Anne Tyler - Noah's Compass

At nap time they spread their sleeping bags in rows-Hello Kitty, Batman, Star Wars sleeping bags-and instantaneously conked out, as if done in by the passions of the morning. It was Liam’s job to watch over them while Miss Sarah took her break in the teachers’ lounge. He sat at her desk and surveyed their little flung-down bodies and listened to the silence, which had that ringing quality that comes after too much noise. He could almost hear the noise still: “That’s not fair!” and “Can I have a turn?” and Miss Sarah reading A. A. Milne aloud: “James, James, Morrison, Morrison, Weatherby George Dupree…”

And the chink! of Eunice’s earring as it dropped onto her dinner plate.

He had lost his last chance at love; he knew that. He was nearly sixty-one years old, and he looked around at his current life-the classroom hung with Big Bird posters, his anonymous apartment, his limited circle of acquaintances-and knew this was how it would be all the way till the end.

King John was not a good man, he had his little ways, and sometimes no one spoke to him for days and days and days.

It seemed to be expected each Christmas that he should buy Jonah a gift. This year he settled on a jigsaw puzzle showing a mother and baby giraffe. He believed Jonah had a special fondness for giraffes. The grownups in the family no longer exchanged gifts; or maybe they did exchange gifts but they didn’t tell Liam about it, which was fine with him. Louise and Dougall brought Jonah by on Christmas Eve afternoon, and Liam served instant cocoa with the kind of marshmallows that he knew Jonah preferred-the miniatures rather than the big, puffy ones.

Jonah seemed very big compared with the three-year-olds Liam saw daily. (He was nearly five by now.) He wore a Spider-Man jacket that he refused to take off. Louise said it was an early Christmas present. “We’re trying to spread out the deluge,” she said. “His other grandparents go way overboard.”

“Well, in that case maybe he could open my present early too,” Liam said.

“Can I?” Jonah asked, and Louise said, “Why not.”

She was sitting in an armchair while Dougall, a tubby, soft, blond boy of a man, was squeezed into the rocker. Liam always had the impulse to avert his eyes from Dougall out of kindness; he seemed so uncomfortable in his own body.

Jonah really liked his present. Or at least, he said he did. He said, “Giraffes are my favorite animals, next to elephants.”

“Oh,” Liam said. “I didn’t know about the elephants.”

“Go ahead and give him his present,” Louise told Jonah.

“I have a present?” Liam asked.

“He’s old enough now to learn that giving goes both ways,” Louise said.

“I made it myself,” Jonah told him. He was pulling it from his jacket pocket-a small flat rectangle wrapped in red tissue. “Why don’t I just unwrap it for you,” he said.

“That would be very helpful,” Liam said.

Jonah was so eager that he flung bits of tissue everywhere. Eventually he uncovered a bookmark decorated with pressed leaves. “See,” he said, placing it on Liam’s knee, “first you glue the leaves to the paper and then the teacher sticks this clear stuff over the top of them with her hot shiny metal thinga-majig.”

“That’s called an iron,” Louise said, clutching her hair. “I’m mortified.”

“I’ll use it right away,” Liam told Jonah.

“Do you like it?”

“I not only like it; I need it.”

Jonah looked pleased. “I told you,” he said to his mother.

“He insisted it was you who should get that,” Louise told Liam. “I believe it was originally supposed to be a parent gift.”

“Well, too bad,” Liam said merrily. “It’s mine now.”

Jonah grinned.

“Where’s Kitty?” Dougall asked Liam. (His first utterance since “Hi.”)

“Um, she’s at Damian’s, I believe.”

Louise said, “What do you mean, you believe?”

“Well, actually I know. But she’s due home any second. She said she’d be here for your visit.”

She had promised to help with the entertaining, Liam remembered wistfully. (He sometimes found Dougall a bit difficult to converse with.)

“That girl is running hog wild,” Louise told him.

“Oh, no, no; by and large she’s been very responsible. This is just the exception that proves the rule.”

“You know, I’ve never understood that phrase,” Louise said thoughtfully. “How could an exception prove the rule?”

“Yes, I see your point. Or ‘honored in the breach rather than in the observance.’”

“What?”

“That’s another one that seems to contradict itself.”

Louise said, “When I was-”

“Or ‘arbitrary,’” Liam said. “Ever notice how ‘arbitrary’ has two diametrically opposite meanings?”

He was beginning to find entertaining easier than he had envisioned.

“When I was Kitty’s age,” Louise persevered, “I wasn’t allowed to go out on Christmas Eve. Mom said it was a family holiday and we had to all be together.”

“Oh, I can’t imagine that,” Liam said. “Your mother never made a big to-do over Christmas.”

“She most certainly did. She made a huge to-do.”

“Then how about the time she gave away the tree?” Liam asked.

“She what?”

“Have you forgotten? Myrtle Ames across the street came by in a tizzy one Christmas morning because her son had suddenly decided to visit and she didn’t have a tree. Your mom said, ‘Take ours; we’ve already had the use of it.’ I was in the side yard collecting firewood and all at once I saw your mom and Myrtle, carrying off our Christmas tree.”

“I don’t remember a thing about it.”

“It still had all its decorations on,” Liam said. “It still had its angel swaying on top, and tinsel and strings of lights. The electric cord was trailing on the asphalt behind them. The two of them were doubled over in their bathrobes and scurrying across the street in this secret, huddled way.”

He started laughing. He was laughing out of surprise as much as amusement, because he hadn’t remembered this himself until now and yet it had come back to him in perfect detail. From where? he wondered. And how had he ever forgotten it in the first place? The trouble with discarding bad memories was that evidently the good ones went with them. He wiped his eyes and said, “Oh, Lord, I haven’t thought of that in years.”

Louise was still looking dubious. Probably she would have gone on arguing, but just then Kitty walked in and so the subject was dropped.

It didn’t bother Liam that he would be spending Christmas Day on his own. He had a new book about Socrates that he was longing to get on with, and he’d picked up a rotisserie chicken from the Giant the day before. When he dropped Kitty off at Barbara’s in midmorning, though, she seemed struck by a sudden attack of conscience. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” she asked after she got out of the car. She leaned in through the window and asked, “Should I be keeping you company?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, and he meant it.

He waved to Xanthe, who had come to the front door, and she waved back and he drove away.

If only the roads could always be as empty as they were today! He sailed smoothly up Charles Street, managing to slip through every intersection without a stop. The weather was warm and gray, on the verge of raining, which made people’s Christmas lights show up even in the daytime. Liam approved of Christmas lights. He especially liked them on bare trees, deciduous trees where you could see all the branches. Although he couldn’t imagine going to so much trouble himself.

In his apartment complex, the parking lot was deserted. Everybody must be off visiting relatives. He parked and let himself into the building. The cinderblock foyer was noticeably colder than outside. When he opened his own door, the faint smell of cocoa from yesterday made the apartment seem like someone else’s-someone more domestic, and cozier.