Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread

“How’s it working?” Denny asked.

“Not so very well, so far. Seems like even when I’m asleep, I keep remembering she’s not there.”

Denny passed Stem the screwdriver. They were taking all the screens down, preparing to put the storm windows in for the winter, and Red was supervising. Not that he really needed to, since the boys had done this many times before. He was sitting on the back steps, wearing a huge wool cardigan made by Abby during her knitting days.

“Last night I dreamed about her,” he said. “She had this shawl wrapped around her shoulders with tassels hanging off it, and her hair was long like old times. She said, ‘Red, I want to learn every step of you, and dance till the end of the night.’ ” He stopped speaking. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. Denny and Stem stood with a screen balanced between them and looked at each other helplessly.

“Then I woke up,” Red said after a minute. He stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. “I thought, ‘This must mean I miss having her close attention, the way I’ve always been used to.’ Then I woke up again, for real. Have either of you ever done that? Dreamed that you woke up, and then found you’d still been asleep? I woke up for real and I thought, ‘ Oh , boy. I see I’ve still got a long way to go with this.’ Seems I haven’t quite gotten over it, you know?”

“Gosh,” Stem said. “That’s hard.”

“Maybe a sleeping pill,” Denny suggested.

“What could that do?” Red asked.

“Well, I’m just saying.”

“You think every one of life’s problems can be solved by taking a drug.”

“Let’s lean this against that tree,” Stem told Denny.

Denny nodded, tight-lipped, and swung around to back toward a poplar tree with the screen.

That evening, Ree Bascomb brought over an apple crumble and stayed to have a piece with them. “There’s rum in it, is why I waited till I thought the little boys would be in bed,” she said. Actually, the little boys were not in bed, although it was nearly nine. (They didn’t seem to have a fixed bedtime, as Abby had often remarked in a wondering tone to her daughters.) But they were occupied with some sort of racetrack they’d constructed to run through the living room, so the grown-ups moved to the dining room — Ree, Stem and Nora, Red and Denny — where Ree set squares of apple crumble on Abby’s everyday china and passed them around the table. She knew Abby’s house as well as she knew her own, she often said. “You don’t have to lift a finger,” she told Nora, although Nora had already started a pot of decaf and rustled up cream and sugar, mugs and silverware and napkins.

Ree sat down at the table and said, “Cheers, everybody,” and picked up her fork. “They say sweets are helpful in times of sadness,” she said. “I’ve always found that to be true.”

“Well, this was nice of you, Ree,” Red said.

“I could use some sweets myself tonight. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but on top of everything else now, Jeeter’s died.”

“Oh, what a pity,” Nora said. Jeeter was Ree’s tabby cat, going on twenty years old. Everyone in the neighborhood knew him.

Red said, “My God!” He set his fork down. “How in the world did that happen ?” he asked.

“I just stepped out on the back stoop this morning and there he was, lying on the welcome mat. I hope he hadn’t been waiting there all night, poor thing.”

“My Lord! That’s awful! But surely they’re going to investigate the cause of death,” Red said. He looked shattered. “These things don’t just come about for no reason.”

“They do if you’re old, Red.”

“Old! He wasn’t even in nursery school yet!”

“What?” Ree said.

Everyone stared at him.

“I remember when he was born! It wasn’t but two or three years ago!”

“What are you talking about?” Ree asked.

“Why, I’m … Didn’t you say Peter died? Your grandson?”

“ Jeeter , I said,” Ree told him, raising her voice. “Jeeter, my cat. Good gracious!”

“Oh,” Red said. “Excuse me. My mistake.”

“I did wonder why you’d turned into such a cat person, all at once.”

“Ha! Yes,” he said, “and I wondered how you could act so offhand about your only grandchild passing.” He gave an embarrassed chuckle and picked up his fork again. Then he peered across the table at Nora. She had her napkin pressed to her mouth, and her shoulders were heaving and she was making a slight squeaking sound. It seemed at first she might be choking, till it emerged that the tears streaming down her face were tears of laughter. Stem said, “Hon?” and the others stared at her. None of them had ever seen Nora get the giggles before.

“Sorry,” she said when she could speak, but then she clapped her napkin to her mouth again. “I’m sorry !” she said between gasps.

“Glad to know you find me so amusing,” Red said stiffly.

“I apologize, Father Whitshank.”

She lowered the napkin and sat up straighter. Her face was flushed and her cheeks were wet. “I think it must be stress,” she said.

“Of course it is,” Ree told her. “You’ve all been through a world of stress! I should have thought before I came traipsing over here with my piddly little news.”

“No, really, I—”

“Funny, I never noticed before how the two names rhymed,” Ree said thoughtfully. “Peter, Jeeter.”

Red said, “You were nice to come, Ree, and the crumble’s delicious, honest.” He didn’t seem to realize that he hadn’t taken a bite of it yet.

“I used Granny Smith apples,” Ree told him. “All the other kinds fall apart, I find.”

“These are not falling apart in the least.”

“Yes, they’re great,” Denny said, and Stem chimed in with a not-quite-intelligible murmur. His eyes were still on Nora, although she seemed to have composed herself.

“Well!” Ree said. “Now that we’ve got the fun and games out of the way, let’s talk about you all. What are your plans, everybody? Stem? Denny? Will you be staying on with your dad?”

It could have been an awkward moment — people were bracing for it around the table, clearly — except that Red said, “Nah, they’ll be moving out shortly. I’m going to get myself an apartment.”

“An apartment!” Ree said.

The others grew very still.

“Well, the kids have their regular lives, after all,” Red said. “And there’s no point in me rattling around alone here. I’m thinking I could just rent something, one of those streamlined efficiencies that wouldn’t need any upkeep. It could have an elevator, even, in case I get old and doddery.” He gave one of his chuckles, as if to imply how unlikely that was.

“Oh, Red, that’s so adventurous of you! And I know just the place, too. Remember Sissy Bailey? She’s moved into this new building in Charles Village, and she loves it. You remember she had that big house on St. John’s, but now, she says, she doesn’t have to give a thought to mowing the lawn, shoveling the snow, putting up the storm windows …”

“The boys were putting up our storm windows just this afternoon,” Red said. “Do you know how many times I’ve been through that, in my life? Put them up in the fall, take them down in the spring. Put them up, take them down. Put them up, take them down. Is there no end ? you have to ask.”

“Very, very sensible to ditch all that,” Ree said. She sent a bright look around the table. “Don’t you all agree?”

After a brief hesitation, Denny and Stem and Nora nodded. None of them wore any expression whatsoever.

Amanda said it was sort of like when you’re playing tug of war and the other side drops the rope with no warning. “I mean, it’s almost a letdown,” she said.