Anne Tyler: Celestial Navigation

They had laid Mother out in a brass-handled casket, a wooden one. Mahogany, I believe. Her head was on a satin pillow. Her hair, which had stayed light brown but grown thin and dull, was set into little crimps, and for once she wore no net on it. She always used to — a light brown cobweb that I itched to snatch off her. A cobweb and a wispy dress with all the life gone out of it and chintz mules that whispered when she walked. Well, now they had put her into the navy wool that I sent her for her last birthday. “Thank you so much for my pretty new suit,” she wrote when she received it, “though as you know I don’t go out much and will probably have no occasion to wear it.” Her face was set in a faint, sweet smile, with her withered cheeks sagging back toward the pillow and her eyelids puckery. You hear people say, at funerals, “How natural she looks! As though she were asleep.” And most of the time they are telling a falsehood, but in Mother’s case it was absolutely true. Of course she looked natural; why not, when she went through life looking dead? Even her hands were right: crossed on her chest, blue-white, waxy at the fingertips. She always did have poor circulation. She always did keep her hands folded in that meek and retiring way, never so much as fidgeting, boneless and nerveless as some floppy cloth doll. On her left hand was a white gold wedding ring, which any woman of spirit would have thrown away years ago but not, of course, our mother. She kept it on. Inertia. She probably forgot it was there. Now for some reason my eyes got fixed on it, and I stared and failed to realize that Laura was crying until I heard her sniffle. I turned and saw her face curling in upon itself while the tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, Amanda,” she said, “how will we ever manage now that Mother’s gone?”

“Now, Laura. It’s not as if—”

“We shouldn’t have left her alone so much. Should we? We should have gone to visit her more, and paid her more attention.”

“Jeremy was the one she cared about,” I said, “and he was here all along. We don’t have anything to blame ourselves for.”

“Jeremy will be just devastated,” Laura said. She patted her eyes with her little flowered handkerchief, which was already sopping wet. “You know how attached they were. Oh, what will he do now? How will he get along?”

“Where is he, first of all,” I said, and I left Laura crying by the casket and went off to find the manager. His office was by the front door. He was seated at his desk, drinking coffee from a paper cup that he hid as soon as he saw me. “Yes!” he said. “May I be of assistance?”

“I am Miss Pauling, and I wonder if you can tell me where my brother is.”

He looked over at the usher, who was leaning against the wall. “Brother?” said the usher.

“That would be Mr. Pauling,” the manager said. “Yes, well, we saw him of course when we came to the house to — but he seemed, he didn’t seem — but he did help us pick out the clothing. We like to have a family member do that, I told him, though at first he was reluctant. Family members know what would be most—”

“But where is he now,” I said.

“Oh, why, that I don’t know.”

“Hasn’t he been by here?”

The manager looked at the usher again, and the usher shook his head.

“Just some ladies,” he told me. “From her church, I think they said.”

“Hasn’t he come here at all?”

“Not as I know of.”

“Well, for goodness’ sake,” I said. I turned and left, with the usher suddenly uprooted from his wall and scurrying along behind me. “Oh, leave me be, go see to someone else,” I told him. “We are surely not the only dead in this house.” Then I went back to the room where Mother was, where Laura was just searching her handkerchief in hopes of a dry corner. I handed her a clean one from my purse. “Jeremy has not been here,” I told her.

“Oh no, I didn’t think he would be.”

“Did you ever hear of a son not keeping watch by his mother’s remains?”

“Oh, well, you know how — I just expected him to be at home,” Laura said. “I hope he isn’t in some kind of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble would Jeremy be in?” I asked her, and naturally she couldn’t think of an answer. There are no surprises in Jeremy. He will never go on a drinking spree, or commit any crimes, or be found living under an alias in some far-distant city. “Most likely he is holed up in his studio,” I told her. “We should have rung the doorbell longer. Well, never mind.” For to tell the truth I was just as glad. It would have been more hindrance than help to have him moping around here. He was even closer to Mother than Laura was. They knew each other so well they barely needed to speak; they spent every evening of their lives together, huddled in that dim little parlor watching TV and drinking cocoa. I have never understood how people can live that way.

We stayed the afternoon in the loveseat out in the corridor and greeted visitors, such as they were. Mother’s circle of friends seemed to have closed in considerably. Those who came were mighty brief about it. A moment of silence by the casket, a word to us, a signature in the guestbook, and then they left again. Just doing their duty. Well, I have always said it doesn’t cost a thing to perform a duty pleasantly , once you are at it, but these people seemed to be thinking of other matters and I could tell their hearts weren’t in it. In between visits Laura and I sat without saying anything, side by side. Our arms were touching; we had no choice. The loveseat was very small. I hate to be touched. Laura was all the time twisting her purse straps or fiddling with its clasp, so that her elbow rubbed against my sleeve with a felty sound that made me jumpy. “Sit still , will you?” I said.

“Oh, Amanda, I feel so lost in this place.”

“Get ahold of yourself,” I told her. Her chin was denting. I reached out and squeezed her hand and said, “Never mind, we’ll go to the house soon and have a cup of tea. You’re tired is all.”

“It’s true, I am,” she said. She has never had as much energy as I.

Two ladies from Mother’s church dropped by. I knew their faces but had to cover up that I’d forgotten their names. Then Mother’s minister, and then Mrs. Jarrett, who has been a boarder at the house for years. A woman of quality, very gracious and genteel. She always wears a hat. She held out a gloved hand and said, “I shall think of your mother often, Miss Pauling, and remember her in my prayers. She was a very sweet person.” Now, why couldn’t all boarders be like that? Right on her heels came Miss Vinton, a faded stringy type who rents the south rear bedroom. The smallest room in the house; Mother charged less for it. “I’m sorry about your mother,” Miss Vinton said, but if she was so sorry you’d think she would have dressed to show it. She wore what she always does, a lavender cardigan over a gray tube of a dress, baggy mackintosh, boatlike Mary Janes on her great long feet. She shook hands like a man, bony hands with straight-edged nails and nicotine stains. Rides a bicycle everywhere she goes. You know the kind. “Well, it was very thoughtful of you to come, Miss Vinton,” I said, but meanwhile I threw a good sharp glance at her clothing to show I had taken it in. If she noticed, she didn’t care. Just gave me a horse-toothed smile. I suppose she thinks we have something in common, both being spinsters in our forties, but thank heaven that is where the resemblance ends. I have always taken care to keep my dignity intact.

At six in the evening we went home. The streets were black and wet, with no taxi in sight. We walked all ten blocks. Laura was crying again. She kept blowing her nose and murmuring little things I couldn’t hear, what with the traffic swishing by and my rainscarf crackling, but I don’t imagine that I missed anything. Instead of answering I just marched along, keeping tight hold of my purse and watching for puddles. Even so, my stockings got spattered. The rowhouses had been darkened by the rain and looked meaner and grimmer than ever.