Anne Tyler - Noah's Compass

“Liam?”

“Oh. Barbara.”

“Is Kitty with you?”

“Why, yes.”

“You might have thought to tell me,” she said. “I got up this morning and looked in her room: no Kitty. And her bed had not been slept in.”

“I’m sorry; I thought you knew,” he said. “I gathered you two had an argument.”

“We did have an argument, and she flounced off to her room and slammed the door. And then I had to go out, and it was past midnight when I got home so I just assumed she was in her bed.”

Another time, Liam might have asked what had kept Barbara out so late. (Not that she would necessarily have deigned to answer.) But he wanted to free the telephone line, so he said, “Well, she’s here, and she’s fine.”

“How long is she staying?” Barbara asked.

“She’s not staying at all, as far as I know, but why don’t you ask her about that? I’ll have her call when she gets up.”

“Liam, you are in no condition to take on a teenage girl,” Barbara said.

“God forbid; I wouldn’t think of taking-Condition?” he said. “What condition do I have?”

“You’re a man. And also you lack experience, since you have never been very involved in your daughters’ lives.”

“How can you say that?” Liam asked. “I raised one of my daughters, entirely by myself.”

“You didn’t even raise her through toddlerhood. And it was nowhere near by yourself.”

A rush of emotions swept through him-a combination of injured feelings and frustration and defeat all too familiar from their marriage. He said, “I have to get off the line. Goodbye.”

“Wait! Liam, don’t go. Wait a minute. Did she tell you what we argued about?”

“No,” he said. “What did you argue about?”

“I have no idea! That’s the thing of it. The two of us are just flying apart, and I don’t understand why. Oh, we used to get on so well together. Remember what a sweet little girl Kitty was?”

Liam had barely known Kitty as a little girl, to be honest. She’d been one of those last-ditch efforts-a save-the-marriage baby born late in their lives, only she hadn’t saved the marriage (surprise, surprise), and within the year he’d become a visitor to his own family. And not so frequent a visitor, at that-least frequent of all with Kitty, since she had been so young.

Well. No point dwelling on the past.

He told Barbara, “She’s going to be fine; don’t worry. This is only a stage they go through.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” Barbara said on a long sigh. “I know it is. Thanks, Liam. Do have her call me, please.”

“I will.”

He hung up and looked at his watch. It was almost eight o’clock. Why hadn’t he informed Eunice last night that he was an early riser? She could have phoned him an hour ago.

He cleared away his breakfast things and loaded the dishwasher, taking care to be quiet now because if Kitty wasn’t leaving for work, he would just as soon she went on sleeping. But while he was sponging the counter, the door to the den opened and she came shambling out, yawning and ruffling her hair. She wore striped pajama bottoms and what looked to him like a bra, although he hoped it was one of those jogging tops instead. It was so difficult to tell, these days. “Now what?” she asked him. “I’m wide awake and it’s not but eight in the morning.”

“Don’t you have any plans?”

“Nope.”

“Nothing going on with Damian?”

“Damian’s in Rhode Island,” she said. “His cousin’s getting married.”

“Well, your mother would like you to phone her. I hadn’t realized you didn’t tell her where you would be.”

“Wouldn’t you think she could figure it out?” Kitty asked. She opened the refrigerator and gazed into it for a long moment. Liam hated it when she did that. He could practically feel the dollars whooshing past her and disappearing. He held his tongue, though, because he wanted to fare better with her than Barbara had. Eventually Kitty reached for a carton of milk and then shut the door. “I really think Mom might be cracking up,” she told Liam. “Maybe it’s change of life.”

“Change of life! Wouldn’t she be done with that?”

Kitty shrugged and took a box of cereal from the cupboard.

“I believe menopause hits in the late forties. Or fifties, maybe,” Liam said.

“Oh, menopause; sure. I’m talking about change of life.”

“What?”

An uncertain look crossed Kitty’s face. “Do I mean midlife crisis?” she asked.

“Only if you’re expecting her to live to a hundred and twenty.”

“Well, I don’t know; I just feel like she’s acting crazy. Every little thing I do, it’s ‘Kitty, stop that,’ and ‘Kitty, you’re grounded,’ and ‘Kitty, how often must I tell you.’ Senile dementia; maybe that’s what I mean.”

“Do you suppose it has to do with her boyfriend?” Liam asked. “What’s-his-name?”

Kitty shrugged again and sat down at the table.

“How is that going, anyway?” Liam asked.

There was only the faintest chance that Kitty would answer, but it never hurt to try. Before she could draw in a breath, though, the doorbell rang. Liam said, “Now, who-?”

He went to the front door and opened it to find Eunice. She stood looking at him with a solemn, oddly dubious expression, holding her purse primly in front of her with both hands. “Why, Eunice!” he said. “Hello!” He was thrown off a bit by her glasses, which he had somehow forgotten-the huge size of them, the smudged lenses.

“Your phone number’s unlisted,” she said.

“Yes, it is, actually.”

“And you didn’t write it down for me.”

“I didn’t?” he said. “Oh!”

“I told the operator I knew you but she still wouldn’t give out the number.”

“Yes, that’s… kind of the idea,” Liam said. “I apologize. I honestly thought I wrote it down. Freudian slip, I guess.”

“Why?” she asked him.

“Why?”

“Why Freudian? You didn’t want me to call?”

“No, no… It’s just that I hate to talk on the phone.”

“Oh, I love to talk on the phone!”

She took several steps inside, as if propelled by a gust of enthusiasm. “It’s one of my favorite occupations,” she said.

She was wearing pants today, wide gauze pants gathered at the waist and gathered at the ankles but ballooning at the hips. He believed that was called the harem style. She would have been better off in a skirt, he felt. But she did have very creamy skin, and the dimples were showing in both her cheeks.

“I forgot it was the Fourth of July,” he told her. “I hope you haven’t changed any plans.”

“I was glad to change my plans,” she said. “My parents always throw this lawn party and I’m supposed to be helping them set up.”

She gave a little chuckle-a warm, infectious sound-and the dimples deepened. He smiled at her. He said, “Won’t you come in and sit down?”

On her way to one of the armchairs, she trilled her fingers at Kitty. “Hi, Kitty!” she said.

“Hi.”

“I see I’m interrupting your breakfast.”

“Not really,” Kitty said. Which was true; she remained hunched over her cereal bowl, shoveling in Honey Nut Cheerios.

Liam said, “Kitty, weren’t you going to call your mother?”

“I’ll do it in a minute,” she said.

“Do it now, please. I promised her you’d call as soon as you were up.”

Kitty gave him a look, but she set down her spoon and pushed her chair back. “It’s not like it’s a national emergency,” she said as she went off to the den.

“She didn’t leave word where she would be last night,” Liam told Eunice. (It seemed a nice, safe, neutral topic.) He settled across from her, in the rocker. “I hadn’t realized that till her mother phoned this morning.”