Anne Tyler - Morgan's Passing

When the time arrived for Leon to drive to Baltimore and pick up Gina, Emily cleaned the apartment so he wouldn't imagine she had let things go. But she didn't try to straighten the clutter, or get Brindle out of her bathrobe. And she didn't hide Morgan's collection of outdated Esso maps or his latest woodworking project — a formless bundle of two-by-fours leaning in a corner of the bathroom.

It was a Saturday he was coming. Saturday morning she got up early, not that she had any choice: Joshua woke her. She took him out to the kitchen and fed him, balancing his warm, damp weight in her lap. He waved his fists and pedaled with his feet as soon as he saw his cereal. His four lower teeth, as crisp as grains of rice, clicked against the spoon. He was a beautiful baby-dark and creamy-skinned, like Gina, but easier than she had been. Leon had never met him.

Gina came in, wearing her new white shorts and a Camp Hopalong T-shirt. "How come you're up so early?" Emily asked her.

"Brindle's snoring."

"Don't you want to save your new clothes till later in the day? You'll get them dirty before Daddy sees them."

"He said he was starting out at crack of dawn."

"Oh." Emily looked at the kitchen clock. She wiped Joshua's mouth with a corner of his bib, scooped him up, and carried him off to his bath.

When she brought him back to the bedroom, dripping wet, Morgan was standing in front of a bureau threading a belt through his jeans. He was humming a polka. Then he stopped. Emily looked up from toweling the baby and found Morgan watching her in the mirror, his eyes darkened and sobered by a black felt cowboy hat. "What's wrong?" she asked Mm.

"Should I go?"

"Go where?"

"When he comes, I mean. Do you want me to leave you two alone?"

"No. Please. I need you to stay," she said.

Morgan saw Bonny all the time. Any dull moment Bonny had, it seemed, she would come unload something new on them-some belonginng of Brindle's or Louisa's, some piece of furniture she'd suddenly decided was really more Morgan's than hers. But Emily hadn't seen Leon since the day he moved out. Even at Christmas she'd just put Gina on a Greyhound bus.

Morgan came over to stand opposite her. Lately, he had started wearing rimless, octagonal spectacles-real ones, not mere window glass. They gave him an expression of kindness and patience. He said, "I'll do whatever you want, Emily."

"I have to have you here. I can't go through it without you."

"All right." His calm unnerved her.

"Not that this means anything to me," she said. "His coming: I don't care."

"No."

"It couldn't matter less."

"I understand." He went back to the bureau and slipped his cigarettes into his pocket. On the bed Joshua flapped his arms and suddenly crowed.

Louisa and Brindle were having breakfast in the kitchen while Emily did the dishes. Louisa chewed her toast in a mincing way. Brindle sat with her chin in her fist and stirred her coffee aimlessly. "Last night I dreamed of Horace," she told Emily. Horace was her first husband. "He said, 'Brindle, what'd you do with my socks?' I felt terrible. It seems I'd thrown them out. I said, 'Oh, why, Horace, they're right where they belong. Just use your eyes,' I said. Then, while he was looking again, I went running to the garbage cans and dug through everything, hunting."

"I dreamed of chili," Louisa said. "My, Morgan used to love chili. He was one of those boys that, you know, likes to hang over pots in the kitchen. Always took an interest in what I cooked. Many's the time he asked me exactly what I'd put in something. 'Why do you brown the onions first?' Or, 'Which is better in spaghetti-tomato sauce or tomato paste?'

'Neither one,' I'd tell him, 'you cook down your own tomatoes, from scratch.' Well, that's another story. Chili is what he loved best. But nowadays, I don't know, I make this extra-special effort to talk about food with him the way he used to enjoy so much and it seems he doesn't take the same interest. Hardly bothers to answer. Hardly even listens, it sometimes seems to me. But of course I may be wrong." The doorbell rang. Emily turned from the sink and looked at Brindle.

"Who could that be?" Brindle asked her.

"I don't know."

"Maybe it's Leon."

"But this is so early," Emily said.

"Well, for heaven's sake, go see. You always act so wooden" Brindle said.

Emily wiped her hands and went to the door. Leon stood there in a new gray suit. He looked more polished than she'd remembered-his hair cut very close to his head, his skin dark and sleek-and he'd grown an oversized, droopy mustache. Emily had seen so many of those mustaches, exactly the same shape, on young men with briefcases, lawyers, executives. She could almost believe it was a borrowed mustache, pasted on. "Leon?" she said.

"Hello, Emily." She took a step back. (She hadn't had time to get into her shoes yet.) "Is Gina ready?" he asked her, "Yes, I think so."' Then Morgan appeared, swinging Joshua in the air, saying, "Ups-a-daisy…" He stopped and said, "Why, Leon,"

"Hello, Morgan."

"Won't you come in?"

"I can't stay," Leon said, but he stepped inside. Emily shut the door behind him. After a moment's hesitation, Leon followed Morgan down the hall to the living room.

Emily wished Morgan would take his spectacles off. Wearing them, he looked humble and domesticated. He held the baby slung over his shoulder and padded around the room, arranging seats. "Here, I'll just move these, find someplace for this knitting… Well, ah, shall I call Gina?"

"If you will, please." Morgan gave Emily a look she couldn't read and left, still carrying Josh.

"So!" Leon said. "How are you, Leon?" Emily asked him.

"I'm fine."

"You look well."

"You do too." There was a pause.

"You know I'm taking courses at the college," Leon said.

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, when I get my degree, I'm enrolling in this training program at Dad's bank. It's interesting work, when you see it up close. You'd think it would be dull, but it's really very interesting."

"That's nice," Emily said.

"So I'd like to keep Gina year-round."

"You what?"

"Now, Emily, don't be hasty. Think this over. I've got a good apartment, stable life, schools nearby. I promise she could visit you any time she liked; I swear it. Emily, you have your son now. You have another child."

"Gina stays with me," Emily said. Her teeth were chattering.

"What kind of set-up is this for her?"

"It's a fine set-up." Louisa appeared in the door, navigating the floorboards as if they lay under a foot of water. She made her way to Leon and said, "You're sitting in my chair."

"Oh, sorry," Leon said.

He stood up. Emily said, "Um, do you remember Leon, Mother Gower?"

"Yes, perfectly," she said, Leon moved to the sofa next to Emily. He smelled of aftershave-not his own smell at all. Louisa arranged herself in her rocker and spread her skirt all around her.

Then Brindle entered with a large, cracked mug of coffee. She sat on the end of the sofa nearest Leon. "So what have you been up to?" she asked him.

"I'm planning to enroll in this training program at the bank."

"Oh, yes. Training program. Well, things have been in a fine pickle here, I can tell you."

"Brindle-" Emily said.

But Louisa suddenly interrupted. "And where's your pretty wife?" she asked Leon.

"Excuse me?"

"Where's that girl that used to bring me fruitcake?" Leon looked at Emily.

"I'll go check on Gina," Emily said.

Even the flow of her skirt, as she walked out, seemed strained.

She found Gina and Morgan standing together among the unmade beds, fiddling with Gina's camp flashlight. "Naturally it doesn't work," Morgan was saying. He tipped the batteries into the palm of his hand. "You've filled it wrong."