Anne Tyler - Morgan's Passing

He was done for.

The woman flipped the pages of her magazine, and car horns honked in the distance, and the telephone rang with a muted, purring sound. Morgan raised his head and stared at the oak door. He began to see the situation from another angle. An assignment had been given Mm. Someone's life, a small set of lives, had been placed in the palm of his hand. Maybe he would never have any more purpose than this: to accept the assignment gracefully, lovingly, and do the best he could with it.

On Wednesday morning, after Emily heard from the doctor, Morgan came home from work to tell Bonny. Bonny had launched one of her spring-cleaning attacks that always made the house seem untidier than before. Morgan could smell the dust flying the minute he walked in. She was in the dining room, wearing a kerchief over her hair, washing down her ancestors' portraits with Spic and Span. Various scowling gentlemen in nineteenth-century frockcoats leaned against the chairs, Bonny was not intimidated. She scrubbed their faces with the same brisk energy she had once shown in scrubbing her children. Morgan stood in the doorway watching.

She wrung out a sponge, wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist, and then looked over at him. "Morgan? What is it?" she asked.

He said, "Emily's pregnant." In the second it took her to absorb it, he saw he had worded it wrong. She could easily misunderstand. She might say, "Why, isn't that nice! They must be thrilled." But no, she understood, all right. Her mouth dropped open. She took on a white, opaque look. She reared back and threw the sponge at him. It skimmed his cheekbone, wet and warm and rough like something alive. Partly, he was impressed. (What a woman! Direct as some kind of electrical charge-undiffused.) But he had never been able to tolerate being hit in the face. He felt bitterly, gloriously angry, and free. He turned and walked out of the house.

At the hardware store he pushed past Butkins and went to use the phone. "Emily? Can you talk?" he asked.

"Yes. Leon's loading the car."

"Well, I told her," he said.

"What'd she say?"

"Nothing, in fact."

"Was she very angry?"

"No. Yes. I don't know," he said. "Emily, have you talked to Leon?"

"No. I'm going to."

"When?"

"Soon," she said. "Right now we've got a show at the library. I have to wait till after it's done."

"Well, I don't know why," Morgan said.

"Maybe I could tell him tonight."

"Tonight? Sweetheart, you'd better get this over with," he said.

"It's just… you know, just a matter of finding the proper moment." After he had hung up, Morgan had a sudden fear that she would never tell Leon. He pictured having to sleep on the couch in his office forever-a man unkempt, un-cared for. Like someone who had fallen between two stepping stones in a river, he'd let go of Bonny without yet being certain of Emily. He could not imagine life as a bachelor.

He sat a while drumming his fingers on his desk. He had an urge to write letters. But whom would he write to? He wondered how he could get hold of his cardboard file box, Surely Bonny wouldn't do anything rash with it, would she? — burn it? set it out for the trashmen? She knew how much it meant to him.

Finally he rose and went downstairs. Butkins was outdoors, helping a customer. In the spring they put some of their merchandise on the sidewalk-flats of seedlings, giant bags of mulch and fertilizer. Morgan peered through the window and saw Butkins tenderly fitting a marigold plant into a brown paper bag. He turned away and went into the stockroom. There were cartons of garden tools here, waiting to be unpacked. He opened one and pulled out trowels, dozens of them, which he heaped on the floor. He opened others and pulled out hedge trimmers, then cultivators, then shiny-toothed wheels for edging lawns. The stockroom became a tangle of chrome blades and painted wooden handles.

Butkins came in and said, "Um…" Morgan surveyed all he had unpacked. Then he pried up another flap and reached for a pair of grass shears in a cardboard sheath.

Butkins said, "Mr. Gower, there's some things of yours on the sidewalk:"

"Things?"

"It looks like… belongings. Clothing. Also a dog."

"How'd they get there?"

"Mrs. Gower, ah, dumped them there."

" Morgan straightened up and followed Butkins through the store and out onto the sidewalk, which was a sea of hats and clothes. An elderly woman with a cane was trying on a pith helmet. Harry, who had never been much of a watchdog, was smiling at her with his tongue hanging out. He was sitting on Morgan's red-and-white-striped, 'twas-the-night-before-Christmas nightshirt. "I'm sorry, Mr. Gower, I didn't know what to do," Butkins said. "It happened so fast. She threw them, like. Knocked over half the seedlings."

"Yes, but why the dog?" Morgan asked.

"Pardon me?"

"The dog, the dog. It's not my dog; it's my mother's.

I never even liked him. He dribbles. Why did she send me the dog?"

"Well, and there's some articles of clothing here too, you see."

"It isn't fair. I don't want a dog."

"There's hats and nightwear."

"Come back here!" Morgan told the old lady. She was making off with his pith helmet. She wore it tipped too far forward-had no idea of the proper angle. "Come back with my helmet!" he cried. She walked faster and faster, as if on little wheels. Considering her age and her cane, Morgan had to marvel.

"Shall I go after her?" Butkins asked.

"No, help me bring in the rest of the things. People will be all over them," Morgan said. Butkins stooped for an armload of clothing, but stopped when Morgan told him, "She won't even know to dampen it, I'll bet."

"Pardon?"

"You dampen the helmet in hot weather. It cools your head by the process of evaporation."

"Shall I go after her, then?"

"No, no."

"Are these boots yours too?"

"Everything," said Morgan. He scooped up an armload of hats and followed Butkins inside. "Actually, I don't think she brought nearly my whole wardrobe, though. Where's my gnome hat? Where's my sombrero?"

"Are you and Mrs. Gower experiencing some difficulty?" Butkins said.

"Not at all. Why do you ask?" said Morgan. He went outside for another armload, chasing away two small boys who were interested in a sheepskin vest. "Come in, Harry," he told the dog. "Butkins, we'll need those cartons from the stockroom." They made a total of six trips. Bonny had not, in fact, forgotten anything. Morgan found his file box under a cloak. He found his gnome hat and sombrero, and also a Napoleonic tricorne he'd forgotten all about.

He blew the dust off and tried it on. He checked his reflection in the nickel surface of the cash register. Under the cocked brim his bearded face peered out hollowly. He was sickened. What a farce! How ridiculous! He had always, even in infancy, been a fool for hats. As a child, he'd worn firemen's helmets and Indian headdresses to bed at night. This was no better. He tore the tricorne off and flung it on the floor.

"Oh!" said Butkins. "It's an antique."

"I hate it."

"You don't want to get it dusty," Butkins said, picking it up.

"It's already dusty. You can have it." Butkins did not seem to want it, however. He gave the hat a doubtful, troubled look, and placed it cautiously on the counter beside a flashlight display.

At lunchtime, when Morgan was alone hi the store, he dialed the Merediths' number again. Nobody answered. They must not have returned from their puppet show. He let the phone ring on and on. Harry lay at his feet, his nose between his paws, rolling his eyes at Morgan.

When Butkins came "back, Morgan decided not to go to lunch himself. He wasn't hungry. And he didn't climb the stairs to his office, but stayed close to Butkins, drawing some kind of comfort from him, mutely watching the dull, homely transactions that took place: the purchasing of paint, nails, a screen-door hook, the return of a defective light switch. He noticed that when Butkins had no customers, he fell into a kind of trance; he gazed into space, sighing, and absently fingered an earlobe. Perhaps he was thinking of his-wife. She had some slow, creeping illness; Morgan couldn't think of the name. Something to do with her muscles. She was no longer able to walk. And the child who died had been struck by a hit-and-run driver. Morgan remembered the funeral. He wondered how Butkins endured it, where he found the strength to open his eyes every morning and dress himself and force down a little food and set out for the hardware store. He must feel nothing but contempt for Morgan. But when Butkins came out of his trance and found Morgan's eyes on him, he only gave his gentle smile. "Why don't you leave?" Morgan asked. "Take the afternoon off."