Anne Tyler - The Tin Can Tree

From across the hall came the clattering sound of Simon's walk, closer and closer. He had his boots on now. When he reached his mother's door he walked on in without knocking and said, 'I'm ready.' Then he stood there at the foot of the bed, tilting back and forth in that awkward way he had and keeping his hands jammed tightly in his pockets.

'What're you ready for?' Mrs Hammond asked interestedly.

'To be sociable at the sewing,' Simon told her. 'Would you like to know what was the cause of that fight Andy Point's mama and daddy had?'

'In a minute I would,' said Mrs Hammond. 'Right now I'm trying to get your mother out of bed.'

For the first time, Simon looked at his mother. He looked from under bunched eyebrows, sliding his eyes over slowly and carefully. But she wasn't watching. He kicked at one leg of the brass bed, so that a little jingling sound rose among the springs. Then he said, 'Well, I'll be down getting me some breakfast,' and sauntered out again. Mrs Hammond looked after him and shook her head.

'Something is seriously wrong with that boy's hair,' she told Mrs Pike.

'No.'

'How long you going to keep on like this, Lou?'

Mrs Pike looked down at her hands and then shook her head, as if that were her secret. 'Are you sure not to stop the clocks?' she asked, but Mrs Hammond didn't answer. She had picked out the rest of Mrs Pike's underwear, and she tossed it on the bed and then reached out to pull her gently to a sitting position. 'That's it,' she said. To Joan she said, 'You go along and get that boy a decent breakfast. I'll have her down in a minute.'

It didn't look to Joan as if they'd ever be down, but she was glad to leave the room. She shut the door behind her and descended the stairs quickly, taking two steps at a time, trailing her fingers along the railing. When she reached the kitchen Simon had already taken out the makings for a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich. He was running his thumbnail around the edge of the mayonnaise label, making little ripples in it. 'Would you like some milk coffee?' she asked him, but he only shook his head. He stopped playing with the label and opened the jar, and Joan handed him a knife.

'From now on, I'm going on no more boats,' he said. 'I take stock in dreams.'

‘That's kind of silly,' said Joan.

'I know when I been warned.'

He slapped mayonnaise on top of peanut butter and clamped the two slices of bread together. Then he began to eat, starting with the crust and working his way around until all he had was a small crustless square with scalloped edges. When that point was reached he looked relieved, because he hated crusts. He took a bite out of what was left and began talking with his mouth full.

'Instead of staying here,' he said, 'I just might go on over to Billy's house. His daddy gave him a chemistry set.' He looked up at Joan, but she didn't say anything. 'I might do that instead of staying around here talking,' he told her.

'Well, suit yourself,' said Joan.

'Mama'd never notice.'

'Sure, she would.'

'I bet not.'

Joan went over to the cupboard and took down a huge plate, a green glass one that looked like summer and river-water. She began laying out cookies and cakes on it, choosing from boxes that neighbours had brought, while Simon watched her and chewed earnestly through a mouthful of peanut butter. When Joan was finished she stepped back and looked at the cake plate with her eyes squinted a little.

'Aunt Lou does it better,' she said.

'Oh, I don't know.'

'She puts it in a design, sort of.'

'One thing,' said Simon, 'she don't ever lay out that much. Not with just one customer, she don't.'

'That's true.'

'She uses that little clear sparkly plate.'

'Well, it's too late now,' Joan said. She picked up the plate and carried it out to the parlour, where she set it on a lampstand by the couch. Then she swung her aunt's sewing machine out into the middle of the room. It was the old kind, run by a treadle, set into a long scarred table. From one of the drawers underneath it she took her aunt's wicker spool box, and while she was doing that she heard the slow careful steps of Mrs Pike beginning across the upstairs hall. 'That's it,' Mrs Hammond was saying. 'That's it.' The kitchen door swung open and Simon came out, chewing on the last of his sandwich, to stand at the foot of the stairs and gaze upward. 'Mama's coming down,' he told Joan.

'I see she is.'

'First time she's come before noon. How long have I got to stay here?'

'You don't have to stay at all.'

'Well, maybe I will for a minute,' said Simon. He swung away from the stairs and went to sit on the couch, and Mrs Pike's feet began searching their way down the steps. 'That's it,' Mrs Hammond kept saying. Joan pulled a chair up to the sewing machine and then stood waiting, with her face turned toward the sound of those heels.

When Mrs Pike appeared she was dressed more neatly than she had been in days. Her brown dress was freshened up with a flowered handkerchief in the pocket, and her hair was combed by someone who knew how. The only thing wrong was that she had lost some weight, and her belt, which had had its eyelets torn into long slashes from being strained across her stomach, now hung loose and stringy a good two inches below the waist of the dress. Mrs Hammond was following close behind her. to pull the belt up from in the back, so that at least it looked right in front, but it kept slipping down again. 'Doesn't she look nice?' Mrs Hammond asked, and both Joan and Simon nodded.

In Mrs Hammond's other hand was the bundle of cloth and tissue paper. She escorted Mrs Pike to the chair Joan had ready and then she set the bundle down on the sewing table beside her, saying, 'There you are,' and stepping back to see what Mrs Pike would do. Mrs Pike didn't do anything. She looked at the lilac cloth as if she'd never seen it before. 'Well, now,' said Mrs Hammond, and began opening out the bundle herself. 'If you'll remember, you cut this out back in May, before all that business about Laura's wedding came up, and I haven't tried it on since. Joan honey, do you want to bring your aunt some coffee and a roll?'

'I'm not hungry,' said Mrs Pike.

But Joan escaped to the kitchen anyway, while Mrs Hammond went on talking. 'I've been on a tomato diet for three weeks,' she was saying, 'all in honour of this princess-style dress. So now, Lou, I want you to pin it on me again. Don't make it an inch too big, because I want to lose five more pounds, Lord willing -'

Joan took two cups and saucers down and set them on the tray. Then she poured out the coffee, taking her time because she was in no hurry to get back to the parlour. When the last possible thing had been seen to, she picked up the tray and carried it out.

'The older you get,' Mrs Hammond was saying, 'the harder the fat clings.' She had patches of lilac pinned on over her regular dress now, but she was more or less doing it herself. Mrs Pike just kept smoothing down the already pinned-on patches, running her fingers along the cloth with vague fumbling motions. "There's only four pieces,' Mrs Hammond reminded her. 'Plus the pocket. Where's the pocket? You remember that's one reason we decided on this. You could whip it up in a morning, you said. Do you remember?'

In the silence that followed the question Joan set the coffee down by the cake plate and passed the two cups over. Her aunt's she put on the table, and Mrs Hammond's she placed on the chair arm, but neither woman noticed. Mrs Pike seemed fascinated by the little wheel on her sewing machine. Mrs Hammond was waiting endlessly, with her hands across her breasts to keep the lilac cloth in place. She seemed to be planning to keep silent forever, if she had to, just so that one question of hers could be answered. But Mrs Pike might not even have heard.