Universal Harvester: A Novel by John Darnielle

Author:John Darnielle [John Darnielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780374282103
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2017-02-07T05:00:00+00:00

4

Peter wished some moment of clarification might present itself: it was hard, by June, to keep silent about the changes in Irene, about the strain those changes were placing on the house over which she presided. But a man like Peter, in the absence of any immediate crisis, can’t feel sure about what might occasion such a moment. His wife was a different person from the one he’d known last summer, or even in early spring: that much was plain. But who, in the privacy and safety of his home, says something like “you’ve changed” to his wife? Actors in movies talk like that, not people.

She’d begun spending more time at church; but this was not a seismic change, and besides, she took Lisa along with her for Greta Handsaker to dote on in the church nursery. Her baby had grown much too big to just be set down and left alone on a nursery floor, but there were plenty of books to read there, and sometimes other children to play with; if Lisa found herself playing with younger children, she’d try to interest them in Drop a Dragon, a game she’d invented with her mother a little over a year ago. In this game, each player draws one unbroken line—of any color, following any arc, however long and squiggly—until a picture emerges, sometimes vague and evocative, sometimes clear as day. They’d called it Drop a Dragon because the drawing produced from its halting initial playthrough had looked a little like an undulating green dragon; in those days, Lisa, still trying out new ways to speak each day, sometimes appended consonants to words that ended in vowel sounds. “What will we call this picture?” Irene had said, holding it up. “Drop a dragon!” she’d said proudly, pointing. It was a story Peter and Irene liked to recount when they could. Everyone always smiled when they got to the punch line.

But Irene brought Bible study home now. Sometimes she read by candlelight before bed. It struck Peter as an odd affectation, the candle; you keep candles around for when the power goes out. She was probably saving the house a few pennies, though, so what was the harm? She did seem to sing a lot now, more than she ever had. It was a little strange. But she wasn’t loud or bizarre, just different. And so he kept his thoughts to himself.

She never preached to the family, and she seldom said much that seemed out of character. Occasionally Peter would make romantic advances at night; she almost always rejected these now, but he attributed this to her practical nature. He was still part-time at work, and there’d been no company-wide raise last year; more children were not in their plans. Of all the small differences only one occasion really stood out, and it was a secret he couldn’t tell.

She was in the kitchen washing dishes, her back to the living room, where Peter’d dozed off on the sofa. She was singing quietly to herself.

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