Clock Winder - Anne Tyler [116]
He studied her. Peter cleared his throat. “This is George, I believe,” he said. “Matthew’s boy. Is your grandma home, George?”
“Yup.”
“Could we see her?”
“She’s in the kitchen,” George said.
He turned back in the direction he had come from. The cuffs of his Levis dragged on the floor. “Well,” said Peter “Shall we go in?”
They followed George across the hallway—Peter leading P.J. as if she were another child, clutching her by the arm while she looked all around her. They went through the butler’s pantry, windowless and stale, and then into the sudden brightness of the kitchen.
His mother was standing just as he had imagined her—wearing soft colors, her hair a clear gold, surrounded by her family. The only thing wrong was that she and all the others had their backs turned. They were facing squarely away from him, watching something out the rear door. “It’s the screens, they will have to be mended in the morning,” his mother said. “Look at those holes! Anything could get through them.”
“Hello, Mother.”
She turned, but even when she looked directly at him she seemed distracted. “What?” she said. “What—Peter!”
Everyone turned. Their faces were momentarily surprised and unguarded.
“Peter, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, just passing through. Mother, this is P.J. P.J., this is my brother Andrew, my brother Matthew’s wife Gillespie—where’s Matthew?”
“He’s still at work,” his mother said. “Are you staying long? Why didn’t you tell us? Have you eaten supper?”
“We were heading back from Georgia—” Peter said. His mother stood on tiptoe to kiss him. Her cheek felt withered and too soft, but she still wore the same light, powdery perfume, and she held her back as beautifully straight as ever. Her speech was slower now than her children’s—as slow as Gillespie’s southern drawl, and hesitating over consonants. “Georgia?” she said. “What would you go to Georgia for?”
“You look older,” said Andrew. He looked older himself, but happy. His hair was thinning, and below his concave chest a paunch had started. Someone’s apron was tied around his middle. “If I’d known you were coming—” he said, and then P.J. stuck her hand out to him. He looked at it a moment before accepting it.
“I’m very glad to meet you all,” said P.J.
Andrew frowned. He was nervous with strangers—something Peter had forgotten to warn her about. But before the silence grew noticeable, his sister-in-law stepped in. “We’re glad to meet you,” she said. “Good to see you again,” she told Peter, and she shifted the diapered baby who rode her hip and held out her hand. Peter took it with relief; her cool, hard palm seemed to steady him.
“We were just on this trip, you see,” he told her. “Passing through Baltimore. Thought we’d stop in. I wasn’t sure you’d—are we interrupting something?”
“Oh, of course not!” his mother said gaily.
“But with everyone at the back door there, I didn’t know—”
“It was a locust. Gillespie was shooing it out of the house for us. Oh, these locusts, Peter, you can’t imagine. We keep the house just sealed, and still they get in. Will this screen be seen to, now?”
“I’ll mend it in the morning,” Gillespie said.
“Mother is scared of locusts,” Andrew said.
“You’re none too fond of them yourself, Andrew dear,” his mother told him.
“Well, no.”
And meanwhile P.J. stood smiling hopefully, with her belongings still clutched to her chest, looking from one face to another and settling finally on the baby, who was playing with a long strand of hair that had straggled from Gillespie’s bun. “Oh, isn’t it darling,” she said. “What’s its name?”
“She isn’t an it, she’s a she,” Andrew said stiffly.
“Well, how could anyone tell?” Gillespie asked him. “All she’s got on is a diaper.”
“Her face is a girl’s face. No one should mistake it.”
“Oh, hush, Andrew, I never heard of such a thing.”
Peter waited for Andrew to get insulted, to collapse in a kitchen chair or turn on his heel and leave, but he didn’t. He had changed—a fact that Peter forgot all over again each