As he stood by the ice-coated kitchen window, his hands resting on the warm radiator cover, the memory of trains rumbling on the overpass over Kedzie Avenue suddenly invaded Norman’s mind. Years before, he had loved to watch the trains and used to be overcome by the mystery of people rushing far away to meet their destinies. Now he would be ashamed to confess to such adolescent sentimentality, but then it had been a powerful emotion. In winter the engines emitted huge clouds of steam and smoke that floated cumbrously to the ground and shrouded him in their warmth. Then the clouds would dissolve and the train would reappear some distance away.
Norman had not been watching the trains for years, yet now the memory of them came back with the convincing force of nostalgia, and with it came the phrase: “In the fullness of time,” an uninvited, compulsive phrase. Monotonously it reiterated itself and then began to unfold into a repetitive pattern : “In the fullness of time, in the fullness of time trains are moving, trains are moving and I must go, I must go now.” Warmly enveloping the circle of words, not unlike the cloud of steam from an engine, was a physical awareness of accelerating motion that was so keen he could almost smell the obscene sulfide odor of soft coal smoke; and he knew that now his mind was made up, that he was helpless in the face of his own decision. Without having taken the first step he was already a stranger to this house and to these people and to the atmosphere of futility that brooded over the neighborhood. In the wintry twilight two barren trees stood motionless in the back yard. One of them was partly dead. Each summer for years there had been talk about the need to cut off the large dead limb before it broke under its own weight and caused some mishap. But somehow nobody ever got around to doing it. Now the peeled dead limb pointed vaguely to the darkening sky. “In the fullness of time, I must go,” he thought.
Norman’s mother entered the kitchen from the back porch, bringing with her a gust of cold air and a large bag of groceries. “You’re home already!” she exclaimed though there was no cause for surprise. “I’ll start supper right away, right away,” she bustled. Norman was annoyed at the excitement about making supper. The trains stopped running in his head. Of course he was home already; where else would he be? She knew this was his winter vacation and that he would return early. Oh, this maternal welcome, year in year out. In the fullness of time! And he blurted out: “Ma, I am leaving town. I am going to New York.”
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She had already removed her coat and begun puttering with the bag of groceries. His statement caught her like a blow. Her back straightened spasmodically and she was speechless for an instant. A potato fell out of the bag and hit the floor with an inordinately loud noise.
“What. . .” she began to formulate a question but did not finish it, and instead concluded submissively, “When are you going?”
“Tonight.”
The sound of a word being born welled up in her throat. She suppressed it, coughed, and busied herself with great energy poking the potato back into the bag. “Why so soon,” she said unconvincingly. “I mean, why not wait another day or two.”
“Ma, please! I know what I’m doing. I have to go tonight.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” she hurried to placate him. “I only meant, it’s such bitter weather. In a couple of days the weather will be milder. It must change. It’s been this cold for nearly a week now.”
Norman left the window, began to cross the room, and stopped in the middle of the kitchen, uncomfortable, guilty, irritably determined. If only one could be nonchalant. But that was impossible. He felt hemmed in by pity and the smothering warmth of her solicitude. Now she has become a weather prophet—the weather is bound to change in a couple of days. He went back to the window, and aimlessly drawing a pattern on the frozen pane he spoke random words that were intended to console. “I’m sorry, Ma, but I really must leave tonight. I had a letter this morning from New York; there’s a proposition there.”
She had not quite realized it before. Now the seal of doom was plain to her. He was actually leaving, and when he went the last of her brood would be gone. A wave of frantic, hysterical energy seized her. She dashed into the bedroom where her husband, unemployed during the slack holiday season, was still deep in his afternoon nap, and she began shaking him violently. “David! David! Wake up! What’s the idea sleeping till evening!”
He stirred, then sat up in panic. “What’s the matter?”
“Get up!” She trembled with impatience. “Put on your coat and run down to the butcher shop. Get a chicken, a nice one. Hurry now, there isn’t much time.”
David sat on the bed fishing for his shoes with his feet. Habit made him obey first and ask questions later. “What’s happened?” he finally said. “A chicken in the middle of the week?”
“Don’t ask questions,” she urged desperately. “Run down to the butcher shop at once and get a chicken. Norman is leaving, tonight. He is going to New York. Hurry now; it’s getting late.”
Still sleepy, he put on his shoes, then his hat, meantime grumbling indistinctly. “Going away? Tonight? What’s the rush? Let me talk to him.” But she would not be argued with. She fluttered about him handing him his coat and money. “Don’t waste time now,” she admonished. “I have to make a good supper before he leaves.”
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Norman came into the bedroom as his father was putting on his coat. He wanted to say something but could not find the right words. He had meant to say that it was really nothing sudden, his going, only a natural thing, after all, and it was finally time, the fullness of time, and, anyway, there was nothing to get excited about. But he had no chance to say any of these things and before he could muster the first phrase his father was already outside.
“Stay with me in the kitchen while I make supper,” his mother invited, and there was something coquettish in the tone of the request and the smile that wrinkled about her eyes. “Come, sit in the kitchen while I peel the potatoes.”
He followed her mechanically. On a shelf nailed to the wall, between a calendar and a tin box for donations to an orphan asylum, stood the alarm clock. It was half past four. There were four hours more before he could leave the house graciously as befitted a good and dutiful son.
“Here, sit nearer to the stove, it’s warmer,” she urged and he obeyed. Then cautiously, barely touching the subject, she probed: “When is your train leaving?”
His answer came abruptly, betraying guilt: “At eight.” For it did not have to be eight, and it could just as well be the next day, or even the next week or month, and the letter from New York had contained no proposition. Simply, the time had come to go and the ordeal would be the same any time.
She vigorously peeled the potatoes. “I wonder what’s taking him so long?” she began. “The butcher shop is three doors away and he takes a whole hour. That’s your father every time, never in a hurry.”
“Please, Ma, he’s only been out a few minutes. Give him a chance.”
“Yes, yes, he’ll be back right away,” she hurried to agree as she rinsed the potatoes and put them in a pot. Then she dashed into the living room and came back with a newspaper which she spread on the kitchen table, and turned appealingly to Norman: “Meantime you will have a bite of something. It’s dark already and you haven’t eaten since noon.”
His face showed his annoyance.
“Only a glass of tea and some bread and butter,” she begged. “It’s really nothing, and there is water ready boiling.”
He relented. This heavy load of blessing I must bear for a few hours more, he thought.
With unsuspected agility she ran to the cupboard and seized a glass, a couple of saucers, a spoon, the sugar bowl, meantime muttering: “It’s really nothing at all, such a cold day, only a glass of tea, nothing at all.”
One of the saucers slipped from her hand and broke on the floor. She bent down, her hands full, a broad smile on her face, and tried to pick up the pieces. Norman got down on his knees to help her. Apology and forgiveness mingled in her voice as she spoke to him. “Don’t be upset. It’s only a saucer; now we will have good luck. If a dish breaks it is always a sign of good luck.”
He threw the pieces into the garbage pail and sat down at the table. “You have some tea with me, Ma. Come on, I won’t have any unless you do too.”
There was the suggestion of a blush on her face. “Yes, son, I will have some tea with you,” she said. “I will, right away.” She brought another glass and saucer and sat across the table from him.
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Outside the back door was heard the thumping of someone shaking the snow off his shoes. She dropped her spoon and rushed to open the door. David stood in the doorway, a blood-spotted bundle under his arm. Her back turned to Norman, she glared at her husband in grim disapproval, as if saying: “Oh, you ne’er-do-well; at a time like this when Norman is leaving you take half a day to get a chicken!” David shrugged his shoulders in mute apology and then began to explain under his breath: “I had to pluck it. It takes time. What could I do? It was a hard chicken to pluck; half the skin came off.” She ignored his excuses and grabbed the slaughtered fowl from under his arm. “Don’t stand there with the door open; Norman has no coat on,” she scolded without anger, and forgetting her tea she applied herself to her work.
David removed his coat and sat down opposite his son. He wanted to say something appropriate and didn’t know what, so he remarked: “You are going away,” and it was neither a question nor yet a statement implying a definite attitude.
“Yes, Pa.”
“Why not wait a few days till the weather changes? What’s the rush? You’ll make your fortune a few days later.”
“Stop annoying him,” Norman’s mother intervened with vigor.
David bowed before her onslaught. “I was only asking,” he apologized. “I only meant, what’s the rush?”
“Never mind what you meant and let him be,” she settled the matter with finality. Then suddenly beaming, her blood-stained hand outstretched, she exclaimed: “Norman, look what I found!”
In her hand lay three small yolks of partly formed eggs. Her face glowed with joy. “You like them, Norman, don’t you?”
“Yes, Ma.”
“I know you do. You always liked them, ever since you were a baby. I always saved them for you.”
“Yes, Ma,” he squirmed in anguish.
She put part of the chicken and the eggs into a pot and was about to set it on the stove, when she caught Norman’s eye and at once became volubly apologetic: “We are not hungry.” Nevertheless she hastily removed the pot, emptied it into a bigger one, and put the rest of the chicken in.
“Do you know anyone in New York?” David intruded cautiously. “Someone you could stay with when you get there?”
“Stop pestering him,” she leaped to Norman’s assistance. “Of course he knows people there. He probably has friends all over. Must you discourage him at this time?”
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The pot on the stove boiled and the steam hissed from under the lid. She went up to the stove, lifted the lid and stirred the contents.
“The eggs,” she said, “they are ready. David, quick now, get me a plate. You’ll eat them now, won’t you, Norman?”
He consented submissively.
David opened the door of the cupboard and began to fumble among the dishes. “What kind do you want? A big one or a small one?”
“A small one, any kind,” she shouted examining the eggs as they steamed on the large spoon.
Distraught, he grabbed a plate in each hand and went up to her. She placed the eggs in the smaller one and impatiently ordered: “Get the salt shaker and a fork! Don’t take an hour doing it! They are nice when they are hot.”
A plate in each hand, not knowing what to do first, David dashed back. With one hand he opened the cupboard door which he had slammed shut before and tried to seize the salt shaker with the other hand still holding the plate with the yolks. As he grasped the shaker the plate fell to the floor and the three little eggs scattered.
A gasp not unlike a scream escaped the mother’s lips. She nervously clutched at her apron and tears coursed down her face. “The eggs!” she cried. “What have you done? Just look at what you have done, you, you. . . .” and her supply of expletives, usually readily forthcoming, failed her at the sight of the three little amber spheres lying on the floor. “Murderer!” she finally cried. “You murderer! Norman is going away tonight, and he always liked little eggs, ever since he was a baby. Now you have ruined them!”
David stood speechless, his arms stretched wide in a gesture of despair and guilt, one of them still clutching the remaining plate and the other firmly grasping the salt shaker.
“It’s all right, Ma, it’s perfectly all right,” Norman soothed her. “I’ll eat them. They are perfectly all right,” he repeated. He jumped up from his chair and bent down to pick up the eggs. “There’s nothing wrong with them. All we got to do is rinse them, that’s all really, just rinse them.”
He took the empty plate from his father’s hand and put the eggs in it. “Here, sit down,” he gently shoved the confused man to a chair and seated him in it, his hands still held apart in the pose of submission to fate. He handed the plate to his mother and led her to the sink where she proceeded to rinse the humiliated offering. His hand patted her arm with a gentle, nervous motion. “You see? There’s nothing wrong with them. Besides, I will peel them.”
All of them sat down at the table. Norman delicately held one of the little yolks and proceeded to peel the membrane from it. “See how simple it is?” he reassured them as he put it in his mouth. “Gee, it’s good.” His mother looked at him with delight for a moment, then turned toward her husband and her face frowned in grim accusation: “Look what you almost did, you. . . .”
“Eat, son, eat,” she urged Norman. “You always liked little eggs, ever since you were a baby.”
By half past seven dinner was over and the three were still seated at the table. In the corner Norman’s battered suitcase stood packed and ready. They were all silent. On the table lay a small package wrapped in newspaper. Norman furtively looked at the clock every few minutes. Another ten minutes, he thought, and it will be over. Now the parting. If only this were over. Let me think, let me think, anything, just to make the time pass. In the fullness of time. In the fullness of time one packs a suitcase. . . .
The oppressive silence was broken by his mother. “You will take this little package, won’t you, Norman? It’s only a couple of sandwiches, for the way, I mean. Please do. They are chicken sandwiches, white meat. It was such a tender chicken. You will take them, won’t you?”
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Norman rose from his chair abruptly. “It is time,” he announced. “I must go now or I will miss my train.” He picked up his suitcase and stood bewildered for a moment. Then he shook hands with his father and kissed his mother.
“Let us go with you a little way,” she pleaded. “David, quick, take his suitcase. We will go with him as far as the streetcar.”
Norman was adamant. “Please don’t,” he urged them. “There is no need to. It is only a couple of blocks and it’s cold outside. It is late already and I can walk faster myself.” He quickly kissed his mother again and shouted as he escaped: “I will write, as soon as I get there.” Suitcase in hand he rapidly strode through the snow.
The house felt empty as the parents stood near the table. The mother stared at it uncomprehendingly, then she realized: Norman had not taken the sandwiches. But all she said was: “Such good sandwiches; it was such a nice, tender chicken.”
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