Anne Tyler - Ladder of Years

She flicked her turn signal and swerved onto Highway 50. “U-u-urch!” Noah squealed, grabbing his door handle.

“Sorry.” She slowed. “So,” she said. “I guess I get to meet your mother, finally.”

“Yup.”

“She did decide to come, didn’t she?”

“Last I heard she did.”

Recently, Delia had found the Boardwalk Bulletin profile buried in the back of Noah’s closet. (Who’s the gorgeous new weather wench on WKMD? the article began.) But to look at Noah now, you wouldn’t guess he spared his mother a thought. He was yawning and gazing out his window at the remains of last week’s freak snowstorm. The woods were a scrawl of black against white, like an arty photograph.

A snow warning or a hurricane watch can be a matter of life and death, Ellie had told her interviewer. It gives me a lot of warm fuzzies to know I’m making a contribution to my community.

Delia wondered what Joel would have said about “warm fuzzies.”

The red-brick cube of Senior City rose before them. Delia signaled and turned into the parking lot. “What if they want me to make a speech?” Noah was asking.

“You won’t have to make a speech.”

“Or what if somebody faints or something? I’m supposed to assist.”

“Believe me,” Delia said, “this will be a breeze.”

They got out of the car and crossed the lot, which was not as well plowed as it might have been. Delia, who didn’t own boots, had to hang on to Noah’s arm as they picked their way around icy spots. “See?” she told him. “Already you’re assisting!”

His arm was thin but fiercely strong, like a band of steel.

In the lobby, they asked an old man the way to the chapel. “Straight ahead, then left at the end of the hall,” he said. “You must be going to the wedding.”

They nodded.

“Well, I’ll be along directly; wouldn’t miss it. Everyone in the building’s been invited, you know.”

Delia thanked him, and they proceeded down the hall. Passing the elevators, with their gleaming metal doors, she checked her reflection. It seemed to her she looked pale and draggled, her coat a dreary, wilted shape clinging too low on her shins.

Clothes are my biggest weakness, Ellie had told Boardwalk Bulletin. But luckily my figures the kind that everything hangs really well on, so I don’t have to spend a fortune to look good.

At the end of the hall they turned left and entered the side door of a small chapel, carpeted wall to wall in beige and lined with sleek beige pews. Already the pews were nearly filled with elderly women and three or four widely spaced men. Most of the women wore stylish dresses; a few wore bathrobes. Several people in wheelchairs formed an extra row at the rear. Delia and Noah stood gazing about until a dark young boy in a suit approached and offered Delia his arm. “We’re seating everyone helter-skelter,” he told her. “Wherever we can find room.”

“Well, Noah here won’t need a seat. He’s the best man.”

“Hey there, Noah. I’m Peter. Son of the bride,” the boy said. He had not inherited Binky’s small, pursed features or her rosy coloring; just her easy manner of talking to people. He told Noah, “You’re supposed to go through that door up front. Your grandpa’s already waiting.”

Noah sent Delia one last imploring glance, and she grinned at him and brushed his hair off his forehead. “Good luck,” she said.

Then she let Peter escort her to one of the few remaining seats, between a woman in a brown-and-white dress and an old man fiddling with his hearing aid. The old man had the aisle seat and merely moved his bony knees to one side so she could get past. It was the woman who helped her out of her coat. “Isn’t this exciting?” she asked Delia. She had a freckled, finely wrinkled face lit with a gracious expression, and a crimp of orange-sherbet hair that must once have been red. “It’s our very first Senior City wedding! We don’t count Paul and Ginny Mellors; they eloped. Are you a relation?”

“Just a friend.”

“The board is in a tizzy, I can tell you. They want to charge Binky higher rates because she’s underage. Otherwise the young folks will be flooding in, they claim, on account of our security and our managed health care. My name’s Aileen, by the way.”

“I’m Delia.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Delia. What I say is, hell’s bells, Binky’s such a lambie-pie I think we ought to pay her! She’ll be a huge addition to our Sunday Socials.”

Just then, Ellie appeared at the side entrance.

Delia knew her immediately-the tinsel hair, the pulpy red mouth. She wore a long, cream-colored coat just one shade off from her skin, and she stood poised, looking somehow stiller than ordinary women, until an usher approached. This was not Peter but his brother, evidently-someone equally dark but more stockily built. Ellie took his arm and walked toward the front, the hem of her coat swaying classily. Where would she find a seat, though? All the pews were jam-packed. The usher seemed to be informing her of this; she listened, pooching her lips and frowning. They were crossing in front of the pulpit now. On the other side, several people-mostly kitchen staff, in aprons-lined the wall, and Ellie was deposited in their midst. What a pity, Delia thought, that the one daughter who’d shown up should have to stand!

But no, another daughter was here as well-a wan, wraithlike woman who rose from her seat and edged past a row of knees to join Ellie. The second woman had fair hair too, but it was cut so brutally short that in places it seemed scraped off her skull. Behind cupped fingers, she whispered something to Ellie. Then they both turned and looked straight at Delia.

Guiltily, Delia lowered her eyes. She should have smiled at the two of them, but instead she pretended to be absorbed in conversation with Aileen. “That’s Mary Lou Simms playing the organ,” Aileen was saying. Delia hadn’t noticed there was an organ, but now she heard a wispy rendition of “Blessed Assurance.” From the old man on her right came a piercing whistle, something to do with his hearing aid. “Oh, and there’s Reverend Merrill,” Aileen said. “Isn’t he striking?”

Reverend Merrill was not all that striking in Delia’s opinion, but he wore his black robe with a certain flair. He strode toward the pulpit, swinging a Bible in one hand. Behind him came Nat and Noah. Nat held himself rigidly erect; he was doing without his cane today. Noah was getting so tall, Delia realized. Now that he took his position next to Nat, she could see how he had shot up, just in the few months she’d known him.

The organ slithered into the “Wedding March.” Everyone looked toward the rear.

First came a stouter, plainer version of Binky-the matron of honor, in a wide blue gown, with square-cut gray hair and a broad, pleasant face. Then Binky herself, in white. She looked lovely. She was carrying pink roses and beaming joyously as she floated down the aisle. Her two nieces, as bulky as their mother, plodded behind with fistfuls of her train.

“Oh, what a vision!” Aileen said. “Did you ever see anything sweeter?” Delia’s other seatmate was gnawing open a blister pack of batteries. Over by the wall, Ellie’s white face blazed fixedly, but it didn’t seem to be Binky she was watching.

The bridal procession reached the front, and Nat, proudly stern, gave Binky his arm and turned toward the minister.

It was a very brief ceremony-just the vows and the exchange of rings. Noah did fine. He produced the ring on cue, and he didn’t drop it. But all of this Delia observed with only part of her attention, while with another part-her tensed, wary, innermost part-she was conscious every moment of Ellie Miller’s unwavering stare in her direction.