Clock Winder - Anne Tyler [21]
“We still going to the party?” she asked.
“If you want to. It’s still on. But you didn’t have to clear the walk for me, it’ll only get snowed under again.”
“Oh, snow-shoveling’s my favorite job,” she said.
So she would probably have done it anyway; it wasn’t for him at all.
They stepped inside, into a blast of hot air. While Elizabeth bent to take her boots off Mrs. Emerson came down the front stairs. She kept her head perfectly level, one hand weightless on the banister. “Timothy darling, I can’t imagine why you tried driving on a night like this,” she said. She came up to him and took one of his hands between her own, which were so warm they stung him. “Mercy! Where are your gloves?” she said. “Where are your boots?”
“I must’ve lost them.”
“You’re surely not going out again. Are you? Stay here at home.”
“Well, there’s this party I want to hit.”
“Fiddlesticks,” said his mother.
She drew him into the living room, skirt swirling as she turned. If anyone looked dressed for a party tonight, it was she. Surely not Elizabeth, who had taken off her jacket to expose a shirt that seemed to have mechanic’s grease down the front. “In a minute we’ll have the fire built up,” Mrs. Emerson said. “Matthew’s out getting more wood.”
“Oh, is Matthew here?”
“He got some time off.”
“From what? Did he change out of the dead-end job?”
His mother looked uncomfortable, but only for a minute. She picked up a poker and rearranged a pile of embers. “No,” she said, “but I had him come anyway. I hated to think of him out in that shack of his. He’s going to be working over Christmas, did you ever hear of such a thing? Well, no one else there could get a paper out.”
“Are any of the others spending Christmas here?”
“Andrew is, but not for long. Just two days.” She put the poker in its stand and began pacing in front of the couch, where Elizabeth was sitting now to slide her moccasins back on. “Mary will be with her in-laws. Margaret I haven’t heard from yet. Melissa,” she said, and frowned briefly but then shook it off, “is traveling with someone to Bermuda. It worries me who, I think I have some right to know these things, but in her last letter she ignored all my questions and she doesn’t answer her telephone. Peter’s going skiing with his roommate in Vermont.” She had ticked off the names on her fingers, like a hostess planning a dinner party. Now she looked over at Timothy, one last finger waiting to be tapped. “You will be here,” she said.
“I guess so.”
She settled herself in a wing chair. At the back of the house a door slammed, a log crashed to the floor and rolled with a splintery sound. Matthew appeared in the living room doorway with an armload of firewood. “Hello, Timothy,” he said, and crossed the room to shake hands. He was trailing clumps of wet snow, and had to reach awkwardly around a stack of logs that rose to his chin. Depend on Matthew to find the hardest way to do anything. When he dumped the wood beside the fireplace, bark and dead leaves flew across the rug. More bark clung to the front of his jacket, which was a plaid logger’s shirt whose sleeves did not cover his wristbones. No sleeves covered his wristbones. He was the longest, lankiest, knobbiest man Timothy had ever known. His face was bony and sad-looking, with clear-rimmed glasses forever slipping down his narrow nose. His straight black hair had last been cut months ago, probably by himself. If any jeans could be more faded than Elizabeth’s, his were, and when he hunkered down to build the fire Timothy saw that his ankles were bare, red and damp-looking above soggy gray sneakers. “Jeepers, Matthew,” he said. “It makes me uncomfortable just looking at you.”
Matthew only smiled and went on laying logs in the fireplace. He worked so deliberately that the others fell silent. They were willing sparks not to fly, logs not to