Early Warning

The four girls were playing nicely — Debbie in charge, as usual. Lillian watched them from the doorway, smiling when anyone looked at her. Debbie was a strict child, but fair. Once, Lillian had pointed out that maybe her friends, unlike Timmy, did not know the rules to some game and were not actually flouting them; Debbie was amazed. When Lillian then suggested that if Debbie knew more than other children it was her job to be patient and teach them, Debbie understood immediately. She was a good girl. No one in this room reminded Lillian of herself or of Jane, her first friend. These girls had always been in neighborhoods populous with children who were not cousins. Mama had pitied the children Lillian knew, and why not? During Lillian’s Depression childhood, there had been plenty of kids in rags or in shoes with flapping soles — Jane’s parents ordered the family shoes out of a catalogue once a year, and when the children grew out of them, they wore them anyway. Children had disappeared — the farm was lost, said Papa. Lillian had hated those words, imagining that a farm could be lost in the woods, like Hansel and Gretel. Now Margie Widger marched her third piece up the last tunnel into the Sorry! home base (which looked rather like a bomb shelter for the four members of the Yellow family), then glanced at Lillian. Lillian said, “When you girls are hungry, I’ve got peanut butter, salami, and chicken-rice soup.”

But there was no peanut butter — Timmy and the boys had found it and eaten it, digging it out with carrot sticks and celery. While she was cleaning their mess up, Arthur came in with Dean. Dean was larger and stronger than Timmy had been at the same age, though not as daring, so Arthur had decided Dean would start at four and soon be playing hockey for, as Arthur always called them, “Les Canadiens.” Arthur had not actually been to Montreal, but he also declared that Dean would begin his French classes in the summer. He called him Doyen and sang to him in French—“Alouette,” “La Vie en rose.” Arthur now also went about asking people if he himself didn’t look very much like Yves Montand, but younger.

Lillian said, “How did he do?”

Arthur said, “How did you do, Doyenny, mon fils?”

Dean looked up at Arthur and said, very carefully, “Tray bun, papaaah.”

Arthur grinned, then came over and hugged Lillian and said, “You are such an exceptional broodmare, ma chère.” He kissed her on both sides of her neck while Deanie stared. Lillian extricated herself and said, “You must be hungry, Dean.”

Dean said, “Is there ham?”

“Jambon!” said Arthur.

Lillian said, “Please go out back and check the boys for broken bones and missing teeth.”

“They’ve been having that much fun, huh?” He went out the back door. Dean went to the table and climbed into his chair. Lillian knew what that broodmare remark meant — he was in the mood for another. Bob and Bev D’Onofrio, at the end of the street, were about to produce number eight, and the Porters, three streets away, had a child in every grade at the elementary school. Lillian knew more about how babies were made now, and at a certain time of the month, she did a little more late-night sewing or pretended every so often to have fallen into a deep, deep sleep. Four was enough, she thought. If he got really importunate, she would give Arthur a puppy — he was a big fan of Rin Tin Tin.

Lillian put Dean’s plate in front of him, then sat there, chin in hand, smiling, as he ate. He was methodical but thorough — she put her hand out and stopped him when he picked up the plate to lick it. She asked, “Did you skate well?”

“I let go of Daddy’s hands two times.”

“Good boy!”

“I was strong.”

“I know you are. Do you like it?”

Deanie nodded. Then he said, “Je swiss un bun garsson.”

Lillian said, “Oui!”

“Can I watch something?”

“You can go see what’s on.”

He got down from his chair and went into the playroom. Lillian took his plate to the sink. Outside, there were six boys now. Arthur formed them into two teams. The team to his left had to pat their stomachs with their right hands and rub their heads with their left hands. The team on the right had to pat their heads with their right hands and rub their stomachs with their left hands. It took about one minute to get everyone laughing and falling in the snow. Lillian laughed, too.

—

AFTER LESS THAN a semester at Berkeley, Henry decided that he hated the place. He did not want to believe that he was so shallow it bothered him that his clothes were slightly off, though how he experienced it was that everyone else’s clothes were slightly off — too aggressively casual, or dirty, or black, black, black. But perhaps they wore black because it was so cold all the time? Colder than Iowa — clammy, moldy, creeping into your joints, and the sunlight just for color. The landscape irritated him, too: up, down; up, down. The sky was very closed in, almost trapped. He kept his eyes on his feet.