Early Warning

JOHN WAS ABOUT USELESS now, so Joe was glad to have Jesse around, no two ways about that — they had done all the plowing, spraying, and planting. Maybe because of Rosanna, Jesse had also persuaded Joe to let Pioneer plant the fallow field in seed corn — Jesse promised to run the detasseling and oversee the whole field through harvest. He also had gotten comfortable with the sheep; he held them when Joe clipped them in March, and even though there wasn’t the least little market for the wool, he said he wanted a couple more, so now they had six ewes. A ram at Iowa State could cover the ewes, and Joe was ready to do that. But the last thing Joe wanted was for Jesse to ease into being a farmer only because it was the next step. In fact, the last thing he wanted Jesse to do was to continue being a good boy, and why he didn’t want that was hard to explain to Lois and Minnie without also explaining that maybe he himself might once have thought about what there was in the world to do besides planting, plowing, and harvesting.

The strange thing was that everything was taken care of — Annie had decided on nursing school, and Lois was thrilled. Lois had decided she was going to open a small antiques store in Denby, two doors down from Crest’s. She spent her spare time looking for “pieces.” She had found plenty of chairs, a hand-turned rope bed, and three secretaries with ornamented drawers and lids. Rosanna was much occupied with her Volkswagen. She spent her days driving in widening circles around Denby, exploring. Joe would not have said that any circle you could make around Denby in a single day had much to offer in the way of exotic landscape, but Rosanna came back full of excitement — Vinton, Waterloo, Clarion, Fort Dodge, Ogden, Ankeny, Montezuma, Vinton, back to Denby. Over five hundred miles in something like twelve hours. Next stop, Chicago, where she would stay with Henry, or so she said, but she was still “practicing.” Minnie had up and taken off for a trip to Europe. It turned out she had been saving her money for ten years, and now she was ready — France, Italy, Sicily. Sicily was where Frank had gone during the war, and she’d always wanted to see it. She’d left June 5 and wouldn’t be back until August 16. Joe felt like his house had exploded and dispersed all the inhabitants over the landscape. He was the heavy chunk of metal that ended up in the basement, more fixed in place than ever.

When Jesse came in for lunch, they heated up the stew from the night before, and they were just setting the table when the phone rang. Joe held it against his shoulder while he served up the food. Jesse was rummaging through the silverware drawer. The voice on the other end of the line was Frank’s. Joe nearly dropped the phone, maybe because Frank said, “I’m heading your way. I’ve got a new plane — a Learjet. I’m going to fly into Des Moines and drive up.” Joe almost said, “Why?”

Jesse said, “Who’s that?”

Frank said, “I can spend a couple of days with you, right?”

“Sure,” said Joe. He could not think of a single thing they would talk about.

Jesse said, “Is that Grandma? Did she have an accident?”

Joe shook his head.

Jesse said, “She’s a very weird driver.”

Frank said, “Let’s see, I think I can get out of here by eight. Flight time is supposed to be three hours. Don’t know if that’s true. I guess we’ll find out.”

Joe said, “Are you bringing anyone?”

“The pilot, but he’ll stay in Des Moines,” said Frank.

Jesse said, “But at least she uses her seat belt all the time.”

“What about Andy?” said Joe, but Frank had already hung up.

“Who was that?” said Jesse.

“Your uncle Frank is flying out in his new Learjet.”

They attacked their food as if this were at least reasonably routine news, on a par with the tornado that touched down out by County Road 27 a month before — not the one that killed two people the same day and cut a swath of destruction from Ankeny to Carlisle, right through East Des Moines, convincing Paul Darnell to expand his bomb shelter from one room the size of a closet to three rooms.

That afternoon, Joe called Rosanna. She said she would be happy to eat supper the next night with Frank, but the morning after that, she was leaving for Minneapolis, planning to spend the night at a Holiday Inn in Bloomington.

“By yourself?”

“You want to come along?”

“Why are you going?”

“I figure Interstate Thirty-five is a better road to practice going seventy on than Interstate Eighty.”