The Two-Family House(18)

“I’m not going to the hospital now, Helen. I’m not due for three weeks and the girls were all late! I’m going to have a nice, normal day and I’m not going to interrupt it with expensive long-distance phone calls and hospitals. I’ll be fine.” Helen had never seen Rose so adamant. She was afraid to contradict her.

At three-thirty the kids came home from school. Helen opened Rose’s front door and called to the boys to let them know she would be upstairs in a few minutes. The girls came inside, squealing when they saw the cinnamon cake on the counter. “Girls, your mother doesn’t feel well. You have to promise me that you’ll be good today. No whining and no crying. You need to help take care of her.”

“Yes, Aunt Helen,” they chorused.

Helen took Judith aside before she went upstairs. “If anything changes, come up and get me right away.”

Judith was worried. “You don’t think the baby is coming, do you?”

Helen tried to be reassuring. “Everything will be fine, honey. Your mother and I have had seven babies between the two of us. We know how to handle this. You don’t need to worry.”

Upstairs, a pile of schoolbags and books greeted Helen at the door. The younger boys were scavenging in the cabinets, looking for something to eat.

“We’re starving! There’s no food!”

“What about that bowl of apples right there?” She pointed to a yellow bowl on the table, full of Granny Smiths. “Where’s Harry?”

“In his room,” Sam told her. “He said he doesn’t feel good.”

“You boys start your homework. I’ll go check on him.”

“But, Mom! We want to go out in the snow first!” said Joe.

“Mrs. Connors said we’re going to have a blizzard!” said Sam.

“Nonsense,” Helen insisted. That was the last thing she wanted to hear. “You can go outside now but just for an hour. It’ll be dark by then and I want you all back home.”

“We will!”

“One hour. And put on your hats and your gloves. And your boots! It’s freezing out!”

The boys rushed to find everything they needed and ran outside. Helen went to go check on Harry.

She knocked on the door of the room that Harry shared with Sam. She pushed the door open to find Harry lying on his bed. His back was to her.

“Are you sleeping?”

“Nope.” Harry didn’t move.

“Are you sick?”

“Nope.”

Helen felt her frustration rise. She knew teenage boys weren’t much for conversation but the monosyllabic responses were getting on her nerves.

“Harry, what’s going on? You never lie down in the middle of the day.”

He must have shrugged his shoulders, but it was hard to tell because he was lying down. “I’m going to go start on dinner. If you want to talk, I’m in the kitchen. Your brothers are out in the snow, so nobody’s here except you and me.” She was closing the door when Harry sat up.

“Susan broke up with me,” he said. “She didn’t even say why or anything. She just came over to me at the end of school with all her girlfriends and said she had to tell me something. After she told me, that new kid Robert took her books and she walked home with him. It was like they had the whole thing planned out. I felt like an idiot.” He flung his head back on the pillow.

“Are you upset because Susan isn’t your girlfriend anymore or because you feel like she made a fool of you?”

“Both. I hate how she got to decide what would happen. And I had no choice.”

“Oh honey, I’m sorry.” There were so many things Helen wanted to tell him then, things she didn’t know how to explain. Like how you couldn’t always be in control of your life and how so many things just happened, whether you wanted them to or not. She remembered feeling that way when her mother had died. There were no choices then either, except for what dress to wear to the funeral.

It wasn’t just tragedy that stripped you of control, Helen wanted to explain. It was the good things too. For one, you couldn’t choose who to fall in love with. Before Abe, there had been a wealthy young man from Connecticut she had met at a dance one summer, the cousin of a close family friend. He was handsome and rich, and Helen’s father said that if she married him, her life would be easy. She knew her father was partly right, and she wanted to like the young man. But no matter what she told herself, she came home from every date lonelier than the one before. When he proposed six weeks later, Helen said no, even though the diamond he offered was ten times the size of the one she wore now. She thought of Rose downstairs, knitting baby blankets, and knew it would be the same for both of them when the babies came: you couldn’t choose your children either, no matter how much wishing or knitting you were capable of.

*

When the phone rang, it was close to five. The boys were just returning, dripping melting snow from their coats and gloves. A trail of icy droplets followed them from the front door to the hall closet.

Helen felt better hearing Abe’s voice, but she wasn’t sure how much to tell him.

“Everything is fine,” she said. But then she couldn’t help herself. “There’s a chance Rose may be having labor pains.”

“What!”

“She didn’t want me to tell you. It’s probably too early anyway. She’s not due for weeks. She doesn’t want you and Mort to rush home.”