Anne Tyler - Searching for Caleb

"Oh, your father was a minister too," Justine said.

"Oh yes. Oh yes. All my family."

"And your husband?"

"No, ah-he was in construction."

"I see."

"But my family, now they have been clergy for a great many years. I myself am a healer."

"Is that right?" said Duncan. He stopped rolling up his magazine. "You heal by faith?"

"I certainly do."

She smiled at him, her eyes like black pools. Then Meg came tinkling and clinking through the doorway with a tray, and Justine tensed because she herself, of course, would have spilled ice cubes into Mrs. Milsom's snowy lap or tripped over the veins in the carpet. She forgot that Meg was as graceful and confident as her maiden aunts. The tray paused at each person, dipping neatly, holding steady. Mrs. Milsom watched its progress with her lower lip caught between her teeth. She was tense too, as if Meg were her daughter. It wasn't fair. She had no right. Justine snatched a tumbler off the tray and a disk of tea flew onto the sofa cushion, but Duncan instantly covered it with his Lady's Circle. "Mama. It's sweetened," Meg whispered.

"What?" Justine said aloud.

"It's sweetened."

"The tea is sweetened," said Mrs. Milsom. "Thank you, Margaret. Won't you take some yourself?"

"I was thinking I might go see if Arthur's awake."

"Oh no, dear, I wouldn't do that just yet."

"He did say to wake him when they came."

"If we do he'll have his head till tomorrow, believe me," said Mrs.

Milsom. "I know him." She smiled and patted the arm of her chair. "Come sit with us a while."

So Meg came to perch at Mrs. Milsom's side, and Justine averted her eyes and concentrated on her tea. It was a fact that the only thing she couldn't stand was sweetened tea. It made her gag. She would feel sick and heavy for the rest of the day. Still she drank it, searching with her tongue for the nearest ice cube to dilute the sugary taste. Duncan, who didn't care one way or the other, finished his own drink in one breath and set the glass down upon the polished table. "Well," he said. "So you've got your diploma, Meggie."

She nodded. Her hair touched her collar, a little less neat than it used to be. Maybe she was trying to look older.

"So what next?" Duncan asked her.

"Oh, I don't know."

"Going to get some kind of a job?"

"Mr. Peck," said Mrs. Milsom, "being a minister's wife is a job."

Duncan looked over at her. Justine grew worried, but in the end all he said was, "I meant, besides that."

"Oh, there's nothing besides that. Believe me, I know. I'm a minister's daughter. And I've been standing behind Arthur all this time filling in until he found himself a wife: attending teas and sewing circles, helping at bazaars, fixing casseroles-"

"Meggie, your mother must know people," Duncan said. "All sorts of people with jobs to offer, I'm sure of it. How about Pooch Sims? The veterinarian." He turned to Justine. "She could use someone."

"Oh, Mr. Peck," said Mrs. Milsom. She laughed and her ice cubes rattled.

"Margaret wouldn't want to do that."

Everyone looked at Meg. She stared down into her glass.

"Would you, Meg?" Duncan asked.

"No," said Meg, "I guess I wouldn't."

"Well, then, what?"

"Oh, I don't know, Daddy. Mother Milsom's right, I do have a lot to do already. I've taken over the nursery at church and I have so many calls to pay and everything."

Justine's teeth seemed to be growing fur, and still she hadn't made a dent in her drink. She longed for something sour or salty. She had a craving for pickles, lemon rind, a potato chip even. But Mrs. Milsom gazed at her so reproachfully that she raised the glass and took another swallow.

"Mainly of course the minister's wife is a buffer," said Mrs. Milsom.

"She filters his calls, tries to handle the little things that so clutter his day-oh, Margaret can tell you. We've been teaching her all about it.

Arthur is not terribly strong, you see. He's allergic to so much. And he has these headaches."

"But I thought you were a healer," Duncan said.

"A healer, yes! I have a little group that meets on Sunday evenings.

Anyone can come. I inherited the gift from my father, who once gave sight to a blind man."

"But your father was deaf."

"He still had the gift, Mr. Peck."

"I meant-"

"Of course the gift must be kept alive by prayer and faith, it has to be nurtured along. That's what I tell Arthur. I feel that Arthur very definitely has the gift. I am working with him on it now. So far there has seemed to be some-I don't know, some sort of resistance, I'm just not-but we're working, I'm sure we'll get there."

"How about Grandfather here?" Duncan asked. "He could use some help."

She hesitated.

"Think you could just clap a couple of hands on his ears to oblige us?"

"Well, I'm not-is it nerve deafness, or what?"

"Oh, if faith only heals certain kinds," said Duncan.

Both Meg and Justine stirred, uneasily. Duncan gave them a wide, innocent smile that did not reassure them. "But never mind," he said, "my real interest was headaches."

"Headaches, Mr. Peck? Do you suffer from headaches?"

"No, your son does."

"My son."

"Arthur."

"Oh, Arthur," she said blankly.

"Didn't you say that Arthur got headaches?"

"Why, yes."

Duncan looked at her for a moment, honestly puzzled. "But then," he said, "why can't you heal him?"

Mrs. Milsom clasped her hands tightly. Her mouth became blurred and her eyes filled with what must surely be black tears; but no, when they spilled over they were clear and they made white tracks down her hollow white cheeks.

"Oh, Duncan," Justine said. But what had he done, after all? Nobody understood, except perhaps Meg, who quickly buried her nose in her tea glass. Then Mrs. Milsom straightened and darted an index finger beneath each eye, quick as a frog's tongue. "Well!" she said. "Haven't we had nice weather for August?"

"It's been very nice," Duncan told her gently. And he must have been planning to stay that way to the end, sober and courteous; he would never willingly hurt anybody. Except that Justine chose that moment to reach toward the green glass shoe on the coffee table- sourballs! right under her nose!-and choose a lemony yellow globe and pop it into her mouth, where she instantly discovered that she had eaten a marble. While everyone watched in silence she plucked it out delicately between thumb and forefinger and replaced it, only a little shinier than before, in the green glass shoe. "I thought we could have used more rain," she told the ring of faces.

Duncan made a peculiar sound. So he was going to have a silly tat after all. Justine had to sit as straight as a statue, dignified enough for the two of them, while at intervals Duncan steamed and chortled like an electric percolator on the couch beside her.

When Arthur was up (pale and rumpled, inadequate-looking in a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt) they moved out to the back yard to admire Mrs.

Milsom's flowerbeds, then over to the church to see the new red carpet\just recently installed in the aisles. They tiptoed through the vaulted, echoing nave with their faces very serious. They were all particularly careful of one another, if you didn't count Duncan's pinching Justine when he didn't know Mrs. Milsom was looking. They were so appreciative, so soft-voiced and attentive, that by the time they had assembled beside the Ford to say their goodbyes everyone was exhausted.

But Mrs. Milsom held out both hands bravely for the sack of sun-baked corn, and Arthur insisted on taking the entire burden of wedding silver from the trunk. He staggered off, stringy-armed, swaybacked beneath his load. Meg remained beside the car with her pile of shirtwaist dresses. "Well," said Justine, "I suppose we'll be seeing you soon." She felt bruised by disappointment. She had imagined that this visit might, in some way, wrap things up-that whatever had gone wrong in their family might finally be straightened out, or at least understood; and that having seen Meg settled and happy she could let her go at last.