Anne Tyler - Saint Maybe

When Ian passed through the hall on his way out, he sent his father a commiserating look.

It was near the end of March, that period when spring approaches jerkily and then backs off a bit. The light was hanging on longer than it had a week ago, but a raw, damp wind was moving in from the north. Ian zipped his jacket and turned up the collar. He circled a group of Waverly Street children playing hopscotch — bulkily wrapped little girls planting their feet in a no-nonsense, authoritative way down a ladder of chalked squares. He performed a polite minuet with one of the foreigners, dodging right, then dodging left, till the foreigner said, “Please to excuse me,” and laughed and stepped aside. Ian nodded but he didn’t stop to talk. Talking with the foreigners could tie up half the evening, what with that habit they had of meticulously inquiring after every possible relative.

By the time he reached Jeffers Street, dusk had fallen. The windows of Danny’s house glowed mistily, veiled by sheer white curtains. Ian rang the doorbell and then knocked, to show he was a man in a hurry. The sooner Lucy got going the sooner she would be back, he figured.

He had expected her to look shamefaced at the sight of him. (Surely she knew she hadn’t played straight, going behind his back to his mother.) But when she opened the door, she just said, “Oh, Ian! Come in. I really do appreciate this.” Then Thomas and Agatha hurtled toward him from the living room, both wearing footed pajamas. “Ian!” they shouted. “Did you bring Cicely? Where’s Cicely? Mama said maybe—”

“Let him catch his breath,” Lucy told them. She was putting on her coat. She wore a red turtleneck and long, loose woolen pants that gave the effect of a skirt. It seemed unjust that she should be so pretty. “My friend Dot phoned at the very last minute,” she said. “I know it’s a Saturday night, but I thought maybe if you invited Cicely over—”

“She has to stay with her brother,” Ian said bluntly. He stood in front of her with his fists in his jacket pockets. “I’m supposed to go to her house. I promised I’d be there at eight-thirty.”

“Oh, well, that’s no problem. Right now it’s—” She slid back a sleeve and checked her watch. “Six-forty. I’ll tell Dot I have to be in early. Remember Dot? From the Fill ’Er Up Café?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ian said heavily.

But she didn’t seem to catch it. She was looking for something. “Now, where …” she said. “Has anyone seen my keys? Well, never mind. You be good, kids, hear? And you can stay up till I get back.” Then she left, shutting the door behind her so neatly that Ian didn’t even hear the latch click.

In the living room, Daphne sat propped in her infant seat in front of the TV. “Hey there, Daph,” Ian said, shucking off his jacket. The sound of his voice sent her little terry-cloth arms and legs into unsynchronized wheeling motions. She craned around till she was looking up into his face and she gave him a lopsided smile. It was sort of flattering, really. Ian squatted to pick her up. He felt as surprised as ever by the fight in her — the wiry combativeness of such a small body. Even through the terry cloth, the heat from her tiny armpits warmed his fingers.

“Ian,” Thomas said, “ why don’t you come over anymore?”

“Now we got no one,” Agatha said, “and Mama called Mrs. Myrdal and begged and pleaded but Mrs. Myrdal hung up on her.”

“Are you mad on account of I beat you at Parcheesi last time?” Thomas asked.

“Beat me!” Ian said. “That was just a fluke. The merest coincidence. Bring on the board and I’ll prove it, you young upstart.”

Thomas tittered and went off for the Parcheesi board.

While the two children were setting up the game on the rug, Ian phoned Cicely. “Hello?” she said, out of breath.

“Hi,” he said. He shifted Daphne to his hip.

“Oh, Ian. Hi.”

“I’m over baby-sitting at Lucy’s. Just thought I’d let you know, in case you find yourself desperate for the sound of my voice or something.”

“Baby-sitting! When will you be done?”

“It shouldn’t take long. Lucy promised—”

“I have to go,” Cicely broke in. “I’m following this recipe that says Simmer covered, stirring constantly . Can you figure that out? I mean, am I supposed to keep popping the cover off and popping it back on, or what? Do you suppose—”

She hung up, perhaps still talking. Ian sat down on the rug and settled Daphne on his knee.

It was true he liked all games, but Thomas and Agatha were not very challenging opponents. They employed a strategy of avoidance, fearfully clinging to the safety squares and deliberating whole minutes before venturing into open territory. Also, Thomas couldn’t add. Each toss of the dice remained two separate numbers, laboriously counted out one by one. “A two and a four. One, two. One, two, three—”

“Six,” Ian said impatiently. He scooped up the dice and flung them so they skittered across the board. “Eight,” he said. “Ha!” Eight was what he needed to capture Agatha’s man.

“No fair,” she told him. “One douse went on the carpet.”

“Die,” he said.

Her jaw dropped.

“One die went on the carpet,” he said. He picked up his own man.

“No fair if they don’t land on the board!” she said. “You have to take your turn over.”

“I should worry, I should care, only babies cry no fair,” Ian singsonged. He pounded his man down the board triumphantly. “Five, six, seven—”

The phone rang.

“—eight,” he said, nudging aside Agatha’s man. He hoisted Daphne to his shoulder and reached up for the phone on the plastic cube table. “Hello?”

“Ian?”

“Hi, Cicely.”

“On your way over, could you pick up some butter? My white sauce didn’t thicken and I had to throw it out and start again, and now I don’t have enough butter for the rolls.”

“Sure thing,” Ian said. “So how’s our friend Stevie?”

“Stevie?”

“Is he getting ready for bed yet?”

“Not now , it’s a quarter past seven.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Oops!” she said.

She hung up.

Ian hoped she wasn’t losing sight of the important issues here. White sauce, rolls, what did he care? He just wanted to get that brother of hers out of the picture.

Daphne breathed damply into his left ear. He boosted her higher on his shoulder and turned back to the game.

They finished Parcheesi and started Old Maid. Old Maid was sort of pointless, though, because Thomas couldn’t bluff. He had that sallow kind of skin that reveals every emotion; whenever he grew anxious, bruiselike shadows deepened beneath his eyes.

The game went on forever and Daphne started fussing. “She wants her bottle,” Agatha said, not lifting her gaze from her cards. Ian went out to the kitchen to take her bottle from the refrigerator, and while he waited for it to warm he jounced Daphne up and down. It didn’t do any good, though; he seemed to have lost his charm. All she did was fuss harder and climb higher on his shoulder, working her nosy, sharp little toes irritatingly between his ribs.

When he returned to the living room, the other two had abandoned the card game and were watching TV. He sat between them on the couch and fed Daphne while a barefoot woman sang a folk song about hammering in railroad ties. Thomas sucked his thumb. Agatha wound a strand of hair around her index finger. Daphne fell asleep halfway through her bottle and Ian rose cautiously and carried her to her crib.

At 8:15, he started getting angry. How was he supposed to make it to Cicely’s by 8:30? Also he had to stop off at home beforehand — change clothes, filch some wine from the pantry. Damn, he should have seen to all that before he came here. He jiggled a foot across his knee and watched a housewife in high heels explaining that bacteria cause odors.