Jane Smiley - Early Warning

After that, Mr. Perroni walked them all over the house, up the uneven stairs and down the uneven hallways, opening doors and peeking into rooms, looking at chandeliers and paintings and displays of dried flowers and a broom made of branches. At the end of the downstairs hall was a painting of Jesus gazing upward, and at the end of the upstairs hall was a painting of the Virgin Mary looking downward. Both, according to Mrs. Perroni, were from Spain, and she had seen ones by the same painter in Oaxaca, which was a city in southern Mexico with a cathedral plated in gold. “Alta California could never afford that!” said Mrs. Perroni.

The Angelina Ranch had started out as Angelina Rancho, a mere sixteen thousand acres given to a Mexican soldier in 1835. A battle in the Mexican-American War had taken place right over there — they could see the site from the window of the master bedroom. Three Americans and two Mexicans killed, but the Americans preserved their horses, and managed to get themselves to Colonel Frémont. That family had lost all their money, so, when Mr. Perroni’s people came over from Switzerland at the end of the nineteenth century, they bought this rancho, with its old house, and another one, which had never had a house, the Rancho Rojas, just across the river, and that was that. It was a hard life at one time — everyone out rustling cattle at the crack of dawn, including Gail herself, who was from Los Angeles and had never seen a live cow before she married into the Perronis, but it didn’t take long to learn if your livelihood depended on it, and in the end it was easier than writing for Hollywood, which was what her father did — had they ever seen Rubies for Rent ? Or The Wide River ? Well, no one had. They went for a walk.

For a week after they came home, Ivy was annoyed with Richie for being too impressed with “life in the Old West.” She said that she’d half expected there to be a shootout, just for show, and she’d taken four showers to get the dust out of her skin. Anyway, what did it matter? Michael and Loretta were planning to live in New York, just like everyone else, so that Michael could get rich and Loretta could pursue her child-development degree. Everyone had a dramatic history. Ivy’s own grandfather had been rescued, as a child, from a pogrom in Odessa, had passed through Ellis Island when he was eight, had his name translated from “Dov Grodno” to “Dave Gordon.” And hadn’t Richie told her his mother’s great-grandfather kept his crazy wife in a tiny little cellar with a trapdoor in the apple orchard, or something like that? Compared with all of this, servicing rentals was rather uninspiring. Or safe, said Ivy. Let’s just be glad we’re safe.

—

ON THE DAY Claire filed her written petition for dissolution of marriage and paid her fee, she went from the courthouse to the grocery store, where she bought a chicken and some potatoes for supper. Then she drove home in the chilly dusk, thinking of her new place downtown — in fact, she had been a little late to the courthouse because she was walking around the apartment, enjoying how quiet it was, even during the day. When she got back to West Des Moines, she parked on the street — something she had never done before, because all of a sudden even the garage seemed claustrophobic, and she carried her bag up the walk — no snow yet. Her house — the house — looked like a picture, dark, shiny front door, square panes of light to either side, and an arch of light above. She climbed the three steps to the front stoop, wiped her shoes on the mat, and extended her hand toward the doorknob.

She glanced through the window. Gray, who was fourteen, was sitting on the third step of the staircase, reading a book. As she watched, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand, pushed up his glasses, and turned the page. There was a laugh — Brad’s laugh — and here he came, stretched out on his back, sliding down the carpeted stairs. Just then, Claire had her Lot’s-wife moment — knowing perfectly well that she should not, could not, look into the past, and yet having the occasion of doing so come upon her like a stroke of lightning. Her hand trembled as she opened the door, and tears came to her eyes. How could this happen, she wondered, after so much preparation? Was mere familiarity that potent?

The boys, of course, greeted her as they always did: Where were the last two Popsicles? Could she sign the note from the teacher right away, before it was forgotten? Did she buy any milk? She nodded, smiled, passed them. When she got to the kitchen, she thought it was only an illusion that Lot’s wife was looking backward. Really, she was looking into the future, that strange city empty of herself, and she was thinking, I know nothing else but this.

Putting away the groceries, she did what she always did, which was imagine the boys talking about her someday — out of the blue, no reason of any kind, she must have gone crazy, or, alternatively, good riddance, we never liked her anyway, never understood why he married her in the first place, females are only good for two things and I forget what the second one is. Her hands were still trembling as she smoothed butter over the skin of the chicken and set it in the roasting pan.

But then Paul gave her a wonderful gift. She had just scrubbed the potatoes and was peeling the first one. Brad had the refrigerator door open, and Gray had brought his book into the kitchen. He was saying, “What does this word mean?” and pointing, when the back door flew open and slammed against the wall. Everyone jumped. Paul stormed into the kitchen, yelling, “I ran over a bicycle! Brad, your bicycle was lying right in the driveway, and I ran right over it, and now the—”

Brad jumped away from the refrigerator and closed the door. His mouth had dropped open. Gray moved back toward the doorway to the dining room, ready to flee. Paul yelled, “God damn it!”

Claire said, “Are you still on top of the bicycle?”

“No, I am not, for God’s sake! I backed off it.”

“Then no harm done.” She glanced at Brad. “Except to the bike.”

“It’s dark! I don’t know if there’s no harm done. There could be oil or gas dripping out of the underside of the car. And the car damaged, too, for Chrissakes. It could be quite a dangerous situation. Not to mention—”

She said, “Why don’t you not mention it?”

Brad started for the dining room, and Paul said, “Come back here, young man!” Claire dropped the peeler and the potato and stepped between Paul and Brad, who made it through the door. Paul’s voice sharpened. “Did you hear me?”

“How could he not hear you? You sound like an air-raid siren.”

And then he gave it to her — he popped her right on the chin and knocked her down.

She was lucky she didn’t whack the back of her head on the edge of the table; that was the first thing she thought. She landed sitting. Her neck hurt. Paul stood above her, and she saw his face, which was red with rage, become gradually infused with disbelief. And it was true that he had never hit her before. For Claire, though, there was nothing unbelievable about it. She knew that he had wanted to — that the kicking of a door or the smack of a fist on the table was only a substitute. It could be said, though she would never say it, that her change of tone — a bit of sarcasm for the first time in their lives — had startled him and undone his last mote of self-control. She turned her head. The boys were frozen in the doorway. She said nothing. Paul said, “Your mother fell down.”

“You liar,” said Claire. It was possible that Gray and Brad had never seen an argument, because it was possible that Claire had never talked back. Claire shook her head, leaned forward, and helped herself up with the chair. Not even the desperate look on Paul’s face aroused her pity, and that was how she knew that whatever love she had once felt for him had left no trace.