Anne Tyler - The Tin Can Tree

'It's all right.'

'Well.' He sat further forward and looked at his fingernails. 'I guess your uncle's working today,' he said.

'Didn't Ansel tell you so?'

'In away he did.'

'There's nothing bad about it,' said Joan.

'Why, no, of course not.'

'You have to do something. You can't sit around. It's not fair to sit around, reminding people all the time -'She stopped, and James looked sideways at her while he kept his head bent over his fingernails. Her voice was so sharp sounding it made him uneasy, and he didn't know what he was supposed to say to her. But then she said, "Well. So you don't have to work tobacco any more.'

'No, 'James said.

'That's good.'

He waited a minute, and then cleared his throat and said, 'It'll be a good season, they say.'

'Billy Brandon told me that,' Simon said suddenly.

'Barns are nearly full already.'

In his shirt pocket he found a plastic comb, with little pieces of lint sticking to it. By running his index finger across its teeth he made a sound like a tiny xylophone, flat and tinny. Joan and Simon both sat watching him. When he saw them watching he stopped and put the comb back in his pocket. 'I guess I'll be going,' he said helplessly. 'I could come some other time.'

'All right,' said Joan.

'Do you want me to?'

'What?'

'Do you want me to come back?'

'Oh. Yes.'

'Okay,' he said, but he still wasn't sure. He stood up and went over to the door, with Joan and Simon following solemnly behind. Then he turned around and said, 'I could take you to the movies, maybe, Thursday night. The two of you.'

'We'll see,' Joan said.

'Do you want to come or don't you?'

'I don't know yet if we can,' she said.

'Well, I wouldn't ask so far in advance, but tomorrow night I can't go. I'm going to take Ansel playing cribbage. But Thursday-'

‘We'll see, 'said Joan.

‘I know I wasn't going to chauffeur him around no more, but lately he's been – Well. We don't have to go into that.'

‘I'm not going into anything,' Joan said.

‘Yes, you are.'

‘I wasn't saying a word.'

‘I could tell the way you were looking.'

‘I wasn't looking any way. I wasn't even thinking about it.’

She sounded near tears. James stood there, trying to think of what to say next, but he figured anything he came up with would only make things worse. So he waited a minute, and then he said, 'I think I'd better leave. Goodbye.'

'Goodbye,' Simon said.

He was down the porch steps and halfway across the yard when he heard their door close; Joan had never said goodbye. The only sounds now were from Ansel's window – the birdlike sounds of women laughing, all clustered around his brother, their laughter pealing out in clear happy trills that drifted through the window and hung like a curtain across the empty porch.

That afternoon, Joan had a telephone call from her mother. She was upstairs when it came, getting Mrs Pike out of bed for the second time and finding it a little easier now than it had been in the morning. 'What do you want to wear?' she asked, and her aunt actually answered, with only a slight pause beforehand. 'The beige, I guess,' she said. She waited while Joan lifted it off the hanger. 'Can I wear the abalone pin with that?'

'Of course,' Joan said. She would have agreed if her aunt had wanted to wear the kitchen curtains. She picked the pin out of the bureau drawer and laid it beside the dress, and then the phone rang. Both of them stopped to listen.

'Hey, Joan!' Simon called.

'I'm up here.'

'Someone wants you on the telephone.'

'Well, I'll be back,' Joan told her aunt, and she went down the stairs very fast, two steps at a time. She didn't know who she was expecting, but when she heard only the ice-cold, nasal voice of the operator she was disappointed.

'Miss Joan Pike?' the operator asked.

'Yes.'

'Are you Miss Joan Pike?'

'Yes.'

'Long distance calling.'

'All right,' Joan said.

There was a pause, and then her mother said, 'Is that Joan?', formally, and waited for Joan to go through the whole business of identifying herself again.

'It's me,' said Joan. 'Hello, Mother.'

'Hello,' her mother said. 'I called to see how Lou was. Your father said to ask.'

'She's getting better,' said Joan. She heard her mother turn and murmur to her father, probably relaying Joan's answer. In normal speech her mother had a very soft voice, held in as if there was somebody sick in the next room. But when she returned to the phone her tea-party voice came back, louder and more distinct, the voice of a plump woman who stood very straight and placed the points of her shoes outward when she walked.

'Your father feels bad we couldn't make it to the funeral,' she was saying. 'He says it's only a sniffle he has, but I don't like the sound of it. Is there anything we can do for Lou?'

'Not that I can think of. The flowers were very nice -Uncle Roy said to tell you.'

'Well. We weren't quite sure. Some people have a dislike of gladioli.'

'No, they were fine,' said Joan.

"That's good. How's Simon?'

'He's all right, I guess.'

‘Tell him hello for us, now. Tell him -'

Her voice had grown almost as soft as it normally was. Joan could picture her, sitting on the edge of that rocker with the needlework seat, with Joan's father standing behind her and bending cautiously forward to hear what was going on. He was a little afraid of telephones himself; he treated them as though they might explode. She saw how her mother would be smoothing down that little crease between her eyebrows with her index finger, and then letting the crease come back the minute she dropped her hand. The thought of that made Joan miss her; she said suddenly, 'I'm tired.'

'What?'

'I'm just tired. I want to come home. I don't want to stay here any more.'

'Why, Joan -' her mother said, and then let her voice trail off. Finally she said, 'Don't you think you should be with Lou now?'

'I'm not helping,' said Joan. 'She just sits. Every place I look, Janie Rose is there, and I don't feel like staying here. Nothing is right.'

'Doesn't Simon need you?'

'Well -' Joan said, and then stopped because her father must have asked to know what was going on. The two of them murmured together a while, her mother's voice sounding faintly impatient. Joan's father was growing deaf; he had to be told twice. When her mother finally returned to Joan she was sighing, and her voice was loud again.

'You know we'd love to have you,' she said. 'As soon as you can come. When were you planning on?'

'I don't know. A day or two, maybe. By bus.'

'Or maybe James could drive you,' said her mother. 'We'd love to have him.'

'He won't be coming.'

'Your father's been asking about him.'

'He won't be coming,' Joan said firmly.

There was another pause, and then her mother said, 'Is something wrong?'

'What would be wrong?'

'Well, I don't know. Shall we expect you when we see you, then?'

'All right. Don't go to any trouble.'

'It'll be no trouble. Goodbye, now.'

'Goodbye. And thank you for calling.'

She hung up, but she stayed in the same position, her hand on the receiver. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Simon. He was leaning against the frame of the kitchen door, eating another peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich. 'Hey,' she said, but he only bit off a hunk of sandwich and chewed steadily, keeping his eyes on her face. 'That was your Aunt Abby,' she told him.

'I know.'

'She called to see how everyone is.'

He straightened up from the doorframe and came over to her, planting his feet very carefully and straight in front of him. When he had reached her he said, 'I hear how you're going there,' and waited, with the sandwich raised halfway to his mouth.