Anne Tyler - The Tin Can Tree

She looked quickly out the window and saw the town of Graham rolling up, and the bus station with its line of coin machines. 'Is this where you get off?' the woman asked her.

'No.'

'Oh. You just sat up so sudden -'

'No,' said Joan, 'but I think I might buy a Coke.'

She stood and wormed her way out past the woman's knees, and as soon as she was out the woman slid quickly over to the window. Joan didn't care. She went down the aisle without looking at anyone, and then descended the bus steps. A team of some kind was waiting to board, a group of boys in white satin wind-breakers with numbers on them, and when Joan stepped down among them they remained stolidly in her path, ignoring her. 'Excuse me,' she said, 'excuse me, please,' and then when no one noticed she shouted, 'Excuse me!' For a minute they stopped talking and stared at her; then they moved aside to let her through. She walked very quickly, holding her head up. Out here she felt thinner and more alone than before, with the team of boys all watching her down the long path to the Coke machine. And when she reached the machine she found she didn't even want a Coke. But she put her dime in anyway, and just as she was reaching for the bottle someone said, 'Ma'am?'

It was a young man in sunglasses, standing beside her and looking straight at her. She felt scared suddenly, even with all those people around (had he been able to see how alone she felt?) and she decided not to answer. Instead she uncapped the Coke bottle and then turned to go.

'Ma'am?' he said again.

She couldn't just leave him there, still asking. 'What is it?' she said.

'Can you show me where the restroom is?'

'Why, it's right inside, I guess. Over there.'

'Where?'

'Over there.'

'I don't see.'

'Over there.'

'I don't see. I'm blind.'

'Oh,' said Joan, and then she just felt silly, and even sadder than before. 'Wait a minute,' she told him. She turned around and saw two bus drivers walking toward her, looking kind and cheerful. When they came even with her she tapped the older driver on the arm and said, 'Um, excuse me.'

'Yes.'

'Can you show this man the restroom? He doesn't see.'

'Why, surely,' said the driver. He smiled at her and then took the blind man by the elbow. 'You come with me,' he said.

'Thank you, sir. Thank you, ma'am.'

'You're welcome,' Joan said.

The other driver stayed behind, next to Joan. He said, 'Can you imagine travelling blind?' and stared after the two men, frowning a little.

'No, I can't' Joan said. She automatically followed the driver's eyes. Now that she looked, she couldn't think why the blind man had frightened her at first. He wore his clothes obediently, as if someone else had put them on him – the neat dark suit with the handkerchief in the pocket, the shoes tied lovingly in double knots. He reminded her of something. For a minute she couldn't think what, and then she remembered and smiled. That slow, trusting way he let himself be guided forward with his hands folded gently in front of him, was like Simon during the first year she'd lived there, when he was six and still had to be awakened at night and taken to the bathroom so he wouldn't wet his bed. He had gone just that obediently, but with his eyes closed and the shadows of some dream still flickering across his face. (You couldn't stop walking with him for a minute, not in a doorway nor going around the bend in the hall, or he would think he had reached the bathroom and proceed to go right then and there.) He had held his elbows in close to his body that way, too, against the coolness of the night. Joan stopped smiling and looked down at her feet.

'You all right?' the driver asked.

'I want to go back.'

'Ma'am?'

'I want to go back where I came from. Can I take my bags off my bus and wait for the next one going back?'

'Why, surely,' the driver said. 'You on that bus over there?'

'Yes. I know this is -'

'Women got a right to change their minds,' the driver called. He was already heading toward her bus, and Joan followed him with her untouched Coke bottle still in her hands.

'I always do this,' she said. 'But this time it's -'

'You got the right,' said the driver.

'This time it's different. I can't help it, this time; I'm not just -'

But the driver didn't hear her. He was walking up ahead of her and laughing over his shoulder, thinking it was all a joke. She stopped trying to tell him it wasn't.

Something was wrong at home. James knew it instantly, the moment he stepped out of the pickup carrying his two bags of groceries. There on the porch stood the Potter sisters and Ansel and Mrs Pike, all huddling together, and Mr Pike was a little distance away from them. He was facing toward the road, frowning down at an Indian elephant bell that he held in his hand. When he heard the pickup door slam he looked up and said, 'James.' The light from the setting sun turned his face strange and orange. 'What's wrong?' said James.

'We can't find Simon.'

'Well, where is he?' he asked, and then to cover up the stupidity of that question he said quickly, 'He was here at lunchtime.'

'We thought you might have him with you,' Mr Pike said.

'No.'

They all kept looking at him. Even Ansel. James hoisted his groceries up higher and then said again, 'No. No, I've been running errands all afternoon. All by myself.'

'Well, then,' Mr Pike said. He sighed and turned back to the others, who still waited. Finally he said, 'He's not with James.'

'Maybe he's with Joan,' James offered.

'No. Joan must have gone off somewhere, but after she left Simon was still around. Lou says so.'

James looked over at Mrs Pike. She was dry-eyed and watchful; her arms were folded firmly across her chest.

'When was the last time you noticed him?' he asked her.

'I don't know.'

Ma'am?'

'I don't know,' she said, with her voice slightly raised.

'Oh.'

'We called the boys he plays with,' Mr Pike said, 'And we called the movie-house.'

'Did you ask about buses?'

'No. Why?'

'I'd do that,' said James. He climbed the steps at his end of the porch and set the groceries on Ansel's chair, and then he straightened up and rubbed the muscles of his arms. 'Call the drugstore,' he said. 'Ask them if he's -'

'Well, I went to the drugstore, to see if he'd gone there for a soda. Mary Bennett was on; only been there a half hour or so, but she hadn't seen him.'

'Might have gone earlier,' said James. 'Did you look at the bus schedule?'

No I didn't. What would I want to do that for?'

'Just in case,' James said. 'Who was there before Mary Bennett?'

'Tommy was, but I can't find him. If it weren't for Lou I'd just sit and wait for Simon, but Lou thinks he left with a purpose. Thinks she might have sent him away somehow.'

James looked over at Mrs Pike again. For a minute she stared back at him; then she said, 'You believe he's on some bus.'

'I didn't say that,' said James.

'You think it.'

'Now, Lou,' Mr Pike told her.

'I can tell.'

'Well, it wouldn't hurt to ask,' said James. 'I'd track that Tommy down, if I was you.'

'Oh, now,' Mr Pike said, and accidentally clanged the elephant bell. Everyone jumped. 'Sorry,' he said. For the first time, Ansel lost his blank tense look; he winced, and leaned back limply against the front of the house. Mr Pike said, 'Sorry, Ansel. But where would he take a bus to?

'There's lots of places,' said James.

'Not as many as you'd think,' Ansel said. 'World's shrinking.'

'Hush,' James told him. He jingled his keys thoughtfully. 'Roy, can I use your telephone?'

'What for?'

'Let him,' Mrs Pike said. The Potter sisters stepped closer to her on either side and patted her shoulders, as if she had suddenly had an outburst of some kind. 'You know where it is,' she told James.