Anne Tyler: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

Last summer, she’d been half-awakened by a hymn on her clock radio—“In the Sweet Bye and Bye,” mournfully sung by some popular singer just before Norman Vincent Peale’s sermonette. We shall meet on that beautiful shore … She’d slipped into a dream in which a stranger told her that the beautiful shore was Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, where she and Beck and the children had once spent a summer vacation. They were meeting on the shore after changing into swimsuits, for the very first swim of their very first day. Beck was handsome and Pearl felt graceful and the children were still very small; they had round, excited, joyous faces and chubby little bodies. She was astounded by their innocence — by her own and Beck’s as well. She stretched her arms toward the children, but woke. Later, speaking to Cody on the phone, she happened to mention the dream. Wouldn’t it be nice, she said, if heaven were Wrightsville Beach? If, after dying, they’d open their eyes and find themselves back on that warm, sunny sand, everyone young and happy again, those long-ago waves rolling in to shore? But Cody hadn’t entered into the spirit of the thing. Nice? he had asked. He asked, was that all she thought of heaven? Wrightsville Beach, where as he recalled she had fretted for two solid weeks that she might have left the oven on at home? And had she taken into account, he asked, his own wishes in the matter? Did she suppose that he wanted to spend eternity as a child? “Why, Cody, all I meant was—” she said.

Something was wrong with him. Something was wrong with all of her children. They were so frustrating — attractive, likable people, the three of them, but closed off from her in some perverse way that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. And she sensed a kind of trademark flaw in each of their lives. Cody was prone to unreasonable rages; Jenny was so flippant; Ezra hadn’t really lived up to his potential. (He ran a restaurant on St. Paul Street — not at all what she had planned for him.) She wondered if her children blamed her for something. Sitting close at family gatherings (with the spouses and offspring slightly apart, nonmembers forever), they tended to recall only poverty and loneliness — toys she couldn’t afford for them, parties where they weren’t invited. Cody, in particular, referred continually to Pearl’s short temper, displaying it against a background of stunned, childish faces so sad and bewildered that Pearl herself hardly recognized them. Honestly, she thought, wasn’t there some statute of limitations here? When was he going to absolve her? He was middle-aged. He had no business holding her responsible any more.

And Beck: well, he was still alive, if it mattered. By now he’d be old. She would bet he’d aged poorly. She would bet he wore a toupee, or false teeth too white and regular, or some flowing, youthful hairdo that made him look ridiculous. His ties would be too colorful and his suits too bold a plaid. What had she ever seen in him? She chewed the insides of her lips. Her one mistake: a simple error in judgment. It should not have had such far-reaching effects. You would think that life could be a little more forgiving.

Once or twice a year, even now, his letters arrived. (Though the money had stopped when Jenny turned eighteen — or two months after she turned eighteen, which meant he’d lost track of her birthday, Pearl supposed.) It was typical of him that he lacked the taste to make a final exit. He spent too long at his farewells, chatting in the doorway, letting in the cold. He had retired from the Tanner Corporation, he wrote. He remained at his last place of transfer, Richmond, like something washed up from a flood; but evidently he still traveled some. In 1967 he sent her a postcard from the World’s Fair in Montreal, and another in ’72 from Atlantic City, New Jersey. He seemed spurred into action by various overblown occasions — when man first walked on the moon, for instance (an event of no concern to Pearl, or to any other serious person). Well! he wrote. Looks like we made it . His enthusiasm seemed flushed, perhaps alcohol induced. She winced and tore the letter into squares.

Later, when her eyes went, she saved her mail for Ezra. She’d hold up an envelope. “Where’s this from? I can’t quite make it out.”

“National Rifle Association.”

“Throw it away. What’s this?”

“Republican Party.”

“Throw it away. And this?”

“Something in longhand, from Richmond.”

“Throw it away.”

He didn’t ask why. None of her children possessed a shred of curiosity.

She dreamed her uncle hitched up Prince and took her to a medal contest, but she had failed to memorize a piece and stood on stage like a dumb thing with everybody whispering. When she woke, she was cross with herself. She should have done “Dat Boy Fritz”; she’d always been good at dialect. And she knew it off by heart still, too. Her memory had not faded in the slightest. She rearranged her pillow, irritably. Her edges felt uneven, was how she put it to herself. She slept again and dreamed the house was on fire. Her skin dried out from the heat and her hair seemed to sizzle in her ears. Jenny rushed upstairs to save her costume jewelry and her footsteps died away all at once, as if she’d fallen into space. “Stop!” Pearl shouted. She opened her eyes. Someone was sitting next to her, in that leather armchair that creaked. “Jenny?” she said.

“It’s Ezra, Mother.”

Poor Ezra, he must be exhausted. Wasn’t it supposed to be the daughter who came and nursed you? She knew she should send him away but she couldn’t make herself do it. “I guess you want to get back to that restaurant,” she told him.

“No, no.”

“You’re like a mother hen about that place,” she said. She sniffed. Then she said, “Ezra, do you smell smoke?”

“Why do you ask?” he said (cautious as ever).

“I dreamed the house burned down.”

“It didn’t really.”

“Ah.”

She waited, holding herself in. Her muscles were so tense, she ached all over. Finally she said, “Ezra?”

“Yes, Mother?”

“Maybe you could just check.”

“Check what?”

“The house, of course. Check if it’s on fire.”

She could tell he didn’t want to.

“For my sake,” she told him.

“Well, all right.”

She heard him rise and shamble out. He must be in his stocking feet; she recognized that shushing sound. He was gone so long that she began to fear the worst. She strained for the roar of the flames but heard only the horns of passing cars, the clock radio’s electric murmur, a bicycle bell tinkling beneath the window. Then here he came, heavy and slow on the stairs. Evidently there was no emergency. He settled into his chair again. “Everything’s fine,” he told her.

“Thank you, Ezra,” she said humbly.

“You’re welcome.”

She heard him pick up his magazine.

“Ezra,” she said, “I’ve had a thought. Did you happen to check the basement?”

“Yes.”

“You went clear to the bottom of the steps.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“I don’t much care for how that furnace sounds.”

“It’s fine,” he told her.

It was fine. She resolved to believe him. She soothed herself by wandering, mentally, from one end of the house to the other, cataloguing how well she’d managed. The fireplace flue was shut against the cold. The drains were clear and the faucets were tight and she’d bled the radiators herself — sightless, turning her key back sharply the instant she heard the hiss of water. The gutters were swept and the roof did not leak and the refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. Everything was proceeding according to instructions.

“Ezra,” she said.