Anne Tyler - Ladder of Years

For a while she had an idea that Susie might ask her to come early, as much as several days early, to help with preparations. At least that way she wouldn’t feel like a mere guest. She pounced hopefully on the mail every morning, cleared her throat before answering the phone, delayed notifying Joel of her plans till she knew how long she’d be gone. But Susie didn’t ask.

And sometimes she considered not attending. What purpose would she serve? They wouldn’t even miss her. A day or two after the wedding, one of them might say, “Hey! You know who didn’t show up? Delia! I just now remembered.”

And still other times, she fantasized that they could hardly wait to see her. “Delia!” they would cry, “Mom!” they would cry, running out onto the porch, letting the door slam behind them, flinging their arms around her.

No, cancel that. More likely they would ask, “What do you think you’re doing here? Did you imagine you could waltz back in just as if nothing had happened?”

She should remember to bring her invitation, in case there was any question.

She broached the subject to Joel at Sunday breakfast, having waited till the very last day for word from Susie. Sunday was a good time anyhow, because Noah was there, wolfing down buckwheat pancakes; the conversation couldn’t get too probing. She said, “Joel, I don’t know if I mentioned or not”-knowing full well she had not-“that I’ll need to take the day off tomorrow.”

“Oh?” he said. He lowered his newspaper.

“I have to go to Baltimore.”

“ Baltimore,” he said.

“Geez, Delia!” Noah said. “I promised my wrestling coach you’d give a bunch of us a ride to the meet tomorrow.”

“Well, I can’t,” she said.

“Well, geez! Now what’ll we do?”

“Your coach will think of something,” Joel told him. “If you wanted to volunteer Delia’s services, you should have asked her first.” But he was keeping his eyes on Delia’s face as he spoke. “Is this a, some kind of emergency?” he asked her.

“No, no, just a wedding.”

“Ah.”

“But it’s one I’d very much like to attend, a family wedding, you know, and so I thought if you didn’t mind…”

“Of course; not at all,” Joel said. “Could I drive you to the bus station?”

“Oh, thanks, but I’m going by car,” Delia said. “ Baltimore ’s on Mr. Lamb’s sales route, it turns out.”

Joel probably had no idea who Mr. Lamb was, but he nodded slowly, eyes still fixed on her face.

“So!” she said. “Now, I assume I’ll be back by evening. Maybe suppertime, but I can’t be sure; I’m returning by bus; so I’ve left a chicken salad in the fridge. There’s a tub of Rick-Rack’s coleslaw next to it, biscuits in the bread drawer… But I bet I’ll be back by then, anyhow.”

“Should I meet your bus?”

“No; Belle’s doing that. I’ll call her when I get into Salisbury.”

“You could call me instead.”

“No, really, I have no idea when… it might be late at night or something. It could even be the next day; who knows?”

“The next day!” he said.

“If the reception runs very long.”

“But you are coming back,” he said.

“Well, of course.”

Now Noah was watching her too. He looked up from his pancakes and opened his mouth, but then he didn’t speak.

Toward noon she set out on a walk, planning to end at the Bay Arms for lunch whenever her ankle grew tired. It had rained in the morning, but now the sun was shining, and the air felt so thick and warm that she regretted wearing her sweater. She pulled it off and swung it loosely from one hand. Everywhere she looked, it seemed, she saw people she knew. Mrs. Lincoln waved to her from the steps of the A.M.E. church, and T. J. Renfro, roaring past on his Harley, called out, “What say, Teach!” and on Carroll Street she ran into Vanessa and Greggie, poking along in matching yellow slickers. “Delia! I was just about to phone you,” Vanessa said. “Want to ride with me to Salisbury tomorrow?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t,” Delia said. “I have to go to Baltimore.”

“What’s in Baltimore?”

“Well,” Delia said, “my daughter’s getting married.”

She’d told Belle this too, but nothing more, and now all at once she felt an urgent need to pour it all out. “She’s marrying her childhood sweetheart and I’m so worried how to behave at the wedding but I really want to be there; her father thinks she’s rushing things since she’s only twenty-two years old and I say-”

“Twenty-two! How old were you when you had her: twelve?”

“Nineteen,” Delia said. “I married right out of high school, practically.”

Vanessa nodded, unsurprised. Well, most of the girls in Bay Borough married right out of high school, Delia supposed. And had babies at nineteen or so. And ended up mislaying their husbands somewhere along the line. Vanessa’s only question was, “What’d you buy for a wedding gift?”

“I thought I’d wait to see what they needed.”

“That’s always smart,” Vanessa said. “Greggie! Let the bug go where it wants to. That’s what I did with my girlfriend,” she told Delia. “I thought I’d get her a hand-held mixer but then I thought no, why not wait, and I’m so glad I did because the first time I went to visit her I saw she didn’t have one single piece of Tupperware in her whole entire kitchen.”

Vanessa’s face, above the slicker, glowed with a fine film of sweat, and her eyes seemed very pure and clear, the whites almost blue-white. Delia suddenly felt like hugging her. She said, “Oh, I’d have loved to ride to Salisbury with you!”

“Well, another time,” Vanessa said. “There’s this place there we buy our barley in bulk, to make Grandma’s gripe water recipe.”

“Gripe water?” Delia asked.

“It’s for babies. Soothes the colic and the afternoon frets and the nighttime willies.”

Delia wished they made gripe water for grown-ups.

She dreamed she was in Bethany, walking down the beach. Ahead she saw a highway, a sort of narrowing and darkening of the sand until it turned to asphalt, and there sat her old Plymouth, baking in the sun. Sam encircled her upper arm to guide her toward it. He settled her inside. He shut the door gently after her and leaned through the open window to remind her to drive carefully. She woke and stared at the motes of darkness swarming above her bed.

From Noah’s room she heard a repetitive dry cough, beginning sharply each time as if he’d tried first to hold it in-one of those infuriating night coughs that won’t quit. For half an hour or so, she lay debating whether to get up and bring him the lozenges from the medicine cabinet. Possibly he would stop coughing on his own. Or possibly he was asleep, in which case she hated to wake him. But the cough continued, pausing and then resuming just when she thought it was finished. And then she heard the creak of a floorboard, so she knew he wasn’t asleep.

She rose and went to open her door. “Noah?” she whispered.

Instantaneously, almost, Joel was standing in front of her. She couldn’t see him so much as feel him, as the blind are said to feel-a tall, dense, solid shape giving off warmth, his moon-pale pajamas only gradually emerging from the dark of the windowless hall.

“Yes, Delia?” he whispered.

He had misunderstood, she realized. “Noah” and “Joel” sounded so much alike. The same thing often happened when she called one of them to the phone. She said, “I thought I heard Noah.”

“I was just going to see to him,” he said.

“Oh.”

“I’ll bring him some of those cough drops.”

“All right.”

But neither one of them moved.

Then he stepped forward and took her head between his hands, and she raised her face and closed her eyes and felt herself drawn toward him and enfolded, surrounded, with his lips pressing her lips and his palms covering her ears so all she could hear was the rush of her own blood.