Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
"Sesame."
"Buckle your high chair first."
"Sesame."
"It's coming on right now. See? They're thanking viewers likeyou, so just buckle."
"Cheerios."
"I've got 'em. Can I buckle you?"
"No!"
"Then you buckle."
"I buckle."
"Good. Great. Good job. Here's your breakfast."
"Potty."
Ben's shoulders slumped. Negotiating with Molly was as taxingas dealing with his suppliers and customers. More taxing, actually.Adult rules remained constant, but Molly's changed from week toweek.
He slid the high-chair tray out, squeezed open the plasticbuckle, and lifted his daughter out. In the kitchen, he pulled downher pajama bottoms and eased her onto the blue-and-white pottystool. She immediately produced great quantities of fluid. Thismoment was still a miracle to him, for she was only a month outof diapers. The transition had been sloppy, and just when he andSusan were concluding that they had rushed her, Molly turned acorner and entered the sunny valley of sphincter control. It hadgone faster than he remembered for his other daughters, insofaras he could remember anything about their early development.Molly didn't even wear a diaper at night now. In the crib, herunconscious would scream at her for ten hours to hold it! Then,on rising, she might dawdle for an hour before saluting the newday. She, at two and a half, had a stronger bladder than he, atforty-four.
"Wipe in front," Ben said.
She took the toilet paper he had given her and pressed itagainst the side of one buttock. "Here?"
"No. Wipe in front."
She switched hands and pressed the paper against her otherbuttock."Here?"
"No. In front."
Back to the first buttock. "Here?" This was her great dawncomic routine.
"Shall I do it?"
She immediately wiped in front, rose, and pulled up her pajamabottoms. Ben put her back in the high chair and stood in her lineof sight to the TV. She buckled. He gave her a fresh helping ofcereal, then rinsed out her potty bowl in the toilet.
Now, with luck, he could eat his breakfast and read the paper.He grabbed a box of Just Right from the pantry shelf. From thefeel of it, there was enough for only one serving. He put it backand searched the shelves, rejecting the several boxes of Chexcereals because Ralston was too big in town already. He finallysettled down at the table with a bowlful of Shredded Wheat. Aftertwo bites he looked down. It had been years since he had eatenShredded Wheat. It was like chewing a bird's nest. He imaginedtiny beaks poking up from it. Who invented this stuff? How in thehell had it been a success?
Karen, their fourth-grader, came into the kitchen, dropped herbackpack on the floor, put an English muffin into the toaster, andasked where the funnies were. By this time, Ben was deep in an"Ask the Doctor" column, trying to determine if the tendonitisdescribed there was what shot through his right elbow every timehe picked Molly up. The funnies were in the section of the paperhe was reading, but he gave it to Karen and told himself he wouldreturn to the column later.
"Can we get a bunny?" she asked.
"No."
"I'd take care of it."
"You have a hamster."
"Yeah, and I take good care of him. I'd take good care of thebunny, too."
"No."
In his experience, no one could take care of a bunny. Theywere effluent machines. He remembered how Andrea's bunnyhad nipped his knuckles whenever he changed the soggynewspaper in its cage. He remembered the sound of the pelletsdropping onto the fresh paper before he was halfway up thebasement stairs.
Karen abandoned the subject, mainly because Pam, roundingthe corner from the bottom of the stairs, tripped over her backpackand snapped at her. Molly, drawn to all discord, shoutednonsense from the den.
"Every morning," Pam complained. "Every morning I trip overthat butt-ugly backpack."
"So you should have learned by now," Karen said coolly. Shetook a dainty bite of her English muffin.
Pam poured Just Right into a bowl and left the empty box onthe counter instead of throwing it away. She sat down acrossfrom her father. When she saw that Karen had the funnies, shewrithed in protest. "Every time," she said. Without looking at herfather, she said, "Can I sleep over at Jennifer's tonight?"
Ben couldn't think of a good reason to say no. "What else doyou have planned?"
"Why?" Pam snapped. "Don't you trust me?"
Karen made a noise in her throat that could have been causedby a fragment of muffin. Pam ignored it.
"Just remember the new rules," Ben said.
"Yeah, yeah."
Pam and her tight circle of five eighth-grade friends had latelyredefined "sleepover" in bold new terms—so bold that theparents of the circle had had to meet on a recent Saturdaymorning to establish rules. Ben was the only man there. After toomany cups of coffee and far too many anecdotes from thewomen about their own teen years, they hammered out this code:one sleepover per weekend, on Fridays only (Saturday sleepoversleft the kids still groggy on Monday); no getting into a car unless aparent was the driver; no staying out past midnight; no sneakingout of the house after curfew and roaming from one end ofAberdeen to the other; and no male visitors dropping in throughbasement windows or old coal chutes.
For every stipulation there had been a violation, each catchingBen slack-jawed. His innocence had confounded him. Shouldn'the, with an older daughter—a senior, now coming quietly into thekitchen—have known this was possible? But Andrea had neverhad sleepovers patterned after Mardi Gras. She had never mixedScotch and grape Kool-Aid over the laundry room sink. She hadnever run wild with older boys late at night on the grounds ofConcordia Seminary. Instead, Ben remembered quietvisits by demure friends, one or two at a time, with a few gigglesand, at worst, spilled hot chocolate. Andrea had long black hairand a narrow, almost gaunt face. He watched her taking herlarge vitamins and wished she smiled more.
Molly shouted in the den, but she was just interacting with theTV, well ahead of the new entertainment curve. Andrea joinedthem at the table, and Karen looked up from the funnies.
"What was your bunny's name?" she said.
"Alfred."
"What happened to him?"
"Dad made me give him to a day-care center." Andreareached for the front section of the paper and gave him a look.
The truth was worse than she knew. Alfred had died in transit.Ben's surprise had been monumental as he had opened the vangate and beheld the bunny, immobile, lying on his side on freshnewspaper he had managed to soil on this, his ultimate journey.Andrea was sitting in the front seat. She was in seventh grade atthe time and had agreed to the donation without much of a battle.Biting his lip, Ben asked her if she had said good-bye. She saidyes, but she said it again, over her shoulder. "Good-bye, Alfred."She could see only the top of the cage. Ben scooped the cage up,shielding the corpse from her view with his body, and took it tothe entrance, luckily situated around the corner of the cinderblockbuilding. Here he faced a new challenge. The day-care centerwas open, the eager kiddies inside. He could hardly go forwardwith the transfer of ownership he had so carefully set up. He keptwalking to the rear of the building, where, with a "Good night,sweet prince," he heaved the entire load into an open Dumpster.He lurked there for an appropriate interval, then returned to thevan with a full report on the apple-cheeked joy of the youngsters.
He looked across the table at Andrea. She had checked out,as she often did. Her face was flooded with emotion from a privateworld. He felt a shock of worry for the way she was turning out.The odd thing was, he didn't know how she was turning out.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked, determined to get tothe bottom of her.
Her face cleared. "I smelled ammonia when I walked by achem class yesterday. It made me sad and I couldn't figure outwhy. Now I know. It reminded me of Alfred—the ammonia inhis pee." She looked closely at her father. "Hey, I agreed to givehim away. I wasn't enjoying him anymore. All he did was scratchme."
Ben managed a smile. "How are the essays coming?"
Andrea shrugged. "I'm done with Amherst's. Mrs. Sloak islooking at my Swarthmore one. That leaves five. One of them isa bunch of large theories about life that we have to deal with. Ihate that. The one for Bryn Mawr has to be about some womanI admire—someone I know."
"Do Roberta," Pam mumbled over her cereal. Karen laughed.Ben gave them his frowning smile—his standard expression forthe many occasions when they were bad but funny. Roberta wasyet another female in Ben's life—his secretary, as painfully loyalas she was excruciatingly asexual. She had been with him fromthe beginning, from the day eighteen years ago when he hadsurveyed the St. Louis economy and declared, "What thismetropolitan area needs is a nut dealer." Roberta had just beguna promising career in the lower rungs of middle management atSouthwestern Bell when she dropped into Ben's lap, anorientation destined to remain figurative for two reasons: Ben'snearly unblemished loyalty to Susan and, sufficient all by itself,Roberta's personality, which Andrea once labeled"extraterrestrial."
When he hired Roberta, Ben was less nervous about her socialskills than he was about her aspirations. Why was she willing toshift down to an executive secretary position? As it turned out,she proved to be perfect, an under-salaried partner in essence.He tried to make up the monetary inequity with bonuses and surprisevacations (she traveled abroad frequently with a female cousinliving in Indianapolis), and also more personally, with frequentinvitations to join the family for dinner, where her behaviorprovoked deep wonder. Roberta's speech was blandly polite,becoming peppy only when she produced folksy cliches that gaveBen the feeling she was much older than he, when in fact shewas younger. ("Dancing in the hog trough" was one of herfavorites; Ben had no idea what it meant.) And Robertaresponded to speech with an unnatural delay. Ben had watchedeach of his children be frustrated by this quirk into puzzledsilence, and he had explained it to them afterward, so that theywouldn't blame themselves.
"So," Ben said, "sounds like seven applications now."
"Yeah," said Andrea. "Another fee. Sorry."
"That's all right. What school have you added?"
"Williams. I'm obsessed with New England lately. Probablybecause of the play."
Ben nodded, though his understanding was imperfect. Andreawas directing a student production of Our Town, scheduled foran early December performance. He had thought it was set inKansas.
Karen looked up from the funnies with a peaceful smile. "Ilove Calvin," she said. Andrea gave Ben a small smile, a parent'ssmile, as if they were both raising her.
Pam shoved her chair back, gathered some of her dishes, andcarried them to the sink. She went to the drawer where Ben kepthis wallet. "I need twenty dollars," she said—not to him, but tothe world in which she was forced to dwell.
"Ooh," said Karen. "That reminds me. I need a check. Pictureday."
"It's on the counter," said Ben. "It's stapled to the form." Helooked at Pam. "What's the twenty dollars for?"
"Jennifer's birthday."
"I can't contribute twenty dollars for all your friends on theirbirthdays. I just can't."
"It's not for all my friends. I never said it was for all myfriends. I said it was for Jennifer."
"I'm good for ten." This seemed both overgenerous and stingyto him.
Pam snatched a bill angrily from his wallet. "All you've got istwenties. I'll owe you." She slammed the drawer closed."Where's my brown sweater?"
Andrea said, "Mom brought some cleaning home yesterday.It's in the hall closet."
Pam left the kitchen and began thrashing in the nearby closet.Then she stomped up the stairs. Ben expected to hear thejet-engine roar of her hair dryer next. Instead, her shoes clompedon the bare wooden steps going up to the third floor study. Susanwas about to be interrupted.
Susan wrote books for children. She had published one bookfive years earlier—a "young adult" novel for readers twelve andup, but not too far up. It was a strikingly quiet event—two orthree reviews, small sales, and no apparent impact on the youthof today. Since then she had written two rejected manuscripts forthat same age group. Her failure, which she acknowledged moreopenly than Ben ever would have, had led to some changes in herwriting.
First, her current manuscript, whose subject she kept secretfrom Ben so that he could be surprised when he read it (he had asecret too: he was growing increasingly nervous about reading it),would be for younger children, kids from eight to twelve. Second,she had studied several books about writing, and one of theseeffectively removed her from the breakfast table. The bookrecommended that the writer go directly from bed to deskbecause the writer freshly released from sleep was a pure writer, uncorruptedby humdrum reality—high-chair buckles, bunny grudges, and thelike. When Susan summarized the theory for Ben and said shewould like to try it, he agreed.
The regimen was about four months old now. Susan would slipout of bed every morning at five-thirty, go right to her study, andemerge three hours later wearing the dreamy smile of postcoitus.As for Ben, he looked back wistfully on the eighteen-year erawhen Susan rose ahead of him and did almost all of the morninglabor. And he couldn't help envying her for having work that wasfree of economic pressure. He bore sole financial responsibilityfor six people. He knew he wasn't alone in the world in thisregard, but sometimes, as a pure idea, it floored him.
In the den, Sesame Street's Eastern European enumerator wasgoing at it. Molly yelled "Count!" Karen, hunched over thefunnies, imitated the count's peculiar laugh.
Pam clomped back down the stairs and stormed the closetagain. "Oh, excellent!" she yelled. "Excellent!" Ben quietly notedthe wisdom of Susan's shift from writing books for and aboutpeople like Pam to writing books for and about people like Karen.
Andrea stood up and took her dishes to the sink, then went tohis wallet drawer. "You've got two fives here. Can I take themfor held hockey snacks?"
"Sure," said Ben. So Pam had lied. He would take it up withher later. As Andrea returned his thinning wallet to the drawer,he had a sudden fancy that his pockets were full of little birds,constantly flying out with a noisy flurry. Each flight made himflinch. But he would pat his pockets and think, "There are plentyof birds left."
"Ten minutes," Andrea announced. Karen automatically rose,reading the funnies, and continued to read them as she headed upthe stairs. Ben would have to learn about his possible tendonitislater. Andrea put all the dishes in the dishwasher and wiped thecounter clean. In the hall, she said to Pam, "Train leaves in tenminutes," to which Pam replied, "That's such a Dad sentence.What are you, an old man?"
Ben went into the den to check on Molly. She was watchingan old Kermit the Frog sketch. Sesame Street these days was amix of old and new skits. A rap song with quick cuts might befollowed by a gentle narrative he had watched with Andreafifteen years earlier—like this one, in which Kermit wasinterviewing Jack of Jack and Jill.
Ben wanted to call out to Andrea to see if she rememberedthe skit. It might bring a rare smile to her face. He would askKaren, too, and he might even ask Pam, just to see if she wascapable of speech that didn't flame from her mouth. But the girlswere in a hurry. He heard their footsteps in the front hall, two ofthe three called out good-bye to him and Molly, the front doorclosed, and they were off to their three separate schools. In thesudden quiet, the house seemed to settle a bit.
Molly was almost done with her cereal, so Ben stood up tomake her some toast. One of her rules was one course at a timeon her tray. He was itching to get to work. He listened at thebottom of the stairs for a sign that Susan might be wrapping it up.As second best, he grabbed the wall phone and punched thebuttons that would take him to his voice mail. Roberta often leftmessages there on the days he left work before she did, as hehad done yesterday. There was one brief message about a cablefrom India.
Ben smiled. The cable would be from Nathan Ravindranathan,cashew processor par excellence. Ben had gotten his name fromthe International Tree-Nut Dealers Directory and had sent himthree identical letters, figuring at least one would reach himdespite India's notorious mail system. The cable was a good sign.A bit old-fashioned, but Ben was used to that in his dealings withthird-world suppliers. Ben was on a quest for a cheap cashew,inspired by the comparative bulk prices in the local supermarket:cashews, $5.99 per pound; peanuts, $2.39 per pound. Betweenthose extremes was a land waiting for him to plant his flag.People loved cashews. The kidney-shaped nuggets were like adrug. Ben believed with strange certainty that some untried routeexisted, some undiscovered passage that would bring acost-effective, quality cashew to America. The route would beginon the Indian subcontinent, perhaps with Nathan Ravindranathan.
He spied Karen's picture-day check and form, forgotten on thecounter. He would drop them off on his way to work. He didn'tmind. Karen might see him in the hall, and she would say, "Hey,Dad, what's up? It's weird seeing you here." As he imagined this,he realized with a pang of loss that he was basing the little dramaon an actual moment with Pam in grade school. If he showed upin Pam's middle school now, she would spit on the floor.
Susan came down the stairs and into the kitchen.
"Pam interrupt you?"
"No," she said spacily. Her eyes hadn't yet come to rest onanything. "I mean yes, but I was done. I had a good morning."
"Good."
"I moved some stuff from one chapter to another, and then Itook part of what I moved and moved it back to its originalchapter."
"Uh-huh."
"It changed everything."
"Good."
Susan stared out the window over the sink. These commentswere typical of her daily report. Ben had no idea what the hellshe was talking about.
"Roberta won't be here for dinner," he said.
Those words brought Susan back into the world. "What is that,the third turndown? Does she have a life all of a sudden?"
"I hope not," said Ben. "I like her the way she is."
Susan smiled vaguely. "I need to take a shower. Ten moreminutes?"
Ben agreed, though Susan's "ten" meant twenty. Heremembered why he had come into the kitchen and put a slice ofbread in the toaster. When it popped out with a clatter, Mollyautomatically yelled, "Toast!"
"That's right."
"Toast!"
"Coming at you."
As he lightly buttered the slice, Ben thought of the picturebook he had read to Molly the night before. To her surprise, hehad read it twice, but the second time was really for himself. In ita kind-faced farmer dressed in overalls rocked his baby to sleepon the front porch. (The farmer's wife was already asleepupstairs.) Once the baby had fallen asleep, the farmer held hisdog in his arms and rocked it. Then he rocked his hen, his sheep,and his pig. With farm equipment he rocked his cow and hishorse. He rocked the whole farm to sleep. He worked hard, thisfarmer, tending every creature.
Traces
By IDA FINK
Translated by PHILIP BOEHM AND FRANCINE PROSE
Henry Holt and Company
Copyright © 1997 Ida Fink.All rights reserved.
TAILER
