Life Among the Savages (23 page)

“Is what for you?”

“The present. Downstairs, in the hall.”

“No,” I said, “it was for me. These curtains.”

“Can I have them?”

“No.”

“
You
can't come to
my
house.”

At four-thirty precisely Jannie arrived home, trotted up the front walk, opened the door, and fell over the box in the hall. “Who put this here for me to trip over?” she asked indignantly.

“Mommy's junk came in it,” Laurie said. I was by now in the study, inquiring if my husband would like a cocktail before dinner. He said no, he was working on an article about a woman with second sight, and he wanted to keep his own head clear. I went into the kitchen and halfheartedly began to take potatoes out of the bag. Jannie came into the kitchen and asked if she and Laurie and Sally might play with the big box in the hall, and I said yes, if they were quiet, because Daddy was working.

Nearly ten minutes later, after a good deal of giggling and screaming and two trips outside the study by my husband, once to the hallway to say to the children that if they could not keep quiet their mother would send them all to their rooms and once to the kitchen door to say to me that he could not work on the woman with second sight so long as those children were making so much noise, Laurie suddenly appeared in the kitchen and said delightedly, “Another present came, a real
birthday
present.”

Wearily, having been half-expecting it, I put down the paring knife and followed Laurie through the study into the hall. My husband looked up as we passed and said, “This is a study, not a thoroughfare.”

In the hall was the same big box, full of something which giggled and kicked around considerably. Laurie and Jannie watched pleasurably while I carefully opened the box, and when Sally popped out everyone screamed with surprise and hilarity. “I don't want
this
present,” I said agreeably, “Tell the mailman to take it back.” Everyone laughed again, and I went back to the kitchen.

Two minutes later Laurie reappeared in the kitchen. “
Another
present came,” he announced.

Since I could not think of any good reason for persisting pig-headedly in my dinner preparations, I put down the paring knife and followed him through the study into the hall. “This is a study, not a thoroughfare,” my husband said as we went through.

In the hall Sally and Laurie stood tensely while I opened the box and found Jannie. “I don't want
this
present at all,” I said. “Tell the mailman to take this one along with the other.” Everyone laughed.

I went back into the kitchen and in another minute Jannie and Sally came in to me. “Another present,” Jannie said, and Sally added, “It's got
Laurie
in it
now
.”

“This is a study, not a thoroughfare,” my husband said as we all went past.

I opened the box, found Laurie, everyone laughed, and I said, “I don't want
this
present, either; tell the mailman to take them all back.”

I went back into the kitchen and took up the paring knife again, feeling mildly complacent over my participation in the children's harmless games. There was a short, murmurous moment in the hall, and then the study door from the hall opened and my husband said, “This is a study, not a thoroughfare.” Then a great deal of whispering went on in the study, and finally my husband said, “All right, but just once.” After that there was much suppressed giggling from the hall.

I was opening the oven door when Laurie, Jannie, and Sally came into the kitchen. “
Another
—” Laurie began, and then, “What's
that?
”

“I read about it in a magazine,” I said shyly. “It's got tunafish and whipped cream and potatoes and chopped olives and black bean soup and sweet pickles and all sorts of good things.”

“I don't like it,” said Sally at once.

“Well,” Laurie said compromisingly, “what's for dessert?”

“Canned peaches,” I said. “You see, I spent all afternoon with those curtains and—”

“Tunafish?” said Jannie. “Please may I have some without tunafish?”

“I believe I'll make myself a peanut butter sandwich while I'm waiting,” Laurie said.

“Girls, you can start setting the table,” I said. “Jannie, cups and glasses. Sally, table mats and silver.”

“
I
want to do glasses,” Sally said at once.

“Don't forget the salt and pepper. Casserole, bread, salad, peaches.” I scowled indecisively at the oven door. “What would happen,” I asked Jannie, “if I put in tomato sauce?”

“It would be even worse,” Jannie said cheerfully.

“Clean towels,” I said. “I'll be right down; Laurie, you wash your hands before you touch that bread.”

I went out of the kitchen and through the study and through the hall and up the stairs, found the clean towels and brought them down again. “Supper in about five minutes,” I said as I went through the study; “Supper in about five minutes,” I said as I went past the dining room, “Supper in about five minutes,” I said as I came into the kitchen. “Laurie, start telling Dad supper is ready.”

Laurie went into the study and came back. “Not there,” he said.

“He probably went to wash,” Jannie said.

“Salt and pepper,” I said, surveying the table. Jannie had set everything left-handed, as usual.

“
I
washed,” Sally said, coming out of the bathroom. I glanced beyond her to the clean towel I had just hung on the rack, and sighed. “Laurie and Jannie, wash,” I said. “Dad ought to be down in a minute.”

“Seems like there was something I meant to tell you,” Laurie said, taking his place at the table with his peanut butter sandwich.

“You call those hands clean?”

“I said I didn't
like
this,” Jannie said, looking into her plate.

“Seems like it was something about Dad,” Laurie said.

 

 

 

NINKI HAD FOUR black and white kittens on December fifth. Their eyes opened, they began to tumble delightfully together on the kitchen floor, and Ninki, svelte and lively, got back to her mouse-hunting. I continued to come downstairs each morning step by step, holding on to the bannister. The morning the first snow fell I came into the kitchen where Jannie and Sally were eating oatmeal at the yellow table, and Elsie, a nice girl whom I had hired to stay with us until the first of the year, was cheerfully spreading mustard on Laurie's lunch sandwiches.

“Good morning,” Elsie said brightly. “Still with us, I see?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Coffee?”

“Good morning, Mommy dear,” said Jannie, in the sweet voice which means she has decided to hold out on her oatmeal until ten minutes to nine, and Sally echoed, “Good morning, Mommy dear, dear morning, good Mommy.”

“Uh,” I said.

“Thought I heard the car go out last night,” Elsie said conversationally, “but then I thought you'd surely wake me if you were going.”

“I surely would,” I said.

“And how do you feel? Well?”

“I surely do,” I said. I took my coffee into the dining room and settled down with the morning paper. A woman in New York had had twins in a taxi. A woman in Ohio had just had her seventeenth child. A twelve-year-old girl in Mexico had given birth to a thirteen-pound boy. The lead article on the woman's page was about how to adjust the older child to the new baby. I finally found an account of an axe murder on page seventeen, and held my coffee cup up to my face to see if the steam might revive me.

“Laurie,” Elsie said at the back stairs, “ten minutes after eight.”

“I'm
coming,
” Laurie said. “Mommy still here?”

“She surely is,” Elsie said gaily. “Brush your teeth.”

I turned to the sports page.

Jannie's voice rose clearly from the kitchen. “When we get our baby brother,” she asked, “will he have his breakfast out here with us?”

“Oatmeal?” Sally added.

“He'll be very tiny,” Elsie told them, “and at first he'll spend all his time in the crib and he'll have all his meals from a bottle.”

“And I'm going to give him a bath,” Jannie said.

“And I'm going to give him some of my oatmeal,” Sally said.

“Let's ask Mommy when he's coming,” Jannie said.

“Never you mind,” Elsie said hastily “Finish that oatmeal.”

Laurie came crashing downstairs and I heard my husband's feet hit the floor beside the bed. “Good morning, Mommy,” Laurie called from the kitchen. “I was sure you'd be gone
today
.”

“Yeah.”

Laurie brought his tray in and set it on the table; he began to spoon sugar thoughtfully onto his oatmeal. “You know,” he said, “you don't suppose you won't go at all, do you?”

“I've thought of it,” I said.

Laurie began to laugh uproariously. “All those baby clothes,” he said.

“That's enough sugar,” I said. “Read the paper or something.”

Laurie took the sports section and propped it up against the coffee pot. “By the way,” he said suddenly, looking up from the paper, “the teacher asked me yesterday again what about my baby brother. She's going to sing ‘Happy Birthday to You' when it comes.”

“Tell her I've gone to Mexico,” I said.

My husband came downstairs at that moment, glanced at me with some surprise, and said, “Good morning, good morning.”

“Good morning, Dad,” Laurie said. “Mommy's still here.”

“Good morning,” my husband said in the kitchen to Elsie and the girls, and I could hear Elsie telling him that she had surely thought we would wake her if we left during the night.

My husband brought his tray in and set it down on the table.

“Coins from Hong-Kong should be here today,” Laurie told him.

“Ought to write that fellow,” my husband said vaguely.

“How do you figure about Mommy?” Laurie asked.

My husband looked searchingly at me. “Damned if
I
know,” he said.

I lifted my head from the steam of my coffee. “Look,” I said bitterly, “I could go stay in a hotel somewhere and write you when it's all over.”

“How do you feel?” my husband asked.

“Bah,” I said distinctly.

“So long as you don't have any
children
today,” Laurie said. “You got to pick me up at Cub Scouts at five.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No,” said my husband. “Tomorrow is the Numismatic Society and I didn't go the last time because I had a cold and I didn't go the time before because your mother was here and I'd hate to miss it
again
for a trifle.”

“And Sunday of course your aunt and uncle are coming,” I told my husband. “How about Monday?”

Elsie put her head around the corner of the kitchen door. “Monday morning I take my driving test,” she said, “so don't go before Monday afternoon. I can drive you. And then of course on Tuesday Jannie goes to Kathy's party.”

“Wednesday?”

“I
was
planning to visit my sister,” Elsie said. “You remember you said it would be all right, you said you would probably be back from the hospital by then and—”

“Is Thursday fairly clear for everybody?” I asked, my voice rising.

“Well,
Friday
,” Laurie said, worried, “Friday is Cub Scouts again.”

“Have the baby on my birthday,” Jannie called from the kitchen.

Jannie's birthday was ten months and some days off. “I'll try to make it,” I said.

Laurie laughed. “Mr. Feeley says if the baby's born before Tuesday he'll give you ten percent of his winnings.”

“What winnings?” I asked.

Laurie glanced, dismayed, at his father, and his father said elaborately, rising from his chair, “Want to take another look at those Roman coins, son?”

“
What
winnings?” I said insistently.

“Nothing to worry about,” my husband said. “Just something we were . . .” He thought. “Making for the baby,” he finished finally.

“A book,” Laurie added helpfully.

His father glanced at him with respect. “That's right,” he said, “a baby book.”

They headed for the study. “It
couldn't
be before Tuesday,” my husband was saying to Laurie, as one continuing a private discussion, “the law of probability ...”

“Ross told me in school yesterday he wants a dime on Christmas Day,” Laurie said.

“Tell him we'll give him thirty to one,” my husband said.

From the study I could hear my husband saying that Ross's money was as good as gone, and Laurie remarked that he thought he could count the teacher in for maybe even a quarter.

“I wouldn't like to see any more money go on Tuesday,” my husband remarked absently, “you can't count on her to figure the odds, you know.”

“Just like her to pick a day with no money in it,” Laurie confirmed. “Is this Nero, Dad?”

“It's the button from my jacket,” my husband said. “I meant to ask Jannie to sew it on.”

I lighted another cigarette and poured hot coffee into my cup; it did not seem worthwhile doing anything else. “Ten minutes of nine,” Elsie remarked in the kitchen.

With a great shout Sally slid off her chair and Jannie followed. “Come back here and finish this oatmeal,” Elsie said as they raced for the front door.