THE FARM AND THE 92nd Street Y were just an hour and a half apart by train, but Harry and Lily might have been separated by hundreds of miles, they saw each other so rarely. Though Harry tried to go home at least one weekend a month, the train was expensive and every minute away from the manuscript kept him that much longer from reaching the end.
As summer turned to fall, his urgency to get on with his work compelled him to sit at the desk for hours on end, immersing himself so completely that he almost forgot what day it was. Since he rarely remembered to eat, he lost fifteen pounds. The only thing that kept him going was gallons of black coffee from the Thermos always at his elbow. He smoked constantly, which cast a hovering gray pall over the room. His sleep was erratic, never more than four hours at a time, for even his nights were consumed by his ever-present obsession with the book.
He had just seated himself at the desk one morning when he heard a knock on his door. At first he thought he was imagining it. Who would be coming to visit? But there it was again, that knocking sound! Irritated, he stood up and abruptly flung it open.
There was Lily, surrounded by the children, who were smiling and chorusing, “Hello, Daddy!”
Suddenly, he was aware of an unmistakable feeling of resentment at their intrusion. Just as quickly, he attempted to smother it. What was wrong with him? This was his family! He looked at the five of them and forced a smile.
Then Melissa was in his arms, touching his cheek with her chubby fingers, and any remaining annoyance at the interruption vanished.
“God, I’m glad to see you, Lily!” he whispered, taking her in his arms.
Then Jeremy piped up. “Daddy, can we go skating in Central Park?”
Before he could respond, Randy interrupted. “No! I want to go see Cousin Randolph’s cars.”
“Cars! Who wants to see stupid old cars? I want to go skating.” Drew, as always, stubbornly supported Jeremy.
Lily quickly quieted them. “Randy, you know that we agreed to go skating.”
And skating they went, but not without vociferous complaints from Randy. He and Drew argued all the way to Central Park.
Harry had a throbbing headache as he led them into the rink. Good God, they had been here only ten minutes, and already they were grating on him. Had he and his brothers squabbled like this when they were little? He was sure they had not. His father and mother would never have stood for it. Why didn’t Lily do something? All she said was a gentle, “Children, children, behave. Be good.” To which the children paid absolutely no attention.
Randy skated next to Harry, but he felt a strange irritation to see Jeremy hanging back, clinging to Lily’s hand—she held Melissa on her free arm—while Drew skated confidently by.
But quickly he admonished himself. For God’s sake, they were only little boys.
Even on the ice, the boys remained irritable and unmanageable, and after an hour Harry had had enough. Perhaps lunch at the Automat would quiet them. Lily sat them down at a table and went to get a dollar’s worth of nickels. The mistake she made was to ask, “What would you like?”
“Peanut butter and jelly!” they chorused.
“They don’t have that, dears. How about ham, or cheese?”
“I don’t like ham,” Drew announced.
Randy added, “I don’t like cheese, either.”
Annoyed, Harry broke in, “Why don’t you just bring them whatever sandwiches there are?” He turned to the children. “You have to make do with what there is.”
Melissa stuck out her lower lip defiantly. “Won’t.”
Feeling as though things were degenerating, Harry turned and took away the catsup bottles she was playing with. “You’ll do as I say, Melissa!”
Pouting, the little girl cried, “Mama! Want Mama!”
“Harry, please don’t upset them.”
“Upset them?” Harry expostulated. “For God’s sake, Lily—can’t you exercise a little discipline?”
But the little gladiators had numbers on their side, and after a while Harry gave up. It was easier simply to tune out the cacophony.
After spending twenty-five dollars to have them all stay at the Lido Hotel overnight, he felt almost a sense of shame at his relief when he saw them off on Sunday. He couldn’t wait to get back to his script. Archie Sanger now brought more solace to him than did his family.
After that one weekend, Lily planned no more surprise visits. She realized it was easier to wait for Harry’s rare weekends at home. Her business was doing better and better and she spent most of the long winter evenings bent over her sewing machine. The first thaw had arrived by the time Harry called to tell her the novel was done.
Spring had come and gone and Harry hadn’t even noticed the buds on the trees. Gentle rains had given way to summer heat, and then to autumn chill. The first winter snow had fallen by the time he wrote, Finis. Harry bent over his typewriter and wept.
It was finished. Finished at last! Two thousand pages of it. He held it close to him, cradling it as though it were a living child. All that was missing now was Lily. Harry needed her to share this moment.
After drying his eyes, Harry fished in his pants pocket for a coin. He ran to the phone down the hall to call her. He didn’t pause for a second, even though it was four in the morning.
“Lily!” he all but screamed as he heard the receiver lift. “It’s finished! Can you believe it?”
“Oh my God!” she cried, instantly awake. Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks. “Harry, darling—that’s wonderful!”
“I’m coming home this morning on the first train. I can hardly wait.”
“Oh, Harry, neither can I.”
“And Lily—I love you. I don’t think you’ll ever know how much.”
After she hung up, she raised her eyes to heaven. It had been worth it. Every little hardship had been worth it, if only to hear the joy in Harry’s voice. He would be home by noon. His arrival was all she could think of. She couldn’t go back to sleep; instead, she dressed and began to straighten the house for his homecoming.
After breakfast she bundled the children up and sent them out to pick armloads of pine and holly.
Finally it was time to meet Daddy. Lily looked on as they assembled, their hair combed into place, their faces shining, wool caps over their ears and mufflers around their necks. Yesterday’s transgressions were forgotten. She turned to them, her heart bursting with joy and love.
“Now, I’m going to ask you to do me a big favor. When Daddy comes home, I want you to be very sweet and very polite—let him have a little time to get used to us again. He is going to work at home now, and during the day you will have to be as quiet as possible. We’re all going to have to cooperate. Is that a deal?”
They nodded their heads.
With the buckles on their galoshes jangling, they raced out and piled into the Model T, then drove away in a cloud of glory on the icy road. Lily thought her heart would stop as she saw Harry step down from the train. Even the children were forgotten for the moment as Lily and Harry ran to each other.
Harry dropped his suitcase and held her in his arms, kissing her passionately.
“It seems like an eternity,” he whispered huskily. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”
“It has been an eternity—I don’t want you to go away ever again.”
“I won’t ever leave you.”
It had been so many months since Harry had seen the children. God, how tall they had grown!
Gathering them to him, hugging them, he said, “I’m so happy to see you.”
They didn’t respond with quite the enthusiasm he had expected. Hadn’t they missed him? It bothered him for a moment, but then he thought, Well, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t go away from children for a year and a half and expect a rousing welcome when you come back.
Picking up Melissa, he kissed her. “You look beautiful, baby.”
“I’m not a baby,” she announced, frowning.
“You’re my baby.”
“No! I’m Mommy’s baby.”
He was slightly taken aback. Dammit, the children saw him as a stranger, an outsider. Could he ever make up for this lost time?
As they drove down the dirt road to the farm, snow began to drift down gently. The trees already seemed an enchanted forest. Harry saw the beauty of it all so clearly today, as he never had before.
Once they had slowed and halted before the house, Jeremy struggled with his father’s bag while Harry carried Melissa.
Looking up at the house, Harry stopped short, then broke into gales of laughter. Above the porch, the children had hung a large sign in multicolored block letters reading “WELCOME HOME DADDY.” They’d attached crepe-paper streamers for a festive touch. What a homecoming!
Blinking back the tears, he smiled at his sons, then at Melissa in his arms. He had almost forgotten how adorable she was. He could have taken a bite out of her rosy red-apple cheeks. How precious she looked with the snowflakes tangled in her eyelashes.
Later he sat in the living room while Lily went to get dinner on the table. The two older boys were looking at him expectantly.
Determined to be the father he had vowed to be, he asked Jeremy, “Tell me about school, son. You must be a fine reader by now.”
Jeremy looked at his father with mingled guilt and fear. He hated being asked that question. No matter how hard he tried, he was simply awful.
“I don’t read very well!” he said desperately.
“Oh, I don’t believe it. Why don’t you get your book and show me?”
Jeremy hesitated for a moment. Then, with dragging steps, he went into his bedroom and brought back his school primer.
“Come on, hop up in my lap,” urged Harry.
Haltingly Jeremy began, “S-s-”
“Oh, come on,” Harry prompted. “You must know that. See …”
Obediently, Jeremy repeated, “See. D-d—”
Impatiently, Harry finally said, “See Dick. Jeremy, that’s the first page, for goodness sake. Don’t you know that? What have they been teaching you in school?”
But the more he prodded Jeremy, the more nervous the little boy became. Even the words he recognized suddenly looked like gibberish to him, and he was acutely aware of his father’s exasperation.
“I just can’t do it, Daddy,” he finally said, bursting into tears.
“Of course you can—you’re in the second grade! You should be able to read this whole book by now. What’s wrong with you? Don’t you study?”
Wailing, Jeremy ran into his bedroom and slammed the door. Harry was dumbfounded. Jeremy was a bright boy. It was quite obvious that Lily had allowed him to drift into bad habits, but now that he was home, that was all going to change.
Harry marched to the bedroom and knocked briefly on the door, then went in to find his son facedown on the bed, weeping.
“Come on, Jeremy,” Harry said softly, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Stop that—you’re a big boy.”
Turning, Jeremy put his arms around his father and sobbed. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I do try hard.”
Homecoming was not a time for discipline. “Okay, son. But now that I’m home, we’re going to work on that reading of yours, and you’ll soon be going like a house afire. How about a piggyback ride?”
Jeremy managed a weak smile, but when they returned to the living room, the other children were very quiet. Secretly, Randy gloated at Jeremy’s discomfiture. Jeremy had always gotten most of the attention from Mommy—unless Drew was getting into trouble or Melissa was screaming—and now he felt that things were being evened up. With a child’s clarity, Randy realized that he was somehow overlooked, and he resented it furiously. Jeremy was a dummy—he’d heard the other kids calling him that. Why, he himself was already learning to read, and Drew had known how for a long time.
Drew, on the other hand, was angry and upset with his father for chastising Jeremy. Didn’t he know that his brother didn’t like to be yelled at? Jeremy did try to read. Drew wanted to punch his father and tell him, “Go back to New York.”
Meanwhile, as soon as Jeremy had begun to cry, Melissa had gone running to her mother, crying that she didn’t “yike” Daddy at all.
Harry was mystified. What had gone wrong? Lily came in now, saying, “Children, go wash your hands. Dinner is ready.” It was rather like a reprieve.
Harry carved the roast leg of lamb, and Drew passed the glazed carrots in the Blue Willow dish. Whatever unpleasantness had just transpired was past. The meal was the best Harry had had since he’d left for New York. No wonder Lily had been able to sell her wares. Her pickled watermelon and her mint jelly were ambrosia, the jam on the homemade bread heavenly.
The pièce de résistance was peach cobbler, accompanied by aromatic black coffee, which somehow tasted so much better than the bitter brew from his Thermos. As he finished the last bite, he commented, “Lily, a perfect meal. It’s hard to believe that once you didn’t know how to boil an egg.”
It wasn’t until later that he realized that the meal had been a rather silent affair. God, Jeremy was sensitive! But all of them seemed so subdued.
As soon as they had eaten, Drew asked, “Mommy, can we play in the attic?”
But Lily had replied, “No—:we’ve had a big day, and now it’s time for bed. Kiss Daddy good night, and I’ll come to tuck you in in a few minutes.”
There was a shuffling of feet as the children looked at each other, wondering who had to go first. Then Jeremy timidly reached up and brushed his lips against Harry’s cheek, and Randy dutifully followed suit.
But when Drew came to stand by him, Harry saw an unexpected look of belligerence on the little face. And Melissa unequivocally refused, shrinking away and yelling “No!” as she wriggled out of his grasp.
After she had tucked in the children, Lily put on an apron and began to rinse the dishes. Watching her, Harry saw her as if for the first time. The children forgotten, he put his arms around her.
“How did I ever get along without you?”
He untied her apron, picked her up, and carried her down the hall to their room, then kicked the door shut. He unbuttoned her dress and kissed her with searching intensity. Their enormous need was so great they made love with a hunger neither had ever felt before. It was their most incredible coming together yet, and nothing existed outside their room….
In the morning, as Lily and he sat alone at breakfast, drinking the last of their coffee, Harry said, “You know, actually, Lily, I felt a little bad yesterday.”
“Why, darling?”
“Well, I just didn’t realize that Jeremy was so sensitive about not being able to read.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Oh, there was a bit of a fuss when I asked him to read to me, and he couldn’t. You know, Lily, he should be reading at his age. He’s in second grade.”
“Oh, Harry, I wish you hadn’t said anything to him. He’s coming along, but he’s just a little slow.”
Forgotten were the vows of patience and understanding that Harry had made so fervently. As though there had been no interruption in their marriage, he quickly shot back: “Slow? That’s ridiculous, Lily! Drew was reading even before I left for New York.”
“Yes, but Jeremy isn’t Drew. He doesn’t catch on as quickly as Drew—can’t you realize that?”
“That’s not true! You’ve just coddled him, and the net result is that he hasn’t achieved up to his abilities.”
“He’s just an average child.”
“Who told you that? His teachers? Then they’re no good.”
“You’ve been away and you don’t know. I’ve spent time with his teacher, and she’s very good.”
“Well, darling, then the problem is he won’t work.”
This wasn’t the way to begin their reunion, Harry knew, but dammit, he was upset about Jeremy. Lily insisted that the children had different needs and abilities, but he didn’t think the issue was as complicated as she made out. Finally, Harry conceded that Lily had seen more of the children than he had for the past year and a half, and that he would wait and see.
For the next few weeks, Harry made a great effort to observe the children through Lily’s eyes. Drew was doing fine in school and so was Randy, but Jeremy was at the bottom of his class, and Harry was baffled. Either he wasn’t motivated or, as Harry suspected, he had simply become a mama’s boy. Because of his worry, Harry found himself becoming a stern disciplinarian. If he had to be tough to force Jeremy to achieve, that was what he would be. He had come home ready to assume his place as head of the house.