Jane Smiley - Some Luck

Of course, the real surprise was Ann Frederick Langdon, born February 14, and a valentine by any measure. She didn’t look like Lois and she didn’t look like Joe, she looked like Lillian, and was just that same sort of child—“angel” stamped all over her, said Rosanna. “Lois loved Lillian as a child,” said Joe, and Walter said, “Well, you know, back in the old days, when my father was breeding horses, he used to bring his best-looking yearling out of the barn and walk it in a circle around every mare right after the stallion bred her, just to give her the proper idea of what to produce.” Now Miss Ann was two months old, gazing at everything in animated fascination, and that other thing was true, too, that your grandchild was much more of a treat than any of your children could ever be. Joe changed the baby — something that Walter had never done, but the sort of thing that Joe would do.

Walter had passed the barn and the Osage-orange hedge, but now he headed back in that direction. Ah, the damn thing was thriving. The leaves were pushing their way out on every one of the spurs that had grown where he’d clipped the thing the year before. The leaves were the brightest green in the world, maybe in the universe — flat and waxy and full of themselves, protected by the thorns. Every year, Joe said, as Walter always had, that he was going to pull it up, but he never did — the roots had probably spread everywhere, and taking the thing out would be a major pain in the neck. There was always a reason not to bother. Walter touched one of the thorns. He was used to the hedge, but the thorns still seemed menacing.

JOE WAS in his own barn, behind the big house, when Rosanna entered. She was wearing her robe, her nightgown, and a pair of rubber boots. Her hair was hanging in a gray, disheveled braid, and her eyes were wide. She didn’t say a thing, she just came to him and grabbed his hand. He dropped the wrench he was holding and followed her out. He said, “Mama! Mama! What’s going on?” But she still didn’t answer, and that was how he knew. The only mystery was that he expected her to take him to the house, and she took him to the barn, and beyond there, around the Osage-orange hedge, and there was Papa in his overalls, folded on his side, his arms crossed over his chest, his back to the hedge. Rosanna said, “I don’t know why he left. I was asleep. He just left. He just left.”

Joe stood still for a moment, and then they both knelt, and he could think of nothing to do other than to put his palm over Walter’s forehead. It was cool. His mother said, “I looked all over the barn, and then I came out here, and some crows were in that tree there, making a lot of noise, so I—” She stood, crossed her arms over her robe, then said, “Goodness gracious, Walter!” Joe took off his jacket and laid it over Walter, but did not, in the end, cover his face. He had to pretend that his father was merely sleeping one last time. Rosanna said, “Walk me to the house. I’ll call the undertaker. I guess we’ll use the same one we used for Grandpa Wilmer. I’m so sorry your grandmother lived to see this.” She held Joe’s arm and they stepped carefully.

Joe said, “Do you think it was his heart?”

“I think it was something he knew was coming, which was why he refused to go to the doctor after Dr. Craddock died. Oh, dear me. What a stubborn man!” She put the crook of her robe-clad elbow up to her eyes, then said, “No, Joey. Don’t walk with me. I know the way. You go back and sit with him till the undertaker comes. I’ll call Frank and Lillian and Henry. Claire can stay home from school today, too.” Joe let her arm go and watched her walk away, hunched and busy, plopping through the field in those mucky boots. Then he turned and went back to Walter. He stood for a moment, and sat down. From here, he could see the last thing his father had looked at — the long stretch of plowed land to the east, the gently curving, flat horizon, and just the tops of the Grahams’ old windbreak — they had planted blue spruces, but only a few survived. He had seen birds, Joe hoped — at the moment, there were a couple of red-tailed hawks floating on a draft. Off to the right, maybe he had seen the upper story and the roof of Joe’s house, Lois’s house, Minnie’s house, Ann’s house now, where Lois was certainly wondering where he was and Minnie was getting ready for school.

It was too bad, Joe thought, that this present quiet had to give way to the movement and bustle of a funeral and a burial, but that was, of course, what Walter would expect. Joe thought the better thing would be to sink into the earth right in this spot, to be here where everyone in the family could run past each day and offer a greeting or a memory. Joe took a few deep breaths and edged a little closer to Walter one last time. He closed his eyes and listened to the air scudding along the surface of the earth, and as the day warmed, fragrance rose to envelop him.

AS SOON AS Claire woke up, she thought of the biscuits. Over the weekend, when Claire was supposed to be babysitting for Annie, Lois had let Claire make three batches, each time mounding the flour, cutting in the butter, sprinkling on the salt and the baking powder, then, as quickly as possible, with a few pats and prods, pushing the dough together, rolling it out, and — pop, pop, pop — cutting it with the biscuit cutter. The difference between Lois and Mama was that for Lois there was no picking up the leftover dough and prodding it into a less delicious second batch. Lois cut the outlines into randomly shaped biscuits and set them on another baking sheet; when those came out of the oven, she said, “Here’s what you need to know about geometry. Taste this.”

They were crispy, flaky, and buttery — all edges, no centers. Claire walked into the empty kitchen, dressed and ready for the school bus. It took her five minutes to get out the flour, the butter, the baking powder, and the salt. Her batch would be a surprise for Papa. The night before, she’d been reading Jo’s Boys —late, just the little light on beside her bed — when he’d knocked on the door and peeped in. His hair was standing on end. He smiled and came in, sat on the bed. When he saw what she was reading, he laughed and said, “Well, at least that’s something I can make head or tail of,” and then, “Your mama is a hare and I am a tortoise, and, Claire, I sure hope you can find another creature to be, because I don’t think either of those works.”

She had given him a little kiss on the cheek and said that she would be a cat.

He said, “That’s a good one, sweetie,” and went down the stairs to the bathroom.

The oven was always lit for warmth, so when she tested the temperature by sticking her hand in (it was plenty hot), she didn’t wonder where Mama was. Mama couldn’t stay away from Annie, and she was always tramping across the south field to Joe’s house, wondering if they needed anything. Papa, of course, would be in the barn, the first place he went every morning. Claire had heard him, almost before dawn, going down the stairs, coughing, talking to himself. That was how she knew that the day had begun: when she began to wake up and think — what was she going to wear, what did she have to do, what was there to put up with, what was there to look forward to. She had started her day like this for as long as she could remember.

Her hands didn’t work as quickly or as lightly as Lois’s, and she had to push her glasses up her nose with her wrist, but the biscuits looked handsome as they went into the oven, round and tall, three across and four down. As she was closing the oven door, Mama blew in and exclaimed, “What in the world are you doing?”