Early Warning

But she couldn’t do it. Throwing them out would be giving up forever, acknowledging that her maternal instincts didn’t exist, had never existed, would never exist, no matter how affectionately she spoke to her children, or spoke of her children, no matter that she touched them gently, petting them as if they were cats, smiled at them, nattered on in baby talk like the book said to do, no matter that she followed all of Dr. Spock’s suggestions religiously, the way she had followed rules her whole life. Her mother still laughed about the time when she was eight and they had had a screaming argument about Andy’s cleaning up her room. Her father walked through the kitchen, picked up a piece of stationery, and wrote down the rules (in Norwegian), then tacked them to her door:

1. Elske Gud

2. Adlyd din eldeste

3. Elske din neste

4. Bo ren i kropp og sinn

5. Alltid fortelle sanheten

6. Sett bort sinne

“Love God, respect your elders, love your neighbors, be clean in body and mind, always tell the truth, put away anger.” The joke was that, as soon as they were written down, she followed them to the letter. That paper fluttered on the door of her room for years, a joke to them and a burden to her.

There was so much that she did not know about her children. She could run down the list right now, sitting in the living room with her cigarette in one hand and her ashtray in the other (she always emptied her ashtray after one smoke; she stubbed out the butt over and over until it was cold and flat — what if an ash leapt for the curtains and burned the house down?). She did not know if they were cute. She did not know if they were smart. She did not know if they liked her or each other or Frank. (And what did they really see of Frank? Not much.) She did not know if they were happy or difficult or spoiled or behaving appropriately for their ages. Take this example: Michael, who now weighed twenty-three pounds, twelve ounces, walked past Richie, who weighed twenty-three pounds, eight ounces, and knocked him down. Richie sat suddenly on his bottom and began crying, then threw himself on his back and started kicking his legs. Did Michael mean to knock Richie down? Did he intend Richie to feel pain? Did Richie feel real pain, or was he just angry? When Michael started to cry a few moments later, was he responding to Richie’s tears? Then, when Janny’s door, up the stairs of the half-landing, slammed, was that because she had slammed it? Could a three-year-old slam a door in anger? Andy never had, she was sure. Was Janny angry about something? If there were less crying in this room, would she be able to hear whether Janny slammed her fingers in the door?

Andy stood up from the couch and walked to the bottom of the stairs. She could not hear crying, so probably Janny was all right. She had already asked Janny if she was all right three times since lunch.

She walked over to Richie and set him on his feet. She took him by the hand and led him to the toy box, where she found his favorite book (this she did know — it was The Night Before Christmas). She opened it to the page where Ma in Her Kerchief and I in My Cap were lying in bed. Richie sat down with a bump and stared at the picture. She could take the boys outside and strip them down and sit them in their little pool — it was a hot day — and she could make sure that there were only two inches of water in the bottom and that she was looking at them every single moment, in case one of them fell over.

The doorbell rang, and Andy leaned forward. She saw Alice Rosen shade her eyes and press her nose and chin to the window beside the door. The bell rang again. The garage door was open, and the Rambler was parked there, so Alice knew she was somewhere nearby. Alice was funny and kind. Maybe it would be good to have Alice come in the back, find her where she was standing, and dose her with a box of cannoli — that was something she often wanted to share. But Andy did not move, and so Alice disappeared. There was the sound of a car leaving. Andy felt the oddest thing: something in her body draining away, as if she had been feeling pleasure or anticipation without knowing it, and now she was disappointed.