Anne Tyler - Morgan's Passing

Emily was stunned. She couldn't believe that anyone would be so unfair. Her eyes blurred and the sheets of bricks shimmered in the window.

Why are you saying these things? she wrote back. I have nothing to do with any of this and I don't understand it. It's between you and Leon.

His mother said, It seems you must have taken offense at something. Please, could we start over? Could we meet at the Elmwood this Wednesday at noon?

Emily didn't want to meet her. She felt like ripping the letter to shreds. She looked at Gina, who lay crowing in her cardboard box, and she tried to imagine anything Gina could do-marrying, mismarrying, committing murder-that would sever her from Emily's life as Leon had severed himself from his parents'. There was nothing. She just wouldn't allow it. Gina was the whole point; even what Emily felt for Leon seemed pallid by comparison. She smoothed the letter on her lap and saw Mrs. Meredith's tense, powdery face, with the eyebrows plucked as thin as two arched wires and the lids beneath them always a little puffed, as if she were on the edge of tears.

There were certain rules, Emily had been taught. She would have to go just this once.

Mrs. Meredith came by taxi, all the way from Richmond. Evidently, she didn't drive, and had simply hired a cab for the day. The driver sat at the next table, spreading pate" on a cracker and reading Male magazine. Mrs. Meredith waited behind a foggy martini glass. Her back was very straight. Then Emily entered with Gina riding the way she liked to in those days-hanging over Emily's forearm, with her bottom propped against Emily's hip, frowning darkly at her own bare toes. "Oh!" Mrs. Meredith cried out, and one hand flew to her throat, knocking the martini glass into her lap.

Now that she thought back, Emily felt she really should have prepared Mrs. Meredith. It was too theatrical-bursting in with an unannounced grandchild. It was more like something Leon would have done. She seemed to have caught some of Leon's qualities. He seemed to have caught some of hers. (He seldom spoke of moving on any more.) She was reminded of those parking-lot accidents where one car's fender grazes another's. It had always puzzled her that on each fender, some of the other car's paint appeared. You'd think the paint would only be on one car, not both. It was as if they had traded colors.

She tried to tell Leon about the lunch, once it had taken place. She led into it gradually. "Your mother's been writing me now, you know," she said.

But Leon said, "Emily, I don't want to hear about it and I don't want you to have anything to do with it. Is that clear?"

"All right, Leon," Emily said.

And, oddly enough, even Mrs. Meredith seemed content to let things be. It seemed she only wanted the connection; just who made the connection didn't matter so much. She liked to hear from Emily what Leon was up to. Did he help to care for Gina? "He walks her at night, and he baby-sits while I'm working in the shop," Emily told her, "but he can't yet bring himself to change a diaper. "

"Exactly like Burt was," Mrs. Meredith said. "Oh, exactly!" But she never tried to press any closer than that. Maybe she. found things easier as they were. She often retreated into stories about Leon's childhood, when he had been someone she could understand. "He was a beautiful baby," she said. "All the nurses told me so. Prettiest baby they'd ever seen! They couldn't believe their eyes!" Somehow, everything she said had a way of slipping out of her control. "Even the doctors stopped by to take a look. This one man, a heart surgeon, he came straight from an operation just to get a glimpse of him. 'Mrs. Meredith,' he said, 'I never saw a baby so beautiful in my life. Yes, sir, we're going to hear more of that young man. He's going to amount to something someday!' He called his wife on the telephone; I heard him in the hall. 'You ought to see this baby we've got here! Ought to see this baby!' " Next, Emily thought, there'd be a star beaming over the delivery room. She began to understand why Leon got so edgy around his mother. Mrs. Meredith's rouged face, gazing brightly at a boy no one else could see, seemed deliberately shuttered and obstinate.

In fact, she made Emily feel edgy as well, and Emily never enjoyed these lunches, or came any closer to liking Mrs. Meredith. Telling her a piece of news-or even speaking to Gina in Mrs. Meredith's presence- Emily heard her own voice take on a fulsome tone that wasn't hers at all. She felt that nothing she could say would ever live up to Mrs. Meredith's expectations. But what could she do? The very day after their lunch at the Elmwood, Mrs. Meredith started driving lessons. In a month she had her license and a brand-new Buick, and she drove the entire distance from Richmond to Baltimore although, she said, she was scared to death of multi-lane highways and disliked going over thirty miles per hour. When she telephoned Emily from a corner booth, breathlessly announcing, "I did it! I'm here to take you to lunch," could Emily just say, "No, thank you," and hang up?

They settled into a schedule: the first Wednesday of every month. Emily never told Leon about it. She knew that, eventually, Gina would tell. Now that Gina could talk, it was only a matter of time. "When me and Grandma was eating…" she'd say, and Leon would say, "You and — who?" and then all hell would break loose. Till then, Emily went dutifully to lunch, frowning slightly with concentration.

One time Mr. Meredith came too. He seemed baffled by the baby. He let his wife do all the talking, while he stared around at the dingy old men slurping soup in the E-Z Cafeteria. "So where's this son of mine?" he asked finally.

"He's… very busy at home," Emily said.

"Would you believe he was once the size of this little tyke?" he asked, jutting his chin at Gina. "I could carry him in the palm of my hand. Now we're not on speaking terms."

"Butt," said Mrs. Meredith.

"He was always quick to throw things away." _.

Later, when it was time to go, he asked Emily if she had all her equipment.

"Equipment?" Emily said.

"Equipment. You know." Maybe he was asking if she were sane, marrying his son.

But then he said, "Crib, playpen, high chair, carriage…"

"Oh. We don't need all that," Emily said. "She sleeps in a cardboard box. It's perfectly comfortable."

"I'll send her a crib," Mr. Meredith said.

"No, Mr. Meredith, please don't do that."

"I'll send her one tomorrow. Imagine! A cardboard box!" he said, and he went away shaking his head and looking pleased, as if his expectations, at least, had every one been fulfilled.

The crib arrived: white, spooled, with an eyelet canopy. She'd never heard of such nonsense. Two delivery men came puffing up the stairs with it and leaned it, unassembled, against the wall in the hallway. She reached a finger inside a plastic bag and touched an eyelet ruffle. Then Leon walked in, tossing from hand to hand the cabbage she'd asked him to get at the market. "What's all this?" he asked.

"Your parents sent it," she said.

He took a step backward from the crib.

"Leon," she said. "While we're on the subject, I ought to tell you something." He said, "I don't want to hear, I don't want to know, and I want this monstrosity gone by the time I get back." Then he turned and left, still carrying the cabbage.

Emily thought it over. She mashed a banana for Gina's supper and fed it to her, absently taking a few bites herself. She looked out the kitchen doorway'and into the hall, where the crib stood slanting elegantly. At that time Gina was six months old, and outgrowing her cardboard box. She slept more often with her parents, still munching drowsily on Emily's breast. It would be nice to have a safe container to keep her in, Emily thought. She scraped banana off Gina's chin and stuffed it back into her mouth. She looked at the crib again.