Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler [92]
“Oh, fine. How’s Mother?”
“Doing well, sends her love … I brought you something,” he said. He set aside his burger to rummage through his windbreaker pockets. Eventually, he came up with a worn white envelope. “Pictures,” he said.
“Pictures?”
“Photos. Mother’s got all these photos; I just discovered them. I thought maybe you’d be interested in having a few.”
Jenny sighed. Poor Ezra: he was turning into the family custodian, tending their mother and guarding their past and faithfully phoning his sister for lunch. “Why don’t you keep them,” she said. “You know I’d just lose them.”
“But a lot of these are of you,” he said. He spilled the envelope onto the table. “I figured the children might like them. For instance, somewhere here …” He shuffled various versions of a younger, sterner Jenny. “Here,” he said. “Don’t you see Becky in this?”
It was Jenny in a plaid tam-o’-shanter, unsmiling. “Ugh,” she said, stirring her coffee.
“You were a really nice little girl,” said Ezra. He returned to his burger but kept the photo before him. On the back of it, Jenny saw, something had been written in pencil. She tried to make it out. Ezra noticed and said, “Fall, 1947. I got Mother to write the dates down. And I’m going to send Cody some, too.”
Jenny could just imagine Cody’s face when he got them. “Ezra,” she said, “to tell the truth, I wouldn’t waste the postage.”
“Don’t you think he’d like to compare these with how Luke looks, growing up?”
“Believe me,” she said, “he’d burn them. You know Cody.”
“Maybe he’s changed,” Ezra said.
“He hasn’t,” said Jenny, “and I doubt he ever will. Just mention something—one little harmless memory from our childhood—and his mouth turns down. You know how his mouth does. I said to him once, I said, ‘Cody, you’re no better than the Lawsons.’ Remember the Lawsons? They moved into our neighborhood from Nashville, Tennessee, and the very first week all four childlren got mumps. Mrs. Lawson said, ‘This city is unlucky, I believe.’ The next week a pipe in their basement burst and she said, ‘Well, that’s Baltimore.’ Then their daughter broke her wrist … When they moved back to Tennessee, I went over to say goodbye. They were loading up their car trunk and they happened to slam the lid down smack on the fingers of their youngest boy. When they drove off he was screaming, and Mrs. Lawson called out, ‘Isn’t this a fitting way to leave? I always did say Baltimore was unlucky.’ ”
“Well, now, I’m trying to follow you, here,” Ezra said.
“It’s whether you add up the list or not,” Jenny said. “I mean, if you catalogue grudges, anything looks bad. And Cody certainly catalogues; he’s ruining his life with his catalogues. But after all, I told him, we made it, didn’t we? We did grow up. Why, the three of us turned out fine, just fine!”
“It’s true,” said Ezra, his forehead smoothing. “You especially, Jenny. Look at you: a doctor.”
“Oh, shoo, I’m nothing but a baby weigher,” Jenny said. But she was pleased, and when they rose to go she took along the photographs to make him happy.
Joe said if they did have a baby, he’d like it to be a girl. He’d looked around and noticed they were a little short on girls. “How can you say that?” Jenny asked. She ticked the girls off on her fingers: “Phoebe, Becky, Jane …”
When her voice trailed away, he stood watching her. She was expecting him to speak, but he didn’t. “Well?” she asked.
“That’s only three.”
She felt a little rush of confusion. “Have I left one out?”
“No, you haven’t left one out. Has she left one out,” he told the wall. He snorted. “Has she left one out, she asks. What a question! No, you haven’t left one out. Three is all we have. Three girls.”
“Well, there’s no need to act so cross about it.”
“I’m not cross, I’m frustrated,” he said. “I’m trying to have a conversation here.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“Yes, yes …”
“Then where’s the problem?”
He wouldn’t say. He stood in the kitchen doorway with his arms folded tight across his chest. He gazed off to one side, scowling. Jenny was puzzled. Were they quarreling, or what?