Anne Tyler - A Slipping-Down Life

Clotelia arrived wearing a long striped rope, like one of the three wise men. Her head was wrapped in a silk turban. Darts of gold dangled from her ears. “My Lord, I can’t take it in,” she said. “The news don’t stick in my head. Well, been one of those days, I might have known. Where is your bangs, may I ask?”

“I’m pinning them back now,” Evie said.

“You look like trash. Go comb them down. If you want I fix you some cocoa and then you tell me how it come about.”

“There’s nothing to tell. I wasn’t there,” Evie said.

But Clotelia only waved a hand and swept on into the kitchen — swept literally, gathering with the hem of her robe all the dust balls she had left behind that day. “Now then,” she said as she took down the cocoa box. “Did he pass peaceful? What was his last words?”

“I wasn’t there, I said. He wondered why his potted plants were dying.”

“Oh, that poor man. Blamed me, I bet.”

“He didn’t say.”

“You don’t look good, Evie. How far along are you?”

“What?”

“How far? Two months? Three?”

“Three, almost.”

“Oh, my, and never told your daddy. What is it makes you act like that?” She lit the flame under a saucepan of milk. “Well, they is a silver-backed mirror in the guest room he always said he would will to me. He tell you that?”

“No, but you can have it anyway. I don’t care,” Evie said.

“He give you the house, I reckon. Well, I will say this: He always was a gentleman. Never cause me trouble, like others I could name. Now I got to find me another job.”

“You could get yourself a factory job,” Evie said.

“Oh, you be roping me in to take care of that baby of yours, I expect.”

“Are you crazy? You might sacrifice him up at a Black Panther rally.”

“Listen to that. A death night and you talk as mean-mouthed as you ever did. Here, drink your cocoa.”

She passed Evie a flowered mug and then leaned back against the sink, folding her arms in her long flowing sleeves. Her hands, striped a soft glowing yellow at the outsides of her palms, gripped her elbows. “And now I hear you quit school,” she said.

“Who said that? I never quit.”

“Been weeks since you been, I hear.”

“Well,” said Evie. She ran her finger around the rim of her mug. It was true; she couldn’t remember the last time she had attended a class. “Anyway, I’m starting back next week,” she said.

“You separated, too, ain’t you,” said Clotelia.

“Separated?”

“From that husband of yours.”

“No , I’m not separated.”

“Where’s he at, then?”

“Oh, at home, I guess.”

“Why ain’t he here, in your time of trouble? Or why ain’t you there?”

“It’s complicated,” Evie said.

“Oh, I just bet it is. No point in a husband if you ain’t going to lean on him during stress, now, is there?”

“Clotelia, for heaven’s sake,” Evie said. “Will you stop just harping at me? Will you leave me be?”

“Well. Sorry,” said Clotelia. She unfolded her arms and gazed down at her fingernails, shell-pink with half-moons left unpainted. “If I’d of thought, I’d of brought my mother,” she said.

Evie put her head in her hands.

“My mother is a consoler at the Baptist Church. She go to all the funerals and console the mourners till they is cheered up.”

“How would she go about that?” Evie asked in a muffled voice.

“Oh, just hug them and pat their shoulders, offer them Kleenex. How else would she do?”

Then Clotelia, who was not like her mother at all, turned her back and rinsed out the cocoa pan, and Evie cupped her hands around her mug for warmth.

“It’s been weeks since I’ve been out in the country,” said Mrs. Harrison. “Wouldn’t you think winter would be over by now? Look at that sky. Look at those trees, not a sign of green. If you like, I can turn on the heater, Evie.”

“I am a little cold,” Evie said.

Mrs. Harrison reached for a lever somewhere beneath the dashboard. She drove with a look of suspense on her face, as if she constantly wondered how she was doing. Her back was very straight; six inches separated her from the back of the car seat.

Mr. Harrison couldn’t come, of course. It was a school day. Evie understood that but Mrs. Harrison seemed afraid she hadn’t. She said, “Oh, if only Bill could have made it. He wanted to, you know that. And naturally he will be coming to the funeral. He feels just terrible about all this. Your father was the first teacher we met when Bill came here to be principal. ‘I’m Sam Decker,’ he said — Oh, I remember it just as clear! Had on that baggy suit of his. There was some confusion in his mind about whether or not I meant to shake hands. And now look. But if Bill was to turn his back for a second, even, that school would just shatter into pieces. ‘Bill,’ I said, ‘Evie will understand. You are coming to the funeral, aren’t you?’ and he said, ‘Martha, you know I am.’ I felt sure you wouldn’t be insulted.”

“No, of course not,” Evie said. “He did more than enough last night.”

“Oh, that was nothing,” said Mrs. Harrison.

“Well, I did appreciate it.”

They seemed to have reached the end of a dance set, both of them curtsying and murmuring a pattern of words. But Evie had trouble remembering what to say. Her voice wandered, searching for the proper tone. Had she shown the right amount of gratitude? Was anything else expected of her? A row of grownups lined the back of her mind, shaking their heads at the clumsiness of Evie Decker.

“You’ll have to tell me where to turn, dear. I’ve never been out this far before.”

“Oh. Right up there at the tobacco barn,” Evie said.

“Don’t you have trouble with undesirable neighbors around here?”

“I don’t know any of them.”

Mrs. Harrison swung to the right, onto deep clay ruts hardened by frost. It sounded as if the bottom of the car were dropping out. Her gloved hands were tight on the wheel, strained shiny across the knuckles, and she looked anxiously around her while the car seemed to bound on its own accord through the dry fields. Around a curve there were two thin children, ropy-haired, lost in clothes too big for them, holding a dead rabbit by the heels and offering it forth. “My stars,” said Mrs. Harrison. She sailed on past them while a narrow line suddenly pinched her eyebrows tighter.

“One thing I told Bill,” she said. “I told him, ‘Thank heaven she’s married, Bill.’ We hadn’t thought it at the time, of course, but now look. You won’t be all alone in the world. You have yourself a hand-picked guardian. Are you certain this is the road?”

“Yes. Our house is just over there.”

“Where?”

“There,” said Evie, and she nodded at the tarpaper shack. Yet for a minute, she hadn’t been sure herself. It looked different. The sky today was a stark gray-white, arching over treeless billows of parched land and dwarfing the house and the single bush that grew by the door. Blank squares of gray were reflected off the windowpanes. A dribble of smoke rose from the rusted chimney pipe. Mrs. Harrison drove into the dirt yard and parked between a wheel-less bicycle and a claw-footed bathtub, but before she had turned the motor off Evie said, “Oh, don’t come in. Really. I’ll be all right.”

“Well, are you sure?” Mrs. Harrison asked.

“I’m positive. Thank you very much.”

“Well. We’ll see you at the funeral, then. Or before, if you think of anything you need. You let us know.”

She waited while Evie collected her coat around her and fumbled for the door handle. Then she raised one gloved hand and shot off into the road, still stiff-backed. A spurt of dust hovered behind her.