Clock Winder - Anne Tyler [98]
“Too cold,” said Mary.
“Strange,” said Andrew.
Mrs. Emerson brushed them all away. “Summery,” she said. Then she closed her eyes, as if she were disappointed at such a pointless remark after all that effort. Everyone rushed to make a fuss over it. “It does,” Mary said, and Andrew said, “It’s June now, you know. Good time to be on the sunporch.” They fell silent and looked at the slant of yellow light. “Tomorrow,” said Mary, “I’ll get the window washers in.”
Mrs. Emerson didn’t open her eyes.
Pianists, Matthew thought, are the ones that get arthritis, and artists go blind and composers go deaf. And his mother, who pulled all the family strings by words alone, was reduced to stammering and to letting others finish her sentences. All morning they supplied her words for her—never exactly the right ones, never in the proper tone. Tears of frustration kept slipping out of the corners of her eyes and forming gray discs on the pillow. Her chin trembled and her mouth turned downward. She gave her children the feeling that it was they who had failed.
They found her a memo pad, and closed her fingers around a ballpoint pen. But what good was that? Even writing letters to her children, she had preferred using a dictaphone first to try out the words on her tongue. She threw the pen away, with such a jerky movement that it landed in the bedclothes. Then she shook her head, over and over again. “Sorry,” she told them.
“It’s all right,” said Mary. “Nobody blames you at all. Do we? We know how hard it must be.”
Lunch was eaten in the sunporch, with Mary beside the bed helping her mother and the others in the lined-up chairs. Susan was put on the windowseat, where she popped all her peas with one finger and babbled to herself. Everyone was grateful to have her there. During breaks in the conversation they watched her intently, implying that there was much more they could be saying if only she hadn’t distracted them.
Supper was easier; their mother was asleep. But by then they were all exhausted. They ate sandwiches by a dim light in the dining room, on a table cluttered with bills and playing cards which no one had the energy to move. “How do nurses do it?” Margaret asked. “There are four of us. Wouldn’t you think we could manage better than this?”
Mary raised her chin from her hand and said, “Margaret, do you know Emmeline’s last name?”
“Emmeline. Emmeline—it will come to me. Why?”
“We figured she might take care of Mother after we leave.”
“Well, that’s a thought,” Margaret said.
“Mother knows her name, I’m sure of it, but she pretends she doesn’t. She’s latched onto the idea of Elizabeth.”
Andrew lowered his sandwich carefully to his plate, and Margaret shot a glance at him. “Then why not Elizabeth?” she asked.
“Margaret?” Andrew said.
“She won’t come,” said Mary, ignoring him.
“Did you try her?” Margaret asked.
“We called her this morning.”
“Really? Where’s she at?”
“Virginia,” said Mary. “I thought you kept in touch with her.”
“Oh, no. Not since, not for years. I wrote but she never answered. What’d you say to her?”
“This conversation is pointless,” Andrew said. “I would never allow her to come back here.”
“Well, she isn’t, so don’t go into a stew over it,” Mary said.
“Stew? Who’s stewing? I merely feel—”
“She isn’t coming, Andrew.”
“Can you guarantee that?” Andrew said. “She’s packing her bags right now, I can feel it. Wild horses couldn’t keep her away. Well, if necessary I’ll bar all the doors and lock the windows. I won’t allow it. Mother wouldn’t allow it.”
“Mother’s the one who asked for her,” Matthew said.
“There are other people she likes in this world.”
“But not that she asked for.”
“I’m surprised at her. I don’t understand her, she used to not even