Anne Tyler - The Clock Winder

You said we were all crazy. Maybe you said it just for the moment, not meaning it, but it’s all I have to go on so I keep trying to relate it to your not writing. I don’t see how it fits in. I do see how it could make you want to leave us . Do you think craziness is catching? It could be, of course. It is, if you still blame yourself for what happened. If that had anything to do with you at all, it was only on the surface .

I just remembered one time when I was downtown with Andrew, Christmas shopping, years ago. We were standing on a corner waiting for a light to change. This car passed us, going very fast, and just as it reached the corner all four doors popped open. One of those fluky things, I just laughed. But Andrew didn’t. He got scared. He said, “I can’t understand it. Why do these things happen to me? Why on my corner? I can’t grasp the significance of it,” he said. Well, I’m not saying you’re like Andrew. But things have been happening to us for years, long before you came along. Before you were born, even. Look at last summer, when we didn’t know you existed. My father died, my mother tangled with a hold-up man, Margaret got engaged to a middle-aged widower but broke it off and Melissa had a ten-day crying jag thinking she was pregnant. That’s just what I remember offhand; there’s more that got crowded out. We’re event-prone. (But sane. I’m sure of that. Even Andrew is, underneath.) Probably most families are event-prone, it’s just that we make more of it. Scenes and quarrels and excitement — but that part’s manufactured, just artificial stitches knitting us all together. What would we say to each other if we had to sit around in peace? I may not make scenes myself but I allow them, I go along with them. I see that. It’s my way of making connection with my family. Like Andrew’s peculiarities. He chose them. Every trouble he causes is just another way of talking. If you look at it like that, doesn’t it seem a waste to leave us? I know I’m talking a lot of bull .

I love you. Why won’t you marry me? I think you love me too .

Matthew

JUNE 27, 1961

Dear Elizabeth Abbott:

Having thought it over I am going to kill you .

Yours very truly ,

Andrew Carter Emerson

Dear Mrs. Emerson ,

How are you? I’m doing just fine .

I’m writing to see if you could send me my combination drill. It’s down on the workbench in the basement. It has a metal box that you can pack it in. I’ll be glad to pay the postage .

Thank you .

Sincerely,

Elizabeth

JULY 2 , 1961

Dear Elizabeth ,

Well here is half of that ten dollars you loaned me that I bet you thought you seen the last of, ha ha. I would send it all but my nephew’s wife is in the hospital getting her nerves fixed and I just didn’t have the heart to say “no.” It seems like this summer we been ailing so. My husband has the arthritis so bad he can’t leave the bed and my sister’s getting the Change and myself I have the headache alot. Well I shouldn’t complain, I can still get around thank the Lord and have a job for what its worth. Mrs. Emerson is changing ageing before my eyes and the symptom is parsimonousness. Turning into one of those old ladies that checks on every dime when there’s a fortune in the bank. She saves moldy old leftovers and gripes do I take some of the ham for my lunch then goes out and buy herself a Buick. I have talk to her about getting some new handyman as washing outside of windows is not my job but she says “no” they all steal you blind. Well Elizabeth didn’t I was quick to say and she says no, that’s true, “I never had to lock up the valubles or the liquor around Elizabeth but she was such a magpie junky things was never safe around her, old doorknobs and screws and caster cups disappearing and coming back in the shape of paperweights and chest men and rubber stamps.” I thought you would want to know how she is talking about you. She is ever criticizing how I do my work. On the phone she was telling about “my maid is going to drive me up the wall one of these days.” Lady take care who you call yours I wanted to say but held my peace. She is all the time talking like she owns people, my florrist and my pharmacist and my meat man. Well Lord knows that woman has had her share of trouble though. I must close for now as it is hospital visiting hours. I will get that other five to you when my troubles eases up .

Sincerely,

Alvareen

JULY 3, 1961

Dear Elizabeth ,

I tried to call you this morning but your mother said you were at work. I didn’t even know you had a job. Then by evening I’d changed my mind. You are one of those people who deflect what is said to you and then hang up, bang. But I have seen you reading everything, instructions and Occupant ads and cereal boxes, and I can’t imagine you throwing an envelope away without looking to see what’s in it. Writing’s better .

You must not know what it’s like to wait for a letter. I leave for work late, just to catch the postman. I listen for his car on the highway. Cars that aren’t his I hate, I despise the way they creep past my eyes taking up road space on trivial errands. Then I go to the back of the house and pretend I’m not interested. It’s a superstition. When he comes he’s always so cheerful. I reach the end of the driveway before he’s finished loading my mailbox and he tells me it’s just bills and grins from ear to ear. I pretend that’s all I expected. It worries me the sloppy way he handles mail; anything could get lost, fall on the ground or under his car seat and he would never notice. In grade school they showed us a film about how letters travel — canceling machines and sorting machines and finally just the feet of a mailman down a sidewalk. Now that I think about it, there were so many ways those machines could lose a thing .

Mary’s baby was born premature, a girl, and she telephoned all in tears at having to leave the baby in an incubator so mother’s flown there to keep her company. Margaret has married again, nobody knows who to. I think Mother’s going to check him out on the way back. It will do her good to travel a while. I go by the house often, just to make sure Alvareen’s taking care of things okay. The place is going to hell — grass turning brown, leaky faucets. You know Mother never got another handyman. She was distrustful of all the people the employment agency sent out to her .

Andrew is back at his old job and doing fine. I called him on his first night home to invite him here, but he says he’d like to be alone awhile .

Mr. Smodgett at the paper is drunker than ever and now the linotype operator has taken up drinking too, but come August I’m leaving no matter what. I have two weeks off and I’m spending them with you. Don’t tell me not to. I would like to take you back with me. We could live at my house or someplace better, I don’t care. If you still don’t like children, that’s all right. I won’t expect you to change in any way. I love you .

Matthew

JULY 3, 1961

Dear Elizabeth ,

I don’t know if you remember me very well or would even be interested in hearing from me, after all the trouble you’ve been through with my family, but this morning when I was trying to think of someone I’d like to announce my marriage to yours was one of the few names that came to mind—

Not that you would be all that interested in my wedding, I guess, but it seemed like a good excuse to get in touch with you and tell you a lot of other things I’ve wanted to say—