Jane Smiley - Some Luck

“You don’t go for rides in your car?”

“Only to look at open houses on Sunday.”

“How’s the baby?”

“She’s got hair. She’s almost walking. She and Andy have matching outfits.”

Jim laughed, then said, “Well, you tell me what’s worse, Corporal. Looking obsessively for a place to live—”

“Which is a lot like looking for the perfect spot for a foxhole.”

“Or knowing that you will always live where you are supposed to.”

“My heart weeps for you.”

“Too big is as bad as too small.”

“You should meet my friend Rubino the real-estate magnate. You would see eye to eye.”

“Corporal, here’s what I learned in the war. There’s nothing more haunted than a house. Doesn’t matter where, how grand, how small, made of brick, straw, stone, or gingerbread, whether perfectly cared for or blown to bits. Beings gather there. Every house is a planet, exerting gravitational pull. Every house is in a dark wood, every house has a wicked witch in it, doesn’t matter if she looks like a fairy godmother …”

Jim’s words seemed to nestle beside the roar of the two engines, perfectly clear and impossibly so.

“A plane doesn’t have that kind of existence. It’s like a thought. It’s either flying or it’s vanished. It doesn’t linger to haunt you, to make you wonder what you did wrong, to make you ponder your sins.”

“I can sense that,” said Frank.

“A house gradually lowers itself into the earth.”

“And a plane?”

“Gradually dematerializes.”

They stopped talking, and the Argus swept onward, looping around Scranton, and then crossing the patchwork green and yellow of the Catskills, dotted here and there with lakes that shone in the sunshine like electric lights. Then the city was before them. Jim flew south along the Hudson, low enough so that the banks on either side seemed far away, and then he turned out over the dark ocean and headed for Anderson. In spite of their conversation, Frank’s spirits were as expansive as the empyrean that was revealed through the see-through canopy of the plane.

He was home by six, his usual time. Andy and Janet had slept most of the afternoon — they looked disheveled but beautiful, especially since Andy was back to her old weight and wearing her old clothes. She looked good and still managed to serve up macaroni and cheese that she had put together that morning, and some green beans and a salad. Janet sat in her high chair with a spoon in her hand, pressing the bowl against bits of macaroni that Andy set on her table. Every so often, she said, “Ha! Ha!” A breeze, the same breeze that had invigorated him at the office, blew through the open window. Andy said, “I’m so glad fall is here.”

“I went up in the plane with Jim Upjohn today. For a couple of hours. I think I’d like to get my pilot’s license.”

Because she was Andy and not any of the other women he knew, she didn’t say, “Why?” She said, “Good.” She leaned toward Janet and touched her cheek with one finger. Janet smiled. “Flying baby.”

Looking at her, Frank felt his paralysis seep away.

DEBBIE MANNING KNEW as soon as she woke up that it was Easter morning and that the Easter Bunny would have been there in the night, and left some candy and presents — Mommy had been talking about this for a long time, and she had even taken Debbie out and bought her a new green dress for going to church. The dress had its own slip, which bunched at the waist and pricked her, but the skirt stuck out so that she couldn’t see her white Mary Janes, and so she didn’t mind it very much. Timmy had a new suit with a blue tie, and Dean had a white shirt and blue shorts that buttoned to the shirt. The problem, of course, was that there was no way for the Easter Bunny to make his rounds. Santa had reindeer and Halloween witches, who, according to Mommy, were actually very nice, just pretending to be mean, and had broomsticks, but no provision had been made for the Easter Bunny, and Debbie could not figure it out. Timmy said that he had a flying convertible made of glass, very much like Cinderella’s carriage — but when he said it, he was laughing, which with Timmy always meant that you couldn’t believe him. She lay in bed, even though the sun was bright in the window, because she knew that she was supposed to wait for Mommy and Daddy to get up, but just then she heard running feet outside her door, which was half open, and she slipped out of bed and went to peek. She was wearing her Alice in Wonderland pajamas, which always made her feel very happy.

The running feet were Dean’s, and she saw his head disappearing down the stairs. She went to the top step and whispered, “Stop, Dean!” but he just looked up at her and kept going down, half backward, his hands on the upper step as his feet felt for the lower step. Debbie hadn’t realized that Dean could climb out of his crib. Otherwise, the house was silent. Dean had also managed to get out of the lower half of his pajamas, and his diaper was hanging, heavy and wet, below his bottom. Debbie put her hand on the banister and followed him.

The Easter baskets and whatever else there might be were on the dining-room table, three tall pink-and-green arches for handles. Dean didn’t even look at them — he was running around going “Hooo-hoo-hoo”—and Debbie realized that he was just up, Easter had nothing to do with it. She went over to him and took his hand, then said, “Want your bottie? Let’s look in the figerator.”

Dean said, “Bottie!” He let her keep holding his hand. His diaper smelled bad. Debbie couldn’t actually reach the handle of the refrigerator, but she managed to stick her fingers into the rubber edge of the door and pull the thing open. There was one bottle on the bottom shelf. She took it out and took the cap off the top, and handed it to Dean, who sat down with a thump on his wet diaper and put it into his mouth. He was big enough now so that he held it with one hand and stared at her while he sucked and played with the edge of his pajama top. Timmy came through the door of the dining room, carrying an Easter basket. He was wearing cowboy pajamas and cowboy boots instead of slippers, and he looked as though he was about to get into trouble.

Debbie said, “What time is it?”

Timmy looked at the clock, then said, “Two hairs past a freckle, eastern elbow time.” He bit the second ear off his chocolate bunny. Then he said, “Let’s do something.”

“What?” said Debbie suspiciously.

“Let’s hide the eggs.”

“The Easter Bunny did that.”

Timmy, who could reach the handle of the refrigerator, opened it and pointed to the bowl of eggs on the bottom shelf. Debbie said, “They’re white.”

“So?” He removed one from the bowl and handed it to Dean, who balanced it on his palm. He said, “Come on, Deano, let’s hide the egg!” Dean threw down his bottle, which Debbie picked up, and gave his hand to Timmy. Debbie followed them into the dining room and then the living room with a sinking heart. Timmy pointed to the corner of the sofa and said, “There’s a good place.”

Dean carefully set the egg in the corner, and backed away. Timmy said, “Let’s get another one!”

They disappeared into the kitchen. Debbie put her fingertip on the egg but was afraid to grab it. They came back with two eggs this time. Dean put one in the toy box and the other one by the leg of the bookcase. When they went back to the kitchen, Debbie removed her Raggedy Ann doll from the toy box.

Pretty soon, the boys had set more eggs than Debbie could count around the living room, some in better hiding places than others. Timmy had finished most of his bunny, and had dropped the rest on the floor in the kitchen. He had also spilled some of his jelly beans, but Dean had sat down on the floor and eaten those — had colored bits in the corner of his mouth. When Mommy and Daddy appeared in the doorway between the living room and the dining room, Timmy was kneeling on a dining-room chair, sifting through the paper grass in his Easter basket, and Dean was sitting on the table, the smallest of the baskets across his bare legs. He had taken some of the foil off the bunny and tried it, but he didn’t like it. It lay next to him. Debbie had removed her basket from the area entirely and put it in the closet. She had not touched any of the candy, but she had claimed the stuffed bunny, and was holding it. Mommy said, “Goodness, what a mess!”