Anne Tyler - Morgan's Passing

Morgan stooped to lay the baby in Louisa's lap. Louisa took her uncertainly, one gnarled hand still clutching a glass of port. "What is this?" she asked.

"It's a baby, Mother."

"Is it mine?" He reconsidered, took the baby back, and gave her to Brindle. Brindle was reading a mail-order catalog and passed her on to a twin. Throughout all this the baby looked better entertained than she had the whole day.

"She's the image of Liz," Emily said. "Isn't she? She's just like her. But with Chester's eyes."

"Emily, honey, where's Leon?" Bonny asked. "And where's Gina? Didn't she want to see the baby?"

"She has a science report due Monday. She's been working on it all weekend," Morgan imagined the hush in their apartment: the bare, clean living room, Gina concentrating on a single book.

"But Leon, at least," Bonny said. "You could have brought Leon."

"He wanted to watch this program on TV. If I waited till it was finished, the baby would have gone to bed, I figured." Two years ago the Merediths had bought a small television set. Morgan tended to forget that. Every time Emily referred to it, he mentally blinked; he felt himself having to make some disruptive inner adjustment. He went to the sideboard and poured her a glass of sherry-the only drink she'd ever been known to ask for. When he handed it to her, she was just slipping out of her coat. "Let me hang that up," he told her.

"Oh, I'll keep it. I can only stay a minute." She sat on the couch, talking to Bonny and Liz, and Morgan harumphed his way around the living room. He stepped over a Monopoly game, threw another log on the fire. He wound the clock on the mantel. He squatted, grunting, and picked up the discarded paper from Emily's gift and folded it carefully for future use. She must have decorated the paper herself, or bought it from Crafts Unlimited, It was patterned with a block print of little bells. He loved her old-time, small-town manners-her prompt gifts and cards and thank-you notes, her Christmas fruitcake, her unfailing observance of every official occasion. She was the most proper person he had ever met. (A while back, she had angled a night away from home-their one whole night together. They were so tired of snatched moments. She'd told Leon she was going to Virginia. She'd met Morgan at the Patrician Hotel and insisted on signing her true name in the register-her name and address and telephone number, all written with the pen held perpendicular to the page in a stiff, quaint manner that delighted him. He'd asked later, why not a false name? It wouldn't be right, she had said.) "I parked the car at the corner/' she was telling Bonny, "and just as I got out I saw this little family.

A man, a woman, two children. One of the children had fallen, he was crying, and I slowed down to check on him; you know how it is when you hear a child cry. Well, it was only a scrape or something, a scabby knee. But evidently the father was blind. He didn't seem to know what had happened. He just kept saying, 'What is it, Dorothy? Dorothy, what is it? Dorothy, what's gone wrong?" and Dorothy wouldn't answer.

She picked up the child that was crying and then she got the older one, really much too big a child to carry, hoisted on her other hip, and she was so swaddled around with winter coats and scarves and also she had a big purse and some huge kind of tote bag, I don'tr know, groceries or things; it was hard to tell by the streetlight. She was staggering, just tottering along. And he was still asking, 'What is it?' and feeling all around him, frantic. She said, 'Look, you wait here, I've got to go bring the car. Nicholas can't walk.* He said, 'Why can't he walk? For God's sake, what's happened?' and she got all exasperated and said, 'Just wait, I tell you; keep calm. Stay right here and I'll be back. Jason, you weigh a ton. Hang on to Mommy, Nicholas…' I wanted to tell the man, 'It's a scrape. It's nothing.' I wanted to tell the woman, 'Why bring the car? Why are you doing this? Or if you do have to bring the car, why not leave the children with him, and the bags and things? He can manage those. Why wade off like that, why? Why make things, oh, so ingrown, so twisted?'"

"Oh, when you see how other people have such handicaps," Bonny said, "you have to thank your stars our own lives are so easy. Don't you?" She'd missed the point. So had everyone else, Morgan supposed. They went on rattling their dice, clicking their needles. A log fell in the fire, sending out a shower of sparks. The dog stirred and half-heartedly thumped his tail. Brindle turned the pages of her catalog, with its garish, blurred illustrations. Amazing Soap Cradle! Morgan read. Remarkable Perma-Tweezers! Astounding Hair Trap Saves Costly Repair Bills! He lifted his eyes and met Emily's. She looked beautifully remote to him, so distinct from everyone else that she seemed smaller even than the children.

Then when she had to go, it was Bonny who told Morgan to walk her to the car, Operating on her own misguided version of events, Bonny said, "Now, make sure she locks her doors, Morgan. You heard what peculiar people are running around loose." Emily "let Morgan help her into her coat, and she waved good night to the others and kissed Bonny on the cheek. "Come back on a weekday," Bonny said. "Have lunch with me one day while Gina's at school. It's been so long since we've had lunch! What's become of you?" Emily didn't answer that.

She and Morgan went down the front steps, out to the street. It was such a cold night that there was something flinty about the air, and Morgan's heels rang as if on metal. He was bundled into his parka, with the hood up; but Emily's coat didn't look warm and, although she wore black tights, her papery little shoes were probably no protection at all. He took her hand. She had tiny, precise knuckles and a cluster of chilly fingers. "Tomorrow's Sunday," he said. "I guess you can't get away."

"No, I guess not."

"Maybe Monday."

"Maybe."

"Come out at suppertime, to buy milk or something. I'll stay on late at the store."

"But I've done that so often."

"He hasn't said anything, has he?"

"No." They dropped hands, separated by that "he"-a word that pointed out their furtiveness. In private, they no longer mentioned Leon. Morgan could not picture him without an inner twinge of sorrow and remorse. It seemed he liked Leon even better than before, and appreciated more fully the sober dignity of his high-cheekboned face, which was-come to think of it- admirably stoical, like an American Indian's. (Leon had a way of looking at Morgan, lately, with his long black eyes expressionless, lusterless, impassive.) But with Bonny, strangely enough, Morgan felt no guilt at all. He had sealed her off in another compartment. Coming home to her, he would be as pleased as ever by her easy chuckle and her heavy breasts and the absent-minded hugs she gave him as she slid past him in the choked and crowded corridors of their house.

He and Emily reached her car. She started into the street, to the driver's side, but he stopped her and drew her in to him. She smelled clear and fresh, like snow, and there was sherry on her breath. He kissed the curve of her jaw, just below one earlobe. "Morgan," she whispered, "someone will see." (She had an exaggerated fear of rumor; she imagined that people were more observant than they really were.) He felt he was trying to fill up on her. He kissed her mouth-a dry, sharp, wrinkled mouth, oddly touching-and unbuttoned her coat to slip his hands inside and circle her. Her body was so thin and pliant that it always seemed he was missing something, leaving part of it behind. "Stay longer," he said in her ear.

"I can't," she said, but she held on for a moment, and then she pulled away and ran to climb into her car. The headlights lit up. The engine coughed and started. Morgan stood watching after her, pinching his lower lip between his fingers and thinking of what he should have said: Come even if it's Sunday. Promise you'll come Monday. Why don't you wear gloves? Mornings, now, when I wake up, I have this springy, hopeful feeling, and I see that everything is worth it, after all.