Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [105]
“Oh, well.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, but my back is starting to ache.”
“Backache. Well, good! Yes, that’s a good sign, I’m certain of it.”
“Or else not,” Emily said. “And anyhow, I may be just imagining things.”
“No, no, how can you imagine a backache?”
“It’s possible. There’s nothing so strange about that.”
“Well, what are you feeling, exactly?”
“I don’t know, it may be all in my mind.”
“Just tell me what you’re feeling, please, Emily.”
“Morgan, don’t snap at me.”
“Sweetheart, I wasn’t snapping. Just tell me.”
“You always get this … older tone of voice.”
He lit a cigarette. “Emily,” he said.
“Well, I have a dragginess in my back, you see, a really tired dragged-outness. Do you think that’s hopeful? I tried to jog this morning and I couldn’t do more than a block. Right now I have to go to Gina’s gymnastics meet, and I was thinking, ‘I’ll never make it, I know I’ll never make it. All I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep.’ Oh, but that’s a terrible sign, sleepiness. I just remembered. It’s the worst sign I could have.”
“Nonsense,” Morgan told her. “You’re feeling the strain, that’s all. Why, naturally. You ought to get some rest, Emily.”
“Well, maybe after Gina’s meet.”
“What time is that? I’ll go in your place.”
“Oh … in half an hour. But she’s expecting me.”
“I’ll tell her you weren’t feeling well and she’ll have to take me instead.”
“But I’m always letting her down, these days—”
“Emily, go to bed,” he said. He hung up.
He told Butkins he would be out for a while. Butkins nodded and went on alphabetizing packets of flower seeds. When all this was over, Morgan decided, he was really going to devote himself to the hardware store. He’d start bringing a sandwich and staying here through lunch hour, even. He set his beret at a steeper angle and went to find his pickup.
Gina’s school was in the northern part of town—St. Andrew’s, a girls’ school that Leon’s parents had selected for her. They were paying her tuition and had the right to choose, Morgan supposed. Still, he didn’t think much of St. Andrew’s. He’d have preferred her to stay on at public school. He thought Leon’s parents were a bad influence: last Christmas they’d bought Emily an electric mixer. If Emily didn’t watch out, that apartment would be as overstuffed as anyone’s. These things could creep up on you, Morgan told her.
He turned down the shady driveway of St. Andrew’s and parked beside a school bus. The gym must be the building straight ahead. He recognized the hollow sound that voices take on in a gymnasium. He crossed the playground, tucking in his workshirt and combing his beard with his fingers, hoping he made a good showing. (Gina was ten years old now—the age when you had to start watching your step. Any little thing could mortify her.)
Evidently, he was late. The meet had already begun. In acres of echoing hardwood that smelled of varnish, little girls were teetering on a high chrome frame. Morgan crossed to the bleachers and settled himself on the lowest level, alongside a scattering of mothers. All the mothers wore blazers and blond, pageboy haircuts. He tried to picture Emily sitting here with them. He hunched forward in his seat and looked around for Gina. It took a moment (there were swarms of little girls in blue leotards and swarms in lavender, and he didn’t even know which color was St. Andrew’s), but he spotted her, finally. She was the one in blue with the cloud of curls. Her face was still round and opulent—he would know those heavy-lidded eyes anywhere, and that pale, delicate mouth—but her body had become a stick, the narrow hips pathetically high above legs so long and thin that he could see the workings of her kneecaps when she walked. She came over to him, her bare toes gripping the floor. Ordinarily she would hug him, but in front of friends she never did. “Where’s Mama?” she asked him.
“She doesn’t feel well.”
“She never comes to anything any more,” Gina said, but without much concern; her attention had already wandered elsewhere. She turned to study the girls on the other team. Then, “Morgan!