Early Warning

Emily relaxed, fell away from the breast. Janet moved her a little, snapped her bra closed. Jared rubbed his hands over his face. “Looks like another nice day,” he said. Just this one, thought Janet, just this one nice day, and then maybe she would tell him more. But she wouldn’t think about that now.

1979

LILLIAN WENT TO the window in the living room, the one that looked out over the driveway, and watched Arthur. He was standing with a shovel in his hand just where the driveway curved down to the road. His back was to the house, and she couldn’t tell whether he was resting, or whether he had stopped shoveling. The house was utterly silent — she had turned off the TV after watching The Edge of Night, a show that Arthur thought was ridiculous but that Lillian watched because Rosanna had, every day. It was getting dark, and Lillian squinted. Finally, she went to the hall closet, got her coat, wrapped it around herself, and opened the front door. By the time she got to Arthur, he was shoveling again, and Lillian thought he looked all right. She said, “Okay. You want pork chops for dinner? We have some.”

Arthur turned and looked at her for a long moment. Then he said, “Pork chops are fine.” His tone meant that he would pick at them.

“Or I could make spaghetti with clam sauce. You liked that.” She shivered. Arthur took the two sides of her coat and crossed them more tightly, then turned up her collar. As he did so, he looked brighter. He kissed her. He said, “I did like that spaghetti. I’m almost finished here. What time is it?” He no longer wore a watch.

“A little after five.”

“Do you feel something?”

“What?”

“Do you feel our estate here, Belly Acres, rising up at every corner to enfold and suffocate us?”

“There is a lot of upkeep,” said Lillian, keeping her voice low, neutral. “You should”—but she had suggested that Arthur hire someone to help him before, and he had refused, so she said—“at least find a service to plow the driveway.”

“The thin end of the wedge,” said Arthur. “Ten years ago, I would have shoveled four inches of snow off this driveway in an hour, running and singing the whole time, and now I had to stop every few minutes and catch my breath.”

Lillian shivered again, though it wasn’t very cold, and said, “Maybe you should actually see a doctor.”

Arthur shook his head, as she knew he would. He hadn’t seen a doctor in years. I’ve had enough of that, he always said.

“What if I, your wife, want you to see a doctor?”

“You’re out of luck.” Then he turned her toward the house, putting his right arm over her shoulders and carrying the snow shovel in his left hand. They tromped up the driveway. He said, “I do feel sixty today, though. Every minute of it. When Colonel Manning was sixty, he walked thirty miles a day, keeping a list of wildflowers and birds that he saw on his march.”

“How old was he when I met him?”

“Sixty-six.”

“He had a twinkle in his eye.”

“Somehow,” said Arthur, “he did. Must have been a trick of the light.”

“You have a twinkle in your eye.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

While she was cooking dinner (green beans, too, with browned butter and almonds), they did their daily worrying about Debbie, Dean, and Tina, a prophylactic. Lillian talked to Debbie every day. Debbie told her about Carlie, Kevvie, Hugh, and the dogs. At the moment, the only thing wrong was that one dog had ear mites. Lillian and Arthur agreed that this was not worth worrying about. Dean had broken his wrist in a game of pickup basketball with eight guys who were taller than he was — he had gone for a rebound and hit his hand on the rim of the basket (pretty impressive), and would be in a cast for four more weeks. Lillian said, “How many broken bones is that over the years now?”

Arthur thought for a minute and said, “Eight, if you count the ribs as two.”

“Maybe this will teach him a lesson.”

“What lesson, though?”

“That he isn’t seventeen anymore?”

“I was hoping Linda was going to teach him that lesson.”

“So was she,” said Lillian.