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“So, okay, you’re telling me you just found yourself out in a rainstorm, looking down into a hole.”
“Well, it wasn’t a rainstorm anymore. The rain had stopped. But otherwise, yes, that’s it exactly. And I was in my nightgown and slippers, and I didn’t have my house key. Well, why should I? Usually, that lock is set on manual. Oh, I despise an automatic lock! It must have been your father’s doing; he’s always going around fiddling with things. And then naturally he couldn’t hear me when I called; he was sound asleep by then, and you can see how deaf he’s grown. I called, I knocked … I couldn’t ring the doorbell, of course, because the power was out, and anyhow he doesn’t hear the doorbell most of the time. I even tried throwing pebbles at our bedroom windows, but that doesn’t work as well in real life as it does in books. So finally I thought, well, I would just settle in the hammock and wait till morning. It wasn’t so bad, really. It was kind of nice. All the lights were out, the streetlights and people’s house lights, and the only sounds were the leaves dripping and the tree frogs peeping. I curled up in the hammock and went to sleep, and in the morning when I woke it was still too early for your dad to be up, so I figured I’d walk down the block a ways to see the damage. The whole neighborhood was a disaster zone, De
De
“But it’s no reason to call in the nursemaids.”
“No, it doesn’t sound like it,” De
“Oh, good.”
“It sounds more like, say, a confluence of circumstances outside of your control. I can certainly relate to that.”
“So you agree that none of you needs to be here,” Abby said. “Not that I don’t love having you, of course, each and every one of you. But I certainly don’t need you.”
“Why didn’t you tell Stem all this?”
“Stem? Well, I did. I tried to. I tried to tell everyone.”
“Why don’t you ask him to leave? Why ask me and not him?”
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m not asking you to leave. I hope you’ll stay as long as you like. I’m just saying I don’t need a babysitter. You understand that. Stem just … doesn’t. He’s more on your father’s wavelength, you know? He and Dad put their heads together sometimes and develop these notions, you know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” De
But then just as Abby was sitting back in her seat with an expression of relief, her forehead finally losing its tightness, he said, “Same old same old,” and stood up and walked out of the kitchen.
It was a piece of bad luck that one of Abby’s orphans showed up for Sunday lunch. Atta, her name was, and some complicated last name — a recent immigrant in her late fifties or so, overweight and putty-ski
“Khello” was how she pronounced it, and “have” sounded like “khev.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Abby said. She was descending the stairs behind Stem, both of them carrying stacks of papers they were hoping to find space for in the sunroom. “Atta, isn’t it? Why, how nice to …”
She turned to pile her papers on top of Stem’s, and then she opened the screen door for Atta. “I am early?” Atta asked as she clomped in. “I think not. You said twelve thirty.”
“No, of course not. We’re just … This is my son Stem,” Abby said. “Atta’s new to Baltimore, Stem, and she doesn’t know a soul yet. I met her at the supermarket.”
“How do you do,” Stem said. He wasn’t able to shake hands, but he nodded at Atta over his armload of papers. “Excuse me; I’ll just go set these down someplace.”
“Come and have a seat,” Abby told Atta. “Did you have any trouble finding us?”
“Of course not. But you did say twelve thirty.”
“Yes?” Abby said uncertainly. Maybe the problem was her outfit; she was wearing a sleeveless blouse with a chain of safety pins dangling from the tip of one breast, and wide aqua pants that stopped just below the knee. “We’re pretty informal here,” she said. “We tend not to dress up much. Oh, here’s my husband! Red, this is Atta. She’s come to have Sunday lunch with us.”
“How do you do,” Red said, shaking hands. In his other hand he carried a screwdriver. He’d been fiddling with the cable box again.
“I do not eat red meat,” Atta told him in a loud, flat voice.
“Oh, no?”
“In my own country I eat meat, but here they put hormones.” (“Khormones.”)
“Huh,” Red said.
“Sit down, both of you,” Abby told them, and then, as Stem re-emerged from the sunroom, “Stem, sit down and keep Atta company while I go see to lunch.”
Stem sent her a look of distress, but Abby gave him a brilliant smile and left the room.
In the kitchen, Nora stood at the counter slicing tomatoes. “What am I going to do?” Abby asked her. “We have an unexpected guest for lunch and she doesn’t eat red meat.”
Without turning, Nora said, “How about some of that tuna salad Douglas got at the grocery?”
“Oh, good idea. Where’s De
“He’s playing catch with the boys.”
Abby went to the screen door and looked out. In the backyard, Sammy was chasing a missed ball while De
In the living room, Atta was telling Red and Stem what was wrong with Americans. “They act extremely warm and open,” she said, “extremely hello-Atta-how-are-you, but then, nothing. I have not one friend here.”
“Oh, now,” Red said, “I’m sure you’ll have friends by and by.”
“I think I will not,” she said.
Stem asked, “Will you be joining a church?”
“No.”
“Because Nora, my wife, she belongs to a church, and they’ve got a whole committee just to welcome new arrivals.”
“I will not be joining a church,” Atta said.
A silence fell. Red finally said, “I didn’t quite catch that last bit.”
Stem and Atta looked at him, but neither spoke.
“Here we are!” Abby caroled, breezing in with a tray. She set it on the coffee table. “Who’d like a glass of iced tea?”
“Oh, thanks, hon,” Red said in a heartfelt way.
“Has Atta been telling you about her family? She has the most unusual family.”
“Yes,” Atta said, “my family was exceptional. Everybody envied us.” She plucked a packet of NutraSweet from a bowl and held it close to her eyes, her lips twitching slightly as she read the fine print. She replaced the packet in the bowl. “We came from a distinguished line of scientists on both sides, and we had many intellectual discussions. Other people wished they could be members.”
“Isn’t that unusual?” Abby said, beaming.
Red sank lower in his chair.
At lunch, there was such a crowd that the grandchildren had to eat in the kitchen — all but Amanda’s Elise, age fourteen, who considered herself an adult. Twelve people sat in the dining room: Red and Abby, their four children and the children’s three spouses, Elise, Atta, and Mrs. Angell, Jea