Anne Tyler - The Tin Can Tree

'We'll see,' said Joan.

'You going by bus?'

'I might not go at all. I don't know yet.'

'How long would you go for?'

'Look,' said Joan. 'I don't know that I'm going. I just think it might be good to get away. So don't tell anyone, all right?'

'Well, all right.'

'Not even James.'

'All right,' said Simon. He was good at keeping secrets; it was an insult to suggest he might tell somebody. 'If you do go -' he said.

'I might not.'

'But if you do go, can I go with you?'

'Oh, Simon,' Joan began, and stopped there because she didn't know what else to say. 'Your parents need you here,' she said finally.

They won't notice.'

'Your daddy will. So will your mother, pretty soon.'

'No.'

'Yes. See, she's coming downtstairs now.'

He turned and looked toward the stairs. Mrs Pike was coming down of her own accord, taking each step uncertainly but not asking for help. She had pinned the abalone pin at the neck of her dress, and it was bunching up the material a little. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she looked from Joan to Simon and back again, as if she were expecting them to tell her what to do next. Joan went over to her.

'I could fix you a bite to eat,' she said.

'I came to sew.'

To sew?'

'I came to sew Connie's dress together.'

'Oh,' Joan said. She looked around at the sewing machine, and was glad to see that the dress still lay there. (Mrs Hammond had gone away all helter-skelter, talking to herself, leaving everything behind her.) 'It's all here,' Joan told her. 'Is there anything else you need?'

'No. I just want to sew.'

'Shall we sit here and keep you company?'

'I just want to sew.'

'All right,' said Joan, but she waited a minute anyway, and so did Simon. Mrs Pike didn't look their way again. She went over to the chair at the sewing machine and lowered herself stiffly into it, and then she picked up the material and began sewing on it. She did it just that suddenly, without examining what she was about to do first or even looking at it – just jammed two pieces of cloth beneath the needle of the sewing machine and stepped hard on the treadle. Finally Joan turned away, because there was nothing more she could do. 'Let's go to the kitchen,' she told Simon. She steered him gently by one shoulder and he went, but he kept looking back over his shoulder at his mother. When they reached the kitchen he said, 'See?' but she said, 'Hush,' without even asking what he meant. 'Maybe we could go for a walk,' she said.

'I found my ball.'

'What ball?'

"The one I lost. I found it.'

'Well, I'm glad to hear it,' said Joan. 'Is it all beat up?'

'It's fine. You want to play catch?'

'Not really.'

'Aw, come on, Joan.'

She frowned at him. 'We should have taken you to a barber,' she said finally.

'Just for fifteen minutes or so? I won't throw hard.'

'Oh, all right, 'she said.

Simon went over to the door and picked up the baseball that lay beside it. It was greyer than before, and grass-stained, but lying out in the field for two weeks hadn't hurt it any. He began throwing it up in the air and catching it, while he led the way through the kitchen and out the back door.

'If we had a big mowed lawn, we could play roll-a-bat,' Joan said.

‘Roll-a-bat's a baby game.'

They cut through the tall grass behind the house, parting the weeds ahead of them with swimming motions and advancing beyond the garbage cans and the rusted junk to a place where the grass was shorter. Janie Rose had set fire to this spot not a year ago, while trailing through here in her mother's treasured wedding dress and holding a lighted cigarette high in front of her with her little finger stuck out. James and Mr Pike and Mr Terry had had to fight the fire with their own shirts, their faces glistening with sweat and their voices hoarse from smoke, while Ansel leaned out the back window calling 'Shame! Shame!' and Janie Rose sat perched in the tin can tree, crying and cleaning her glasses with the lace hem of the wedding dress. Now the weeds had grown up again, but they were shorter and sparser, with black scorched earth showing around them, Joan and Simon took up their positions, one at each end of the burned patch, and Simon scraped a standing-place for himself by kicking down the brittle weeds and scuffing at the charred surface of the soil 'Here goes,' he said, and wound up his arm so hard that Joan raised both hands in front of her to ward it off before he had even let go of the ball. Simon stopped winding up and pounded the ball into the palm of his other hand.

'Hey, now,' he said. 'You going to play like a girl?' 'Not if you throw easy like you promised.' He squinted across at her a minute, and then nodded and raised his throwing arm again. This time the ball came without any windup, cutting in a straight clean arc through the blue of the sky. Joan caught it neatly, remembering not to close her eyes, and threw it back to him underhanded. 'Overhand,' said Simon. 'Sorry.'

Little prickles of sweat came out on her forehead. She tugged her blouse out of her bermudas, so as to make herself cooler, and almost missed the next ball when it whizzed low and straight toward her stomach. ' Watch it,' Simon said. 'You watch it. That one burned my hands.' She threw it overhand this time, and it fell a little short, so that Simon had to run forward to catch it. While he was walking back to his place a screen door slammed behind them, and Joan automatically turned her head and listened to find out what end of the house it had come from. 'Coming,' said Simon, and just then Joan saw, in the corner of her eye, someone tall in James's plaid shirt, untangling his way through the field and toward Joan. She turned all the way. 'Watch _!' Simon said, and something slammed into the side of her head and made everything green and smarting. She sat down, not because she had been knocked down but because she was so startled her knees were weak. Beside her, nestled in a clump of grass, was the baseball, looking whiter than she remembered. Her temple began throbbing and she lay all the way down on her back, with the scorched ground underneath her making little crisp brittle sounds. 'Joan!' Simon was shouting, and whoever wore James's plaid shirt was thudding closer and closer. It was Ansel. She saw that and closed her eyes. In the same moment Simon arrived, with his breath coming fast and loud. He thumped down beside her and said, 'Joan, oh, shit, Joan,' which made her suddenly grin, even with her eyes closed and her head aching. She looked up at him and said, 'Simon Pike -'and tried to sit up, but someone yanked her back by the shoulders. Where did you – 'she began, but then Ansel clapped his hand over her mouth. His hand smelled of Noxzema.

'You lie still,' he said. 'Don't you sit and don't you talk. I'll call an ambulance.'

'An ambulance?' And this time she out and out laughed, and sat up even with Ansel trying to press her back down again. 'Ansel,' she said, 'I really don't need an ambulance. I just got surprised.'

'I warned you,' Simon said. 'Oh Lord, people break so easy.' He settled back on his haunches, clutching his knees, and for a minute it looked as if he would cry.

'Oh, hey, now,' Joan told him. She struggled all the way up, letting Ansel keep hold of one of her elbows, and then reached down to give Simon a hand up. When she stood her head hurt more; it was throbbing. She patted Simon's shoulder. 'It was my doing,' she said. 'I turned to see who was coming.'

Ansel kept hanging on to her elbow, too tightly. She tried to pull away but he only tightened his grasp and bent closer over her, looking long and pale and worried with his light eyes blinking anxiously in the strong sunlight. 'You're coming inside,' he told her. 'I'll call a doctor.'