Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread

But the surprise was, on Thanksgiving morning — and Denny most often avoided Thanksgiving, with its larger-than-ever component of orphans — he phoned to say he and Susan were boarding a train to Baltimore and could somebody come meet him. He arrived with Susan strapped to his front in a canvas sling arrangement. A three-week-old baby! Or not even that, actually. Too young to look like anything more than a little squinched-up peanut with her face pressed to Denny’s chest. But that didn’t stop the family from making a fuss about her. They agreed that her wisps of black hair were pure Whitshank, and they tried to uncurl one tiny fist to see if she had their long fingers. They were dying for her to open her eyes so they could make out the color. Abby pried her from the sling to check, but Susan went on sleeping. “So, how does it happen,” Abby said to Denny, as she nestled Susan against her shoulder, “that you are here on your own?”

“I’m not on my own. I’m with Susan,” Denny said.

Abby rolled her eyes, and he relented. “Carla’s mother broke her wrist,” he said. “Carla had to take her to the emergency room.”

“Oh, what a pity,” Abby said, and the others murmured sympathetically. (At least Carla wasn’t “out of the picture.”) “How will that work, though? Did she pump?”

“Pump?”

“Did she pump enough milk?”

“No, Mom, I brought formula.” He patted the pink vinyl bag hanging from his shoulder.

“Formula,” Abby said. “But then her supply will go down.”

“Supply of what?”

“Supply of breast milk! If you feed a baby formula, the mother’s milk will dry up.”

“Oh, Susan’s a bottle baby,” Denny said.

Abby had been reading books on how to be a good grandmother. The main thing was, don’t interfere. Don’t criticize, don’t offer advice. So all she said was, “Oh.”

“What do you expect? Carla has a full-time job,” Denny said. “Not everyone can afford to stay home and loll around breast-feeding.”

“I didn’t say a word,” Abby said.

There had been times in the past when Denny’s visits had lasted just about this long. One little question too many and he was out the door. Perhaps remembering that, Abby tightened her hold on the baby. “Anyhow,” she said, “it’s good to have you here.”

“Good to be here,” Denny said, and everyone relaxed.

It was possible he had made some sort of resolution on the train trip down, because he was so easygoing on that visit, so uncritical even with the orphans. When B. J. Autry gave one of her magpie laughs and startled the baby awake, all he said was, “Okay, folks, you can check out Susan’s eyes now.” And he was very considerate about Mr. Dale’s hearing problem, repeating one phrase several times over without a trace of impatience.

Amanda, who was seven months pregnant, pestered him with child-care questions, and he answered every one of them. (A crib was completely unnecessary; just use a bureau drawer. No need for a stroller, either. High chair? Probably not.) He made polite conversation about Whitshank Construction, including not only his father but Jeannie, who was a carpenter there now, and even Stem. He listened quietly, nodding, to Stem’s inch-by-inch description of a minor logistical problem. (“So, the customer wants floor-to-ceiling cabinets, see, so we tear out all the bulkheads, but then he says, ‘Oh, wait!’ ”)

Abby fed the baby and burped her and changed her miniature diaper, which was the disposable kind, but Abby refrained from so much as mentioning the word “landfill.” It turned out that Susan had a chubby chin and beautifully sculptured lips and a frowning, slate-blue gaze. Abby passed her to Red, who made a big show of dismay and ineptness but later was caught pressing his nose to her downy head, drawing in a long deep breath of baby smell.

When Denny said he couldn’t spend the night, they understood, of course. Abby packed up some leftover turkey for Carla and her mother, and Red drove Denny and the baby to the station. “Don’t be a stranger, now,” Red said when Denny got out, and Denny said, “Nope, see you soon.”

Which he had said before, any number of times, and it hadn’t meant a thing. This time, though, was different. Maybe it was fatherhood. Maybe he was beginning to recognize the importance of family. In any case, he came back for Christmas — just for the day, but still! — and he brought not only Susan but Carla. Susan was seven weeks old, and she’d made that forward leap into awareness of her surroundings, looking at people when they talked to her and responding with lopsided smiles that revealed a dimple in her right cheek. Carla was casually friendly, although she didn’t seem to be trying all that hard. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt, so Abby, who was trying hard, stayed in her denim skirt instead of changing for dinner. She said, “Carla, may I offer you a glass of wine? So nice that you’re not breast-feeding. You can drink whatever you want.” Her daughters rounded their eyes at each other: Mom going overboard, as usual! But they were trying pretty hard themselves. They complimented every single thing about Carla they could think of, including the tattoo of her dog’s name in the bend of her left arm.

The whole family agreed later that the visit had gone well. And since Denny started bringing Susan down every month or so after that, it appeared that he thought so too. (He didn’t bring Carla, because he came on Carla’s workdays. She worked now at a hamburger joint, he said; both of them had left the restaurant, but his own schedule was more flexible.) Susan learned to sit up; she began solid foods; she learned to crawl. Sometimes now Denny spent the night. He slept in his old room, with Susan next to his bed in the Portacrib that Abby had saved from her own children’s era. By this time, Amanda’s Elise had been born, and the family liked to imagine how the two little girls would grow up together as lifelong best friends.

Then Denny took offense at something his father said. It was summer and they were talking about the upcoming family beach trip. Denny said he and Susan could make it, but Carla had to work then. Red said, “How come you don’t have to work?”

Denny said, “I just don’t.”

“But Carla does?”

“Right.”

“Well, I don’t get that. Carla’s the mom, right?”

“So?”

Two other people were present — Abby and Jeannie — and both of them grew suddenly alert. They sent Red identical cautioning glances. Red didn’t seem to notice. He said, “Do you have a job?”

“Is that any of your business?” Denny asked.

Then Red shut up, although clearly it cost him some effort, and it seemed that was the end of it. But when Abby asked for help hauling out the Portacrib, Denny said not to bother. He wasn’t planning to spend the night, he said. He was perfectly civil, though, and he took his leave without any suggestion of a scene.

Three years passed before they heard from him again.

For the first several months, they did nothing. That was how deferential they were, how cowed by Denny’s silences. But on Susan’s birthday, Abby phoned him, using the number she’d made a note of the first time it had popped up on their caller ID. (Parents of people like Denny develop the wiles of secret agents.) Red lurked nearby, looking nonchalant. All Abby got, though, was a recorded voice saying the number had been disconnected. “It seems they’ve moved,” she told Red. “But that’s a good thing, don’t you think? I bet they found a bigger place, with a separate bedroom for Susan.” Then she called information and asked for a new listing for Dennis Whitshank, but there wasn’t one. “How about Carla Whitshank?” she asked, sending a nervous glance toward Red. (After all, it was not unthinkable that they might be separated by now.) But after that she hung up and said, “I guess we’re going to have to wait for him to get in touch.”