Anne Tyler - Morgan's Passing

He snapped the picture and handed the camera back to her. "Ah… Bonny was just wondering," he said. "Should we count on having you three for the night?"

"I don't know," she said. She rolled the film forward with a little zipping sound. "I'll have to talk to Leon," she said finally, "Oh? Where is Leon?"

"He never came back from his walk. I was planning to go into town and look for him."

"I'll come with you," Morgan said. "Gina? You want to take a walk?"

"I'm busy," Gina said, laying out another row of shells.

"Robert?"

"I'm waiting for Brindle." Morgan and Emily started down the street. It was narrow and patchily surfaced; they could walk in the center of it without much fear of traffic. They passed a woman hanging out beach towels and a little girl blowing soap bubbles on her steps. The houses were so close together that it almost seemed the two of them were proceeding through a series of rooms-hearing Neil Diamond on the radio and then an oboe concerto, catching a whiff of coffee and frying crabcakes, watching a man and a boy sort out their fishing tackle on a green porch glider. Emily said, "He'll have a mighty long wait."

"Who will?" Morgan asked.

"Robert Roberts. Brindle's gone back to Baltimore."

"She has?"

"Billy drove her to the bus in Ocean City."

"But her car's parked right out front!"

"She doesn't want it any more, she said."

"Oh," said Morgan. He thought that over. "So it's my house she's gone to, is it?"

"I didn't ask," Emily said.

"It serves him right," said Morgan. "Yes, I was on his side till now, the way he rang our doorbell, bringing roses… but, oh, this ocean business. No. People imagine they can hold you with such things. They cause themselves some damage and assume that we'll accept responsibility. But they underestimate us. They fail to realize. No, Brindle will never forgive him for that." Emily said nothing. He glanced down at her and found her drawn and pale, walking alongside him with her camera held tight in one bluish hand. How had she managed to avoid a sunburn? She'd been out on the beach as long as the others. He wiped his sweaty forehead on his sleeve. "Well," he said, "I suppose you must find us very tiring. Right?"

"I've had a wonderful time," she told him.

"Eh?"

"I've had a wonderful time."

"Yes, well, that's sweet of you, but… never mind, I know this wasn't what you're used to. There's no economy to our life. Don't think I haven't noticed that."

"It was wonderful. It was a real vacation," Emily said. "As soon as we got your letter, I was so excited- I went out and bought us all new clothes. It's been years since I've been to the beach. Not since high school."

"Ah, yes, high school." Morgan said, sighing.

"He never thinks we can spare the time. He'd rather stay at home. We either give our shows or stay home. Sometimes I think he's doing it for spite-he's saying, 'You wanted to marry and settle, didn't you? Well, here we are, and we're never going anywhere again.' It's funny: I hoped I'd grow more like him-more, oh, active-but it seems instead he's more like me. We just sit home. I sit in that room with that sewing machine; I feel like someone in a story, some drudge. I feel like the miller's daughter, left to spin gold out of straw. Visiting here was just what we needed-so much going on, so many things happening-"

"Oh, dear, oh, dear," Morgan said. He felt very uncomfortable, and had forgotten to bring his cigarettes. They passed a man — smoking on his front steps and Morgan drew a chestful of sharp gray air from him. "Doesn't the sun set differently here," he said, "so long and level; the light's so flat, somehow-" He walked faster. Emily kept up. They turned east and passed the first of a string of shops.

"He puts me in such a position," she said. "He always makes it seem that everything was my idea, that I'm the one who organized our lives this way, but I'm not. I mean, if he just sat, what was I to do? Tell me that!" Morgan said, "I honestly don't believe I can last another day in the place."

"In Bethany?" Emily asked. She looked around her. "But it's beautiful," she said.

"It smells of dead fish."

"Why, Morgan." They passed a gift-shop window hung with yellow nets and filled with spiky, varnished conch shells from Florida and pewter sand dollars, seahorses locked in Lucite paperweights, racks of pierced earrings shaped like starfish and dolphins. They climbed a set of weathered wooden stairs, and on the way up the ramp to the boardwalk Morgan glanced into the dark plate glass of the Holiday House restaurant. "Oh! My God," he said.

Emily turned to him.

"Look!" he said, feeling his cheeks, peering into the glass. "I'm so old! I'm so ruined! I seem to have… fallen apart." She laughed.

"Well, I don't see anything funny," he told her.

"Morgan, don't worry. You're fine. It's always like that, if you haven't braced your face first."

"Yes, but now my face is braced," he said. "And look! Still!" She stopped laughing and put on a sympathetic expression. But, of course, he couldn't expect her to understand. Her skin seemed filmed with gold; the metal filings of her hair glinted in the sunlight. She started walking again and after a moment he followed, still testing different parts of his face with his fingertips.

"I thought he'd be right around here somewhere," Emily said, gazing up and down the boardwalk.

"Maybe he stopped at a cafe."

"Oh, he'd never do that on his own." This interested him. "Why not?" he asked. "What would he have against it?" She didn't answer. She set her hands on the boardwalk railing and looked out at the ocean. It was five o'clock at least, maybe later, and only one or two swimmers remained. A single white Styrofoam raft "skated away on the surf. Couples strolled along the edge, dressed in clean, dry clothing that gave them the lovingly tended look of small children awakened from naps. There were flattened squares of sand where families had been camped on blankets, and abandoned drip-castles and bucket-shaped towers. But no Leon. "Maybe he's back at the cottage," Morgan said. "Emily?" She was crying. Tears rolled singly down her cheeks while she faced straight ahead, wide-eyed. "Why, Emily," Morgan said. He wished Bonny were here. He put an arm around Emily, clumsily, and said what he supposed Bonny might say, "There, now. Never mind," he told her, and when she turned toward him, he folded her in to him and said, "Never you mind, Emily." Her hair smelled like fresh linen that had hung to dry in the sun all day. The camera, which she clutched to her chest, made a boxy shape between them, but elsewhere she was soft and boneless, surprisingly slight; there was nothing to her. He was startled by a sudden ache that made him tighten his arms and pull her hard against him. His head grew light. She made some sound, a kind of gasp, and tore away. "Emily, wait!" he said. It was difficult to get his breath. He said, "Emily, let me explain," but she had already backed off, and Morgan was left reeling and hot-faced with shame, and before he could straighten out this new catastrophe, he looked down and saw Leon passing below them, absorbed in the everting paper.

They lost their good weather on Monday and didn't see the sun again till Thursday, and by then it was too late; everyone remaining in the cottage was annoyed with everyone else. Billy and Priscilla left early, in a huff-Priscilla driving Brindle's car. Louisa quarreled with Kate about some blueberry muffins, and Bonny told Morgan that he'd have to take Louisa in the pickup, going home. She certainly couldn't travel with the two of them together. But Morgan didn't want to take her. He looked forward to making the trip alone, with an extra-early start and no stops along the way. Then as soon as he reached home, he figured, he would pay a call on Joshua Bennett, the antique dealer. And maybe afterward he'd wander on downtown, just to see what he'd missed. No, there wasn't any room for Louisa in his plans. So Saturday morning, while the others were still packing, he threw his encyclopedia into the truck-bed. "Goodbye, everybody," he said, and he left. Traveling down their little street, before he turned onto the highway, he could look in the rear-view mirror and see Kate chasing after him, and Bonny descending the porch steps calling something, and Louisa, shading her eyes in the door. In this family, you could never have a simple leavetaking. There were always threads and tangles trailing.