Anne Tyler - Celestial Navigation

“He won’t?” I said. I hadn’t realized that.

“When I telephone, one of the children always answers, and if I ask to speak to him they go off to call him and come back and say he’s in the middle of changing Hannah or frying eggs or something. He’s angry.”

Jeremy angry?

“No, he’s hurt, Mary,” I said.

“Well, I’m hurt too. I’ve been waiting all this time, thinking surely he would give in and call me. I lie here just for hours. Don’t you think I would say yes like a shot if he called and asked to visit me and take me home?”

“Of course. Yes, I know. But you could call, Mary.”

“I spend my life calling!” Mary said. She sat up in bed, and a few of the other women in the ward turned to stare. “It’s always me,” she said more quietly. “Never him. I make the first move every time. I’m tired.”

“Yes, now, I know,” I said, trying to hush her. And after that she did grow more reasonable. For the rest of the hour we talked about ordinary things. But when finally I rose to go, when I turned in the doorway to say goodbye, the last thing I saw was Mary sitting with her hands folded and her eyes lowered and her face sad and wistful. She reminded me of a girl waiting for an invitation to dance. Even her lace-trimmed nightgown had a pathetic look, like a ball dress carefully ironed by some loving mother who had imagined her daughter waltzing all evening, and never dreamed it could be otherwise.

For bringing home a new baby there is a ritual in this house, and I am part of it. I go along in the taxi, to stay with the children while Jeremy is inside the hospital. We are all packed into the back seat, and up front the driver is grumbling over the noise and the crowding and the cracker crumbs. While we wait I take the children to a concrete space beneath Mary’s window. I point it out to them. “See? There it is — the one with the shade pulled all the way up.” “Where? Where?” When all the children have located it, they start shouting. “Mama!” they call — even the littlest one. It is against our rules for Mary to be watching for us. She must stay out of sight, and wait to hear their voices. Then she comes to the window. Dressed, finally, all set to go. First she waves and blows kisses, then she play-acts her impatience to come down. She pounds silently on the windowpane, she sets her fist against her forehead. The children laugh, too shrilly. They sound a little hysterical. It occurs to me that for the smallest ones, this may be exactly how they have imagined her absence: they suspect she is being kept prisoner somewhere, forced to leave them in the fumbling care of their father. For she would never desert them of her own free will , would she? Then another face appears beside hers — Jeremy’s, round and blurred. Mary flings up her hands in joy, showing that the rescue squad has at last arrived. She turns and throws her arms around his neck. The two of them are framed in the window like heroes at the end of a romantic movie — wrapped together, touched with sunlight. We go back to the taxi. This will be our longest wait, while they collect the new baby and settle the bill. To pass the time we play “I Spy,” and we become so absorbed that Darcy is the only one to see her parents emerging. “Ta-taaa!” she says, like a trumpet. We look up to find them coming across the driveway, flushed and smiling. Mary carries the overnight case. She has read somewhere that if it is the father who introduces the new baby there will be less jealousy, and although I can’t see what earthly difference it makes she has given the baby to Jeremy. He holds it stiff-armed, at a distance, with his entire self concentrating on getting his prize safely to the car. He reminds me of little Pippi carrying a very full glass of water. “Here we are!” Mary says. Then the taxi is a flurry of hugs and kisses, and the baby is passed from one grimy set of hands to another. Even the taxi driver must have a turn; no one will be satisfied until he does. “Well now,” he says. “Yes sir. What do you know.” He gives it back, grins and shakes his head, and starts the motor. The ceremony is over. All requirements have been met. The rules are stashed in the back of our minds until two years from now.

I thought we would be collecting new babies that way forever. I didn’t realize the ritual could be abandoned so easily.

• • •

Early Saturday I went to the dimestore and chose a small toy for Mary to bring each of the children. Usually she tells me exactly what they have been wanting, but this time she didn’t seem to know. “Oh, anything,” she said. “You probably have better ideas than I do.” I entered the dimestore feeling uncertain — I had no ideas at all — but then I began to enjoy myself. I had been watching those children more closely than I suspected. I knew that Darcy would like something she could do with her hands — an embroidery set — and that Abbie had a yen for costume jewelry. The jewelry on the toy counter was not very satisfying. All I saw were pop-it beads and plastic bangles. But then in the grownups’ section I found a wealth of glittery rhinestones and great multicolored teardrop earrings. They were more expensive, but I could always chip in a little money of my own. I felt as proud of myself as if I had discovered them in a pirates’ chest. Who else would think of looking here for a child’s gift? I chose green glass earrings shaped like peacock tails and purple ones like huge bunches of grapes. I held one of each to my ears and looked in the mirror that sat on the countertop. Then I froze, with jewels dangling ridiculously below my great long earlobes.

For there I was, against a background of crepe-paper turkeys and pilgrim-shaped candles and sheaves of plastic Indian corn: my bony face all lit up and feverish and my pupils enormous and my fingers a little shaky, clutching those earrings. Like some tacky trite cartoon: old maid preparing for the arrival of the troops, or waiting for the meter man. Only it wasn’t any soldier or meter man that had lit my eyes so; it was the prospect of what I was going to do today. Choose the children’s surprises on my own, check Mary out of the hospital, carry that new baby home the way Jeremy used to do. Why, I could see myself carrying him! It was as if, without realizing it, I had spent all of the night before imagining every detail! I saw myself climbing the front steps holding the baby exactly right (much better than Jeremy would have, much more securely). I saw the children crowding around me, all anxious to share my treasure. I saw myself dispensing gifts. “Open that bag, will you, Darcy? See what you find. There are surprises there for all of you, I chose them myself.” They would scatter brown paper bags and cash register slips, all excited over gifts I had selected that Mary would never have thought of. Mary faded. Jeremy faded. I was left alone with that baby wrapped in powder blue and that circle of little faces.

I picked three toys in haste and went directly home. In the front hall I found Pippi, wearing frayed underpants and nothing else. She was shivering. Tears had made little gray streamers down her cheeks. “Miss Vinton, Abbie hit me” she said. I gave her a pat on the head and walked on by. I went straight to the kitchen, where I found Jeremy trying to get Hannah to eat her egg. That was what he had been doing when I left, an hour ago. Hannah was in her high chair with her lips clamped together, and Jeremy was saying, “Please, Hannah. Won’t you consider taking another bite?”

“Jeremy, here are some things I’d like you to give Mary,” I told him. I set my shopping bag on a chair. Jeremy looked up quickly. “Me?” he said.

“I won’t be going to the hospital, but I’ll be happy to stay with the children.”