Early Warning

Yet another blizzard was in the offing — the snow already on the ground seemed to vaporize upward into the low-hanging clouds. She put on her gloves and pulled the hood of her down jacket over her head, snapped it closed over her chin and mouth. She stepped carefully around the puddles that were slickening as the afternoon cooled and darkened. She had almost done it, almost fallen right into the trap. It didn’t matter, Janet thought, who they were or how well meaning they might think they were; as soon as they started talking to you about your problems, their language captured you and put you in a prison of cause and effect, and you had to go along inside that, whether it was Oedipus complex or vitamin deficiency or admitting you were powerless or accepting Jesus, questing for a result that you could feel in yourself. The last thing Janet wanted in this life was to say, Maybe I still love Lucas, he was beautiful, a charismatic and fascinating person — and for the person to whom she was saying this to reply, Tell me about your father. She would of course reply, My father is an asshole, I wouldn’t ask him for a penny. And she certainly did not want then to hear, Define what you mean by asshole? She would be thirty-two this year. She had to accept the system that was herself. It had to move forward as well as it could. When she got home — sliding a little as she climbed the hill between Dubuque and Linn — Emily was standing in the middle of the living-room rug, and Jared was sitting on the floor cross-legged in front of her, juggling three of her dolls and saying, “Look at them fly, Emmy. Boom! Up and over! Can I catch it? I can’t catch it! Oh, I caught it! There goes another one!” It was Janet who laughed, not Emily. Since they were going to be snowbound for another couple of days, she decided that that was enough for the time being. Then, looking at the daughter who reminded her so much of herself, she thought, If I don’t get over this by the first of April, we’re getting a dog. She felt better at once.

—

WHEN RICHIE GOT HOME from work, Ivy told him that Michael and Loretta would be there for dinner in twenty minutes. He put his coat in the closet. The intercom buzzed, and when he pressed the button, Michael’s voice said, “This is going to take both of us.”

Richie said, aloud, “Isn’t she due, like, last week? I can’t believe they came.” He knew that Michael could hear him. Ivy walked over and removed his hand from proximity to the intercom and said, “Why would you think that she wouldn’t rise to the challenge? Just because she, who once weighed a hundred pounds, now weighs a hundred and forty-eight?”

“Why are you so mean to her?”

“It’s a fact. She’s going crazy waiting. And I don’t think inviting them to supper, doing all the cooking and dishes, and giving them a way to twiddle their thumbs in public is mean.”

Richie wasn’t so sure about that when he got downstairs and discovered that, because their building didn’t have an elevator, he and Michael had to get Loretta up the steps. Michael, without seeming to find it strange, came up behind her and pushed, one hand on each cheek. Richie held her arm. It took a long time.

Loretta kept talking: “Don’t you think I’m in good shape? I feel absolutely fine. The doctor says he’s never really seen anyone sail through a pregnancy like this before. When I went to my appointment yesterday, he estimated at least eight pounds, and that must come from your side, because I weighed six and a half, and my cousins were all six to seven, too. Ungh! There!”

Ivy was standing in the open doorway, wooden spoon in her hand. She said, “Oh, darling. I hope this is worth it, but I did make all your favorite dishes.”

This turned out to be rib-eyes, baked potatoes, and broccoli. But, in fact, Richie wasn’t as interested in Loretta as he was in Michael, since Michael was being especially nice to Loretta, not teasing her, gazing at her fondly, saying “mmm-hmm” when she spoke. What this meant to Richie was that Michael probably had a girlfriend — he had always been nice as pie for about the first six weeks of any new relationship. Michael knew better than to confide in Richie, but Richie did not snitch any longer, even to Ivy. Knowing was enough. Richie thought of himself as “profiling” Michael.

Part of Michael’s profile these days was letting Loretta go on in detail about how they were going to raise their son. There were two larger parts: On a horse by the time he was a year old. (Didn’t they know there was a stable in Central Park? The horses went up and down in a freight elevator.) And the other part was structure. A child felt more secure with structure, a boy especially. Girls, you could be a little lazy; Loretta had seen that in her child-development classes, but boys, no meant no. She shifted position and let out an involuntary groan. Ivy said nothing as she placed the platter of steaks on the table. Richie said, “I can’t think of a single structure that either of us ever liked.”