Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) - Anne Tyler [135]
She wondered how it would feel to know she had seen Ira for the very last time on this earth. She supposed she would have trouble believing it. For several months, maybe, she would half expect him to come sauntering in again just as he had sauntered into choir practice that first spring evening thirty years ago.
"Um, also, Serena," she said, "I want to apologize for what happened after the funeral." "Oh, forget it." "No, really, both of us feel just terrible." She hoped Serena couldn't hear Ira in the background; It made her apology seem insincere. Lately it occurs to me, he was whistling cheerily, what a long, strange trip it's been ... * "Forget it; I flew off the handle," Serena told her. "Widow's nerves, or something. Pure silliness. I'm past the stage now where I can discard old friends without a thought; I can't afford it." "Oh, don't say that}" "What, you want me to discard you?** "No, no . . ." "Just joking," Serena told her. "Maggie, thanks for calling, I mean it. It was good to hear your voice." "Anytime," Maggie said.
"Bye." "Bye." Serena hung up, A moment later, so did Maggie.
This ice cream wasn't even edible anymore. She had Jet it turn to soup. Also she was feeling overstaffed. She Anne Tyter looked down at herself-at the bodice of her slip stretched tight across her breasts. "I'm an elephant," she told Ira.
He said, "Not again." "Seriously." He tapped his upper lip with a forefinger and studied his cards.
Well. She rose and went into the bathroom, stripping as she walked, and took her nightgown from its hook. When she dropped it over her head it shook itself out around her, loose and cool and weightless. "Whew!" she said. She washed her face and brushed her teeth. A trail of underclothes led from bedroom to bathroom; she picked them up and stuffed them into the hamper.
Sometimes, after an especially trying day, she felt an urge to burn everything she had worn.
Then while she was arranging her dress on a hanger, she was struck by a thought. She looked over at Ira. She looked away. She hung the dress in her closet, next to her one silk blouse.
"Goodness," she said, turning toward him again. "Wasn't Cartwheel dinky." "Mm." "I'd forgotten how dinky," she said.
"Mmhmm." "I bet their school is dinky too." No response.
"Do you suppose the Cartwheel school offers a good education?" "I really couldn't say," Ira said.
She closed the closet door firmly. "Well, I can say," she told him. "It must be a full year behind the schools in Baltimore. Maybe two." "And naturally Baltimore's schools are superb," Ira said.
"Well, at least they're better than Cartwheel's." He raised an eyebrow at her.
"I mean most likely," Maggie said.
He picked up a card, moved it onto another, then changed his mind and moved it back again.
"Here's what we could do," Maggie said. "Write and ask Fiona if she's given any thought to Leroy's education. Offer to enroll her down here in Baltimore and let Leroy live with us nine months of the year." "No," Ira said.
"Or even twelve months, if it works out that way. You know how attached children get to their classmates and such. She might not want to leave." "Maggie, look at me." She faced him, hands on her hips.
"No," he said.
There were a lot of arguments she could have mentioned. All kinds of arguments! But she didn't, somehow. She dropped her hands and wandered over to the window.
It was a warm, deep, quiet night, with just enough breeze to set the shade-pull swinging. She raised the shade higher and leaned out, pressing her forehead against the gritty screen. The air smelled of rubber tires and grass. Snatches of adventure music drifted up from the Lockes' TV next door. Across the street, the Simmonses were climbing their front steps, the husband jingling his house keys. They would not be going to bed yet; no chance of that. They were one of those happily childless young couples with eyes