Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) - Anne Tyler [120]
"She's partial to fried chicken," Fiona said. "She asks Mom to fix that all the time. Don't you, Leroy?" "Fried chicken! Perfect," Maggie said. "We'll pick up the makings on our way into town. Won't that be nice?" Leroy remained silent, and no wonder; Maggie knew how chirpy and artificial she sounded. An old person, trying too hard. But if only Leroy could see that Maggie was still young underneath, just peering out from behind an older face mask! Now all at once Ira cleared his throat. Maggie tensed. Ira said, "Um, Fiona, Leroy . . . you heard we're taking Daisy to college tomorrow." "Yes, Maggie told me," Fiona said. "I can't believe it: eentsy little Daisy." "I mean, we two are going to be driving her. We're starting early in the morning." "Not that early," Maggie said quickly.
"Well, eight or nine o'clock, Maggie." "What's your point?" Fiona asked Ira. "You don't think we ought to be visiting?" Maggie said, "Good heavens, no! He didn't mean that at all." "Well, it sounded to me like he did," Fiona said.
Ira said, "I just wanted to be sure you knew what you were getting into. That it would have to be such a short stay, I mean." "That's no problem, Ira," Maggie told him. "If she wants she can go on over to her sister's in the morning." "Well, fine then, but it's getting dark and we're not even halfway home. I would think-" "Maybe we better just stop right here and go back where we came from," Fiona said.
"Oh, no, Fiona!" Maggie cried. "We had this all settled!" "I can't remember now why I said we'd come in the first place," Fiona said. "Lord! What must I have been thinking of?" Maggie unbuckled her seat belt and twisted around so she was facing Fiona. "Fiona, please," she said. "It's only for a little while, and it's been so long since we've seen Leroy. I've got all these things I want to show her. I want her to meet Daisy and I was planning to take her by the Larkin sisters'; they won't believe how she's grown." "Who're the Larkin sisters?" Leroy asked.
"These two old ladies; they used to set out their rocking horse for you to ride on." Fiona said, "I don't remember that." "We'd pass by their porch and it would be empty, and then when we turned around to come home the horse would be sitting there waiting." "I don't remember a thing about it," Fiona said.
Leroy said, "Me neither." "Well of course you wouldn't," Fiona told her. "You were just a baby. You didn't live there hardly any time at all." This struck Maggie as unfair. She said, "Well, goodness, she was nearly a year old when you left, Fiona." "She was not! She was barely seven months." "That's not right; she had to have been, oh, eight months at least. If you left in September-" "Seven months, eight months, what's the difference?" Ira asked. "Why make a federal case of it?" He found Leroy's face in the mirror and said, "I bet you don't remember how your grandma tried to teach you to say 'Daddy,' either." "I did?" Maggie asked.
"It was going to be a surprise for his birthday," Ira told Leroy. "She would clap her hands-and you were supposed to say 'Daddy' on cue. But when she clapped her hands all you'd do was laugh. You thought it was some kind of game." Maggie tried to picture that. Why did her memories never coincide with Ira's? Instead they seemed to dovetail-one moment his to recall and the next hers, as if they had agreed to split their joint life between them. (Illogically, she always worried about whether she had behaved right during those moments she had forgotten.) "So did it work, or not?" Leroy was asking Ira.
"Work?" "Did I learn to say 'Daddy'?" "Well, no, actually," Ira said. "You were way too little to be talking yet." "Oh." Leroy seemed to be digesting that. Then she sat for- ward so she was practically nose to nose with Maggie. Her eyes had darker blue specks in them, as if even they were freckled. "I am going to get to see him, aren't I?" she said. "He's not giving a concert or anything, is he?" "Who?" Maggie asked, although of course she knew.
"My ... Jesse." "Well, certainly