Early Warning

“I sent them cards.”

“Did you? I hope they received them. Michael’s apartment is such a mess, no one in their right mind would go in there, and Richie seems to be staying most of the time with a girl he knows on the Upper East Side. She’s Jewish.”

“Mom!”

“What? She is. I met her parents. They’re Jewish, too.”

Andy could hear her report this remark to someone. She was getting to that stage that her father had gotten to, where everything he said got laughed at, but if that was the price of conversations with Janet, Andy was willing to pay it. She said, “Her uncle is a furrier. They gave me a hat. It looks good on me. Can you call me back, I have to—”

“Mom.”

Andy shifted her position and set the magazine on the floor. She knew she was about to receive some news, felt a moment of dread, but then she sensed what the news would be. As Janet said it, she mouthed the words, “I’m pregnant.”

Andy forced herself not to exclaim, “Oh dear.”

Janet said, “He’s wonderful!”

“You know it’s a boy?”

“No, Mom. Jared. Jared Nelson, my beloved. The father of the pregnancy.” She laughed. There was a laugh in the background.

There were many questions that Andy did not dare ask: Are you married? Did you meet him in San Francisco? Where’s he from? What does he do? Is he divorced (not a bad thing, in Andy’s estimation)? Does he get along with his parents? What’s his birth order? Does he drink? Does he speak any Scandinavian language fluently (“Nelson” was possibly a bad sign, though “Nilsson” would be worse)? Janet forestalled her by saying, “He’s the funniest person I ever met.”

Andy smiled.

“Mom?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’re happy.”

“I’m happy that Jared is the funniest person you ever met.”

“Are you happy I’m pregnant?”

Andy let her gaze wander over the pink bathroom tiles, take in a tiny cobweb, then her shoes, which she had kicked off, then the tub and the sink. She shifted position again, and stood up. According to AA, you were not allowed to lie. When was it, sometime recently, she had seen a picture of a sculpture installation — Dad, Mom, six-year-old daughter, one-year-old baby son. All were the same height, six feet tall, but proportioned realistically. The result was that the baby was enormous, the hugest and most dominant member of the family, and the six-year-old came second. Andy thought it was the truest depiction of family life she had ever laid eyes on; all they needed for profounder horror was expanded premature twins. Even so, she said, “Sweetheart, I am happy for you. And I am happy it’s you and not me.” This was to be their future as mother and daughter, then — the past unmentioned, a fresh start, equals in keeping their feelings to themselves. Quite Nordic, in its way.

Janet turned away from the phone and repeated this. The voice in the background laughed, and then Janet laughed. Andy let out the breath she was holding. Janet turned back to the phone and said, “Oh, I love you, Mom.”

She hadn’t said that in twenty years. But as if this declaration were routine, Andy said, “Sweetie. I have to get off. But call me tomorrow and tell me more.”

Janet said she would.

When she walked into the kitchen half an hour later, Frank was leaning into the open refrigerator. She said, “There’s some ravioli from Antonio’s in that cardboard box. It was good.”

Frank stood up and turned around. Before he could tell her anything at all about work, she said, “Janet is pregnant.”

Frank slammed the door of the refrigerator and said, “I didn’t know there was a boyfriend.”

“Neither did I.”

“Are they getting married?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

Frank swallowed, and then swallowed again. Eloise’s report had frightened him, too, though he had said only, “Doesn’t surprise me.” Andy walked over to him, put her arms around him, and laid her head on his chest. She could hear his heart beating — loud booms. She’d always wondered how his arteries could take such a powerful current. He remained stiff for a few moments, and then he yielded, put his arms around her. This was the way, so long ago, forty years now, she had first come to love him. You had to get inside his shell to feel sorry for him; if you didn’t feel sorry for him, then you couldn’t experience love, but if you pressed yourself against him and felt the warm tension of his flesh, you always felt sorry for him, and tender, too, as lonely as he was. He might hate that, but if you were brave, you would feel it anyway. She felt it now.

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