Anne Tyler - Noah's Compass

“Hard to believe she would have a date so early in the day,” Liam mused.

Jonah said, “Deirdre is in deep, deep trouble.”

“Who’s Deirdre?”

“My sitter. We bet anything she’s not sick. We bet she’s off with her boyfriend someplace. Her boyfriend’s named Chicken Little.”

“He’s what?”

“Sometimes she brings him to my house to visit. Me and him play soccer together out in the backyard.”

“Is that a fact,” Liam said.

“Deirdre wears a jewel in her nose, and she’s got a chain around her wrist that’s really a tattoo.”

“This Deirdre sounds like quite a gal,” Liam said.

“Me and her are going to the State Fair in the fall.”

Was Liam supposed to be correcting Jonah’s grammatical errors? It seemed irresponsible just to let them slide past. On the other hand, he didn’t want to discourage this sudden chattiness.

“Let’s see what’s in your knapsack,” he said. “I hope you brought something to keep busy with.”

“I’ve got my Bible-stories coloring book.”

“Ah.”

“And my crayons.”

“Well, let’s see them.”

Jonah struggled out of his knapsack and laid it on the rug. Unzipping it took some doing-everything seemed to be such hard work, at this age-but eventually he brought forth a box of apple juice, a plastic bag of carrot sticks, a pack of crayons, and a coloring book entitled Bible Tales for Tots. “I just finished Abraham,” he told Liam.

“Abraham!”

Wasn’t that the man who’d been willing to slaughter his own son?

“Now I think I’ll do Joseph,” Jonah said. He started flipping through the coloring book.

“Could I see Abraham?” Liam asked him.

Jonah raised his head and gave him a level stare, as if he didn’t quite trust Liam’s motives.

“Just a peek?” Liam said.

Jonah turned back several pages to show a picture that had been covered over with jagged swaths of purple, nowhere near inside the lines. From what Liam could make out, it was a benign illustration of a man and a boy walking up a hill. Abraham obeys God’s command to deliver Isaac, the caption read.

“Thanks,” Liam said. “Very nice.”

Jonah resumed flipping pages, settling finally on one that read Joseph had a coat of many colors . The coat was a sort of bathrobe affair with wide vertical stripes.

“Do they have your story? Jonah and the whale?” Liam asked.

Jonah gave another of his effortful shrugs and dumped the pack of crayons out on the carpet. All of them seemed untouched except for the purple, which was worn down to a nubbin. “You’re supposed to tell about Joseph while I’m coloring,” he said.

“Who, me?”

Jonah nodded vigorously. He selected the purple crayon and started making wild horizontal marks across the coat. There was an extremely high probability that the purple would stray onto the carpet, but Liam was so relieved to have Jonah occupied that he didn’t intervene. He sat down in an armchair and said, “Okay. Joseph.”

Strange how unconnected he felt to this child. Not that he had anything against him; certainly he wished him well. And it was true there was something fetching about those fragile little ears, and those tiny bare feet in laughably small flip-flops. (The universal appeal of the miniature! Obviously it must serve to perpetuate the species.) But the fact that they were related by blood seemed too much to comprehend. Did other grandparents feel this way? Or maybe it was just that Jonah was growing up in such a different world, with his fundamentalist parents and his Bible Tales for Tots.

Liam couldn’t for the life of him remember the point of the Joseph story.

Still, he did his best. “Joseph,” he said, “had a coat of many colors that was a present from his father, and this made his brothers jealous.”

He wondered if the word jealous would be familiar to a four-year-old. It seemed doubtful. He tried to guess from Jonah’s expression, but Jonah was busily working away, his lower lip caught between his teeth.

“Joseph’s brothers were upset,” Liam clarified, “because they didn’t have any coats of many colors themselves.”

“Maybe Joseph could let them borrow his sometimes,” Jonah said.

“You would think so, wouldn’t you.”

“Did he?” Jonah persisted.

“Well, no, I don’t believe he did.”

Jonah shook his head and paused to peel more paper off his crayon. “That wasn’t very sharing of him,” he told Liam.

“No, it wasn’t,” Liam said. “You’re right. And also-” He was sneaking a look now at the caption on the facing page. “Also, he told his brothers about a dream he’d had where all of them were forced to bow down in front of him.”

Jonah made a clucking sound of disapproval.

He was coloring Joseph’s hair now (another splash of purple), and he seemed engrossed enough that Liam felt he could rise and go off to the kitchen to pour himself a mug of coffee. By the time he returned, Jonah had skipped ahead to Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. Aha. “So Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery,” Liam said, settling into his chair again, “and then they went home and told their father he’d been killed.”

They had soaked Joseph’s coat in an animal’s blood to back up their claim, Liam seemed to recall. What a waste of the beautiful coat! he had thought as a child. Now it was no use to anyone! Evidently these things hung on in the memory longer than he would have supposed. He hadn’t considered that story in decades. His mother had been quite religious (or, at least, she had turned to her church for support after his father left them), but Liam himself had dropped out of Sunday school as soon as he was old enough to be allowed to stay home on his own.

He tried to read the next caption, but Jonah’s arm was obscuring it. As unobtrusively as possible, Liam reached for the newspaper.

Drought. War. Suicide bombers.

At around ten thirty or so, after she had settled Mr. C. in his office, Eunice would be coming to deliver his printed-out résumé. Liam hugged that thought to himself like a package that he was putting off unwrapping. He had something to look forward to, but he didn’t want to examine it too closely. He kept it tucked in the back of his consciousness for later.

Of course, eventually he would have to tell her that the résumé was unnecessary. By that time, though, they might know each other well enough to be getting together for other reasons. He wondered if she liked movies. Liam really enjoyed a good movie. He found it restful to watch people’s conversations without being expected to join in. But he always felt sort of lonesome if he didn’t have someone next to him to nudge in the ribs at the good parts.

Security checks at airports were becoming more and more onerous, he read.

Jonah said, “I’m hungry.”

Liam lowered his newspaper. “You want your carrot sticks?” he asked.

“I want something you have.”

This touched off a faint, nagging echo of annoyance in Liam’s mind. He reached back to retrieve a recollection of Xanthe from long, long ago, from her toddler days, always asking for something, always needing. But he forced himself to say, “Sure enough. Let’s see what I’ve got,” and he set aside his paper and stood up.

“Celery? Yogurt? Cheese?” he called from the kitchen.

“What kind of cheese?”

“Pepperjack.”

“Pepperjack’s too prickly.”

Liam sighed and closed the refrigerator door. “Raisins?” he asked. “Toast?”

“Raisins would be good.”

Liam scooped some raisins from the box and put them in a cereal bowl. An image came to him of Xanthe standing in her crib, clutching the bars in tight fat fists. Her hair was plastered to her scalp with sweat and her face was beet-red and streaming with tears, her mouth a cavernous black rectangle of misery. He set the bowl on the carpet in front of Jonah and said, “Here, little guy,” and Jonah tossed him a quick glance before he reached for a handful of raisins.