Энн Тайлер - Searching for Caleb

“They’ve got him in the dining room too,” said Duncan, peering through the other doorway. “Praying in the garden.”

“Oh, Duncan, what do you care? When did you ever give a thought to interior decorating?”

He frowned at her. “So you’re going to take their side,” he said.

“I didn’t know there were sides.”

“How’s that?” asked her grandfather.

“Duncan thinks I’m defecting.”

“Hmm?”

“ Defecting .”

“Nonsense,” said her grandfather. “You’re as smart as anybody.”

Duncan laughed. Justine turned on him. “Duncan,” she said, “I certainly hope you’re not going to go into one of your silly fits here. Duncan, I mean this. For Meg’s sake, now, can’t we just try to—”

But then whispery footsteps crossed the carpet, and a lady in white entered the room with Meg just behind her. “Mother Milsom, I’d like you to meet my mother,” Meg said. “And my father, and my great-grandfather Peck.” Meg’s face was stern and her forehead was tweaked together in the center; she was warning her family not to disgrace her. So Duncan rose to his full height, keeping one thumb in his magazine, while the grandfather touched his temple and Justine stood up and held out her hand. Mrs. Milsom’s fingers felt like damp spaghetti. She was a long, wilted lady with light-brown hair parted in the center and crimped tightly to her head, a pale tragic face, eyes as black and precisely lidded as a playing-card queen’s. Her dress, which was made of something crêpey, hung limp over her flat chest, billowed hollowly at the waist and wrists, and dripped in layers to her skinny sharp legs. She wore pointed silver pumps from the Sixties. When she smiled her eyes remained wide and lusterless, as if she were keeping in mind some secret sorrow. “So finally we meet,” she said.

“We would have come before but Duncan was buying Prince Albert tins,” Justine told her. Nervousness always did make her talk too much.

“ I understand. Won’t you be seated? Margaret, darling, would you care to serve the iced tea.”

Meg looked at her mother. Then she left the room. Mrs. Milsom floated slowly downward into one of the satin chairs, parts of her appearing to settle whole minutes after other parts. She laid her hands delicately together. “Arthur I hope will be joining us shortly,” she said. “At the moment he’s napping.”

“Arthur naps?” said Duncan.

“It’s a fourth Sunday. His day to preach. Preaching takes so much out of him. Naturally we had been hoping that you would be here in time to hear his sermon, but apparently things did not fall out that way.” She gave Justine a deep, mournful look.

“Oh well—” said Justine. They would have come for the sermon, even Duncan — anything for Meg — but Meg had specifically told them not to arrive till after lunch.

“Generally on fourth Sundays he awakes with a headache,” said Mrs. Milsom, “and sustains it during the entire service and even afterward, until he admits that I am right and takes to his bed. He suffers real pain. This is not some ordinary headache.”

“Maybe he should switch to fifth Sundays,” Duncan said. “Sixth, even.”

Justine shot him a look.

“Where’s the minister?” asked Grandfather Peck, settling creakily into an armchair.

“ Grandfather , turn on your—”

“Arthur is napping, Mr. Peck,” said Mrs. Milsom. Her voice was thinned to just the right pitch. “I know all about the deaf,” she told Justine. “My father was afflicted. In his later years he would go so far as to sing the ‘Doxology’ while his congregation was on ‘Bringing in the Sheaves.’ ”

“Oh, your father was a minister too,” Justine said.

“Oh yes. Oh yes. All my family.”

“And your husband?”

“No, ah — he was in construction.”

“I see.”

“But my family, now they have been clergy for a great many years. I myself am a healer.”

“Is that right?” said Duncan. He stopped rolling up his magazine. “You heal by faith?”

“I certainly do.”

She smiled at him, her eyes like black pools. Then Meg came tinkling and clinking through the doorway with a tray, and Justine tensed because she herself, of course, would have spilled ice cubes into Mrs. Milsom’s snowy lap or tripped over the veins in the carpet. She forgot that Meg was as graceful and confident as her maiden aunts. The tray paused at each person, dipping neatly, holding steady. Mrs. Milsom watched its progress with her lower lip caught between her teeth. She was tense too, as if Meg were her daughter. It wasn’t fair. She had no right. Justine snatched a tumbler off the tray and a disk of tea flew onto the sofa cushion, but Duncan instantly covered it with his Lady’s Circle . “Mama. It’s sweetened,” Meg whispered.

“What?” Justine said aloud.

“It’s sweetened .”

“The tea is sweetened,” said Mrs. Milsom. “Thank you, Margaret. Won’t you take some yourself?”

“I was thinking I might go see if Arthur’s awake.”

“Oh no, dear, I wouldn’t do that just yet.”

“He did say to wake him when they came.”

“If we do he’ll have his head till tomorrow, believe me,” said Mrs. Milsom. “I know him.” She smiled and patted the arm of her chair. “Come sit with us a while.”

So Meg came to perch at Mrs. Milsom’s side, and Justine averted her eyes and concentrated on her tea. It was a fact that the only thing she couldn’t stand was sweetened tea. It made her gag. She would feel sick and heavy for the rest of the day. Still she drank it, searching with her tongue for the nearest ice cube to dilute the sugary taste. Duncan, who didn’t care one way or the other, finished his own drink in one breath and set the glass down upon the polished table. “Well,” he said. “So you’ve got your diploma, Meggie.”

She nodded. Her hair touched her collar, a little less neat than it used to be. Maybe she was trying to look older.

“So what next?” Duncan asked her.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Going to get some kind of a job?”

“Mr. Peck,” said Mrs. Milsom, “being a minister’s wife is a job.”

Duncan looked over at her. Justine grew worried, but in the end all he said was, “I meant, besides that.”

“Oh, there’s nothing besides that. Believe me, I know. I’m a minister’s daughter. And I’ve been standing behind Arthur all this time filling in until he found himself a wife: attending teas and sewing circles, helping at bazaars, fixing casseroles—”

“Meggie, your mother must know people,” Duncan said. “All sorts of people with jobs to offer, I’m sure of it. How about Pooch Sims? The veterinarian.” He turned to Justine. “ She could use someone.”

“Oh, Mr. Peck,” said Mrs. Milsom. She laughed and her ice cubes rattled. “Margaret wouldn’t want to do that.”

Everyone looked at Meg. She stared down into her glass.

“Would you, Meg?” Duncan asked.

“No,” said Meg, “I guess I wouldn’t.”

“Well, then, what?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Daddy. Mother Milsom’s right, I do have a lot to do already. I’ve taken over the nursery at church and I have so many calls to pay and everything.”

Justine’s teeth seemed to be growing fur, and still she hadn’t made a dent in her drink. She longed for something sour or salty. She had a craving for pickles, lemon rind, a potato chip even. But Mrs. Milsom gazed at her so reproachfully that she raised the glass and took another swallow.

“Mainly of course the minister’s wife is a buffer ,” said Mrs. Milsom. “She filters his calls, tries to handle the little things that so clutter his day — oh, Margaret can tell you. We’ve been teaching her all about it. Arthur is not terribly strong, you see. He’s allergic to so much. And he has these headaches.”