by Anne Tyler
The room was empty. Last night’s Parcheesi game lay scrambled in front of the cold gray fireplace. A cup was making a ring on the coffee table. He crossed to the hall. From the kitchen Priscilla called, “Bonny? Back so soon?”
He darted toward the stairs, keeping to carpets, where his footsteps would be softest. He mounted the stairs so swiftly that he scared himself—the blurred speed of his climb was too hushed, too spooky. In the upstairs hall his heel clicked once on the floorboards by accident. He ducked into the bedroom and clapped a palm to his pounding chest.
No one came.
Her bed was unmade and her nightgown was a spill of soiled ivory nylon across the rug. All the bureau drawers were open. So was the closet. He tiptoed to the closet. How unlike itself it seemed: so much space. You couldn’t say it was bare, exactly (those clothes of hers she never would give up, skirts with the hemlines altered a dozen different times, Ship ’n Shore blouses from the fifties with their dinky Peter Pan collars), but certainly it was emptier than it used to be. The shelf where he’d kept his hats now held a typewriter case, a hairdryer, and a shoebox. He opened the shoebox and found a pair of shoes, the chunky kind so out of date they were coming back into fashion.
He opened the drawer in her nightstand and found a tube of hand cream and a book of Emily Dickinson’s poems.
He opened the drawer in his nightstand (once upon a time) and found a coupon for instant coffee, a light-up ballpoint pen, and a tiny leather notebook with Night Thoughts written in gilt across the cover. Aha! But the only night thoughts she’d had were:
Woolite
Roland Park Florist
Todd’s birthday?
Something clamped his wrist—a claw. He dropped the book. “Sir,” said Louisa.
“Mother?”
“I’ve forgotten the number for the police.”
“Mother,” he said, “I’ve only come to … pick up a few belongings.”
“Is it 222-3333? Or 333-2222.”
She still had hold of his wrist. He couldn’t believe how strong she was. When he tried to squirm away, she tightened her fingers. He could have struggled harder, but he was afraid of hurting her. There was something brittle and crackling about the feel of her. He said, “Mother dear, please let go.”
“Don’t call me Mother, you scruffy-looking, hairy person.”
“Oh,” he said. “You really don’t know me.”
“Would I be likely to?” she asked him.
She wore her Sunday black, although she never attended church—a draped and fluted black dress with a cameo at the throat. On her feet were blue terrycloth scuffs from which her curved, opaque toenails emerged—more claws. She encaged his wrist in a ring of bone.
“I said to the lady downstairs,” she said, “ ‘There’s burglars on the second floor.’ She said, ‘It’s only those squirrels again.’ I told her, ‘This time it’s burglars.’ ”
“Look. Ask Brindle if you don’t believe me,” said Morgan.
“Brindle?” She considered. “Brindle,” she said.
“Your daughter. My sister.”
“She told me it was squirrels,” Louisa said. “At night she asks, ‘What’s that skittering? What’s that scuttling? Is it burglars?’ I say, ‘It’s squirrels.’ Now I say, ‘Hear that burglar on the second floor?’ She says, ‘It’s only squirrels, Mother. Didn’t you always tell me that? They’re hiding their acorns in the rafters in the attic.’ ”
“Oh? You have rodents?” Morgan asked.
“No, squirrels. Or something up there, snickering around …”
“You want to be careful,” Morgan told her. “It could very well be bats. The last thing you need is a rabid bat. What you ought to do, you see, simply take a piece of screening—”
His mother said, “Morgan?”
“Yes.”
“Is that you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Oh, hello, dear,” she said serenely. She let go of his wrist, and kissed him.
“It’s good to see you, Mother,” he said.
Then Bonny said, from the doorway, “Get out.”
“Why, Bonny!” said Morgan.
“Out.”
She was carrying her sack from the bakery, and gave off the mingled smells of cinnamon and fresh air. Her eyes had darkened alarmingly. Yes, she meant business, all right. He knew the signs. He edged away from his mother. (But there was only one door, and Bonny blocked it.)
“I was just leaving, Bonny,” he said. “I only came to ask you something.”
“I won’t answer,” she said. “Now go.”
“Bonny—”
“Go, Morgan.”
“Bonny, why’d you put that piece in the paper?”
“What piece?”
“That … item. What you call … obituary.”
“Oh,” she said. There was a sudden little twist to her mouth that he remembered well—a wry look, something between amusement and regret. “Oh, that,” she said.
“What made you do it?”
She thought it over.
His mother said, “I’m certain it’s not bats, because I hear their little feet.”
“To tell the truth,” Bonny said, “I’d forgotten all about it. Oh, dear. I really should have canceled it; I meant to all along; it was only one of those impulses that just hit sometimes—”
“I can’t figure out how you knew where I lived,” Morgan said.
“I called Leon in Richmond and asked,” she said. “I guessed you’d tell Leon at least, because of Gina.”
“But what was the point, Bonny? An obituary, for God’s sake.”
“Or do bats have feet too?” said his mother.
“It was meant to be an announcement,” Bonny said.
“What kind of announcement?”
She colored slightly. She touched the dent at the base of her throat. “Well, I’m seeing someone else now,” she said. “Another man.”
“Ah,” he said.
“A history professor.”
“That explains printing my obituary?”
“Yes.”
Well, yes.
He took pity on her then—her pink cheeks, and the clumsy, prideful, downward look she wore. “All right,” he said. “That’s all I had to ask. I’ll be going now.”
She drew back to let him pass. Already she’d collected herself—lifted and straightened. He stepped into the hall. Then he said, “But, ah, God, Bonny, you don’t know how it felt! Really, such an … embarrassment, an item like that in a public place, all on account of some whim you get, some halfcocked notion!”
The twist in her mouth returned, and deepened. No doubt she found this hilarious.
“It’s probably not even legal,” he said.
He started coughing. He searched his pockets for his handkerchief.
“Do you want a Kleenex?” she asked. “What’s the matter with you, Morgan? You don’t look well.”
“I could probably have you arrested,” he told her. He found his handkerchief and pressed it to his mouth.
“Let’s not talk about what we could arrest each other for,” Bonny said.
So he went down the stairs at last, not even saying goodbye to his mother or giving her a final glance. Bonny followed. He heard the rustle of her bakery sack close behind his ear—an irritating sound. An irritating woman. And this banister was sticky to the touch, downright dirty. And you could break your neck on the rug in the entrance hall.
At the door, when his thoughts were flowing toward the pickup truck (get gas, check tires) and the journey home, Bonny suddenly seemed to have all the time in the world. She brushed a piece of hair off her forehead and said, “His name is Arthur Amherst.”
“Eh?”
“This man I’m seeing. Arthur Amherst.”
“Good, Bonny, good.”
“He’s very steady and solid.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, jingling his keys in his pocket.
“You think that means he’s dull, I
suppose.”
“I know it doesn’t mean that,” he said.
He pulled out his keys then, and turned to leave, but was struck by something and turned back. “Listen,” he said. “Those really may be bats, you know.”
“What?”
“Those creatures Mother’s hearing in the attic.”
“Oh, well, they’re not harming anybody.”
“How can you be sure of that? You ought to do something about it. Don’t put it off; they could chew through the wiring.”
“Bats?” she asked.
“Or whatever,” he said.
He hesitated, and then touched his cap in a salute and left.
Now there was church traffic, old men in felt hats driving carloads of tinkly old ladies, sidewalks ringing with the clop of high heels. He traveled downtown in a suspended state of mind, shaking off the annoyances of the morning. He traveled farther and farther, not out of the city but deeper into it. It wouldn’t hurt to take a look at Cullen Hardware. There was always the possibility that Butkins would be there, even on a Sunday, maybe sorting stock or just standing idly, dimly, at the window as he sometimes did.
But the hardware store was gone. There was only a blank space between the rug store and Grimaldi Brothers Realty—not even a hole, just a vacant lot. Weeds grew on it, even. The wastepaper crumpled in its hillocks had already begun to yellow and dissolve. A billboard on the rear of the lot read: AT THIS LOCATION, NIFF DEVELOPMENT CORP. WILL BE CONSTRUCTING A …
He considered a minute, settled his glasses higher on his nose, and drove on. But what about Butkins? Where was Butkins? He turned left. He cut over to Crosswell Street. Crafts Unlimited was still there, closed for Sunday but thriving, obviously. The ranks of pottery jars in its window gave it an archeological look. The third-floor windows above it were as dark and plain as ever. He half believed that if he were to climb the stairs, he’d find Emily and Leon Meredith still leading their pure, vagabond lives, like two children in a fairytale.
3
“I’m certain I can fit into it,” the second stepsister said. “It’s only that I’ve been shopping all day and my feet are a little swollen.”
“Madam. Please,” the Prince said in his exhausted voice.
“Well, maybe I could cut off my toes.”
“What about you, young lady?” asked the Prince. He was looking at Cinderella, who peeked out from the rear of the stage. Dressed in burlap, shy and fragile, she inched forward and approached the Prince. He knelt at her feet with the little glass slipper, or it may have been a shimmer of cellophane. All at once her burlap dress was mysteriously cloaked in a billow of icy blue satin. “Sweetheart!” the Prince cried, and the children drew their breaths in. They were young enough still. Their expressions were dazzled and blissful, and even after the house lights came on they continued sitting in their chairs and gazing at the stage, open-mouthed.
It was the Emancipation Baptist Church’s Building Fund Weekend. There’d been two puppet shows on Saturday, and this evening’s was the last one. Then Morgan and Emily could pack up their props and leave the church’s Sunday School hall, which had the biting, minty smell of kindergarten paste. They could say goodbye, at least temporarily, to the Glass Accordion and the Six Singing Simonsons and Boffo the Magician. Emily set the puppets one by one in their liquor carton. Joshua staggered down the aisle with one of Boffo’s great brass rings. Morgan folded the wooden stage, lifted it onto his shoulder with a grunt, and carried it out the side entrance.
It was a pale, misty night. The sidewalk gleamed under the streetlights. Morgan loaded the stage into the back of the pickup and slammed the door shut. Then he stood looking around him, breathing in the soft, damp air. A family passed—cranky children, kept awake past their bedtime, wheedling at their mother’s edges. A boy and girl were kissing near a bus stop. On the corner was a mailbox, which reminded Morgan of his letter to Bonny. He’d carried it with him all evening; he might as well get it sent off. He took it from the pocket of his Air Force jacket and started across the street. ( … simply strew a handful of mothballs, the letter whispered, a. along the attic floor beams; b. in the closets beneath the eaves …)
His boots made a gritty sound that he liked. Cars hissed past him, their headlights haloed. He flattened the envelope, whose corners had started curling. But if it’s bats … he should have said. He’d forgotten to mention bats. You don’t want to close all the openings till you’re certain the bats are … and he also should have said, Remember that Mother’s vitamins are tax-deductible, and Don’t rush into anything with this professor fellow, and Just loving him is not all it takes, you know. He should have added, I used to think it was enough that I was loving; yes, I used to think, at least I am a sweet and loving man, but now I see that it matters also who you love, and what your reasons are. Oh, Bonny, you can go so wrong …
He stood at the mailbox, shaking his head, stunned. It took an auto horn to bring him to his senses, and he had the feeling that this wasn’t the first time it had honked. A woman leaned out of a Chevrolet, her hair a bobbled mass of curlers. “Well? Will they or won’t they?” she asked him.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Will my letters get there by Tuesday, I said, or will they drag their feet and loiter like the last ones did? You folks are always saying next-day-delivery-this, next-day-delivery-that; then it’s me that gets stuck with the finance charges when you drag into BankAmericard with my credit payment two, three, four days late …”
She was waving a pack of letters out the window. Morgan tipped his visored cap and took them from her. “Absolutely,” he said. “It was Robinson who was doing all that and now they’ve let him go. From here on out, you can trust the U.S. Mail, ma’am.”
“I bet,” she said.
She rolled up her window and screeched off.
Morgan dropped Bonny’s letter in the slot. Then he went through what he’d been handed by the woman. Patti Jo’s Dress Shop, LeBolt Appliances … he dropped them in too. Clarion Power and Light. He dropped that in. The rest were personal, addressed in a lacy, slanted script to a woman in Essex, a woman in Anneslie, and a married couple in Madison, Wisconsin. He would mail them too, but first he might just take a little glance inside. He started walking back toward the church, coughing dryly, tapping the envelopes against the palm of his hand. They were crisp and thick, weighted with secrets. They whispered spent Monday letting that dress out some and labor pains so bad she like to died and least you could have done is have the decency to tell me. Up ahead, Emily stood at the curb beside a cardboard carton. Josh rode astride her hip. For some reason Morgan felt suddenly light-hearted. He started walking faster. He started smiling. By the time he reached Emily, he was humming. Everything he looked at seemed luminous and beautiful, and rich with possibilities.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANNE TYLER was born in Minneapolis in 1941 but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. This is Anne Tyler’s sixteenth novel; her eleventh, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore.