A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [13]
Gordon’s hands locked on his knees. Everything in the little room seemed crooked and out of place. Delores’s lavender pants were wrinkled. A long thread dangled from her shirt hem. She’d been like this as a girl, too, forever stumbling and ruining things, annoying classmates as well as teachers with constant talk and easy intimacies.
She winced. “Oh, no. You’re upset with me, aren’t you.”
“I don’t talk about that,” he said stiffly. He wanted her to leave but couldn’t say it.
Her fuchsia-coated lips trembled. “Oh! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.” She put her hand on his arm. “Actually, I thought it was funny. Well, not funny, but . . . but, well, weird that they’d think that. I thought you’d want to know. I thought . . . I mean, now that you’re home . . . Oh, I don’t know what I thought. I guess I wasn’t thinking, that’s the problem. I’m sorry,” she said, annoying him even more as she berated herself. “See? That’s the thing, I talk too much. I just go on and on. That’s how I work things out. I, like, talk them to death, and then nothing anyone says after that can bother me. But that’s my way. And sometimes I forget other people aren’t like that. My sisters, they’re always telling me I don’t have any respect for other people’s boundaries. I’m sorry, Gordon. Really, I am. So let’s be friends. Please? Let’s just start over, okay? From this moment on it’ll be like I never said it! There!” she declared, and slapped her thigh, the fleshy clap alarming him even more. “The most important thing is here and now, right?” She smiled and looked around. “So! Are you really going to stay here, I mean, live in the house?”
Well, she didn’t blame him, she continued, not waiting for an answer. In fact, she’d still be in her old house, but after her mother died her sisters just about sold the place out from under her, they were so anxious to collect their share. “This lawyer I know says I should’ve billed the estate for all those years I took care of Ma, but what kind of person does that? I mean, she was my mother, and I was the only single one all those years, so naturally it was going to be me. But I never minded. I figure my time’s coming, you know what I mean?”
He had been thinking of his own mother traveling all that way, weekly at first. Every visit had begun with her tight-lipped censure and ended in tears as each tried to tell the other how sorry they were for everything.
“Oh, Gordon.” Delores shook her head and sighed. “I’m just boring the hell out of you, aren’t I, with all my talk.” Concern made her look even more unkempt.
“No,” he said tentatively, as if it were a question. “I guess I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”
“Oh, poor Gordon!” She moved next to him and put her arm over his shoulder. “You do. You look so tired.”
His thoughts roiled with the nudge of her breast against his arm. It was terrifying to be this inept, to not know what to say or do next. His face felt hot. She smelled like fruit, bruised and overripe.
“How about if I make some coffee? We can have dessert!” She started to get up. “Some nice, warm banana bread?”
“No, I don’t want any,” he answered too quickly.
She looked at him for a moment. “What’d you do today that made you so tired?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. If he mentioned the Market, she’d never leave.
She began to tell him about her boss’s son, who had been terribly depressed since losing his job. “He never goes anywhere. He’s always in the house. His mother wants him to see someone, but Albert says what he needs