Free Some Luck by Jane Smiley Page B

Irma.”
    She turned and, after a minute or two, managed to dish a mess of eggs onto his plate, right beside his half-eaten patty of sausage. It did not look appetizing. He picked up his bowl of oatmeal and scraped the remaining bits out of the bottom with his spoon. Truly, he wished that Rosanna would go back to making breakfast, but then what would Irma do? She had no skills of any kind—she had not been raised on a farm, and hadn’t done well enough in school to get a teacher’s certificate. Sometimes, Rosanna put her to cleaning the house, but she was slapdash at that, too, and terribly remorseful when spots and stains she had overlooked were pointed out to her. She said, “Oh, Rosanna, I am meant to be a failure, aren’t I? That’s what my ma always said.” Three weeks it was since Ragnar brought her home.
    But Frankie loved her. He skipped down the stairs while Walter was cutting his sausage with his fork and taking another bite. He caroled, “Good morning, Papa! Good morning, Irma!”
    And Irma said, “Oh, darling Frankie, there you are. I was just wondering when you would come down and have your oatmeal. See, I’ve sprinkled brown sugar on it.” She glanced at Walter. “Just a tiny bit. Did you have a dream, Frankie?”
    “I dreamt that I was sitting up in the maple tree, and the grass was green everywhere, and the limbs of the tree suddenly dropped, and I slid down to the ground.”
    “That must have been a happy dream!”
    Walter thought maybe he had never asked Frankie about his dreams. Surely Rosanna did that. Walter himself had the most prosaicdreams in the world, about trying to turn the planter in the corner of one of the fields and getting stuck.
    Frank said, “And Jake was in my room, sitting on a chair in the corner.”
    “What a funny dream!” laughed Irma. When she laughed, Frankie laughed with her. Frank ate up his oatmeal, and Irma gave him a piece of sausage and a scrambled egg. He ate them and said, “That was good.”
    Irma said, “Oh, you are a silly boy!”
    Walter pushed back his chair. He said, “Look, the sky is lightening. It might be a nice day.”
    Frankie leapt from his chair.
    AS FAR AS Rosanna was concerned, Irma’s useful quality was that she was patient with Joey, who did demand a lot of patience. Perhaps it was simple fellow-feeling, since Irma demanded a lot of patience, too. Rosanna had never been especially patient; she felt herself stamping around the house in a state of permanent irritability, and had even written Eloise a letter down at Iowa State, where she was taking home economics (and doing very well—who was surprised at that?), living in a dorm with lots of girls, and learning to play the piano. To Eloise she wrote, “If I never sufficiently expressed my appreciation for your sense of order and your unflagging energy, I am sorry. I appreciate it now.” Eloise wrote back, “Can you make me a velveteen dress if I send you the pattern? I’m sure Ma would blanch at the very sight of the pattern! Très au courant! ” Yes, Ma would, thought Rosanna, but she made the dress. It was an easy pattern, and made her, too, feel très au courant .
    While she did the hem, she watched Irma and Joe with the everlasting box of dominoes, the box that she had given Joe last summer and that he would not let out of his sight. The box itself was shredding, but he wouldn’t let Rosanna replace it. He was also now sporting a bit of tape on his forehead, just above his right eyebrow. There was nothing underneath the tape, but Joey swore that that spot hurt him, and the only thing to ease the pain was a “Band-Aid.” The “Band-Aid” was from a packet that Irma had brought with her. Rosanna had never seen one before, but then it turned out that DanCrest was stocking them, too. They were good for little cuts, but the only people in the household who needed them were Joey and Irma.
    What Irma helped him do was stand the dominoes on end in not quite such long rows, and then