Free Women and Children First by Francine Prose Page B

could say it at all was that no one here is likely to do anything with anybody’s sister or brother-in-law. That Rice will be here alone with Kate doesn’t register in that way. Rice isn’t exactly someone you’d change your whole life to get close to.
    Rice bursts out laughing, waving his arms; ashes fly from his cigarette. “Brother-in-law,” he says. “That clinches it.”
    Nicky shows Rice what he needs to know about the guest house. They carry out a frying pan, an electric heater, extra blankets. Then they arrange it that Rice won’t move in until late the day Nicky leaves. Nicky tells Rice that his presence would drive him over the edge when he’s getting ready to go.
    There’s a brief, uneasy silence. Then Rice says, “Hey, I can dig it,” and punches Nicky’s arm. The two couples exchange quick, stiff-armed hugs. From the cab of Rice’s truck, Pammy calls, “You take good care of these kids!”
    Nicky has been gone so much that Kate is almost used to it. Still, his leaving is hard. There is always that moment of wanting to call him back, to say: Let’s sell the house, give in and move to L.A. All day, Kate’s thoughts keep edging toward horrors she’ll have to handle alone. The only thing that helps is cleaning the house. Housework can be so narcotic. Often she is surprised at her life, amazed that the kids and cooking and working in the garden could have turned out to be enough. But when Nicky is gone, she can no longer take pleasure in things themselves. It all feels as if she is showing someone: Look what I’ve done, at the hours I’ve passed, how much less time is left until he comes home.
    Around when the children are due back from school, Kate is careful to be busy with something involving, like scrubbing the vegetable bins, so she won’t notice if their bus is a few minutes late. Ben and Rachel know Nicky will be gone, but when they walk in and see Kate, their faces fall, like adults seeing a set dinner table and realizing that they are the only guests.
    The sunset is spectacular, but it’s one of those nights when all that blaze and color seems a little much. Kate realizes she is waiting for Rice, and is so glad to hear his truck in the alley that it takes her a while to get mad when he opens the alley gate and drives onto the back lawn. As he closes the gate behind him, she glares at him through the kitchen window, but he is too far away to see. He carries a cardboard box into the guest house, then comes out for an armload of books.
    On the day he and Pammy came down, Rice said he was going to use his time in Tucson to do some heavy spiritual homework. Kate guesses that the books are part of this; she thinks of dreary Christian bookstores and the glossy bios of Indian gods Hare Krishnas sell at the airport.
    Rice goes out to the truck one last time. Standing by the open cab door, he kneels and holds out his arms. And Pinky, Rice and Pammy’s Siamese cat, jumps from the cab onto his shoulder. Pinky has been to Tucson before. Pammy won’t leave the cat home; she worries it’s anorexic. But why has she sent it with Rice? Pinky is old, incontinent, and noisy. Kate wants to run outside and fling Pinky back in the truck. Instead, she has one of those moments in which she’s stricken with compassion for Pammy and Rice. When Rice knocks on Kate’s door and asks if he can call Phoenix collect, she doesn’t even mention Pinky. She says sure, he can use the phone, and how’s the house? Rice says fine. Then he sniffs and says, “Mmmm…Mexican.”
    Kate thinks: Any normal person would invite Rice for dinner. But Rice is the one who’s not normal. With him, it’s only one step—one small step—from knocking politely on your door to corning in when you’re not home and emptying your refrigerator.
    Kate shrugs and with a look of slight distaste says, “Oh, it’s just something the kids will eat.”
    “That’s okay,” Rice says. “Pammy sent me down some stuff she fixed and froze to