Fiction from The Literary Review

Terese Svoboda

The Egg Trick

The flag left over from when the boys came home hangs straight down from the second floor of the farmhouse, pink and gray from the late summer sun. Just beyond its listless, almost nonexistent shadow, rock three sisters-in-law, each pregnant, each ignoring the other, all exhibiting the acute boredom and serious inertia of advanced gestation that make them look screwed to the porch, except for the rockers. They work them fast—but not together—fast as if they are propelling the white, wide porch somewhere instead of just trying to move the heat that has settled heavily, permanently, between its columns.
        A crow finds a bottlecap in the yard dust.
        Moth millers, gray as newsprint, burst from a window well, then refold.
        Will you quit that drumming? says Val, dragging one platform heel on the rocker's upswing.
        Harriet stops moving her fingers against the arm of her chair. I keep forgetting how it goes, she says. It's Concerto Number Four.
        Four, five, six, says Maryann who yawns, barely keeping her chair going. I wonder what it's like. You know.
        Search me, says Val who turns to “Who does Bing Love?” Below that is “Elizabeth Taylor's Furry Friend.”
        Mom never said, says Harriet, mopping her forehead then her neck with a man's hankie.
        I'll bet, Maryann murmurs. Not her.
        She did say she didn't want to scare me, says Harriet.
        That's a comfort. Val cinches up her belt. My mom tried.
        They rock on.
        Just you don't faint on us, that's all. Harriet waves a finger at Val's squashed belly. Mom doesn't need that.
        I've only gained five pounds so far. Val examines the bicep of a man spread across two pages. Don't start.
        Harriet starts drumming again.
        The doctor says I might be premature, says Maryann, pulling at the elastic front panel of her slacks.
        Maryann, sighs Val. She and Harriet exchange a glance.
        It's true. That's what Dr. Potts said last time. I just didn't tell you.
        March, April, May… Val beats her fingers against the magazine the way Harriet did her arpeggio.
        What do you know? says Maryann.
         That's okay, Harriet says, buffing the porch floor with her socks. Val's never having hers.
        Fresh heat pours onto the porch.
        I think I'll go practice. As Harriet bends to retrieve her shoes, the screen door whines open. It is Mom, pitcher in hand.
        What a good idea. Harriet collapses back into a recline.
        Mom sets the lemonade on the porch floor. I need a volunteer.
        Oh, says Val, flipping pages. It's not for us.
        They'll be thirsty by now. Mom shades her eyes and peers off the porch where, in the far distance, wheat spumes into the back of a truck. They'll be glad to see you.
        You know how bad I always get in the p.m., says Harriet, displaying her ankles in case they are swollen.
        Mom sighs and goes over to where the men leave their dirty boots at night and pulls a thermos from a box of work gloves.
        Maryann moves to the edge of her rocker. Well, I'm the smallest.
        You? Val hits herself on the head with her magazine.
        Cut it out, says Maryann, getting up.
        Mom pours the lemonade into the thermos, ice cubes plunging everywhere.
        Well, tell everyone Hi. Val stretches a long, shapely leg over to one of the lost cool cubes.
        Girls. Mom wipes off the thermos with the tail of her apron. Now, girls.
        Maryann takes the lemonade and drags herself off the porch, down onto the loose gravel driveway, past the cherry tree, up to the gas pump where high weeds and horseflies edge the field. She hesitates a moment, running her hand across her belly as if to protect it from the heavy ripe grain, then she pushes right in. Soon only her head is visible above the grain, then just her wide wake.
        Mom mops the spilled lemonade with the rest of her apron, then goes at it with a bucket of soap and water. As she pours the suds into the weeds, she says, Val, does your mother let you read that trash?
        Val slaps it shut. I'm going inside.

        Harriet plays Chopin. Harriet plays Hayden. Harriet plays “When the Saints Come Marching In.” Just past her piano and the wide-open French doors, a swarm of crows practically drool on the green-turning-yellow fruit of the cherry tree. A few days earlier, Harriet discovers that if she beats on the keys a little harder, even just scales, after fifteen minutes or so the crows will flee to the briars down the road.
        I wonder if all that's good for the baby, Maryann says, wiping out an enamel basin in the kitchen. Its metal hums whenever Harriet bangs on the bass end.
        Mom puts her glasses on so she can hear better and sits silent for a moment, considering. It's A minor.
        The piano isn't so bad around back by the clothesline. Maryann takes the basin with her to collect the noodles drying in skeins on the clothesline, a few of them blood-flecked where one of the chickens has leapt up in its death throes. She has pulled off about half of them when Val saunters by from the wash house, a full tub of laundry on her hip. She watches Maryann slowly snake the noodles into her basin. Not feeling so good, Maryann?
        Maryann rocks back on her heels. It's going to be tonight, I think.
        Val drops the tub to the ground, losing only one hankie off the top. She starts pinning. You still going with full gas?
        Knock me out. Maryann makes a fist with one floury hand. I don't want to be there.
        In the wake of the noodles, Val strings up six pairs of socks, doubled up under clothespins. Then she does overalls, then check shirts. Say, Maryann, she says as she dips in for shorts, Why don't you like me?
        I like you fine. But Maryann starts taking the noodles off faster, widening the difference between them.
        Val pins the shorts crotch-side-up, then cracks a sheet against her hand. College is just a school, she says, not where you actually get smarter.
        Oh, but college is— Maryann gestures grandly, her hand full of noodles, and they all escape. A rooster rushes in to claim them.
        Val laughs. Yeah, I guess it is.
        Maryann wipes the flour off her hands onto one of the nearby socks. Anyway, I'm just glad Frank has the G.I. bill. It'll hard with the two of us going at once.
        Here's the truck, says Val. She tosses a couple of rags over the line.
        Its arrival stirs the hens out of the ruts in the drive, sending them squawking past the weeds. Maryann rushes inside to put down the noodles, Val rearranges her hair, and Harriet begins “The Volga Boatman” in the treble.
        Once the big truck clears the house and pump, three sweating, grimy, thick-muscled men swing out and hose themselves down, getting the best of the dirt out of their clothes. Then they horse around until Mom chews them out for wasting water and sends them into the wash house shower. Each of the three pregnant women lays a fresh set of set and pants just outside the wash house door, and after a steamy ten minutes of water spraying out the screen and some wild banging, one hand after another appears to collect the clothes.
        When they turn up in the kitchen, they look nothing like the filthy, wild boys who have driven in but have their hair combed flat to their skulls so they look like salesmen—all but Jim whose curls fight back. He'd had a name change, for radio work, according to Harriet, so the curls mean he is secretly something else.

        It's Father Naughton. Val waves a saucer at a blue Caddy driving through the dust of section twenty-two.
        Oh, no. Maryann pulls a face. Harriet, you play the virgin tonight.
        Not me. Harriet slides the dish she is drying into the cupboard. If I watch that egg trick one more time, I'll really get sick.
        Val makes a popping noise with her finger hooked inside her mouth. Where's the bottle? Come on. She searches under the sink. The eggs are already boiled. I'll tell him Harriet asked for it especially. That she just doesn't understand.
        Let's see, says Maryann. You just drop the match in and then the egg goes ploomph, right through that little hole—right?
        I'm not listening. Harriet has the towel wrapped around her ears. Besides, it doesn't have anything to do with babies. It's just a trick.
        Hush. Maryann opens the icebox. The question is, do we have enough beer for His Holiness?
        Mom walks in then, fresh from her after-lunch nap, her blue hair in an electric halo from blanket static. I thought I'd ask Father to start a novena for you girls tonight.
        Only nine days left? Harriet slumps against the wall.
        Mom glances at her with one arched eyebrow but says nothing, just goes to fool with the flush in the bathroom.
        No radio soaps for nine whole days? Val casts her eyes to the ceiling. No Shadow two weeks in a row?
        I think I have a stomachache. Maryann touches her belly. I'm going to bed early.
        Just keep Jim from proving the existence of god to Father. Val glares at Harriet. It makes Don drink too much.
        Oh, that's why he drinks, says Harriet, trying to fold her towel into a diaper. I thought it was the egg trick.

        Mom's coming with me. Don tosses a beer bottle toward the barrel nearest the pump and misses.
        No, she isn't, says Frank. She's coming with me.
        In married student housing? Maryann pokes him in the ribs until he catches her hand and bites it.
        Well, I'm the daughter. Harriet is staring absently at her long piano-playing fingers. She'll do all the babysitting for me.
        Yeah, well. Val buries her toes in the still-hot gravel. And we could all go to your house for Sunday supper.
        Harriet's cooking? says Don.
        Harriet pushes her brother off her step. Mom will cook, don't worry.
        The crickets start. Maryann opens two more beers. If I have a girl, I'm going to call her Louise.
        But, honey, says Frank, taking a sip off the top of both bottles, Louise is the name of the woman who takes in the ironing.
        Yeah, Maryann. I thought they all had to be called Mom. Boy or girl.
        Val! Says Don. But even he laughs.
        Harriet stops first. She can't hear us, can she? Check.
        Don cranes up at the second floor bay window, staggering backwards under the flag. Mom, oh, Mom, he calls.
        Not that way, you idiot. Like this. Frank picks up a handful of gravel and throws it just short of her window. It falls on the chicken coop, waking the hens so they squawk as if a snake has come up through the floorboards.
        Maybe she wants to be left alone. Jim rises unsteadily to his feet. Alone, he repeats, as if no one has heard him.
        Frank opens another beer for Jim. Foam covers his hands until he shakes them dry. Maybe she wants all boys.
        Boys? Who cares about boys? Harriet socks him in the stomach. It's four against one if you count Mom.
        Yeah, says Maryann, turning stomach-first to Frank. Val stands up, leaning way back, showing off her best girth.
        The three men run.
        
        Frank!
        Frank snores.
        Wake up, Frank. Time to go.
        Frank snores.
        On her way to the bathroom to get her things, Maryann hears heavy breathing coming from Harriet's room, the door left wide open. Christ! she says as she shoves at the door.
        But it sticks.
        Is that you? Harriet sounds small, not her usual baby grand self.
        You're alone? Maryann says, between pains. Where's Jim?
        I don't know. Downstairs, she says. Her breathing comes louder. It feels like appendicitis.
        Oh, great. Maryann puts her hand over her own belly, where it feels like indigestion. I'll get your bag too.
        By the time Maryann has everything, Frank stands at the end of the hall, rubbing his face awake. Double trouble, she says as she walks right past him to the front door.
        What? he says to her back.
She points to where Jim sleeps, slumped against the stair railing.
Yoo-hoo, says Harriet from the parlor, with a lot of yoo before the hoo.

Harriet has the first baby and Frank goes back and gets Jim organized in time to see the little girl with its big black curls show up in a bassinet behind the glass. Maryann spends the night and goes home the next day with Pepto-Bismol. A week later, while Maryann lies in recovery insisting her eight-pounder is premature, Val finds the size six she'd hidden in the layette, zips herself into it, and then, and only then, presents Don with the baby.
        Mom doesn't comment. As soon as all the babies come home, she packs up and books a sleeper to California where her sister lives. All she leaves is her soap recipe and a note saying they'd need it.