Early Warning (26 page)

Joe and Lois arrived in the pickup with Annie and Jesse; Minnie followed, with Rosanna, who was carrying Lois's competition pie on her lap. Claire thought her mother looked terrible. She had not seemed to take the news of Tim's death very hard: How many chickens did they think she had killed in her day? What did they think it was like, finding her own husband, ten years younger than she was now, curled up under that damned Osage-orange tree? Death was a fact, and no one knew that better than an old lady on a farm. Why discuss it? But today she looked as if she had given up on her hair in the middle of putting it up, as if she had given up on her sweater in the middle of buttoning it, as if she had dabbed two spots of lipstick on her lips and given up on that. Claire kissed her and asked her how she was.

“Just getting old. Gout in my toe. My hip. What all.” She tossed her hand dismissively in the air. “The question is, how are you?” Claire suspected her mother thought she was too far along to show herself in public. She said, “I feel terrific, actually.” Dr. Sadler walked right up to them, held out his hand to Rosanna, and said, “I understand you're Claire's mom. I'm Martin Sadler. I'm pleased to meet you.” His smile was as big as could be. Rosanna put her hand on his arm and asked him if he was engaged or dating anyone.

Paul strapped Gray carefully into his expensive Maclaren baby stroller, tied his hat onto his head, then pulled his socks up and his overalls down. If one ray of sunshine got on the child's skin, Paul would take him inside. Paul refused absolutely to have a dog, and even though Claire was always saying that a boy needed a dog, it was she herself who needed the dog. But Paul's favorite words were “I don't think so.”

Annie had changed overnight—breasts (suddenly large ones), though not much of a waist. Jesse wore exactly what Joe wore, right down to the ill-fitting white shirt and the too-short khakis and the flattop. And he stayed right in Joe's shadow. When Dr. Sadler asked him what grade he was in, Jesse looked up at Joe before he answered. Lois, as always, looked as if she was minding her own business. She opened the door and received the pie before Minnie turned off the engine.

Claire's hand went to her own hair. She had sprouted thirty gray ones, all at the cowlick on the left side of her hairline, right up front for everyone to see. She was twenty-eight years old! It was very unjust, she thought. Paul ran the stroller right over her toes.

Lois said, “I'm going to check in to the Machine Shed. I'll meet you at the crafts,” so they followed Rosanna into the hall. Purple cable knit with long sleeves, regular Aran patterned vest, Fair Isle, hand-knitted Iowa Hawkeyes football jersey, including the number and the player's name, “Murphy.” After the knitwear, they wandered past the canned goods to the piles of fleece, then tomatoes, longest green bean, biggest onion, heaviest ear of sweet corn. Claire had a little exchange of hard stares with Paul about taking Gray among the livestock, but Claire won—Paul picked him up, and Claire folded the stroller and carried it. It was important not to stand up straight, not to ask for help, and not to pat your belly. There were breeds of hogs here that she would not have recognized without a sign—Old Spots, Mulefoot, Tamworth (these were red)—and cows (Red Poll, Randal Lineback, Belted Galloway). She liked the horses, which were mostly draft and ponies. Paul actually got interested in the chickens. Rosanna took hold of the sleeve of Dr. Sadler's jacket. “Goodness, we had those Chanticleers. Good birds. Smart. I always heard of those Dominiques, never saw one before. Who was that who had a whole flock of those red Russian Orloffs? Claire, do you remember? Those could stay out in any weather, but they weren't good layers. Chickens got us through the Depression. And cream!” Dr. Sadler continued to nod. Goats, sheep. Joe lingered at the sheep, his hand affectionately on Jesse's shoulder, pointing out the Southdowns, like the one he had brought to the fair—oh goodness, was it thirty-three years ago now? Emily, that ewe's name was. And then he met a girl named Emily, too.

The Southdowns were the prettiest, Claire thought. When Jesse asked for one, Joe said, “We'll see.” Which was better than “I don't think so.” Claire knew she was grumpy.

They came out onto the midway, and she felt a breeze. It was almost noon, quite pleasant—not even eighty, she would bet. Paul said, “We could have chickens. The backyard is big enough.” Quite typical of Paul to reject a dog out of hand, but get suddenly enthusiastic about chickens. Dr. Sadler and Rosanna were at the corn-dog
stand. Claire waddled away from Paul and joined them there. Dr. Sadler gave her a comfortable smile. She said, “You know the recipe for grilled corn?”

“I shudder to think,” said Dr. Sadler.

“Twelve ears of corn, a cup of melted butter, salt.”

Paul made her cook with margarine.

Rosanna held out her hand, and Dr. Sadler put the corn dog into it. Claire was beginning to feel a little jealous.

Paul insisted that they go to the replica of the first church ever built in Iowa. “Catholic!” exclaimed Rosanna. “Built in Dubuque.” She turned to Dr. Sadler. “Were you raised a Catholic, by any chance?”

Dr. Sadler shook his head, and Claire felt her ears get bigger, but he didn't say anything except “Nice woodworking.”

The pies, set out neatly on the display table, were judged at four. Claire thought Lois's did look delicious, but she came in second. After the judging, she went up to the judges and smiled and shook their hands and thanked them for judging. Claire thought that Lois was always excessively polite. You never knew what she was really thinking.

And so they forgot about Tim for eight hours, and Rosanna was, indeed, perked up. As for Claire, she was so exhausted she let Paul put Gray to bed, which he did with better grace than he had all summer. She was lying on her side, and she could feel the baby moving around; she imagined her (him) doing backflips. After Gray was down, Paul came into their room and sat on the edge of the bed, took Claire's hand, and pushed her bangs gently out of her face. He said, “That was a good idea, enjoying plant, animal, and human variety for a day. Let's do that every year.” He was patting her hand, and she fell asleep right there, deep as a well and twice as dark—who used to say that?

T
HEIR CHRISTMAS HAD BEEN
bittersweet. Debbie invited her boyfriend, an awkward kid but kind. He helped with the dishes, and he noticed things like rug corners turned up or stove burners left on. Lillian liked him. Tina had taken a class in printmaking and made their Christmas cards. After years of encouraging her because that's what a mother was supposed to do, Lillian had loved the cards Tina made, two sheep, a goat, and three chickens peering through a door into a shed, and the Star of Bethlehem shining above them. Dean brought home an early admission to Dartmouth, which everyone imagined to be surrounded by acres of smooth ice. Arthur seemed energetic and almost happy, and maybe only Lillian noticed that his hair was nearly all gray now. They hung Tim's favorite ornaments on the tree and drank to him at the table, and told a few of the funnier stories, just so the boyfriend would know that they had handled their loss.

Yes, when McNamara had turned in his resignation, Arthur was irritated watching it on the news, muttering, “Frank Wisner shot himself. What's stopping you, Mr. Secretary?,” then retreated to his office as he had so many times before. This was the first thing Lillian thought of when she found Arthur under the bed.

He was canny about it. Dean took swimming practice before school, and Tina liked to go in with him and study in the library, so
Lillian was up by six, making breakfast. She ironed Tina's blouse and found Dean a pair of socks, did the dishes, had a second cup of coffee. She thought Arthur had left—he said he was going to sneak out of the house early and not to worry about him. She even went in and out of the bedroom once, noticing only that the bed was made. When she was putting away her robe, she saw a wrinkle in the lower hem of the bedspread. First she touched the wrinkle; then she felt his shoe. There was no blood; he had no wounds, but he was out cold, and she knew he had done it at last. She threw the bedspread onto the floor and called an ambulance.

He was wearing trousers, a pressed shirt, a jacket, socks, and loafers. The ambulance people had to pull him out feet-first, which mussed his hair. One guy took the note out of Arthur's fist and handed it to her. She unfolded it. It read, “Don't call the office unless I'm dead.”

She said, “Is he—?,” shaking her head and starting to cry. As they rolled him onto the stretcher, the medic said, “Not yet.” She didn't call the office. She got into the back of the ambulance with him, and stared at him as they careened toward the hospital, maybe a twenty-minute trip. Every so often, the medic took his pulse and listened to his heart and nodded. Lillian herself kept her hand on his chest. His breathing was shallow, but he kept breathing. It was cold. The landscape was white and the sky was gray, and she knew that he had planned it and had intended to succeed. The unhappy ending, as far as Arthur Manning was concerned, was life.

When the doctor came to her in the waiting room, she was shivering in spite of still having her coat on, and she shook the whole time he talked. It was Seconal, was your husband suffering from insomnia, did he have a prescription for barbiturates, was he showing strange signs of drowsiness or disorientation, could he have fallen down and rolled under the bed. Lillian said, “Didn't they tell you about the note?”

“No. No note.” He licked his lips and said, “Has Mr. Manning been treated for depression, or manic-depressive illness? Has he shown—”

“Our son was killed in Vietnam.”

The doctor for the first time looked into her eyes, said, “I am sorry. May I ask—”

“Almost a year and a half ago.”

“Has your husband shown signs…”

It went on.

He was to stay in the hospital for three days, for observation. Lillian said, “May I see him?”

“It's going to take a couple of hours for him to wake up. I guess he'll be surprised to find himself here.”

“Very disappointed.”

“Oh, maybe not. Second thoughts—”

Lillian shook her head.

It wasn't until she was home to get the car that she threw the bedspread back onto the bed and saw the other note, the one written in a neat hand folded into Tina's Christmas card. It read:

Dear Lily Pons—

I am doing a bad thing to you, my darling. I know even more clearly than you do that this is the ultimate betrayal, and the only way on earth that I could or would betray you is exactly this way. But you know I've been waiting for the chance. You know I've been putting my affairs in order—not my financial affairs, but my domestic affairs. I have been waiting for each of you to recover somehow from Tim's death, and now we have reached the crossroads where everyone has a path to the future. I saw all the paths at Christmas. Even Debbie is in good hands. You are the only one. Why can't I take you with me? I ask myself that. And I ask myself that again, feeling you beside me in the night, feeling your hand in mine, hearing you breathe. But I can't do it, nor can I stay. Why is that? Because I literally and truly see no future. Blank. Empty. Nothing. At last. And I am glad of it. You are perfect. I love you.

Arthur

The first thing he asked her when she saw him in his room, and he was groggy when he asked it, was whether she had told anyone at the office. She said no, and it was true—she had not told anyone at the office. Who had she told? Minnie. She had to talk to someone; she had called the farthest-away person that she could think of, in her office at the high school, and cried to her for ten minutes. Minnie
might or might not tell Rosanna, but Minnie did want to tell Joe—Joe wouldn't say anything. Arthur swallowed several times, closed his eyes, and patted her hand as best he could. Finally, he said, “Well, I guess we'll soon find out once and for all.”

“What?” said Lillian.

“Whether the phone is tapped.”

It was.

Wilbur and Finn appeared after dinner. They took Lillian into the living room, turned on the lights, and offered her a drink from her own liquor cabinet. No, not even one sip of the Rémy Martin. Wilbur poured himself a Scotch and soda. Finn, a shot of crème de menthe over ice. Sheppard Pratt was where he would be going, up in Towson; men like Arthur had walked its halls for years; nervous breakdowns were part of the job, Arthur knew that. Arthur had always taken everything very seriously. That had its good and bad aspects. Electroshock was of course a possibility.

She told the children he was in the hospital with pneumonia. He would be fine; but, no, they couldn't go see him, it was too dangerous. She should have said something else, but Arthur hadn't told her what to say. The two doctors met her as soon as she arrived at Sheppard Pratt the next morning: Dr. Rockford, who was tall and impatient, and Dr. Kristal, who was younger, shorter, and more charming. What had Arthur been doing and saying for the last few months, for the last year, whatever stood out in her mind? Dr. Rockford sat to her left and Dr. Kristal sat to her right. Dr. Rockford would ask a question: Has Mr. Manning shown signs of depression? And then Dr. Kristal would translate it: Did he seem to have a disrupted sleep pattern? Was he eating sufficiently and with enjoyment? Had his drinking habits changed? In half an hour they had elicited most of what she remembered about Arthur staring out the window of his office, about Arthur wandering the house, about Arthur pushing his food around his plate. Yes, he did drink a little, still, but he'd stopped drinking as much as he had been.

Then it was on to his history—the death of his first wife and child in childbirth, his proposal to Lillian not a year after that, the immediate pregnancy, his “manic” (Dr. Rockford's word) reaction to fatherhood, his “excessive sexual importunities” (Dr. Kristal). His habits
of secrecy. “He has to keep secrets,” said Lillian. “That's part of his job.” They both nodded. Finally, feeling that she had been led step by step into this but not knowing any way out, she told the story of his mother, the death of the older sister in the flu epidemic, the hanging. Dr. Kristal wrote industriously on his clipboard, and Dr. Rockford nodded as if he had expected as much. Lillian at once had the sensation that there was nothing about her marriage or Arthur that was at all unusual or admirable. Everything she cherished was, if not a symptom of pathology, then an item of utter triviality. She fell silent.

Well, they would keep him up there for a few months. The staff was highly competent and extremely effective; she would be amazed at the change; best she not visit very often, if at all; a whole new scene, a whole, in some sense, reassessment of oneself, of life itself; in many cases, the effects were amazing, even when the condition was chronic, as it seemed to be in this case. Utter privacy worked wonders, no television or newspapers, concentration on the here and now.

Then they took her to Arthur's room. He had been given something. When he took Lillian's hand, he did so from deep inside a pharmaceutical distance. Dr. Rockford explained what would be done, in no way asking permission or seeking agreement. Arthur stared at the ceiling, and Lillian signed the papers that Dr. Kristal set before her. When she had finished and handed back the pen, he whispered in her ear, “Just wait! He'll be a new man! These things are always hard!” She kissed Arthur on the lips. As she drove home, she wondered if he would ever forgive her.

—

IT DIDN
'
T TAKE LONG
for Charlie to make out the thing on his chest in the mirror. It was a piece of paper with writing on it, which read:

It was pinned to his shirt with two large safety pins. He could not go outside without this piece of paper. Every day, Mommy knelt
down beside him several times and said, “Stay with me, Charlie. You know what that means. Right beside me. And if I call your name, I expect you to answer.” Charlie nodded and said yes, that he would stay with Mommy, that he would answer to the sound of his name, that he would not ever run away again so that the police had to be called and find him after dark and bring him home. The police were tall and wore blue and did not like looking for lost children.