Anne Tyler - Breathing Lessons

"You two act like quarrelsome children," Lamont told him.

"Well, at least I'm still married, you notice!" Mr. Otis said. "At least I'm still married, unlike some certain others I could name!"

Ira said, "Well, at any rate-"

"Even worse than children," Lamont went on, as if he hadn't heard.

"Children at least got the time to spare, but you two are old and coming to the end of your lives. Pretty soon one or the other of you going to die and the one that's left behind will say, 'Why did I act so ugly? That was who it was; that person was who I was with; and here we threw ourselves away on spitefulness,' you'll say."

"Well, it's probably going to be me that dies first," Mr. Otis said, "so I just ain't going to worry about that."

"I'm serious, Uncle."

"I'm serious. Could be what you throw away is all that really counts; could be that's the whole point of things, wouldn't that be something? Spill it! Spill it all, I say! No way not to spill it. And anyhow, just look at the times we had. Maybe that's what I'll end up thinking. 'My, we surely did have us a time. We were a real knock-down, drag-out, heart-and-soul type of couple,' I'll say. Something to reflect on in the nursing home."

Lament rolled his eyes heavenward.

Ira said, "Well, not to change the subject, but is this wheel business under control now?"

Both men looked over at him. "Oh," Mr. Otis said finally. "I reckon you two will want to be moving on."

"Only if you're sure you're all right," Maggie told him.

"He'll be fine," Lament said. "Get on and go."

"Yes, don't you give me another thought," Mr. Otis said. "Let me squire you to your car." And he walked off between the two of them. Lament stayed behind, looking disgusted.

"That boy is just so cranky," Mr. Otis told Ira. "I don't know who he takes after."

"You think he'll be willing to help you?"

"Oh, surely. He just want to rant and carry on some first."

They reached the Dodge, and Mr. Otis insisted on opening Maggie's door for her. It took longer than if she had done it herself; he had to get positioned just right and gain some leverage. Meanwhile he was saying to Ira, "And it ain't like he had room to criticize. A divorced man! Handing out advice like a expert!"

He closed the door after Maggie with a loose, ineffectual sound so that she had to reopen it and give it a good slam. "A man who ups and splits at the first little setback," he told Ira. "Lives alone all pruned and puckerish, drying out like a raisin. Sets alone in front of the TV, night after night, and won't go courting nobody new for fear she'll do him like his wife did."

"Tsk!" Maggie said, looking up at him through her window. "That is always so sad to see."

"But do you think he sees it?" Mr. Otis asked. "Naw." He followed Ira around to the driver's side of the car. "He believe that's just a regular life," he told Ira.

"Well, listen," Ira said as he slid behind the wheel. "If there's any kind of expense with the tow truck I want to hear about it, understand?"

He shut the door and leaned out the window to say, "I'd better give you our address."

"There won't be no expense," Mr. Otis said, "but I appreciate the thought." He tipped his hat back slightly and scratched his head. "You know I used to have this dog," he said. "Smartest dog I ever owned.

Bessie. She just loved to chase a rubber ball. I would throw it for her and she would chase it. Anytime the ball landed on a kitchen chair, though, Bessie would poke her nose through the spindles of the chair-back and whine and moan and whimper, never dreaming she could just walk around and grab the ball from in front."

Ira said, "Urn ..."

"Puts me in mind of Lament," Mr. Otis said.

"Lament."

"Blind in spots."

"Oh! Yes, Lamont!" Ira said. He was relieved to find the connection.

"Well, I don't want to hold you up," Mr. Otis told him, and he offered Ira his hand. It felt very light and fragile, like the skeleton of a bird. "You-all take care driving now, hear?" He bent forward to tell Maggie, "Take care!"

"You too," she told him. "And I hope things work out with Duluth."

"Oh, they will, they will. Sooner or later." He chuckled and stepped back as Ira started the engine. Like a host seeing off his guests, he stood there gazing after them till they pulled out onto the road and he disappeared from Ira's rearview mirror.

"Well!" Maggie said, bouncing into a more comfortable position in her seat. "So anyhow . . ."

As if that whole excursion had been only a little hiccup in the midst of some long story she was telling.

Ira turned on the radio but all he could find was the most local kind of news-crop prices, a fire in a Knights of Columbus building. He turned it off. Maggie was rooting through her purse. "Now, where on earth?" she said.

"What're you looking for?"

"My sunglasses."

"On the dashboard."

"Oh, right."

She reached for them and perched them on the end of her nose. Then she rotated her face, staring all around as if testing their effectiveness.

"Doesn't the sunlight bother your eyes?" she asked him finally.

"No, I'm fine."

"Maybe / should drive."

"No, no . . ."

"I haven't taken a single turn this whole day," she said.

"That's all right. Thanks anyhow, sweetheart."

"Well, you just let me know if you change your mind," she told him, and she sank back in her seat and gazed out at the view.

Ira cocked an elbow on the window ledge. He started whistling a tune.

Maggie stiffened and looked over at him.

"You just think I'm some sort of harum-scarum lady driver," she told him.

"Huh?" he said.

"You're just wondering what kind of fool you are even to consider allowing me behind the wheel."

He blinked. He had assumed the subject was concluded. "Lord, Maggie," he said, "why do you always take things so personally?"

"I just do, that's why," she told him, but she spoke without heat, as if uninterested in her own words, and then returned to studying the scenery.

Once they were back on Route One, Ira picked up speed. Traffic had grown heavier, but it was moving briskly. The farms gave way to patches of commercial land-a mountain of bald tires, a stepped, angular cliff of cinder blocks, a field of those windowed enclosures that fit over the beds of pickup trucks and turn them into campers. Ira wasn't sure what those were called. It bothered him; he liked to know the names of things, the specific, accurate term that would sum an object up.

"Spruce Gum," Maggie said.

"Pardon?"

She was twisted around in her seat, gazing behind her. She said, "Spruce Gum! That was the cutoff to Fiona's! We just now passed it."

"Oh, yes, Spruce Gum," he said. It did ring a bell.

"Ira," Maggie said.

"Hmm?"

"It's not so far out of the way."

He glanced at her. She had her hands pressed together, her face set toward him, her mouth bunched up a little as if she were willing certain words from him (the way she used to will the right answer out of Jesse when she was drilling him on his multiplication tables).

"Is it?" she said.

"No," he said.

She misunderstood him; she drew in a breath to start arguing. But he said, "No, I guess it's not."

"What: You mean you'll take me there?"

"Well," he said. And then he said, "Oh, well, we've already pretty much shot the day, right?" And he flicked his blinker on and looked for a place to turn the car around.

"Thank you, Ira," she told him, and she slid over as far as her seat belt allowed and planted a little brush stroke of a kiss below his ear.

Ira said, "Hmf," but he sounded more grudging than he really felt.

After he'd reversed the car in a lumberyard, he headed back up Route One and took a left onto Spruce Gum Road. They were facing into the sun now.