Jane Smiley - Some Luck

Arthur laughed. “She never did that.”

“No, but she did give birth to Henry all by herself, in Frank’s room, during harvest. Joe was the first one to see him when he went in to get a handkerchief. I guess he stood there blowing his nose. Frank and Papa were out harvesting corn, weren’t you?”

Frank said, “I don’t remember.”

“You do,” said Lillian, poking him.

“Nothing,” said Frank.

The weather was fairly good, so, before Lillian served the turkey at five, not so terribly early, Arthur and Frank took Timmy and Debbie for a long and, everyone hoped, exhausting walk about Georgetown, and she and Andy got down to seriously comparing the babies. They sat side by side on the sofa and laid the babies on their knees, facing upward. Bit by bit, they opened the blankets. Dean was too young to mind, but Janet was old enough to get a little fussy.

Such a comparison, Lillian thought, might have been unfair to Dean, but he was about a week late, and had plenty of hair — Arthur’s hair, since it was dark. His nose had not been flattened in the quick birth, and he wasn’t terribly cross-eyed. He had long fingers and long feet, and slender arms and legs, just like Timmy, and look at him (if you dared — half the time he was getting into something). Like all blonds except Lillian herself, according to Mama, Janet had fine hair that would come in late, but she had a little crown of gold around her head, and two beautiful dimples. Andy said, “I’m not sure dimples are the wave of the future.” Janet’s eyes were bluer, and her lips were already full and distinct. Her birth length had been twenty-one and a half inches. Lillian, who wasn’t tall, said, “She is going to be tall,” and Andy, who was tall, said, “There’s a mixed blessing for you.”

“But you’ve already lost the weight, and look at me. I have so far to go.”

“My mother said it always drops off faster with the first one.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I have this feeling that it will be hard this time, and Arthur will not be helpful, since he likes butter, butter, butter and cream, cream, cream for every meal.”

Andy turned and kissed her on the cheek. She said, “But I’m so flat-chested, even with nursing. If you go to that Dior boutique in New York, which I did every week from the seventh month on, just for inspiration, you see what it’s going to be — hourglass.”

“If I ever get a waist again.”

Lillian sighed and lifted Dean against her shoulder. Andy un-self-consciously opened her blouse and put Janet to the breast. Lillian didn’t say anything. Dean had finished his bottle a half-hour before. He was not a fussy baby, and took all of his formula every time. Andy said, “My mother said nursing takes the weight off. But she only had two.”

Lillian could not help watching — she had never nursed any of the three, even for a day. The hospital where they were born seemed to find it distasteful and unhealthy. As she watched, she carefully suppressed a little pang of regret, until Andy said “Ouch!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, you know, the nipples are so tender. But supposedly that goes away.” Lillian didn’t say anything.

When Arthur, Frank, and the kids came in, Frank said, “The weather is really strange out there. Don’t you ladies hear the windows rattling?”

“It’s very dark to the west,” said Arthur. “I’m glad I reglazed the windows this summer.”

Lillian said “Brr,” then, to Frank, “Remember that winter you went to Chicago in the blizzard? I didn’t know whether to be more afraid for you or more afraid for us. The snow was to the eaves.”

“We did get stuck somewhere. Where was that? Before the river. Must have been around DeWitt. Some old ladies got me a berth so I could stay warm. It felt like a … a foxhole, I guess. Gave me nightmares.”

Andy said, “We had such deep drifts in Decorah that my brother made himself a ski jump out a second-story window into the backyard. He would squat in a couple of shoeboxes and sail down.”

Dinner was fine — the turkey only a little dry. Andy set the table, and the pumpkin pie she had brought was delicious, and so they yawned and dozed and went to bed.

On Friday, the storm hit while they were sitting at breakfast — there was a shattering, crashing sound, and at the very moment Lillian said, “What’s that?” Timmy ran in from the living room and said, “Mommy, wind came through the glass!”

They ran in, and there it was — glass all over the floor, a big branch cracked against the front of the house, and rain gusting through. Frank moved the bassinets into the dining room, and then he and Arthur went out and nailed a board over the window. Andy kept Timmy and Debbie in the kitchen while Lillian swept up the glass.

Once the antenna blew off the house, there was no television of any kind (Lillian enjoyed television — not so much for the programs, which she was running around too much to pay attention to, but for the friendly demeanor and the nice clothes of the stars), and shortly after that, no electricity. Arthur wrapped the refrigerator in a blanket and pinned it with clothespins, which made everyone laugh. They were warm enough — the furnace was coal — and Lillian had sterilized and filled her bottles for the day, but what if it lasted through tomorrow? She could fill them, since the stove was gas, but she would have to set them outside to keep them cool. Well, she wasn’t going to think about that. It did remind her of some of those weeks on the farm, stuck in the house with the whole place rattling. It was cozy, but there was an edge of threat, just as the rooms were warm but with the knife of a draft sailing through from time to time. Andy had two sweaters on, and was smoking about twice as much as she had the day before, carefully turning her head away from the baby, who was cradled in her left arm, half asleep. Lillian, who thought that babies were better off in their bassinets, said, “Was she up in the night?”

“Oh, yes. But I just put her between me and the wall, on the other side from Frank, and nursed her off and on most of the night. Keeps her quiet, anyway.” Lillian did not approve of this, either, but she was not the sort of person to say anything. Andy said, “How about you?”

“Twice. Two a.m. and six. Arthur took the two a.m.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice, careful to avoid the cigarette and the smoke. “I hope, for your sake, that Frank is just like Arthur. He’s not, you know, a father, more like another mother. I trust him completely, and the kids adore him.”

Andy stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray beside the sink and, also in a low voice, said, “So what are he and Frank talking about all the time? Whisper, whisper, whisper.”

And, without thinking, Lillian said, “Oh, that must be Judy. They always talk about Judy in low voices, but I don’t see why.”

“Who’s Judy?”

It was then that Lillian realized she should have kept her trap shut. Stalling, she laughed once and said, “Oh, he hasn’t told you about Judy?”

Andy visibly bristled. Her eyebrows lifted, and she put her other arm around Janet and laid the baby’s head against her neck. There was a sudden gust of wind against the side of the house that startled Lillian, but it didn’t distract Andy. She said, “Tell me. I knew he had girlfriends, but he’s never said a word about any of them.”

Lillian bit her lip and wished that Dean would cry or something. Even Timmy and Debbie were inconveniently quiet. She made herself say, “Well, honey, Judy was not a girlfriend, in the sense you mean. You know who she is.”

“I do? I don’t know a single Judy.”

Lillian leaned over and whispered the name in Andy’s ear, and Andy said, “No! He dated her? She’s the one who was convicted for spying for the Russians, and now they let her off again.”