Anne Tyler - Morgan's Passing

He drove slightly over the speed limit, once even swerving to the shoulder of the road to bypass a line of cars. He had only a few minutes' wait at the Kent Narrows and none at all on the Bridge. Skimming across the Bridge, he felt he was soaring. He reached the city limits at eleven, and was home by eleven-twenty-long before Bonny and the others.

The yard was overgrown, littered with rolled newspapers. The house was cool and musty-smelling behind its drawn shades, and there was a mountain of mail in the hall beneath the mail slot. In the dining room Brindle sat playing solitaire. Coffee stains yellowed the front of her bathrobe. She trilled her fingers absently when he walked in, and then she laid a jack of diamonds on a queen of spades. "Pardon my not bringing in the papers," she said, "but I didn't want to go outside because Robert Roberts was parked in front of the house for most of the week."

"Persisting, is he?" Morgan said. He sat down next to her to sort the mail.

"I couldn't even go for milk, or to buy a loaf of bread, so I managed on what was here. Sardines and corned-beef hash, mainly. I feel like someone on a submarine; I have this craving for lettuce. But it wasn't so bad. I didn't really mind. It made me think of back when we were kids, when we were poor. Morgan," she said, pausing with a ten of clubs in mid-air, "weren't we happier, in some ways, when we were up against it?"

"As far as I'm concerned, we're still up against it," Morgan said.

There was a dainty blue envelope from Priscilla that must contain a thank-you note. It made him tired to think of it. He passed on to a thicker one that looked more promising, and ripped it open. Inside was a sheaf of photographs, wrapped in a letter. He checked the signature: Emily. Now what? Dear Morgan and Bonny, she wrote, in a neat, italic hand that struck him as stunted. Thank you again for a lovely vacation. I hope we did not put you to too much trouble. Toward the end we were so rushed, getting off in time to beat the dark, that I didn't feel we properly said goodbye. But it was so nice of you to have us and we all had such a…

Morgan grimaced and turned to the photos. He flipped through them idly. Then he sat straighter and went through them again. He laid one on the dining-room — table and another one beside it, and another. Bonny, Robert, Brindle, Kate…

Each person sat alone, suspended in an amber light that surely did not exist in Bethany Beach, Delaware. Bonny folded her arms across her stomach and smiled a radiant smile. Robert Roberts shone like a honey-mooner in his borrowed shirt, and Brindle's skin, had the mellow glow of a priceless painting. Kate with her stubborn pout was as sultry and mysterious as a piece of exotic fruit. Morgan's sombrero, pushed back, was a halo, and the white streaks in his beard gave him the depth and texture of something carved. Well, it was only the film. It was cut-rate film, or out of date, or underexposed.

But each person gazed, out so steadily, with such trust, such concentration, Emily herself, marble-pale in folds of black, met his scrutiny with eyes so clear that he imagined he could see through them and behind them; he could see what she must see, how his world most look to her. A buoyant little bubble of hope began to rise in him. Over and over, he sorted through the pictures rearranging them, aligning them, dropping them, smiling widely and sighing and laughing, ignoring his sister's astonished stare: a man in love.

1976

When spring came, Emily started walking. She walked all spring and summer, down alleyways, across tattered rags of parks, through stores that smelled of pickles and garlic. She went in the front doors an£ out the back, emerging on some unknown street full of delivery trucks, stacked wooden crates, construction workers with pneumatic drills tearing up the pavement. Her ballet slippers, nearly soundless, tripped along in time to the music in her head. She liked songs about leaving, about women who packed up and left, and men who woke to find their beds unexpectedly empty. If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone… She slipped between two children sharing popcorn from a bag. One on these mornings, it won't be long, you'll call my name and I'll be gone… She brushed against an old lady with a shopping bag full of bottles, did not apologize, kept going. I know you, rider, going to miss me when I'm… Gone, gone, gone: her slippers thumped it out. She had a spiky step to begin with, but every day, all over again, she softened; she would slow down bit by bit, and wilt, and grow calm. She would think of how Leon's jacket hung across that broad, subtle curve between his shoulder blades. How complete his words sounded-more certain than other people's, spoken in an even voice that carried some special weight. How he always kept his mouth closed, not tightly clamped but relaxed and gentle, giving her, for some reason, an impression of secrets working within him.

She sighed and turned home, after all.

Often, on these walks, she was followed by Morgan Gower-a wide leather hat and a tumult of beard, loping along behind her. If she paused till he caught up, he'd make a nuisance of himself. He had entered some new stage, developed a new fixation. It was harmless, really, but annoying. He might declare himself to her anywhere-fling out his arms in the middle of the Broadway Fish Market, beam down at her, full of joy. "Last night I dreamed you went to bed with me." She would click her tongue and walk away. She would march on out and down the block, cut through an alley past a grinding garbage truck, and he would follow, but he kept his distance. His hat rounded corners like a flying saucer, level and spinning, the rest of him sauntering beneath. Glancing back, she had to laugh. Then she turned away again, but he'd already noticed; she heard him laugh too. Didn't he realize she had problems on her mind? She was overhung by thoughts of Leon, like someone traveling under a cloud. First marching, then drifting, she paced out the knots and snarls of life with Leon. Love was not a comedy. But here came Morgan, laughing. She gave in and stopped once more and waited. He arrived beside her and pointed at the neon sign that swung above their heads. "Look! La-Trella's Rooms. Weekly! Daily! Let's just nip upstairs."

"Really, Morgan." And even in front of Leon-what did Morgan imagine he was doing? In front of glowering, dark Leon, he said, "Emily, fetch your toothbrush. We're eloping." When there was music, anywhere-a car radio passing on the street-he would seize her by the waist and dance. He danced continually, nowadays. It seemed his feet could not keep quiet. She had never known him to act so silly.

Fortunately, Leon didn't take him seriously.

"You'd be getting more than you bargained for," he said to Morgan.

Still, she said, "Morgan, I wish you wouldn't joke like that in front of Leon. What must he think?'* "What should he think? I'm stealing you away," Morgan said, and he circled the kitchen, where Emily happened to be washing dishes, and threw open all the cupboards. "Which things are you bringing with you? These plates? This bowl? This ^two-quart vinyl orange-juice pitcher?" She rested her soapy hands on the sink and watched him. "Morgan," she said. "Don't you ever get self-conscious?"

"Well," he said.

He closed a cupboard door. He stroked his beard.

"That's a very interesting question," he said. "I'm glad you asked me that. The fact is… ah, yes, I do. " She blinked. "You do?"

"The fact is," he said, "with you: well, yes, I do. " He stood before her, smiling. There was something clumsy about him that made her see, suddenly, what he must have been like as a boy-one of those bumbling boys who can't think what to talk about with girls; or who talk too much, perhaps, out of nervousness-compulsively relating the entire plots of movies or explaining how the internal-combustion engine works. It was a shock; she had never pictured him that way. And anyhow, she was probably wrong, for an instant later he was back to the Morgan she had always known: a gray-streaked, twinkling clown of a man, swinging into a soft-shoe dance across her kitchen floor. At least he could make her laugh. She walked through summer- and into fall. She did other things too, of course-gave puppet shows, sewed costumes, cooked, helped Gina with her homework. But at night, when she closed her eyes, she saw a maze of streets and traffic, the way compulsive chess-players see chessboards in their dreams. She was revisited by the smallest details of her walks-by the clank of a foot on a manhole cover, the spark of mica in concrete, and the Bicentennial fire hydrants sticking out their stunted arms like so many defective babies. She opened her eyes, sat up, rearranged her pillow. "What's the trouble?" Leon would ask.