Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) - Anne Tyler [77]
"Right." "Stripy all over, even on its tummy." "You do remember!" "That was you-all brought me that kitten?" "That was us," Maggie said.
Leroy looked back and forth between the two of them. Her skin was delicately freckled, as if dusted with those sugar sprinkles people put on cakes. That must come from the Stuckey side. Maggie's family never freckled, and certainly Ira's didn't, with their Indian connections. "And then what happened?" she was asking.
"What happened when?" "What happened to the kitten! You must've took it back." "Oh, no, honey, we didn't take it back. Or rather, we did but only because you turned out to be allergic. You started sneezing and your eyes got teary." "And after that, what?" Leroy asked.
"Well, I wanted to visit again," Maggie said, "but your grandpa told me we shouldn't. I wanted to with all my heart, but your grandpa told me-" "I meant, what did you do with the kitten," Leroy said.
"Oh. The kitten. Well. We gave it to your grandpa's two sisters, your . . . great-aunts, I suppose they'd be; goodness." "So have they still got it?" "No, actually it was hit by a car," Maggie said.
"Oh." "It wasn't used to traffic and somehow it slipped out when someone left the door open." Leroy stared ahead, fixedly. Maggie hoped she hadn't upset her. She said, "So tell me! Is your mother home?" "My mother? Sure." -"Could we see her, maybe?" Ira said, "Maybe she's busy." "No, she's not busy," Leroy said, and she turned and started toward the house. Maggie didn't know if they were supposed to follow or not. She looked over at Ira. He was standing there slouched with his hands in his trouser pockets, so she took her cue from him and stayed where she was.
"Ma!" Leroy called, climbing the two front steps. Her voice had a certain mosquito quality that went with her thin face. "Ma? You in there?" She opened the screen door. "Hey, Ma!" Then all at once there was Fiona leaning in the doorway, one arm outstretched to keep the screen door from banging shut again. She wore cutoff denim shorts and a T-shirt with some kind of writing across it. "No need to shout," she said. At that moment she saw Maggie and Ira. She stood up straighter.
Maggie moved forward, clutching her purse. She said, "How are you, Fiona?" "Well . . . fine," Fiona said.
And then she looked beyond them. Oh, Maggie was not mistaken about that. Her eyes swept the yard furtively and alighted on the car for just the briefest instant. She was wondering if Jesse had come too. She still cared enough to wonder.
Her eyes returned to Maggie.
"I hope we're not disturbing you," Maggie said.
"Oh, urn, no . . ." "We were just passing through and thought we'd stop by and say hello." Fiona lifted her free arm and smoothed her hair off her forehead with the back of her hand-a gesture that exposed the satiny white inner surface of her wrist, that made her seem distracted, at a loss. Her hair was still fairly long but she had done something to it that bushed it out more; it didn't hang in sheets now. And she had gained a bit of weight. Her face was slightly broader across the cheekbones, the hollow of her collarbone was less pronounced, and although she was translucently pale, as always, she must have started using makeup, for Maggie detected a half-moon of powdered shadow on each eyelid-that rose-colored shadow that seemed to be so popular lately, that made women look as if they were suffering from a serious cold.
Maggie climbed the steps and stood next to Leroy, continuing to hold her purse in a way that implied she wasn't expecting so much as a handshake. She was able now to read the writing on Fiona's shirt: LIME SPIDERS, it said- whatever that meant. "I heard you on the radio this morning," she said.
"Radio," Fiona said, still distracted.
"On AM Baltimore." "Baltimore," Fiona said.
Leroy, meanwhile, had