Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) - Anne Tyler [31]
She thought time had gone into one of its long, slow, taffy-like stretches. She was acutely conscious of each detail of her surroundings. She felt the fabric of Dur-wood's sleeVe just brushing her arm, and she heard Ira absentmindedly twanging a rubber band. She saw how accepting and uninterested her audience was, taking it for granted that this song would of course be sung and then some other song after that. " 'Then your fingers touched my silent heart,' " she sang, and she remembered how she and Serena had giggled over that line when they sang it themselves-oh, long before that fateful Harvest Home Ball-because where else was your heart but in your chest? Weren't they saying the lover had touched their chests! Serena was facing the pulpit but her head had a listening stillness to it. Her tail of hair was gathered into one of those elastic arrangements secured by two red plastic marbles, the kind of thing very young girls wore. Like a very young girl, she had summoned all her high-school friends around her-no one from a later time, no one from the dozen small towns Max had lugged her to during their marriage, for they hadn't stayed in any of those places long enough. Maggie decided that that was the saddest thing about this whole event.
The song came to an end. Maggie and Durwood sat down.
Sissy Parton moved directly into "Friendly Persuasion," but the Barley twins, who used to harmonize as closely as the Lennon Sisters, stayed seated. Serena seemed resigned by now; she didn't even give them a look. Sissy played just one stanza, and then the minister rose and said, "We are gathered here today to mourn a grievous loss." Maggie felt she had turned to liquid. She was so exhausted that her knees were shaking.
The minister had a lot to say about Max's work for the Furnace Fund. He didn't seem to know him personally, however. Or maybe that was all Max had amounted to, in the end: a walking business suit, a firm handshake. Maggie switched her attention to Ira. She wondered how he could sit there, so impervious. He'd have let her slog through that entire song alone; she knew that. She could have stumbled and stuttered and broken down; he would have watched as coolly as if she had nothing to do with him. Why not? he would say. What obligated him to sing some corny fifties song at a semi-stranger's funeral? As usual, he'd be right. As usual, he'd be forcing Maggie to do the giving in.
She made up her mind that when the funeral was over, she would stride off in her own direction. She would certainly not drive back with him to Baltimore. Maybe she'd hitch a ride with Durwood. Gratitude rushed over her at the thought of Durwood's kindness. Not many people would have done what he had done. He was a gentle, sympathetic, softhearted man, as she should have realized from the start.
Why, if she had accepted that date with Durwood she'd be a whole different person now. It was all a matter of comparison. Compared to Ira she looked silly and emotional; anybody would have. Compared to Ira she talked too much and laughed too much and cried too much. Even ate too much! Drank too much! Behaved so sloppily and mawkishly! She'd been so intent on not turning into her mother, she had gone and turned into her father.
The minister sat down with an audible groan. There was a rustle of linen a few pews back and then here came Sugar Tilghman, bearing her black straw hat as smoothly as a loaded tray. She tip-tapped up front to Sissy and bent over her, conferring. They murmured together. Then Sugar straightened and took a stance beside the piano with her hands held just the way their choir leader used to insist-loosely clasped at waist level, no higher-and Sissy played a bar of music that Maggie couldn't immediately name. An usher approached Serena and she rose and accepted his arm and let him escort her down the aisle, eyes lowered.
Sugar sang, '' 'When I was just a little girl . . .' " Another