Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) - Anne Tyler [76]
"Maybe it's a neighbor girl," Maggie told Ira-a last-ditch effort.
He didn't bother replying.
As soon as he switched the ignition off, Maggie opened the door and stepped out. She called "Leroy?" "What." "Are you Leroy?" The child deliberated a moment, as if uncertain, and then nodded.
"So," Maggie said. "Well, hi there!" she cried.
Leroy went on staring. She didn't seem one grain less suspicious.
Actually, Maggie reflected (already adjusting to new developments), this was one of the most interesting ages. Seven and a half-old enough to converse with but not yet past willing to admire a grownup, provided the grownup played her cards right. Cagily, Maggie rounded the car and approached the child with her purse in both hands, resisting the urge to fling out her arms for a hug. "I guess you must not remember me," she said, stopping a measured distance away.
Leroy shook her head.
"Why, sweetie, I'm your grandma!" "You are?" Leroy said. She reminded Maggie of someone peering through a veil.
"Your other grandma. Your Grandma Moran." It was crazy to have to introduce herself to her own flesh and blood. And crazier still, Maggie thought, that Jesse would have needed to do the same thing. He had not laid eyes on his daughter since-when? Since just after he and Fiona split up-before Leroy was a year old, even. What a sad, partitioned life they all seemed to be living! "I'm from your father's side of the family," she told Leroy, and Leroy said, "Oh." So at least she did know she had a father.
"And this is your grandpa," Maggie said.
Leroy shifted her gaze to Ira. In profile, her nose was seen to be tiny and extremely pointed. Maggie could have loved her for her nose alone.
Ira was out of the car by now, but he didn't come over to Leroy immediately. Instead he reached for the Frisbee on the hood. Then he crossed the yard to them, meanwhile studying the Frisbee and turning it around and around in his hands as if he'd never seen one before. (Wasn't this just like him? Allowing Maggie to rush in while he hung back all reserved, but you notice he did tag along, and would share the benefit of anything she accomplished.) When he arrived in front of Leroy he tossed the Frisbee toward her lightly, and both her hands came up like two skinny spiders to grab it.
"Thanks," she said.
Maggie wished she had thought of the Frisbee.
"We don't seem familiar at all?" she asked Leroy.
Leroy shook her head.
"Why! I was standing by when you were born, I'll have you know. I was waiting in the hospital for you to be delivered. You stayed with us the first eight or nine months of your life." "I did?" "You don't remember staying with us?" "How could she, Maggie?" Ira asked.
"Well, she might," Maggie said, for she herself had a very clear memory of a scratchy-collared dress she used to hate being stuffed into as an infant. And besides, you would think all that loving care had to have left some mark, wouldn't you? She said, "Or Fiona might have told her about it." "She told me I lived in Baltimore," Leroy said.
"That was us," Maggie said. "Your parents lived with us in your daddy's old boyhood room in Baltimore." "Oh." "Then you and your mother moved away." r Leroy rubbed her calf with the instep of her bare foot.
She was standing very straight, militarily straight, giving the impression she was held there only by a sense of duty.
"We visited on your birthdays afterward, remember that?" "Nope." "She was just a little thing, Maggie," Ira said.
"We came for your first three birthdays," Maggie persisted. (Sometimes you could snag a memory and reel it in out of nowhere, if you used the proper hook.) "But your second birthday you were off at Hershey Park, and so we didn't get