Anne Tyler - Ladder of Years

“How do you know my assignment doesn’t include Bay Borough?” Delia asked her.

A ripple of uncertainty crossed Eliza’s forehead.

Delia said, “Eliza, um, I was wondering…”

“Yes?” Eliza said eagerly.

“Can you tell me if they brought the cat home from the beach?”

A mistake. Something closed over behind Eliza’s eyes. “The cat!” she said. “Is that all you care about?”

“Of course it’s not all I care about, but he was kind of skulking under furniture when I left, and I didn’t know if they’d remember to-”

“They remembered,” Eliza said shortly. “What for, I can’t imagine. Durn creature is getting so old he snores even when he’s awake.”

“Old?” Delia said.

“They packed all your clothes and your casseroles too,” Eliza said. “Poor Susie had to pack your-Delia? Are you crying?”

“No,” Delia said in a muffled voice.

“Are you crying about the cat?”

“No, I said!”

Well, she knew he wasn’t a kitten anymore. (Such a merry kitten he’d been-a kitten with a sense of humor, slinking theatrically around the forbidden houseplants and then giving her a smirk.) But she had thought of him as still in his prime, and only now did she recall how he had started pausing lately as if to assemble himself before attempting the smallest leap. How she had swatted him off the counter once this spring and he had fallen clumsily, scrabbling with his claws, landing in an embarrassed heap and then hastily licking one haunch as if he had intended to take that pose all along.

She widened her eyes to keep the tears from spilling over.

“Delia,” Eliza said, “is there something you’re not telling me? Does this have something to do with that… man back home?”

Delia didn’t bother acting puzzled. She said, “No, it’s not about him.” Then she went to the head of the bed, causing Eliza to take a step back. She reached under her pillow for the toilet paper and blew her nose. “I must be going crazy,” she said.

“No, no! You’re not crazy! Just a little, oh, tired, maybe. Just a little run-down. You know what I think?” Eliza asked. “I think it took more out of you than any of us realized, tending Daddy’s last illness. You’re probably anemic too! What you need is plain old physical rest. A vacation on your own. Yes, this wasn’t such a bad idea, coming to Bay Borough! Few more days, couple of weeks, and you’ll be home again, a new woman.”

“Maybe so,” Delia said unsteadily.

“And that’s what I’m going to tell the police. ‘She just went back to our people’s place for some R and R,’ I’ll say. Because I do have to inform them, you know.”

“I know.”

“And I’ll have to tell Sam.”

“Yes.”

“And then I expect he’ll want to come talk things over.”

Delia pressed the toilet paper to each eye.

“I’m not very good in these situations,” Eliza said. She lifted one hand from her purse and placed it on Delia’s shoulder.

“You’re fine,” Delia told her. “It’s not your fault.”

She felt saddened, all at once, by the fact that Eliza was wearing lipstick. (A sugary pink, lurid against her murky skin.) Eliza never bothered with makeup, as a rule. She must have felt the need to armor herself for this visit.

“I’ll have Sam bring some of your clothes with him, shall I?” she was asking.

“No, thanks.”

“A dress or two?”

“Nothing.”

Eliza dropped her hand.

They left the room, Eliza walking ahead, and started down the stairs. Delia said, “So how’s your gardening?” in a forced and sprightly tone.

“Oh…,” Eliza said. She arrived in the downstairs hall. “You’ll need money,” she told Delia.

“No, I won’t.”

“If I’d realized you weren’t coming back with me… I don’t have very much on me, but you’re welcome to what there is.”

“Honest, I don’t want it,” Delia said. “I’m making this huge, enormous salary at the lawyer’s; I couldn’t believe how much when he told me.” She ushered Eliza out the door. “And you know I took the vacation cash. Five hundred dollars. I feel bad enough about that.”

“Oh, we managed all right,” Eliza said, eyeing a fibrous area in one porch floorboard.

Delia could have walked her to her car, or at least as far as the office, but that would have meant prolonging their parting. She had left her handbag upstairs, therefore, and she stood on the porch with her arms folded, in the attitude of someone about to go back indoors. “I’m sure you managed,” she told Eliza. “It’s not that. It’s just that I feel bad I didn’t start out with nothing. Start out… I don’t know. Even.”

“Even?”

“Even with the homeless or something. I don’t know,” Delia said. “I don’t know what I mean!”

Eliza leaned forward and set her cheek against Delia’s. “You’re going to be fine,” she told her. “This little rest is going to work wonders, take my word. And meanwhile, Dee -” She was about to turn away, but one last thought must have struck her. “Meanwhile, remember Great-Uncle Roscoe’s favorite motto.”

“What was that?”

“‘Never do anything you can’t undo.’”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” Delia told her.

“Uncle Roscoe may have been a grump,” Eliza said, “but he did show common sense now and then.”

Delia said, “Drive safely.”

She stood watching after Eliza-that short, economical, energetic figure-until she disappeared down the sidewalk. Then she went back in the house for her bag.

Climbing the stairs, she thought, But if you never did anything you couldn’t undo-she set a hand on the splintery railing-you’d end up doing nothing at all, she thought. She was tempted to turn around and run after Eliza to tell her that, but then she couldn’t have borne saying goodbye all over again.

Her book that night was The Sun Also Rises, but she didn’t manage to finish it because she kept getting distracted. It was Friday, the start of the weekend. The traffic beneath her window had a livelier, more festive sound, and the voices of passersby were louder. “Hoo-ee! Here we come!” a teenage boy cried out. Momentarily, Delia lost track of the sentence she was reading. Around eight o’clock someone crossed the porch-not Belle but someone in flat-soled shoes walking slowly, as if weary or sad-and she lowered her book and listened. The front door opened, he entered the house, the stairs creaked upward one step at a time. Then the doorknob across the hall gave a rattle, and she thought, Oh. The other boarder.

She returned to her book, but every now and then a sound would break through her concentration-a hollow cough, the sliding of metal hangers along a closet rod. When she heard the shower running, she rose and tiptoed over to her door to make sure it was locked. Then she climbed back into bed and reread the paragraph she had just finished.

An hour or so later, Belle arrived. She had a man with her. Delia heard his hearty, booming laugh-not a laugh belonging to anyone she knew. “Now, be serious!” Belle said once. The TV came on downstairs, and the refrigerator door slammed shut with a dull clunk.

Mr. Lamb turned out to be an emaciated man in his forties, with straight brown hair and sunken eyes. Delia met him in the upstairs hall as she was setting out on some errands the following morning. “Hello,” she said, and passed on, having resolved in advance to keep their exchange to a minimum. But she needn’t have worried. Mr. Lamb flattened his back against the wall and smiled miserably at his shoes, mumbling something unintelligible. He was probably no happier than she about having to share the bathroom.