A Thousand Acres_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [119]
Had there been no miscarriage, the baby would have been a week or two old now, a startling thought. I would have been eight months pregnant for the coming of Jess Clark, the ponderous focus of witty remarks during all our Monopoly games. A restraining influence would certainly have been exerted on me, on Ty, possibly on my father. With the future visible, growing, getting ready to present itself (assumed to be a boy until the last possible minute), it would have been unwise to question the past, a tempting of fate. There would have been no new buildings, because we would have taken a conservative fiscal line. We would have sought instead to present a different picture: five generations on the same land. In honor of my son, wouldn’t I warm enthusiastically to such a picture? All the other mothers of sons in Zebulon County did.
The fact was, in theory it was all still possible. If Jess were right and our well water was at fault, I could drink and cook with bottled water. And then there would be a grandson. Our neighbors who were now inflaming my father with phrases like “Some things just aren’t right,” would be saying, “Let bygones be bygones.”
Except our feelings stood around us like ramparts, and we could not unknow what we knew. For one thing, Ty clearly thought that some unacceptable true nature had been revealed in Rose and communicated to me. I was sure his real loyalties lay with Daddy, and I could readily envision him in long phone discussions with Caroline, uncomfortable, maybe, but dogged. I recoiled from telling him—the trust that would allow confidences had disappeared into formality. For another, there had been no sex between us of any kind since before the memory of my father had returned to me. Sex itself, which I had rarely if ever actually enjoyed, seemed now like it would be too close to those memories for comfort.
I thought about such things all afternoon, basting the turkey, peeling potatoes and carrots, snapping beans, icing the applesauce cake Rose had baked, putting a jug of sun tea in the deep freeze to cool. The men on the crew were polite. They thanked me for everything and called me “ma’am.” They made a lot of jokes at one another’s expense, and it came out at the table that Ty had been paying them triple time since Saturday morning. There were four of them. At a hundred dollars an hour for twelve hours for two days, that was $2400. I said mildly, “I thought the company pays you.” One of them said, “Well, normally they do, ma’am, but it was Ty’s idea to work this weekend, so he’s picking up the tab on that. I’d just be out drinking somewhere, so the extra cash is fine by me.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“We done a lot, too. You’ll probably get some back at the end from the company.”
Ty put down his fork. “We’ve got the time. It’s best to use it. The more we get done before harvest, the better off we’ll be.” He wouldn’t look at me.
After a moment, he went on, “You guys get your smokes or whatever. We’ve got four more hours of light today. Tomorrow you can go back on that vacation schedule the company’s been paying you for.”
“Yeah,” said the one. “Maybe I’ll get time to take a shower.”
“You are getting pretty ripe, Dawson. Phew!” shouted one of the others as they rumbled out. “Thanks for the supper, ma’am. At least you’re probably glad to see us go.”
I was sitting up in bed reading when Ty came in. I could hear him downstairs, getting himself a cup of coffee and another piece of cake. The chair scraped the kitchen linoleum