it now.” She ran her hand over the quilt. “Black and white with the red is very modern.” She lay back, and he covered her with the extra blanket. He lowered the shades, even though it was darkening toward twilight by five now. After that, he went out and checked to see whether she had parked the car safely; then he sorted through the tests he had to grade by Monday, went into the kitchen, closed the door, and called Philip. They had started laughing about something when Henry felt a surge of alarm and dropped the phone. What was it? Nothing audible, and yet, when he entered the bedroom and turned on the light, his mother was collapsed on the floor, maybe three feet from the bed, between the bed and the door.

Henry exclaimed, “Oh shit!” and Rosanna moved, opened her eyes. Henry knelt down and smoothed her skirt over her legs. When Rosanna spoke, Henry could barely understand her, which provoked more alarm. There was no phone in this bedroom, so he nearly jumped up to call an ambulance. Instead, he contained himself, and lifted her, eased her onto the bed. She was not at all heavy. She gave out a long sigh that ended in a cough, and then she said something he did understand: “I thought I was the queen, you know, when I used to drive Jake into town. I would wave and smile. Right, left. I would just lift my hands, and Jake would arch his neck.” She lifted her hands maybe an inch off her skirt and smiled. “So silly.”