Anne Tyler - The Accidental Tourist

Macon opened his eyes. It wasn’t morning yet. The sun porch was fuzzy as blotting paper.

There was still a sense of his grandfather in the air. His little shaking-off gesture was one that Macon had forgotten entirely; it had reappeared on its own. But Grandfather Leary would never have said in real life what he’d said in the dream. He had liked Sarah well enough, but he seemed to view wives as extraneous, and he’d attended each of his grandsons’ weddings with a resigned and tolerant expression. He wouldn’t have thought of any woman as a “center.” Except, perhaps Macon thought suddenly, his own wife, Grandmother Leary. After whose death — why, yes, immediately after — his mind had first begun to wander.

Macon lay awake till dawn. It was a relief to hear the first stirrings overhead. Then he got up and shaved and dressed and sent Edward out for the paper. By the time Rose came downstairs, he had started the coffee perking. This seemed to make her anxious. “Did you use the morning beans or the evening beans?” she asked.

“The morning beans,” he assured her. “Everything’s under control.”

She moved around the kitchen raising shades, setting the table, opening a carton of eggs. “So today’s the day you get your cast off,” she said.

“Looks that way.”

“And this afternoon’s your New York trip.”

“Oh, well…” he said vaguely, and then he asked if she wanted a bacon coupon he’d spotted in the paper.

She persisted: “Isn’t it this afternoon you’re going?”

“Well, yes.”

The fact of the matter was, he was leaving for New York without having made any arrangements for Edward. The old place wouldn’t accept him, the new place had that Muriel woman… and in Macon’s opinion, Edward was best off at home with the family. Rose, no doubt, would disagree. He held his breath, but Rose started humming “Clementine” and breaking eggs into a skillet.

At nine o’clock, in an office down on St. Paul Street, the doctor removed Macon’s cast with a tiny, purring electric saw. Macon’s leg emerged dead-white and wrinkled and ugly. When he stood up, his ankle wobbled. He still had a limp. Also, he’d forgotten to bring different trousers and he was forced to parade back through the other patients in his one-legged summer khakis, exposing his repulsive-looking shin. He wondered if he’d ever return to his old, unbroken self.

Driving him home, Rose finally thought to ask where he planned to board Edward. “Why, I’m leaving him with you,” Macon said, acting surprised.

“With me? Oh, Macon, you know how out of hand he gets.”

“What could happen in such a short time? I’ll be home by tomorrow night. If worst comes to worst you could lock him in the pantry; toss him some kibble now and then till I get back.”

“I don’t like this at all,” Rose said.

“It’s visitors that set him off. It’s not as if you’re expecting any visitors.”

“Oh, no,” she said, and then she let the subject drop, thank heaven. He’d been fearing more of a battle.

He took a shower, and he dressed in his traveling suit. Then he had an early lunch. Just before noon Rose drove him down to the railroad station, since he didn’t yet trust his clutch foot. When he stepped from the car, his leg threatened to buckle. “Wait!” he said to Rose, who was handing his bag out after him. “Do you suppose I’m up to this?”

“I’m sure you are,” she said, without giving it anywhere near enough thought. She pulled the passenger door shut, waved at him, and drove off.

In the period since Macon’s last train trip, something wonderful had happened to the railroad station. A skylight in shades of watery blue arched gently overhead. Pale globe lamps hung from brass hooks. The carpenters’ partitions that had divided the waiting room for so long had disappeared, revealing polished wooden benches. Macon stood bewildered at the brand-new, gleaming ticket window. Maybe, he thought, travel was not so bad. Maybe he’d got it all wrong. He felt a little sprig of hopefulness beginning.

But immediately afterward, limping toward his gate, he was overcome by the lost feeling that always plagued him on these trips. He envisioned himself as a stark Figure 1 in a throng of 2’s and 3’s. Look at that group at the Information counter, those confident young people with their knapsacks and sleeping bags. Look at the family occupying one entire bench, their four little daughters so dressed up, so stiff in new plaid coats and ribboned hats, you just knew they’d be met by grandparents at the other end of the line. Even those sitting alone — the old woman with the corsage, the blonde with her expensive leather luggage — gave the impression of belonging to someone.

He sat down on a bench. A southbound train was announced and half the crowd went off to catch it, followed by the inevitable breathless, disheveled woman galloping through some time later with far too many bags and parcels. Arriving passengers began to straggle up the stairs. They wore the dazed expressions of people who had been elsewhere till just this instant. A woman was greeted by a man holding a baby; he kissed her and passed her the baby at once, as if it were a package he’d been finding unusually heavy. A young girl in jeans, reaching the top of the stairs, caught sight of another girl in jeans and threw her arms around her and started crying. Macon watched, pretending not to, inventing explanations. (She was home for their mother’s funeral? Her elopement hadn’t worked out?)

Now his own train was called, so he picked up his bag and limped behind the family with all the daughters. At the bottom of the stairs a gust of cold, fresh air hit him. Wind always seemed to be howling down these platforms, no matter what the weather elsewhere. The smallest of the daughters had to have her coat buttoned. The train came into view, slowly assembling itself around a pinpoint of yellow light.

Most of the cars were full, it turned out. Macon gave up trying to find a completely empty seat and settled next to a plump young man with a briefcase. Just to be on the safe side, he unpacked Miss MacIntosh .

The train lurched forward and then changed its mind and then lurched forward again and took off. Macon imagined he could feel little scabs of rust on the tracks; it wasn’t a very smooth ride. He watched the sights of home rush toward him and disappear — a tumble of row houses, faded vacant lots, laundry hanging rigid in the cold.

“Gum?” his seatmate asked.

Macon said, “No, thanks,” and quickly opened his book.

When they’d been traveling an hour or so, he felt his lids grow heavy. He let his head fall back. He thought he was only resting his eyes, but he must have gone to sleep. The next thing he knew, the conductor was announcing Philadelphia. Macon jerked and sat up straight and caught his book just before it slid off his lap.

His seatmate was doing some kind of paperwork, using his briefcase as a desk. A businessman, obviously — one of the people Macon wrote his guides for. Funny, Macon never pictured his readers. What did businessmen do, exactly? This one was jotting notes on index cards, referring now and then to a booklet full of graphs. One graph showed little black trucks marching across the page — four trucks, seven trucks, three and a half trucks. Macon thought the half-truck looked deformed and pitiable.

Just before they arrived, he used the restroom at the rear of the car — not ideal, but more homey than anything he’d find in New York. He went back to his seat and packed Miss MacIntosh . “Going to be cold there,” his seatmate told him.

“I imagine so,” Macon said.

“Weather report says cold and windy.”

Macon didn’t answer.

He believed in traveling without an overcoat — just one more thing to carry — but he wore a thermal undershirt and long johns. Cold was the least of his worries.