Anne Tyler - Noah's Compass

Assuming sole responsibility for the question-I’ve been wondering-was meant as a gesture of gallantry, but Kitty spoiled the effect by shutting off the water decisively and spinning around to say, “Please, Mom?”

Barbara turned to Liam. “Excuse me?” she said.

“She would stay on at my place,” Liam said, “just for her senior year, I mean. After that she’d be leaving for college.”

“What, Liam: are you saying you’d be willing to monitor her homework, and drive car pool to lacrosse games, and pick her up from swimming practice? Are you going to meet with her college advisor and make sure she gets her allergy shots?”

This sounded like more of a commitment than he had realized, actually. He sent an uncertain glance toward Kitty. She took a step forward, but instead of going into the prayerful-maiden act he half expected, she flung a hand in his direction, palm up, and said, “Someone ought to keep a watch. Just look at him!”

Liam blinked.

Barbara examined him more closely. She said, “Yes, what’s wrong with you?”

“What do you mean, what’s wrong with me?”

“You seem… thinner.”

He had the impression that she had been about to say something else, something less complimentary.

“I’m fine,” he told her.

He scowled at Kitty. He’d be damned if he would say a single word further on her behalf.

Kitty gazed blandly back at him.

Barbara said, “Kitty, would you take these things to the patio, please?”

“But-”

“Go on,” Barbara said, and she handed Kitty the plates with a cluster of silverware laid on top.

Kitty accepted them, but as she backed out the screen door her eyes were fixed beseechingly on Liam.

He refused to give her the slightest sign of encouragement.

“It’s not for my sake at all,” he told Barbara as soon as they were alone. “She’s trying to put one over on you.”

“Yes, yes… Liam, I don’t want to be intrusive, but I’m wondering if your life can accommodate a teenager.”

“Well, maybe it can’t,” Liam said. What the hell.

“You wouldn’t be able to have a person spend the night with you if Kitty were there; you realize that.”

“Spend the night?”

“If I had known you were involved with someone, I never would have let Kitty come stay with you in the first place.”

“I’m not involved with anyone,” he said.

“You’re not?”

“No.”

“Well, the other day it seemed-”

“Not anymore,” he said.

“I see,” she said. Then she said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Something in the tone of her voice-so delicate, so tactful-implied that she assumed the breakup was not his own choice. Her face became kind and sorrowful, as if he’d just announced a bereavement.

“But!” he told her. “As for Kitty! You know, you might have a point. I would probably make a terrible father over the long term.”

Barbara gave a short laugh.

“What,” he said.

“Oh, nothing.”

“What’s so amusing?”

“It’s just,” she said, “how you never argue with people’s poor opinions of you. They can say the most negative things-that you’re clueless, that you’re unfeeling-and you say, ‘Yes, well, maybe you’re right.’ If I were you, I’d be devastated!”

“Really?” Liam asked. He was intrigued. “Yes, well, maybe you’re… Or, rather… Would you be devastated even if you truly did agree with them?”

“Especially if I agreed with them!” she said. “Are you telling me that you do agree? You believe you’re a bad person?”

“Oh, not bad in the sense of evil,” Liam said. “But face it: I haven’t exactly covered myself in glory. I just… don’t seem to have the hang of things, somehow. It’s as if I’ve never been entirely present in my own life.”

She was silent, gazing at him again with that too-kind expression.

He said, “Do you remember a show on TV that Dean Martin used to host? It must have been back in the seventies; Millie liked to watch it. I can’t think now what it was called.”

“The Dean Martin Show?” Barbara suggested.

“Yes, maybe; and he had this running joke about his drinking, remember? Always going on about his drunken binges. And so one night one of the guests was reminiscing about a party they’d been to and Dean Martin asked, ‘Did I have a good time?’”

Barbara smiled faintly, looking not all that amused.

“Did he have a good time,” Liam said. “Ha!”

“What’s your point, Liam?”

“I might ask you the same question,” he told her.

“You might ask what my point is?”

“I might ask if I’d had a good time.”

Barbara wrinkled her forehead.

“Oh,” Liam said, “never mind.”

It was a relief to give up, finally. It was a relief to turn away from her and see Kitty approaching-matter-of-fact, straightforward Kitty yanking open the screen door and saying, “Did you decide?”

“We were just discussing Dean Martin,” Barbara told her drily.

“Who? But what about me?”

“Well,” Barbara said. She reflected a moment. Then she said-out of the blue, it seemed to Liam-“I suppose we could give it a try.”

Kitty said, “Hot dog!”

“Just conditionally, understand.”

“I understand!”

“But if I hear one word about your bending the rules, missy, or giving your father any trouble-”

“I know, I know,” Kitty said, and she was off, racing toward the front stairs, presumably to go pack.

Barbara looked over at Liam. “I meant that about the rules,” she told him.

He nodded. Privately, though, he felt blindsided. What had he gotten himself into?

As if she guessed his thoughts, Barbara smiled and gave him a tap on the wrist. “Come and have some lunch,” she said.

He forgot to remind her that he wasn’t hungry. He followed her back through the kitchen and out the screen door.

On the patio, Jonah had abandoned his chalk and was sitting on the very edge of the chair next to Xanthe. “We saw an animal!” he shouted. “You’ve got an animal in your backyard, Gran! It was either a fox or an anteater.”

“Oh, I hope it was an anteater,” Barbara said. “I haven’t had one of those before.”

“It had a long nose or a long tail, one or the other. Where’s Kitty? I have to tell Kitty.”

“She’ll be here in a minute, sweets. She’s packing.”

Liam pulled up a chair and sat down next to Jonah. He was directly opposite Xanthe, but Xanthe refused to look at him. “Packing for what?” she asked Barbara.

“She’s going to stay on with your dad.”

“Huh?”

“She’s staying on during the school year. If she behaves herself.”

Then Xanthe did look at him, openmouthed. She turned back to Barbara and said, “She’s going to live with him?”

“Why, yes,” Barbara said, but now she sounded doubtful.

“I cannot believe this,” Xanthe told Liam.

Liam said, “Pardon?”

“First you let her stay there all summer. You say, ‘Okay, Kitty, whatever you like. By all means, Kitty. Whatever your heart desires, Kitty.’ Little Miss Princess Kitty lolling about with her deadbeat boyfriend.”

Liam said, “Yes? And?”

“When you never let me live with you!” Xanthe cried. “And I was just a child! And you were all I had! I was way younger than Kitty is when you and Barbara split up. You left me behind with a woman who wasn’t even related to me and off you went, forever!”

Liam felt stunned.

He said, “Is that what you’ve been mad about?”

Barbara said, “Oh, Xanthe, I feel related. I’ve always felt you were truly my daughter; you must know I have.”