Anne Tyler - A Patchwork Planet

Here I had been thinking that the train trip where I’d first glimpsed Sophia had changed my whole existence; and in fact it had, but it was Natalie who had set that in motion. I saw that now. It was Natalie in her kitchen, her face as sealed and peaceful as the day she had offered me lemonade. Could I interest you? It was the cookie jar on her windowsill — that humble, chipped birdcage jar we used to be so proud of when we were kids together. Oh, once upon a time I’d had all I could ask for: a home, a loving wife, a little family of my own. A place in the world. How could I have thrown that away?

At Rent-a-Back, I knew couples who’d been married almost forever — forty, fifty, sixty years. Seventy-two, in one case. They’d be tending each other’s illnesses, filling in each other’s faulty memories, dealing with the money troubles or the daughter’s suicide or the grandson’s drug addiction. And I was beginning to suspect that it made no difference whether they’d married the right person. Finally, you’re just with who you’re with. You’ve signed on with her, put in half a century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself or even better, and she’s become the right person. Or the only person, might be more to the point. I wish someone had told me that earlier. I’d have hung on then; I swear I would. I never would have driven Natalie to leave me.

Sophia looked so light-colored, when she arrived to pick me up. I felt a little shocked, as if I had forgotten which woman I was linked with nowadays. But also I was relieved. “Sophia!” I said. “Sweetheart!” And when she stepped out to let me slide into the driver’s seat, I hugged her so hard that she laughed at me.

I told her Opal had liked the hedgehog. I didn’t go into the rest of it. I certainly didn’t admit that I had spent the last couple of hours sitting alone on a bench. Sophia said, “Oh, good,” and pursued it no further. One of the qualities I loved in her was her willingness to accept the surface version of things. I reached over to squeeze her knee — a bounteous, soft handful encased in slippery nylon.

Then, after we reached the highway, she sailed into this saga about shopping with her mother. “She told me she needed new bras,” she said. “The only thing she won’t buy through the mail. So we got into my car — never mind that she lives in the middle of downtown; she has to drive out to the suburbs — and right away it was, ‘Oh, don’t take this road; take that road,’ and, ‘Don’t turn here; keep straight.’ ‘Mother,’ I said, ‘I promise I will get you there. Show some faith,’ I said, but would she listen? ‘That road is under repair now,’ she said. ‘Take the road I tell you.’ I said, I’m sure they’ll give us a detour route,’ but she said, ‘I don’t want a detour route!’ Then, when I turned anyhow, she fell into a pout. She sat there moving her lips for the rest of the ride — which was easy, incidentally. Nothing but a few traffic cones. But coming back, what did she do? Started the whole business over again. ‘Don’t take this road! Take that road!’”

It seemed to have escaped Sophia’s notice that she could simply have followed her mother’s instructions. What difference would it have made? But I didn’t point that out. In this new, contented frame of mind, I just smiled to myself.

“Mother inquired after you, by the way,” Sophia said.

“Hmm?”

“She said, ‘How is that young man you’ve been seeing?’ Then later she asked if I would be up for Thanksgiving, and when I said I didn’t know yet, she said, ‘You’re welcome to bring your friend.’ ”

“Oh,” I said. “Well. I guess I could come, if you want me to.”

“I told her no,” Sophia said.

This was fine with me. I said, “Whatever you decide.”

“She’d be needling us every minute. Believe me.”

“It sounds like our mothers have a lot in common,” I said.

Which I used as yet another excuse to squeeze that handful of knee. I was thinking I’d like to get her into bed once we reached Baltimore, but Saturday afternoons could pose a problem. At my place, the Hardestys would be everywhere — kids squabbling on the patio right outside my door, Joe hammering away at some little task from his Job Jar. And Sophia’s roommate had an annoying habit of cleaning house on Saturdays.

“She’d be sure to make all these not-so-subtle references to my weight,” Sophia said, evidently still talking about her mother. “ ‘More turkey, Barnaby? I won’t offer you any, Sophia. I know you wouldn’t want the extra calories.’ ”

“Don’t you dare lose an ounce,” I told her.

There was a luscious little pouch of flesh on her inner thigh just above where her knee bent. It sprang back beneath my fingers like a ripe plum.

“With you, it would be your career,” she said. “Mother’s asked me three times now whether you’ve ever thought of other employment.”

“She really does have a lot in common with Mom,” I said.

“I tell her, ‘Mother, drop it. Barnaby’s very happy doing what he’s doing,’ I say, and she always says, ‘Yes, but would his salary feed a family?’ ”

“It could,” I said.

“It could?”

“It could if it weren’t a very hungry family.”

Sophia made a face at me.

I knew what we were creeping up on here — what we were skating around the border of. We had never, in so many words, discussed getting married; but I think lately it had been on both our minds. I said, “The way I see it, everyone has a choice: living rich and working hard to pay for it, or living a plain, uncomplicated life and taking it easy.”

“Well, you work hard, Barnaby. You’re practically a slave! Wakened up anytime Mr. Shank gets lonely, setting your alarm for crack of dawn on garbage days …”

“Yes, but it’s the kind of work I enjoy,” I said. “And at least it’s not nine to five.”

“Six to midnight is more like it!”

“Hey,” I said, and I eased my foot on the accelerator. “Do you think I ought to change jobs?”

“No, no,” she said.

“It sure sounds as if you do.”

“I just hate to see you work such long hours,” she said, “and not get better paid for it.”

“I’m paid enough to live on,” I said. Then I got bolder. “Maybe enough for a wife besides, if the wife was frugal.”

The word “wife” hung in the air between us. It didn’t really sound all that bad, after my meditations in the park.

“And face it,” I said, hurrying on. (At heart, I was a coward.) “What other work could I do? I don’t have any useful skills. My education’s been a farce. All I’ve learned is trivia.”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Sophia said. “Of course you have useful skills! There’s no such thing as trivia.”

“There isn’t?”

I had never heard that before. It struck me as so erroneous that I couldn’t decide where to start attacking it. In the end, I said, “Well, here: During the Second World War, when butter was scarce in Germany, the Germans started eating their toast with the buttered side down. That way, they could use less butter and still taste it.”

“Pardon?”

“But what’s surprising is, when the war was over, they went back to buttered side up. You’d think they would have formed a new habit; but no, they reverted to buttered side up the very first chance they got. That’s the kind of trivia I mean.”

Sophia was silent. A truckful of chickens passed us — stacks and stacks of crates, strewing feathers.

“Well, anyhow,” she said, finally. “One option I might suggest is, finish up your degree and then apply at my bank.”

“Your bank!”