Anne Tyler - Breathing Lessons

She stowed the containers of chicken at the front of the refrigerator, where Ira couldn't overlook them, and she pictured Saint Peter's astonishment as he watched what spilled forth: a bottle of wind, a box of fresh snow, and one of those looming moonlit clouds that used to float overhead like dirigibles as Ira walked her home from choir practice.

The dishes in the draining rack were dry by now and she stacked them and put them in the cupboard. Then she fixed herself a big bowl of ice cream.

She wished they had bought mint chocolate chip. Fudge ripple was too white-tasting. She climbed the stairs, digging her spoon in. At the door to Daisy's room, she paused. Daisy was kneeling on the floor, fitting books into a carton. "Want some ice cream?" Maggie asked her.

Daisy glanced up and said, "No, thanks."

"All you had for supper was a drumstick."

"I'm not hungry," Daisy said, and she pushed a lock of hair off her forehead. She was wearing clothes that she wouldn't be taking with her-baggy jeans and a blouse with a torn buttonhole. Her room already seemed uninhabited; the knickknacks that usually sat on her shelves had been packed for weeks.

"Where are your stuffed animals?" Maggie said.

"In my suitcase."

"I thought you were leaving them home."

"I was, but I changed my mind," Daisy said.

She had been quiet all through supper. Maggie could tell she was anxious about tomorrow. It was like her not to talk about it, though. You had to read the signs-her lack of appetite and her decision to bring her stuffed animals after all. Maggie said, "Well, honey," you let me know if you want any help."

"Thanks, Mom."

Maggie went on down the hall to the bedroom she shared with Ira. Ira was sitting tailor-fashion on the bed, laying out a game of solitaire. He had taken off his shoes and rolled his shirt sleeves up. "Care for some ice cream?" Maggie asked him.

"No, thanks."

"I shouldn't have any, either," she said. "But travel is such a strain, somehow. I feel I've burned a million calories just sitting in that car."

In the mirror above the bureau, though, she was positively obese. She set her ice cream on the dresser scarf and leaned forward to study her face, sucking in her cheeks to give herself a hollow look. It didn't work. She sighed and moved away. She went into the bathroom for her nightgown.

"Ira," she called, her voice echoing off the tiles, "do you suppose Serena is still mad at us?"

She had to peer around the door to catch Ms answer: a shrug.

"I was thinking I might phone to see how she's doing," she told him, "but I'd hate for her to hang up on me."

She unbuttoned her dress and pulled it over her head and tossed it onto the toilet lid. Then she stepped out of her shoes. "Remember when I helped her put her mother in the nursing home?" she asked. "That time, she didn't speak for months and whenever I tried to call she'd bang the receiver down. hated when she did that. That thunk on die other end of the line. It made me feel so small. It made me fed we were back in third grade."

"That's because she was behaving like a third-grader," Ira said.

Maggie came out in her slip to take another spoonful of ice cream. "And I don't even know why she got so upset," she told Ira's reflection in the mirror. "It was a perfectly honest mistake! I had the best intentions in die world! I said to her mother, 'Listen,' I said, 'you want to make a hit with the other residents? Want to show the "taff right off that you're not just another bland old la%T I mean this was Anita! Who used to wear the red toreador pants! I couldn't have them underestimating her, could I? That's why I told Serena we shouldn't take her in till Sunday evening, Halloween, and that's why I sewed that clown suit on my own machine and went all the way out Eastern Avenue to a what-do-you-call-it. What's it called?"

"Theatrical supply house," Ira said, dealing out another row of cards.

"Theatrical supply house, for white greasepaint. How was I to know they'd thrown the costume party on Saturday that year?"

She brought her ice cream over to the bed and settled down, propping her pillow against the headboard. Ira was frowning at his layout. "You would think I had deliberately plotted to make her a laughingstock," Maggie told him, "the way Serena carried on."

Whom she was picturing in her mind, though, was not Serena just then but Anita: her painted face, her red yarn hair, the triangles Maggie had lipsticked beneath her eyes which made them seem unnaturally bright or even teary, just like a real circus clown's. And then her chin quivering and denting inward as she sat in her wheelchair, watching Maggie leave.

"I was a coward," Maggie said suddenly, setting down her bowl. "I should have stayed and helped Serena get her changed. But I felt so foolish; I felt I'd made such a mess of things. I just said, 'Bye now!' and walked out, and the last I saw of her she was sitting there in a fright wig like somebody . . . inappropriate and senile and pathetic, with everyone around her dressed in normal clothing."

"Oh, honey, she adjusted to the place just fine, in the end," Ira said.

"Why make such a big deal of it?"

"Because you didn't see how she looked, Ira. And also she was wearing one of those Poseys, you know? One of those Posey restraining devices because she couldn't sit upright on her own anymore. A clown suit and a Posey! I was dumb, I tell you."

She was hoping Ira would continue contradicting her, but all he did was lay a jack of clubs on a queen.

"I don't know why I kid myself that I'm going to heaven," Maggie told him.

Silence.

"So shall I call her, or not?"

"Call who?"

"Serena, Ira. Who have we been talking about here?"

"Sure, if you like," he said.

"But suppose she hangs up on me?"

"Then think of all you'll save on the phone bill."

She made a face at him.

She took the telephone from the nightstand and set it in her lap.

Pondered it for a moment. Lifted the receiver. Tactfully, Ira bent lower over his cards and started whistling. (He was so polite about privacy, although as Maggie knew from experience you could overhear quite a lot while pretending to be absorbed in your song.) She punched in Serena's number very slowly and deliberately, as if that would help their conversation'.

Serena's telephone gave two short rings instead of one long. Maggie thought of that as rural and slightly backward. Breep-breep, it said.

Breep-breep.

Serena said, "Hello?"

"Serena?"

"Yes?"

"It's me."

"Oh, hi."

Maybe she hadn't realized yet who "me" was. Maggie cleared her throat.

She said, "It's Maggie."

"Hi, Maggie."

Maggie relaxed against her pillow and stretched her legs out. She said, "I called to see how you were doing."

"Just fine!" Serena said. "Or, well, I don't know. Not so hot, to tell the troth. I keep walking up and down, walking from one room to another. Can't seem to stay in one place."

"Isn't Linda there?"

"I sent her away."

"What for?"

"She got on my nerves."

"On your nerves! How?"

"Oh, this way and that, I forget. They took me out to dinner and ... I admit it was partly my fault. I was acting sort of contrary. I didn't like the restaurant and I couldn't stand the people who were eating there. I kept thinking how good it would feel to be alone, to have the house to myself. But now here I am and it's so quiet. It's like Fm wrapped in cotton or something. I was thrilled to hear the phone ring."

"I wish you lived closer," Maggie said.

Serena said, "I don't have anyone to tell about the trivia, what the plumbing's up to and how the red ants have come back in the kitchen."

"You can tell me," Maggie said.

"Well, but they're not your red ants too, don't you see? I mean you and I are not in this together."