“Red, isn’t the chicken delicious?”
“I’ll say! I’ve had two pieces and I’m thinking about a third.”
“You can’t have a third! It’s full of cholesterol!”
The telephone rang in the kitchen.
“Now, who on earth can that be?” Abby asked.
“Only one way to find out,” Red told her.
“Well, I’m just not going to answer. Everyone who’s anyone knows it’s the supper hour,” Abby said. But at the same time, she was pushing back her chair and standing up. She had never lost the conviction that someone might be needing her. She made her way to the kitchen, forcing two of the little boys to scoot their chairs in as she passed behind them.
“Hello?” they heard. “Hi, Denny!”
Stem and Red glanced toward the kitchen. Nora placed a dollop of spinach on Sammy’s plate, although he squirmed in protest.
“Well, nobody thought … What? Oh, don’t be silly. Nobody thought—”
“What’s for dessert?” Tommy asked his mother.
Stem said, “Ssh. Grandma’s on the phone.”
“Blueberry pie,” Nora said.
“Goody!”
“Yes, of course we would have,” Abby said. A pause. “Now, that is not true, Denny! That is simply not … Hello?”
After a moment, they heard the latching sound of the receiver settling back into its wall mount. Abby reappeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Well, that was Denny,” she told them. “He’s coming in tonight on the twelve-thirty-eight train, but he says just to leave the door unlocked and he’ll catch a cab from the station.”
“Huh! He’d damn well better,” Red said, “because I won’t be up that late.”
“Well, maybe you should meet him, Red.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’ll go,” Stem told her.
“Oh, I think maybe your father, dear.”
There was a silence.
“What was his problem?” Red asked finally.
“Problem?” Abby said. “Well, not a problem, exactly. He just doesn’t understand why we didn’t ask him to come stay.”
Even Nora looked surprised.
“Ask Denny!” Red said. “Would he have done it?”
“He says he would have. He says he’s coming now, regardless.”
Abby had been standing in the doorway all this time, but now she made her way back to her chair and fell into it heavily, as if the trip had exhausted her. “He found out from Jeannie that you were moving in,” she told Stem. “He thinks he should have been consulted. He says the house doesn’t have enough bedrooms for you all; it should have been him instead.”
Nora started reaching for people’s plates and stacking them, not making a sound.
“What wasn’t true?” Red asked Abby.
“Excuse me?”
“You said, ‘That’s not true, Denny.’ ”
“See how he does?” Abby asked Stem. “Half the time he’s deaf as a post and then it turns out he’s heard something all the way off in the kitchen.”
“What wasn’t true, Abby?” Red asked.
“Oh,” Abby said airily, “you know. Just the usual.” She placed her silverware neatly across her plate and passed the plate to Nora. “He says he doesn’t know why we had Stem come when … you know. He says Stem is not a Whitshank.”
There was another silence, during which Nora rose in one fluid motion, still without a sound, and bore the stack of plates out to the kitchen.
Actually, it was true that Stem was not a Whitshank. But only in the most literal sense.