Anne Tyler: Noah's Compass

The next voice he heard was Dr. Morrow’s own, tired and surprisingly elderly. “Yes?” he said. “This is Dr. Morrow.”

“Dr. Morrow, this is Liam Pennywell. I don’t know if you remember me.”

“Ah, yes! The philosopher.”

Liam felt gratified, even though he thought he detected an undertone of amusement. He said, “I’m sorry to phone you out of the blue, but I was recently knocked unconscious and I’ve been experiencing some very troubling symptoms.”

“What sort of symptoms?” the doctor asked.

“Well, memory loss.”

“Short-term memory?”

“Not short, exactly. But not long-term either. More like… intermediate.”

“Intermediate memory?”

“I can’t remember being hit.”

“Oh, that’s very common,” Dr. Morrow said. “Very much to be expected. Are you currently under medical care?”

“Yes, but… In the hospital I was, but… Dr. Morrow, I hate to presume, but could I come in and talk to you?”

“Talk,” the doctor said thoughtfully.

“Just for a couple of minutes? Oh, I do have insurance. I have health insurance. I mean, this would be a purely professional consultation.”

“What are you doing right now?” the doctor asked.

“Now?”

“Could you make it here before nine fifteen?”

“Certainly!” Liam said.

He had no idea if he could make it; the phone book had listed a downtown address and he was way, way up near… oh, Lord, he should never have moved. He was way up near the Beltway! But he said, “I’ll be there in half a second. Thank you, Dr. Morrow. I can’t tell you how I appreciate this.”

“Half a second exactly,” the doctor said, and the undertone of amusement seemed to have returned to his voice.

Liam had on a more casual outfit than he would normally wear in public: a stretched-out polo shirt and khakis with one torn belt loop. No time to change, though. All he did was switch his slippers for sneakers. Bending down to tie them made his head throb, which he welcomed. He wanted as many symptoms as possible if he was presenting his case to a doctor.

In the parking lot, the throbbing in his head was bothersome enough to make him try to slide straight-backed into his car, bending only at the knees. He had just made it onto the seat when a woman shrieked, “What are you doing?”

He turned to find an aged blue sedan pulled up behind him. His middle daughter was glaring at him through her open side window, and his grandson sat in the back. “Why, Louise,” Liam said. “Good to see you! Sorry, but I’m in a bit of a-”

“You know you’re not supposed to be driving!”

“Oh.”

“They told you at the hospital! I came all the way over here in case you needed some errands run.”

“Well, isn’t that nice of you,” he said. “Maybe you could take me to the neurologist’s office.”

“Where’s that?”

“Down on St. Paul,” he said. He was climbing out of his car now, trying once again not to lower his head by so much as an inch. It was lucky Louise had happened along; he hadn’t realized how woozy he felt. He shuffled around the hood of her car to the passenger side and got in.

“It’s going to pull like anything when you yank that bandage off,” Louise said, peering at his scalp.

She had Barbara’s dark coloring but not her softness; there was always a sort of edge to her, especially when she squinted like this. Liam shrank away from her gaze and said, “Yes, well.” He began fumbling through his pockets. “Now, somewhere or other-” he muttered. “Aha.” He held up a torn-off corner from a Chinese menu. “Dr. Morrow’s address.”

Louise glanced at it briefly before putting her car in gear. Liam turned to look at his grandson. “Jonah!” he said. “Hey, there!”

“Hi.”

“What’ve you been up to?”

“Nothing.”

In Liam’s opinion, the child lacked verve. He was… what, three years old? No, four; four and a half, but he still sat in one of those booster seats, docile as a little blond puppet, with a teddy bear clutched to his chest. Liam considered starting on a whole new subject but it didn’t seem worth the effort, and eventually he faced forward again.

Louise said, “I was thinking you might need groceries brought, or a prescription filled. Nobody mentioned a doctor’s appointment.”

“This was sort of last-minute,” Liam told her.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, no.”

Louise made a wide U-turn and headed out the entrance-way ignoring several arrows pointing in the opposite direction. Liam gripped the dashboard but made no attempt to set her straight.

“Although I do, ah, seem to be having a little trouble with my memory,” he said finally.

He was hoping they might get into a discussion about it, but instead she said, “I guess it was pretty creepy staying in the apartment last night.”

“Not at all,” he said. “Kitty was a bit nervous, though. I had to give her the bedroom.”

This reminded him; he said, “I believe I owe you some money for the rug shampooer.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Louise said.

“No, I insist,” he said. “How much was it?”

“You can pay me back when you get a job,” she told him.

“A job. Well…”

“Have you filled out any applications yet?”

“I’m not sure I even want to,” he said. “It’s possible I’ll retire.”

“Retire! You’re sixty years old!”

“Exactly.”

“What would you do with yourself?”

“Why, there’s plenty I could do,” he said. “I could read, I could think… I’m not a man without resources, you know.”

“You’re going to sit all day and just think?”

“Or also… I have options! I have lots of possibilities. In fact,” he said spontaneously, “I might become a zayda.”

“A what?”

“It’s an adjunct position at a preschool out on Reisters-town Road,” he said. He was proud of himself for coming up with this; he hadn’t thought of it in weeks. “One of the parents at St. Dyfrig mentioned there was an opening. They use senior citizens as, so to speak, grandparent figures in the younger children’s classrooms. Zayda is the Jewish word for grandfather.”

“You aren’t Jewish, though.”

“No, but the preschool is.”

“And you aren’t a senior citizen, either. Besides, this sounds to me like a volunteer position. Are you sure it’s not volunteer?”

“No, no, I would be paid.”

“How much?”

“Oh…” he said. Then he said, “What is it with you girls? All of a sudden you seem to think you have a right to pry into my finances.”

“For good reason,” Louise told him. She slowed for a light. She said, “And don’t even get me started on the obvious irony, here.”

“What’s that?”

“Grandfather!” she said. “You, of all people!”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Do you even like small children?” she asked.

“Of course I like them!”

“Huh,” she said.

Liam turned once more to look at Jonah. Jonah sent back a milky blue gaze that gave no indication what he was thinking.

They entered the city limits and traveled through Liam’s old neighborhood-dignified, elderly buildings grouped around the Hopkins campus. Liam felt a pang of homesickness. Resolutely, he steered his thoughts toward the new place: its purity, its stripped-down angularity. Louise (a mind reader, like both of her sisters) said, “You could always move back.”

“Move back! Why would I want to do that?”

“I doubt your old apartment’s been rented yet, has it?”

“I’m very content where I am,” he said. “I have a refrigerator now that dispenses water through the door.”