Susanna came in from the kitchen, followed by Christine, who struck a posture in the doorway, tapped her chest with her fist, and burped discreetly. “Oh, Grandmother, delicious! I outdid myelf. I even outdid Susanna, didn’t I? She had three scoops, I had four.” Susanna groaned.

  Ike said, “Remember when Abel and I used to sit down with a five-pound box of chocolates and finish them before bed?”

  “Grandpa! Did you really?”

  “Sure! Whitman’s Sampler we’d always get. Abel liked the creams and I liked the nougats. Of course, if your grandmother got there first, there’d be holes in all the bottoms where she’d stuck her thumb to see what they were. Had to have all the caramel centers, or we’d never hear the end to it. She’s got a sweet tooth!” Ike dislodged his false teeth and pushed them out of his mouth in a picket-fence grin, then drew them back in. Christine and Susanna laughed, Helen and Claire smiled.

  Anna said, “Now, Daddy, you never ate five pounds in a night, that’s for sure.”

  Nelson, who had fallen asleep in the kitchen, came to the dining room doorway and yawned vigorously. “Nelson!” exclaimed Christine. “Are you a good dog?” Nelson wagged his tail and barked once. She squatted down beside him, saying, “Pleased to meet you!” Nelson gave her his paw. “What brings you to our fair city?” Nelson barked twice. She went on in an elaborately solicitous tone, “Ah, poor Nelson had a hard day, didn’t he?” Nelson’s paws crept forward until he was down, then he flopped over onto his side and closed his eyes. Christine cooed, “Night-night, Nelson. Sleep tight.” Ike laughed. In a moment Christine jumped up, “Morning, Nelson! Breakfast time!” Nelson jumped to his feet, then carefully sat back on his haunches and began to lift his front legs. He lost his balance immediately. “Good try, doggy, okay!” said Christine. Nelson wagged his tail and went to the front door, where he lay down.

  “Very good!” cried Helen. “I had no idea you’d taught him all that! He’s very smart, isn’t he?”

  “Todd did most of it, but I taught him to bark when I ask him if he’s a good dog. I don’t like the begging, frankly, but Todd’s been trying really hard to teach him to get his balance.”

  Anna glanced over at Ike. His head was back on the chair, and he had closed his eyes. He’d been up for nearly an hour, and not a quiet hour. He looked at it. “Daddy?” She leaned over and poked him on the knee. “I think you should go back upstairs.” It alarmed her, how long he took in rousing himself. In a moment he had apparently fallen asleep, and now he was drowsy and disoriented. He looked toward her, mumbling that he was fine, but his eyelids fluttered and white shone beneath them. “Come on!” She stood up, Claire and Christine got up to help her. She hoped that they hadn’t seen the look he gave her. The weakness in it gave her something of a turn.

  “We’ll do it, Mother,” said Claire. “You lead the way.”

  When Ike was seated on the bed in his musty, messy bedroom, Anna sent the others away, for she was newly conscious of the smell and she suddenly didn’t want either of them associating it with Ike. Though each had visited him in this room without a second thought, the smell seemed to close in when he was weak and tired like this, to reinforce his age and underline the distance he had fallen from good health. It was a dusty smell, still benign, still not rotten. But the potential was there, was everywhere in the house. She vowed to open all the windows tomorrow, cold or no cold. Ike lifted his feet one by one. She removed his slippers and pulled off his thin Banlon socks. He sat, docile. She unbuttoned his shirt and slipped the cuffs over his speckled hands, pulled the sleeves down over his arms. Underneath, he still wore his pajama top. The sight of its tiny red-and-black print saddened her. It seemed like a person with more hope would have removed one to don the other. And now the pants. Anna took a deep breath. When had she ever been comfortable removing his pants? Girls of her time, girls who left their mothers at eighteen, weren’t expected to be comfortable with a man’s pants, either button fly, as they’d been in the first years of her marriage, or zipped fly, as they were now. And yet, how could it be that now, past seventy, she still fumbled at the fastening, not because it was familiar but because it was momentous. Even now anything could happen once the belt was unbuckled and the zipper opened. Ike began to sink back against the pillows that propped him day and night, made it easier for his heart to go than to stop. The zipper disclosed further pajamas. Relieved, Anna grew businesslike, though she panted with the effort of lifting his pelvis and sliding the trousers beneath it. And then they were on the floor. Anna flopped down in the chair and took several deep breaths. Ike had fallen asleep. His sheets would have to be changed tomorrow, and his blankets ought to be washed as well. Anna sighed. The girls were right in most ways—this illness of Ike’s was literally at the limits of her strength. It was difficult for her to move his bed, difficult for her to carry trays up and endless laundry down. A big strong nurse, preferably European and not an English speaker, would be a great help. Even the footsteps of someone who could only work and not hold conversations would wreak a transformation, though, and it was unthinkable that this room, her room, the bathroom, and the hallway, a space that had closed about them like a cocoon or a beaver lodge since Ike’s first heart attack, should become public domain. It would be like sleeping outdoors.

  Ike groaned and scowled in his sleep, no doubt because the light shone in his eyes. Anna tugged the covers from beneath him and spread them over his legs; then she switched out the offending lamp. Ike turned toward the wall and his pillow, knocking the book he had been reading off the bed. At the noise of its fall he said, “Mother!” but when she answered, he had already gone back to sleep. Since the hospital he had taken to calling her in the same automatic way that babies cry out as soon as they awaken, or as soon as they feel the least discomfort or fear. She had not thought in the old days, when he ignored every illness and growled at every incapacity, that he would ever get this way.

  She looked down upon her daughters from the staircase and knew something had changed in her absence. Christine and Susanna were petting Nelson, Claire had turned on the television and was flipping the channels, Helen had picked up another magazine, this one a Good Housekeeping. Clearly, though, the primary occupation of each of them was thought. Helen’s abstraction, in particular, was rigid as a clenched fist. “I got him to bed, for now,” said Anna.

  “Will he sleep through the night, Grandma?”

  “We’ll see.” She settled into her chair. They would tell her soon enough. And soon enough they began to look at one another, to shift about where they were sitting or standing. Nelson whined. “Later!” snapped Christine, getting up and brushing her hands on her jeans, then flopping into her grandfather’s chair. Susanna sat down on the piano bench, opened the piano, struck a note, and closed it again. Claire turned off the television with a decided click and put herself next to Helen on the couch. Helen cleared her throat and coughed to show that she wasn’t about to say anything, that her throat really did need clearing.

  “Grandma,” said Christine. Nelson introduced his muzzle between her hand and her leg. She scratched his head, then rubbed the knuckle of her index finger on the bridge of his nose. She went on at last. “I just told Mom that, uh, Todd and I have decided that things aren’t right, and we’re going to get a divorce.” Helen coughed again.

  “Well, Christine!” Anna answered. “Is that your news?” Christine nodded. “And here I thought—” But she stopped herself.

  When Anna headed for the kitchen to begin on the supper dishes, Christine, and inevitably Nelson, followed her. Anna said nothing except, “The dish towels are in the middle drawer now.” She was annoyed. Susanna had stacked everything helter skelter on the kitchen table, leaving knives and forks between plates, and serving spoons adrift in congealed butter and cold potatoes. A napkin had been thrown onto the pork chop platter and its cotton threads had soaked up much of the grease. “I swear!” exclaimed Anna. Christine began disentangling silverware with an air of apology, as if the mess were her fault. Anna ran the water steaming into the sink. After all these years of housework, she could stand it much hotter than anyone else she knew, and she had gotten particular about having it as hot as possible, especially with Ike ill. “But germs don’t cause heart attacks!” expostulated Claire. Anna didn’t care in the least. Having an invalid in the house meant striving vigorously after cleanliness wherever and whenever possible, otherwise illness might become entrenched.

  “Grandma, don’t you need rubber gloves?” exclaimed Christine, when her fingers touched the water.

  “With these claws?” Anna waved a hand. “Pure horn, honey, pure horn.”

  They’d gotten through plates and glasses before Christine broached the topic. There had been no discussion of Christine’s news after Anna’s response. Ostensibly, the decision was made, and everyone knew everyone else’s feelings in the matter. What need for discussion? It was apparent to Anna, though, that Christine wanted to talk and that Helen wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of doing so. The girl sputtered even more than she had the first time. Finally, she said, “Mom’s pretty mad, I think.”

  “I don’t know if anger is what she feels, Christine. You had a large wedding, and we were all very hopeful that you had made the right choice.”

  “Nobody ever liked Todd really, did they?” Although Christine paused belligerently for an answer, Anna made none. “I don’t see why not! He’s very smart, and he’s funny, once he gets to know you, and he’s very kind as well. I tried to tell Mom that he’s shy, not standoffish, but she always thinks that if someone can’t make small talk, they must be a boob.”

  “If he’s so terrific, then why are you divorcing?”

  “I didn’t say he was terrific! I said he wasn’t a bad choice. He was a good choice.”

  “Then why are you divorcing?”

  “Well, maybe because he’s not terrific! Maybe because I’m not terrific! I don’t know!”

  Anna continued to wash, swirling soapy water around in the measuring cups, then the coffee cups, then the ice cream bowls.

  “Grandma?”

  “Hmm.”

  “You stayed with Grandfather all these years. Do you think worse of me because I can’t do the same with Todd?”

  Anna submerged a cookpot in the now greasy water. “Your grandfather and I had your mother before the first year was out, and your aunt Claire at the end of the second. It doesn’t seem to me like we paid all that much attention to one another. Your great uncle Abel owned the ranch with us, you know, and he was there all the time. When we moved back here, there was my sister for a long time. All along people were all over the place, especially in Wyoming. Hands and hired men.” She paused. “I don’t think life with your grandfather was what I expected. For one thing, the day after we got married, I had to wash every dish and pot on the place, just to make breakfast. Those men hadn’t touched a plate to water in four months. It wasn’t like that at my mama’s, I can tell you. Anyway, so much happened so fast, and there was so much to do, I couldn’t even remember what I’d expected after a while. I’m not saying that’s good.”

  “But will you think less of me?”

  “Life with your grandfather wasn’t all that easy. I don’t think you can expect a marriage to be easy.”

  “I don’t, but I want to be happy.” Christine spoke softly, her face red, her manner chastened.

  “I don’t know, Christine.”

  “Will you think less of me?”

  Anna did not answer.

  With a sigh Christine finally said, “Tell me about life on the ranch, Grandma.” She took a handful of silver and began to wipe the utensils one by one.

  “I cooked all the time. That was life on the ranch. Bread and pie and steak and chicken, day in day out.”

  “Did you raise your own chickens?”

  “Of course, and your grandfather was too squeamish to slaughter any. If ever we were having chicken and he wasn’t out in the fields or looking after the livestock, he’d hide so I wouldn’t ask him to kill me a chicken.”

  “Do chickens run around with their heads cut off?”

  “They squirm a little. Only one that I killed ever took any steps.”

  “Couldn’t he stand the sight of blood?”

  “I don’t know. He’d slaughter a hog or a steer. It was something about chickens. He didn’t like to go into the coop. It was pretty slippery and smelly in there. Abel would do it sometimes, though.”

  “What else was it like?”

  “There was always laundry to do. Mrs. Dawson from the next ranch would come do it with me sometimes, especially after your mother and your aunt Claire were born. She had a little boy, Patrick his name was. I didn’t mind laundry especially. I liked being outside. The sunlight would be pouring down, and the sheets would shine and snap in the breeze. After we’d finished the laundry, we’d take the babies up in the meadow above the house and sit them down in the wildflowers. We’d talk about what we’d done before coming to Sheridan, and look down at the lines and lines of sheets. It was almost blinding. Your mother and Patrick would walk all over and then kind of sink down and fall asleep in their tracks. It smelled real good, like the beginning of the world.”

  “It sounds idyllic.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Your grandfather used to go into town whenever he could and play on the baseball team. Every town had some kind of team in those days, and your grandfather was nuts for it. He was good, too. He was always leading the team in hits or runs or some such thing. He ran fast and had great big shoulders, and he’d swing at anything. One summer he led the team in hits and in strikeouts. That was the year before we had a car. Anyway, we’d make a bed in the back of the wagon for your mother, and Claire, and pack a big picnic, and go down to Sheridan for the game, or even over the mountains to Basin, and sometimes your grandfather would take the train to Buffalo or Billings. We’d meet everybody, and the game would be played, and then we’d eat and eat. You’ve never seen so much food as was brought to those baseball games. We didn’t get home before dawn, but I think that’s when I liked the ranch best, coming up the road and watching the sun hit the tips of the cottonwoods, making the leaves look like they were their own lights, then turning the trunks silver, then falling over the house and the barn. All the angles looked so straight and true in the dawn sunlight. Ike used to tell me to imagine we were all inside, and that strangers, ourselves, were passing on the road, and he’d say, ‘Don’t you wish we were us?’ ”

  “It sounds wonderful!”

  “It’s just stories, Chrissy. The light was pretty, though.”

  Anna let the water out of the sink and wiped her hands on her apron. Christine put the last pot in the cabinet beside the stove, and Nelson, sensing a change in activity, stood up and went to the back door, whining. “Nelson’s going to burst,” said Christine. She got her coat from the back hall and let herself out into the damp air. Anna could hear her voice, muffled, shouting, “Come on Nel! Run! Nelson!” Her daughters would be expecting her to come make her report. Their discussion could be heard from the living room, clattering like a Ping-Pong tournament. It was not adventures of the ranch that Anna had intended to talk about, but it was hard to seize the conversation when you didn’t know what you wanted to say.

  “Did she talk about it?” demanded Helen, as soon as she saw Anna.

  “She asked about the ranch.”

  “The ranch! What about Todd? Is she serious about this?”

  “She said we should have liked Todd more.”

  “I like Todd fine for someone who’s impossible to get along with.”

  “She says he’s shy.”

  “That’s what she’s always said. I don’t believe in ‘shy.’ People with good manners are pleasant company. That’s what manners are for.”

  “Quote unquote, Isaac Robison,” observed Claire.

  “Anyway,” continued Helen, “has she decided to divorce Todd because he can’t keep up his end of the conversation? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

  “Obviously she doesn’t know what in the world she’s doing, Helen,” said Claire. “What twenty-three-year-old ever does? I’m sure it will all pass.”

  “I think she’s serious,” offered Susanna. “Maybe he’s stepping out on her.”

  “Oh, come on,” replied Helen, “that stick in the mud?”

  “Every law firm has secretaries.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!”

  “Don’t ‘Oh for Pete’s sake’ me, Helen. I bet every man in my real estate office has been unfaithful to his wife, and if he hasn’t it’s only for want of a chance.”

  “All I can say,” said Claire, “is that when I was in college I went out with a boy once who asked me if I thought most of the girls on campus were virgins. After I said that I did, he said that he always asked that question because the girls who said yes always were and the ones who said no always weren’t.”

  “So what does that prove? I’ve worked with these men for more than ten years now, and I’ve played golf with most of them. I should think I would know something about their habits.”

  “Nonetheless,” put in Helen, “here we’re talking about Todd, who’s twenty-seven, not forty, and who’s married to a perfectly attractive, vibrant, intelligent girl.”

  “And nobody eats out when dinner’s best at home? Well, I think you’ve got your head in a pillowcase, Helen, but I doubt if we’ll ever find out.”

  After a moment Claire announced, “She ought to go back to him anyway. He’s her husband. It’s that simple.”

  Helen scowled. “Everything’s simple to you, Claire.”

  Claire lifted her chin to reply, but the door crunched and opened with a protest from the weather stripping. Nelson bounded through, his curly coat dewy. “Grandma,” panted Christine. “You should see. It’s like wet laundry everywhere. It’s wonderful! The neighborhood looks incredibly exotic, and my voice sounds like I’m shouting into drapes or something.” It was easy now for Anna to see that Christine’s manner had been overexcited all evening long. Her voice had been too pleadingly elated, her hands had fluttered too frequently about her face. She had goaded Nelson into a small frenzy, so that now the dog trotted restively from room to room, pushing his nose at objects he normally wouldn’t have noticed. When she ordered him to come to her, her tone of voice excited him further, so that he bounded in from the dining room and knocked a glass off the coffee table into the wooden leg of the couch. The glass broke. Christine was upon the fragments in a flash, apologizing frantically. Nelson pressed in to see what was going on. Finally, she turned on him, screaming, “No! Go away! Lie down! Bad dog! Bad, bad, bad dog!” Nelson dropped, put his nose between his paws, and in the ensuing silence, Christine picked up the shards with elaborate care.