Anne Tyler - Breathing Lessons

You're given years and years of lessons in how to balance equations, which Lord knows you will never have to do in normal life. But how about parenthood? Or marriage, either, come to think of it. Before you can drive a car you need a state-approved course of instruction, but driving a car is nothing, nothing, compared to living day in and day out with a husband and raising up a new human being."

Which had not been the most reassuring notion, perhaps; for Fiona had said, "Jiminy," and dropped her head in her hands.

"Though I'm certain you'll do fine," Maggie said in a hurry. "And of course you have me here to help you."

"Oh, jiminy," Fiona said.

Ira turned down a little side road called Elm Lane-a double string of tacky one-story cottages with RVs in most of the driveways and sometimes a sloping tin trailer out back. Maggie asked him, ' 'Who will wake up in the night now and bring her the baby to nurse?"

"Her husband, one would Jiope," Ira said. "Or maybe she'll keep the baby in her room this time, the way you should have had her do last time."

Then he gave his shoulders a slight shake, as if ridding himself of something, and said, "What baby? Fiona's not having a baby; she's just getting married, or so you claim. Let's put first things first here."

Well, but first things weren't put first the time before; Fiona had been two months pregnant when she married Jesse. Not that Maggie wanted to remind him of that. Besides, her thoughts were on something else now. She was caught by an unexpected, piercingly physical memory of bringing the infant Leroy in to Fiona for her a.m. feeding-that downy soft head wavering on Maggie's shoulder, that birdlike mouth searching the bend of Maggie's neck inside her bathrobe collar, and then the close, sleep-smelling warmth of Jesse's and Fiona's bedroom. "Oh," she said without meaning to, and then, "Oh!" For there in Mrs. Stuckey's yard (hard-packed earth, not really a yard at all) stood a wiry little girl with white-blond hair that stopped short squarely at her jawline. She had just let go of a yellow Frisbee, which sailed shuddering toward their car and landed with a thump on the hood as Ira swung into the driveway.

"That's not-" Maggie said. "Is that-?"

"Must be Leroy," Ira told her.

"It's not!"

But of course, it had to be. Maggie was forced to make such a leap across time, though-from the infant on her shoulder to this gawky child, all in two seconds. She was experiencing some difficulty. The child dropped her hands to her sides and stared at them. Frowning gave her forehead a netted look. She wore a pink tank top with some kind of red stain down the front, berry juice or Kool-Aid, andjbaggy shorts in a blinding Hawaiian print. Her face was so thin it was triangular, a cat's face, and her arms and legs were narrow white stems.

"Maybe it's a neighbor girl," Maggie told Ira-a last-ditch effort.

He didn't bother replying.

As soon as he switched the ignition off, Maggie opened the door and stepped out. She called "Leroy?"

"What."

"Are you Leroy?"

The child deliberated a moment, as if uncertain, and then nodded.

"So," Maggie said. "Well, hi there!" she cried.

Leroy went on staring. She didn't seem one grain less suspicious.

Actually, Maggie reflected (already adjusting to new developments), this was one of the most interesting ages. Seven and a half-old enough to converse with but not yet past willing to admire a grownup, provided the grownup played her cards right. Cagily, Maggie rounded the car and approached the child with her purse in both hands, resisting the urge to fling out her arms for a hug. "I guess you must not remember me," she said, stopping a measured distance away.

Leroy shook her head.

"Why, sweetie, I'm your grandma!"

"You are?" Leroy said. She reminded Maggie of someone peering through a veil.

"Your other grandma. Your Grandma Moran."

It was crazy to have to introduce herself to her own flesh and blood. And crazier still, Maggie thought, that Jesse would have needed to do the same thing. He had not laid eyes on his daughter since-when? Since just after he and Fiona split up-before Leroy was a year old, even. What a sad, partitioned life they all seemed to be living!

"I'm from your father's side of the family," she told Leroy, and Leroy said, "Oh."

So at least she did know she had a father.

"And this is your grandpa," Maggie said.

Leroy shifted her gaze to Ira. In profile, her nose was seen to be tiny and extremely pointed. Maggie could have loved her for her nose alone.

Ira was out of the car by now, but he didn't come over to Leroy immediately. Instead he reached for the Frisbee on the hood. Then he crossed the yard to them, meanwhile studying the Frisbee and turning it around and around in his hands as if he'd never seen one before. (Wasn't this just like him? Allowing Maggie to rush in while he hung back all reserved, but you notice he did tag along, and would share the benefit of anything she accomplished.) When he arrived in front of Leroy he tossed the Frisbee toward her lightly, and both her hands came up like two skinny spiders to grab it.

"Thanks," she said.

Maggie wished she had thought of the Frisbee.

"We don't seem familiar at all?" she asked Leroy.

Leroy shook her head.

"Why! I was standing by when you were born, I'll have you know. I was waiting in the hospital for you to be delivered. You stayed with us the first eight or nine months of your life."

"I did?"

"You don't remember staying with us?"

"How could she, Maggie?" Ira asked.

"Well, she might," Maggie said, for she herself had a very clear memory of a scratchy-collared dress she used to hate being stuffed into as an infant. And besides, you would think all that loving care had to have left some mark, wouldn't you? She said, "Or Fiona might have told her about it."

"She told me I lived in Baltimore," Leroy said.

"That was us," Maggie said. "Your parents lived with us in your daddy's old boyhood room in Baltimore."

"Oh."

"Then you and your mother moved away." r Leroy rubbed her calf with the instep of her bare foot.

She was standing very straight, militarily straight, giving the impression she was held there only by a sense of duty.

"We visited on your birthdays afterward, remember that?"

"Nope."

"She was just a little thing, Maggie," Ira said.

"We came for your first three birthdays," Maggie persisted. (Sometimes you could snag a memory and reel it in out of nowhere, if you used the proper hook.) "But your second birthday you were off at Hershey Park, and so we didn't get to see you."

"I've been to Hershey Park six times," Leroy said. "Mindy Brant has only been twice."

"Your third birthday, we brought you a kitten."

Leroy tilted her head. Her hair wafted to one side- corn silk, lighter than air. "A tiger kitten," she said.

"Right."

"Stripy all over, even on its tummy."

"You do remember!"

"That was you-all brought me that kitten?"

"That was us," Maggie said.

Leroy looked back and forth between the two of them. Her skin was delicately freckled, as if dusted with those sugar sprinkles people put on cakes. That must come from the Stuckey side. Maggie's family never freckled, and certainly Ira's didn't, with their Indian connections. "And then what happened?" she was asking.

"What happened when?"

"What happened to the kitten! You must've took it back."

"Oh, no, honey, we didn't take it back. Or rather, we did but only because you turned out to be allergic. You started sneezing and your eyes got teary."

"And after that, what?" Leroy asked.

"Well, I wanted to visit again," Maggie said, "but your grandpa told me we shouldn't. I wanted to with all my heart, but your grandpa told me-"