Clock Winder - Anne Tyler [122]
“You don’t warm to anyone.”
“When I was married,” Mrs. Emerson said, “my family disapproved very strongly. They said, ‘Oh, certainly he’s nice enough, and we have no doubt he can support you. But don’t you want more than that? Pamela, he’s not your type,’ they said. ‘He doesn’t have, he has a different—’ Well, I didn’t listen. I will say this, though: I told them to their faces. I never snuck around. We had a perfectly beautiful church wedding with all my family in attendance, acting very civilized. Then later I thought, Well, now I know what they meant. I know what my parents meant. They had my best interests at heart, after all. But I only thought that later.”
Andrew looked up from the asterisk he was drawing in a tea-ring. “What are you saying?” he asked. “Are you telling us that you and Dad didn’t get along?”
“Oh, we got along,” said his mother. “But there was so much—we were so far apart. Never understood each other. And I thought you children would take after my side. Even Billy wanted that. Why, it was he who named you—Matthew Carter Emerson, Peter Carter Emerson, every last one of you had my maiden name in the middle. ‘It gives them something to be proud of,’ Billy said. ‘The whole world knows who the Carters are.’ Oh, I had such expectations of you all! How did things turn out so differently? You’re pure Emerson. You’re all like Billy’s brothers, separate and silent and with failure just built into you, and now looking back I can’t even pinpoint the time when you shifted sides. Why did it work out this way?”
As if she were discussing some abstract problem, something that had nothing to do with them, her three sons sat looking detached and interested. Then Matthew said, “Oh, I don’t know. I kind of liked Dad’s brothers.”
“You would,” said his mother. “You most of all.”
“They were sort of rednecks, Matthew,” Andrew said.
“Well, wait a minute—”
Before it became an argument, Peter escaped. He went out to the kitchen, where he found George playing with a locust on the floor and Gillespie nursing the baby, sitting peacefully with her blouse unbuttoned like a broad golden madonna. The roast was cooling on the counter, but she didn’t seem in any hurry. “Where’s P.J.?” she asked.
“Gone out.”
“Well, I wish you’d go get her. Supper will be on as soon as I’m through here.”
“Maybe we could start without her,” Peter said. A picture of never finding P.J. at all flashed through his head. He might jump in his car now and leave alone, light-hearted and full of a pure, free joy. Then hours later P.J. would come straggling in, with grass stains on the back of her shorts. “Where’s Petey?” “He’s gone.” “Well,” she would say, trying to remain dignified, acting as if this were all according to plan—“I believe I’ll be getting along too now. I just loved meeting you all.” He imagined her out on the street thumbing rides, with her purse hitched over her shoulder and her bare legs flashing like knife blades in the darkness. Yet how could he be sure that, halfway to New Jersey, he wouldn’t start feeling lonely and remorseful? Then too, he could stay here. This house could expand like an accordion, with its children safe and happy inside and Gillespie to take care of them. Why not?
Gillespie hoisted the baby on her shoulder and went to the refrigerator for a carton of milk. She poured a saucer full and set it out on the back porch. “Kitty kitty?” she called. Then she returned and checked the biscuits in the oven, and after that she placed the baby on the other breast. Jenny screwed her face sideways, searching for the nipple. Gillespie hummed beneath her breath—a juggler of supplies, obtaining and distributing all her family needed. But when she caught Peter watching her, she said, “I’d wish you’d go find P.J., Peter.”
“I’d rather not,” he said.
“Emersons,” said Gillespie, but without much force. She brushed back a wisp of Jenny’s hair. In this position, with her eyes lowered, with her mouth curved for the baby, she looked younger than he had expected. He had pictured her as some kind of family retainer,