A Thousand Acres_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [29]
We got along well with her. She was as agreeable as she had been as a child. She made good grades, conceived large ambitions, and went off as we had planned, no farm wife, or even a farmer, but something brighter and sharper and more promising. Sometimes, without thinking, she would marvel at us, saying, “Lord! Why didn’t either of you ever leave? I can’t believe you never had any other plans!” Such remarks would annoy Rose no end, but I liked them. They showed how well and seamlessly we had adhered to our principles.
I made up my mind to call her after I dropped Rose at her house, but when I drove past Daddy’s, his pickup was parked in the driveway, and I could see him through the front window, sitting bolt upright in his La-Z-Boy, staring out. There was something about this sight that drove all other thoughts out of my mind. I was too cowardly to turn right around and investigate, but when I got to our place a minute or so later, I couldn’t bring myself to get out of the car. I could see the headline in the Pike Weekly News—LOCAL FARMER SUCCUMBS IN LIVING ROOM. If Rose had asked me, not what I had the most trouble with, but what my worst habit was, I would have said it was entertaining thoughts of disaster.
I got out of the car and shut the door, then opened it, got back in, and drove down the road. Through the window I could see that he was still sitting upright in his chair, but I couldn’t help thinking that that could be the arms holding him. I saw him lift his hand to his chin. I turned into the driveway relieved, surprised, another near miss averted. When I walked in the door, he said, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“You drove by, and then you drove back for something.”
“I drove back to see what you were doing.”
“I was reading a magazine.”
There were no magazines near his chair, or on the table beside him.
“I was looking out the window.”
“That’s fine.”
“You bet it’s fine.”
“Do you need anything?”
“I had some dinner. I warmed it up in that microwave oven.”
“Good.”
“It gets colder faster if you warm it up that way. My dinner was stone cold before I was finished eating it.”
“I’ve never heard that before.”
“Well, it’s a fact.”
“I took Rose to the doctor today.”
He shifted in his chair. I followed his gaze and saw Ty cultivating far off to the west. In the silence I could just hear the roar of the John Deere reduced to a rough buzz by distance. My father said, “She okay?”
“Yeah, she is. The doctor was pleased about everything.”
“Something happens to her, and those kids of hers will be stuck.”
My father had a way of making unanswerable remarks. Was he intending to show disapproval of Pete? Of my qualifications to step in and raise them? Or was he reflecting on our history since the death of my mother? On his opinion of Rose’s primary responsibilities? Or was this some sort of general reflection on animal breeding? Ty would have said that he meant that he would be stuck, we would be stuck, but he didn’t dare to say it. Sometimes I thought it was naive of us to attribute softer sentiments to my father. I said, “She’s good. We don’t have to worry.”
“We don’t have to worry about that. There’s plenty to worry about.”
“Well, yes, of course.”
I looked around for some bit of housework to do, to make my return seem as routine as possible. One thing about my habit of expecting the worst was that it embarrassed me; I didn’t want people to suspect I’d imagined that they had died. But apart from cooking, clothes washing, and major housecleaning, my father needed little help with his domestic routine.