Tidings. William Wharton

I turn off the heater anyway. With the fire blazing away, we’re almost up to twenty. Lor’s dressed. She dumps her water into the sink, wipes out the bowl, puts the bowl and pitcher on the dresser.

      ‘Dearest? I wish Ben would wash in the morning. He’s beginning to smell like a dog kennel from playing with all those dogs in the village. That, combined with his own smell, it’s enough to turn anybody’s stomach.

      ‘I snuck in new socks last night. It was one of the times you got up and went to the toilet. What’d you do, take a diuretic and your Valium? Is it that bad?’

      ‘Not really, just getting ready for the onslaught; bracing myself, packing in reserves of passivity, nonresistance, paternal permissiveness, mellowness, coolness. I’m okay. What’re we having for breakfast?’

      ‘How about pancakes? I have syrup already made and there’s Roland’s honey. How’s that sound?’

      ‘Great. I’ll straighten things up and sweep while you’re whipping them together.’

      I’m tempted right here to reveal the Christmas waffle iron. Waffles would be great this morning. I roll up Ben’s sleeping bag and spread it at the bottom of our bed. I haul his mattress up the stairs and tuck it in his old toy corner out in the upper grange. I come back and fold his cot, store it under the stairs going up to where the girls will sleep. I guess I should wait for Ben to come back. He always puts his bed away, carefully, slowly, but I’d like things cleared away for breakfast.

      Actually, the stairs are more a ship’s ladder than a staircase and not so sturdy at that, but they’ve lasted almost fifteen years now.

      I built the first step two feet off the floor so Ben couldn’t climb up it when he was little. I’ve been meaning for the last seven years to put in this missing step but never have. It’s little things like that I tend to let get by, or maybe it’s because putting in that step will be one more proof we don’t have a baby any more, aren’t going to have any, any more.

      The grandchildren thing doesn’t look so hot either; both Mike and Nicole say they’re not going to have kids and Maggie seems in the process of terminating the father of the one she does have. I’m not about to wait for Ben to come through; although he’s physically precocious in his sexual development, he doesn’t show much interest at the functional level. The things young girls do to attract young boys all seem silly to him. He told me once he’d really like having an interesting girl to talk with but the girls at school are only boy crazy.

      ‘They aren’t dumb, Dad, they just act that way.’

      Could be in his genes. Maybe we’ll have a sequel, ‘Son of the Vanishing Man’. This is one of Nicole’s inventions that caught on. She claims I’m really invisible sometimes, that when things get tough, I turn off my mind and vanish inside myself. She could be right. I don’t know.

      But I’d probably better nail in that missing step anyway; the girls would appreciate it since they’ll be sleeping up there.

      Lately, I’ve been trying to work out some semantic progression through all the steps, conditions, below satisfaction. Right now it goes something like: acceptance, tolerance, accommodation, acquiescence, resignation, resentment, surrender, revolt. I’ve been practicing, trying to figure out just where I am.

      I’m not sure that last one belongs there, but building that step on the stairs fits pretty well with accommodation or maybe acquiescence. I do actually have to build the step, find the wood, nails, hammer, saw; cut the wood, fit it, hammer it in place. Accommodation. Yes, we have accommodations. Or, ‘No, we have no accommodations, you may sleep in the stable.’

      I find our broom and start sweeping over by the firewood corner to the right of the fireplace. Loretta’s pouring pancakes on the griddle, the smell of them fills the room. She talks to me over her shoulder.

      ‘Dear, could you hold off sweeping until after breakfast?’

      ‘Honest, Lor, I promise I’ll just take little six-inch strokes; I won’t raise any dust at all. Promise. Besides, Maggie’s even worse than you are about dust; if I don’t get it done now, we’ll be walking around in dust up to our ankles before they leave.’

      ‘Peg, dear; remember it’s Peg. You know how upset she gets. Anyway I don’t think she’ll stay more than three or four days at most. She’s always hated the mill.’

      Lor turns over the pancakes, puts syrup and butter on the table. I continue sweeping with mini-strokes trying to keep the dust down. I sweep off the front of the millstone in front of the fireplace, sweep up my first pile, throw it into the fire.

      Ben comes down the steps from the toilet, his pajamas carefully folded. He goes over and tucks them under his sleeping bag.

      ‘Oh boy, pancakes. That’s one of the best things I like about the mill, we always have time for a real breakfast.’

      He stops, pauses.

      ‘Thanks for putting away my bed, Dad. I would have done it though.’

      He goes to the dish closet and pulls out dishes to set the table.

      ‘Ben, dear, I’ve got the dishes there warming on the heater. Be careful you don’t burn yourself.’

      Lor pushes another batch of pancakes into the oven to stay hot. Ben fastidiously lifts the dishes off the heater, spreads them on the table each to our accustomed spot, me facing the fireplace, Loretta on the side with best access to the kitchen, Ben, his back to the fireplace. I wonder how it will work out when the other three arrive. I can take any place and Lor can move over a place to make room, but Ben will be immutable.

      Generally he doesn’t even like to eat with other people; says it’s hard to concentrate on the taste of the food, and he doesn’t like the sounds of people chewing, swallowing, banging forks and spoons against their teeth.

      Normally, on non-school days, Ben finishes two or three books a day. I say finishes because he’s often reading four to five books at a time, something like Nero Wolfe. He told me once he likes to be reading one funny book such as Mad or Mash, one violence book like an Executioner series or MacDonald, one science fiction and one serious book, a technical book on airplanes, or automobiles or geology, botany, anything. He’s also usually reading or rereading one of the perhaps five-hundred old National Geographic magazines we have stacked around the mill, or the apartment. Oh yes, I forgot, he’s also a dedicated reader of the wonderful French hardcover comic books, bandes dessinées, Tin Tin, Astérix and Obélix, Lucky Luke. He says that’s where he really learned French, not at school. I believe it. Ben’s one of those wonderful people who doesn’t need school. He’s a natural learner-thinker.

      But he does generally accommodate and share meals at the same table with Lor and me. We accommodate, too. I’ve learned to eat the way I’ve learned to sweep; small, short, inconspicuous bites and swallows. Actually the food does taste better that way and I don’t eat so much. I can be a real gulper if I’m not careful, and it is amazing how many times a fork bangs against the teeth if one doesn’t make an effort.

      Then, also, Loretta and I are great chatterers during a meal and Ben’s made us very self-conscious about speaking with food in our mouths. Tucking it over to the side, hamsterlike, is out. I must say, all the careful chewing, swallowing, mouth clearing, slows down conversation; but then, it’ll probably keep our digestive systems functioning properly a little while longer.

      I look out the window at a car going past. It’s still incredibly beautiful, blue sky – white, icy trees drawn against the heavens. Except for the cold, the girls certainly can’t complain about the weather, not today anyhow. I notice Loretta looking out the window, too. We’re both nervous. Even if they started at eight in the morning, which is well within the range of the impossible, and drove the entire trip in only three hours, which is within the range of the possible, but not in that old Ford, not if it’s driven by anyone with two cents worth of common sense. But then, the friend might be driving, so who knows.