Anne Tyler - If Morning Ever Comes

Inside, there was the mossy brown smell that he had been raised with, that seemed to be part and parcel of the house and was a wonderful smell if you were glad to be home and an unbearable smell if you were not. And mingled with it were the more temporary, tangible smells — bacon, coffee, hot radiators, newly ironed dresses, bath powder. He was standing in the narrow hallway and looking into the living room, which was stuffed with durable old ugly furniture that had stood the growing up of seven children. On the walls hung staid oil paintings of ships at sea and summer landscapes. The coffee tables were littered with things that had been there as long as Ben Joe could remember-little china figurines, enameled flower pots, conch shells. Periodically his mother tried to move them, but Gram always put them back again. On the floor was an interrupted Monopoly game, a pair of fluffy slippers, a beer can, and a pink baby sweater that reminded him of Tessie. It must belong to Joanne’s baby now. He set down the suitcase and the newspaper and crossed into the living room to pick the sweater up between two fingers. It seemed to him that every girl in the family had worn that. But had it really been that tiny?

In the kitchen a voice said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell you what, Jane. Every time I even pick up a glass of frozen orange juice, it makes me think of vitamin pills. Does it you?”

Someone answered. It could have been any one of them; they all had that low, clear voice of their mother’s. And then the first voice again: “I’d rather squeeze oranges in my bare hands than drink my orange juice frozen.”

Ben Joe smiled and headed through the hallway toward the voices, with the sweater still in one hand. At the open doorway to the kitchen he stopped and looked in at the five girls sitting around the table. “Anybody home?” he asked.

They all turned at the same moment to look at him, and then their chairs were scraped back and five cheeks were pressed briefly to his and questions hurled around his head.

“What you doing here, Ben Joe?”

“What you think Mama’s going to say?”

“How’d you get in , is what I want to know.”

“Sure, a burglar could’ve walked in. We’d never even heard him.”

“Would anyone be a burglar before breakfast? And what’s to steal?”

“Where’s your luggage, Ben Joe?”

He stood smiling, unable to get a word in edgewise. They were circled around him, looking soft and happy in their pastel bathrobes, and if they had been still a minute he would have said he was glad to see them, even if it would embarrass them, but they didn’t give him a chance. Lisa reached for the baby sweater in his hand and held it up above her head for the others to see and laugh at.

“Why, Ben Joe, you bring us a sweater? Isn’t that nice, except I don’t reckon it’ll fit us too well.”

“He’s been away so long, forgotten how big we’d have grown.”

“Aren’t you exhausted?”

“I am at that,” said Ben Joe. “Feels like my head’s come unscrewed at the neck.”

“I’ll get you some coffee,” Jenny said. She was the next-to-youngest — it was only last spring that she’d graduated from high school — but, of all of them, she was the most down-to-earth. She went to the cupboard and took down the huge earthenware mug that Ben Joe always used. “Mama didn’t know if you meant it about coming home,” she said, “and says she hopes you didn’t , but she changed your bed, anyway.”

“I’m going to it, too, soon as I’ve had my breakfast. Hello there, Tessie. You’re so little still I damn near overlooked you. Maybe it’s you this sweater’s for.”

“Not me it’s not,” said Tessie. “It’s too little for Carol, even.”

“Who’s Carol?”

“Carol’s our niece.”

“Oh. Where’s Joanne?”

“In bed. So’s Carol.”

“I forgot about her being named Carol,” Ben Joe said. “One more girl to remember. Hoo boy.” He took off his jacket and turned to hang it on the back of his chair. “Ma gone to work already?”

“Yup. This man’s bringing a truckload of books real early.”

The mug was set before him, full of steaming coffee. Tessie passed him a plate of cinnamon buns and said, “You notice anything different about me?”

“Well …” Ben Joe said. He frowned at her, and she frowned steadily back. Of all the Hawkes children, she and Ben Joe were the only blond ones. The others had dark hair, which they wore short and curly, and their eyes were so black it was hard to tell where they were looking. They were almost round-eyed, too, whereas Ben Joe and Tessie had their father’s too-narrow eyes. And there was something tricky about their coloring. At one moment they could seem very pale and at the next their skin would be almost olive-toned. But all of the girls, even Tessie, had little pointed faces and small, careful features, a little too sharp; all of them wore quick, watchful expressions and their oval-nailed hands were thin and restless. People said they were the prettiest girls in town, and the ficklest. Thinking of that, Ben Joe smiled at them, and Tessie tugged at his arm impatiently and said, “Not them, me.”

“You.” He turned back to her. “You’ve gone and gotten married on us.”

“Oh, Ben Joe.” Her giggle was like Joanne’s, light and chuckly. “I’m only ten years old,” she said. “Don’t you see anything different?”

“Nope.”

“I’ve had my ears pierced!”

“Aha,” said Ben Joe. He took her face in his hands and turned it first one way and then the other, examining the tiny gold rings in her ears. “What for?”

“Oh, just because. Joanne and Susannah and the twins have pierced ears. Why not me?”

“Did it hurt?”

“Yup.”

“Did you cry?”

“Nope. Well, tears came out, but I went on smiling.”

“Good girl,” Ben Joe said. “Better run along and get ready for school, now. You’ll be late.”

“You’ll all be late,” Susannah said.

The others got up and left; the pinks and blues of their bathrobes clustered together for a minute at the doorway and then vanished into the hall. Ben Joe could hear their soft slippers padding up the stairs, and somewhere a door slammed. “What about you?” he asked.

“I’ve got another half-hour.”

“Is Gram up?”

“Yes. She’s up in her room, making a gun belt for Tessie out of an old leather skirt.”

He watched Susannah silently for a while, following her quick little movements around the kitchen. She hadn’t changed any; she got the coffee grounds half emptied and fled to the orange-juicer and then to sponge the top of the stove off before she remembered the coffee grounds again.

“Have you talked to Joanne?” he asked.

“Oh, sure.”

“What’d she say?”

“What about?”

“About leaving Gary.”

“Oh.” She tossed the insides of the coffee pot into the sink and went dashing across the kitchen after a cream pitcher. “I don’t know,” she said. “It never came up.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“Well, it’s none of my business.”

“She’s your sister, isn’t she?”

“That still doesn’t make it my business.”

“What does, then?” Ben Joe asked.

“Nothing. “ She lifted up one soapy hand and pushed a piece of hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist. “You’re the one that’s so worried. Why don’t you talk to her, if you think you know where she’d be happier.”

“It’s not that I much want her to go back to him,” Ben Joe said slowly. “Gary’s an awful name. Whatever he’s like. It reminds me of a G.I. with a crew cut, and ‘Mom’ tattooed on his chest, and lots of pin-up pictures on his wall.”