Anne Tyler - Morgan's Passing

"Really, what do I need with all that? Take it," Leon said.

"Oh."

"Take it."

"Well, if you're sure," said Morgan.

Then Leon said, "Aah, God, Morgan." He spoke wearily, disgustedly, but not with any sharpness.

Even so, Morgan flinched.

When they resumed walking, it was in the other direction, homeward. They passed Eunola's Restaurant, where the three of them had so often stopped for coffee, Then they came to the laundromat where Morgan had stood, countless times, watching Leon and Emily setting out with their baby. Perhaps, he thought, this was not so much a' love story as a friendship story, and he felt saddened by Leon's patient, trudging figure beside him. (Where was that thin, olive-skinned boy parting the curtains to call for a doctor? Would Emily ever again, in the future, wear that tilted look she had first tossed Morgan?) They crossed the street and entered the building. When Morgan saw the long stairway, he believed, for a moment, that he might not make it. He was exhausted, and his chest ached. But a strange thing happened. As he climbed, it seemed his spirits climbed too. He speeded up, leaving Leon behind, taking steps two at a time. He wanted to get on with this. He wanted to begin his new life.

1978

Cinderella was dancing with the Prince, nestled in his brown felt arms, gliding across the walnut desk in somebody's father's study. Over her head, blue satin swoops hung from the folding wooden stage. There was a scrim at the rear that didn't entirely conceal the puppeteers, but the audience was too entranced to notice. It was a very young audience-mostly four-year-olds. The birthday child wore a gilt paper crown that resembled the Prince's.

"Mercy," Cinderella said, "it must be getting late. I'm sure it's nearly midnight."

"Midnight? So what?" the Prince asked in his gruff, rasping voice. "We'll dance till dawn. We'll dance all the next day!"

"Um, well, but you see, Your Majesty…" They were stalling for time. Where was the clock? "The clock!" Emily whispered. Gina was off in a trance again, holding the cassette recorder just beyond Emily's reach and gazing dreamily at the audience. Joshua, who was supposed to be in Gina's care, was creeping under the desk. He gurgled to himself and dribbled on a nest of extension cords.

"Ding, ding!" Emily called in desperation. "Ding, ding, ding…" Somewhere in there she lost count, but she trusted that the audience wouldn't catch it. She could hardly wait to whisk Cinderella off the stage so she could rescue the baby. The instant the curtain was lowered, she snatched him up. He wore only a grayish diaper. His solid little trunk, barrel-shaped, was faintly sticky, and he trailed a silvery, cool thread of spit down the back of Emily's hand.

"Gina, honey," Emily said, "I thought you were going to watch him for me. 'Oh, I can manage both' you told me, 'mind Josh and do the props too…'" Morgan, meanwhile, was digging through a pile of objects on the floor. "Fireplace, fireplace," he muttered. "What's happened to the fireplace?"

"Gina had it last." But Gina was busy with thoughts of her own. Eleven years old, tall and secretive, languorous from half a summer of lolling about in the heat, she sat on a leather chair with her knees cocked and hummed the waltz that Cinderella had been dancing to. "Here we are/' Morgan said. He straightened, puffing, and held up the cardboard fireplace. Joshua reached for it, but Morgan was too quick for him. He set the fireplace in one corner of the stage. "Now, where's the stepmother?" he asked Emily. "Where are the sisters?"

"Gina? Take Josh for me, will you?" Gina unfolded herself with a sigh and accepted the baby. He grabbed at her shiny hair clasp. He grabbed at Morgan's sailor cap, hi passing, but was borne away to the leather chair. "Tra la la," Gina sang, rocking him too hard.

Out front, the audience grew hushed and expectant. Emily slipped off Cinderella's ballgown, exposing her burlap rags. She held her up, ready to go, and smiled at Morgan. He nodded and raised the curtain."You know that Kate's home," Bonny said, "Oh, really?" said Emily. "I hadn't heard." She switched the receiver to her other ear. She was trying to stir a stew and talk on the phone simultaneously. "Has something happened?" she asked.

Instead of answering, Bonny let out a long, thin breath. All of a sudden, this late in her life, Bonny had taken up smoking. She didn't smoke very competently and always seemed to be inhaling or exhaling at exactly the wrong moment, leaving her listeners suspended. She had also developed other new habits. She continually joined strange philosophical societies and women's groups, began unpromising jobs and then resigned almost at once, and telephoned Emily at any hour she pleased. Although she never mentioned Morgan without biting his name off, she seemed not to blame Emily at all. This was a relief, of course, but it was also a little insulting. (It implied that Emily was powerless, without a will of her own.) When Bonny paused for one of her cigarette breaths, Emily pictured the humming wires that linked them. Bonny was knotted into her line, knotted into her whole existence. Even if Emily were to hang up, Benny's phone would still connect hers because Bonny was the one who'd placed the call.

"She has this back," Bonny said. "This sprained or twisted back, or something. The way it came about was, she and her husband were involved in a head-on collision. David walked away from it without a scratch, but Kate did something to her back."

"What happened to the other driver?" Emily asked.

"What other driver?"

"The driver of the other car."

"David was the driver of the other car."

"You mean she collided with her husband?"

"Yes, and got this injured back, this sprained or twisted back; I'm telling you," Bonny said. "Oh, now I see."

"Well, I wanted her to come home because I can nurse her better than David could. Heaven knows I've had the practice. And besides that, I've been attending these lectures on a whole different kind of nutrition, a diet that heals any sort of ailment. It works on physical problems, mental problems, depressions, infections, tumors… You may not remember this, but last winter, when Molly was mugged in Buffalo while she was taking her son to the emergency room…" Salting the stew, tasting it, listening with half an ear, Emily considered the Gowers' accidents: their wrecks, falls, and fires, all those events through which they slid so blithely. To Emily, who had no accidents whatsoever, their lives sounded catastrophic; but to Bonny, sheer custom must have leveled everything out. Emily tried to imagine reaching such a stage. She couldn't begin to.

Even now that Morgan's household had moved to hers, she thought-his mother and sister and dog, his hats and suits-she herself didn't seem to have been transformed in any way at all.

Emily took Gina shopping. Gina was going to Camp Hopalong in Virginia for the month of August, at Leon's parents' expense. It was time she learned to live away from home, they said. Emily was uneasy about it. She didn't like doing without Gina for so long, and also she was afraid that in Virginia, near Leon and his parents, Gina would somehow he stolen from her- turned against her. They would point out that Emily was immoral or deceitful or irresponsible, oh, any number of things, she just knew it; and Emily would not be there to explain herself. But she didn't tell Gina that. Instead, she said, "You're so young, you might get lonesome. Remember how Morgan had to bring you back from Randallstown? You couldn't make it through a simple slumber party."

"Oh, Mama. That was at Kitty Potts's house and she had that group of girls that didn't like me."

"Still," Emily said.

"Everybody goes to camp. I'm not a baby any more." Emily hoisted Joshua on her hip and walked Gina down Crosswell Street to Merger Street, to Poor John's Basement. Holding Camp Hopalong's checklist in her free hand, she informed the salesgirl that they needed six pairs of white shorts. Six pairs! It was lucky Leon's parents were paying for the clothes as well. Gina took a stack of shorts into a curtained booth, while Emily waited outside. (Recently, Gina'd turned modest.) The salesgirl, awkward on her platform sandals as some frail, hoofed animal, hung in the background, clutching one elbow. Joshua started fussing and leaning out of Emily's arms, but she couldn't put him down because the floor was filthy-blackened boards permanently stamped with scraps of foil and gray disks of chewing gum. Joshua grew heavier and heavier. Emily called, "Gina? Honey, hurry, please. It's nearly lunchtime." There was no answer. She knocked on the wall near the booth and then drew the curtain aside. Gina was standing before a full-length mirror, wearing a stained T-shirt and a pair of blinding white shorts with cardboard tags dangling from a belt loop. Tears rolled down her face. She seemed to be watching them in the mirror. "Honey!" Emily said. "What's wrong?"