Clock Winder - Anne Tyler [81]
They bypassed Baltimore. The countryside around it—more farms, pastureland, clumps of trees—reminded her of Matthew’s place, and her mourning was extended to include him as well. He was the most loving of all her brothers. She might even have been able to tell him what was bothering her, except that it would just upset him. “Why can’t we stop off at Matthew’s?” she asked Melissa. “It isn’t that far.”
“He would be at work.”
“Do you suppose he knows about Elizabeth?”
Melissa didn’t answer.
“Do you?”
“Oh, I don’t think they were all that serious anyway,” Melissa said.
“Well, maybe not.”
“Even so, I hope he hasn’t heard. Weddings do funny things to people.”
“I’ve hardly ever been to one,” Margaret said.
“Well, I have. Dozens. Always a bridesmaid, never a—especially when the minister says to show cause why they shouldn’t get married. You know. ‘Speak now, or forever hold your peace’ and sometimes the silence is so long, I start worrying I’ll jump up and say something silly just to fill it.”
In the back of her mind, Margaret’s second wedding was moved into a church and it was Jimmy Joe’s voice that broke the silence. “I can, I can show cause,” he would say. “I still love her.” “You should have thought of that twelve years ago,” Margaret would tell him, and she would turn her back and take a closer hold on Brady’s arm, shutting Jimmy Joe away forever.
In the afternoon they stopped at a restaurant Melissa approved of and ordered a late lunch. They sat across the table from each other, looking drained and frazzled, their ears humming in the sudden quiet. Melissa kept her sunglasses on. The tip of her nose poked out from beneath them, cool and white. “For someone you barely know,” she said, “you’re certainly going to a lot of trouble. A wedding? In this heat? Or was it just to get away a while.”
“Both, I guess,” Margaret said. “But I would like to see Elizabeth. I try to keep up a correspondence with her, not that she makes it all that easy.”
“Andrew goes into a mental state if he even hears her name. He says it was her fault what happened with Timothy.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Margaret said.
“I’m just saying what he told me.”
“Well, don’t.”
“Why take it so personally? You only saw her the once.”
“Whatever else she may have done,” Margaret said, “she kept Mother company that whole awful year after Daddy died. Which was more than we did, any of us. I knew I should have, but I just couldn’t. You should be thanking your stars she was around.”
“Well, it’s not as if there was nothing in it for her,” Melissa said.
“Oh, stop,” said Margaret.
After that, they ate in silence.
They entered North Carolina late in the afternoon. They seemed to have come during a dry spell; the red soil was baked, the pines were harsh and scrubby, the unpainted barns had a parched look. “KEEP NORTH CAROLINA GREEN,” Melissa read off. “Get it green, first.” She pulled out her compact and a zippered bag full of bottles and tubes. It took her half an hour to remove all her make-up and put on fresh—an intricate task which she performed without speaking. Margaret drove in a daze of exhaustion. She barely winced when Melissa snapped her compact shut.
In Raleigh, they found a hotel for Melissa and unloaded her suitcase. “Now, don’t forget,” said Melissa, standing on the curb. “The minute that wedding is over, I want to get out of here. Don’t hang around all day. I plan on seeing this woman tonight; after that I’ll just be twiddling my thumbs.”
“All right.”
“Don’t go to any receptions or anything.”
“All right,” Margaret said, and she slammed the door shut and zoomed off.
Elizabeth lived in a green, wooded area that reminded Margaret of Roland Park, on the top floor of someone’s garage. When Margaret climbed out of her car, twilight had just fallen and the lights in the garage windows were clicking on. She stood in the driveway, smoothing her rumpled dress, and then she pulled her suitcase from the trunk and headed for the