Universal Harvester(28)

3

There weren’t any preschools in Crescent just yet. Mothers who worked in Omaha or Council Bluffs found places near work to drop their kids off during the day; there were churches and private schools, all sorts of choices. But mothers who stayed in Crescent during the day had to fend for themselves. Many of them had grown up there and been friends since childhood; they made room in their web for Irene, the engine of simple social obligation humming along at its audible Midwestern frequency. Everyone was nice to Irene, and she felt welcomed, though it’s one thing to feel welcome and another to feel like you belong. Irene struggled with this in the privacy of her heart, and worried sometimes that the others would somehow detect it.

To make errands easier, they all traded afternoons on Fridays; Sharon Lumley’s mother would come get Lisa one week and walk both girls down the street to the Lumley house, where they were usually joined by either Gail Ehlers or Liz Gunderson. The following week all three might go instead to the Ehlers place, and the next to the Samples. The rotation gave rhythm to the increasingly busy routine of motherhood. More than three children at once was too much, they all agreed, so each week one girl stayed home with her mother; every kitchen had a calendar with off days marked in red. Particular arrangements as to who played where varied from week to week, a preventive measure against bickering.

It was April 20, 1972: Lisa’s day home. She grew a little taller every day; she ate constantly—“like a boy,” her father said. There was a big day ahead. She was working early with her mother in the garden behind the house: they grew beans for canning, and carrots and zucchini, and kept a small raised bed of marigolds for color. Lisa’s favorite color was yellow. Fridays out in the backyard before it got too hot were magical; Lisa would rake the dirt and poke at it with her finger, her mother working while long stretches passed with no conversation, just the mellow ease of shared time.

But the garden was also a practical concern. Peter’d lost seniority when he moved to Tama; now the owners at the stockyard were reducing several positions to part-time, saying they couldn’t afford to stay in Nebraska unless they contained costs. So he worked Monday through Thursday and didn’t complain, but on Fridays Irene stayed out of his way. Being home and idle on a weekday made him irritable. Left to himself, he might work on small projects that kept his hands busy and left him feeling satisfied by the end of the day, but if Lisa and her friends were running around he found it hard to focus.

Trips into Omaha were rarer now. But summer would be coming soon, and Lisa needed new clothes; Irene could sew dresses, but shoes were another matter. All the other kids had sandals: she knew because Lisa had told her so. It was important that her daughter not be made to stand out from the others.

It’s said that you don’t retain many memories from before you turn five, but years later Lisa remembered. She was sure of it. She’d played in the garden early that morning, and later they rode into town, just the two of them. It was a Friday, her turn to be home with her mother.

*

Lisa’s small hand tightened suddenly around Irene’s index and middle fingers: she had spotted the Astro Theater across the street. Its marquee was framed by incandescent bulbs. She’d been to the movies only once in her young life, to a children’s matinee at the same theater one Saturday last year; the whole family had come. For a whole week afterwards it was all she’d talked about. Even the dolls in her dollhouse had taken up the theme: “Where did you go today?” one doll would ask another. “Oh, we just went to see a movie,” the other would reply, pouring imaginary tea from a tiny teapot.

“Mommy!” she cried; Irene smiled. “Mommy” represented the heavy artillery. She was “Mom” when the circumstances were less urgent.

“Oh, Lisa,” said Irene. “I don’t know if we have time.” But it was only a little past noon; she was stalling while she ran a few calculations in her head. They’d eaten cheese sandwiches from a sack lunch on a bench in the library’s courtyard; she’d found good clothes for girls on the discount rack at Brandeis & Sons. The sandals she’d had to pay full price for, but even then she’d come in well under budget. Lisa pulled with both hands at her mother’s wrist, dragging her toward the crosswalk.

The recessed entryway to the Astro shone like a cave mouth, glowing with the promise of hidden treasure. Lisa’s face lit up in reverent wonder. Irene thought it might be all right to sit in a comfortable seat for a few hours instead of walking around downtown; her feet were tired. There was a woman in a brown dress standing on the sidewalk in front of the theater. As they approached the entryway, Lisa took off at a sprint, unable to resist all the colorful movie posters housed in shining glass. She pointed at one, arm outstretched. “It’s cartoons!” she said.

It was Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks. “This one might be for bigger kids,” said Irene, her eyes scanning the five-by-seven lobby cards that framed the poster—a magician with his hands above his head, fire shooting from white-gloved fingertips; a headless ghost floating across a room, trailed by a hat in midair and two disembodied legs walking by themselves; and a strange family portrait, showing three human actors flanked by cartoon animals—two grinning vultures, a bear in a sailor suit, and a lion with a golden crown on its head.

“I’m almost five,” Lisa said.

“Four and a half,” Irene corrected her.