Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [113]
“That’s impossible,” he said. “I’m lugging this dog around.”
“I feel sick,” she said.
“Dear heart. This is really very simple,” he told her. “We’re all adults. We’re reasonable beings. What do you imagine will happen? Could I have some water for Harry, please?”
She took a bowl from the cupboard and filled it at the sink. She set the water in front of Harry, who started slurping it up. Then she shifted her purse from a chair and sat next to Morgan. “If we ran away, I would have to find some other kind of work,” she said. “Something I couldn’t be traced by. It’s so easy to track down a puppet show, at any fair or church bazaar.”
“Well, then. You can’t run away,” he said. “What would you do without your puppets?”
“I could manage fine without my puppets,” she said. “No, no …”
“I never planned to stick with them forever.”
“Oh, of course you’ll stick with them, Emily, dear.”
She slumped in her chair, massaging her temples with her fingertips. Harry raised his head and shook water all over the kitchen floor. “Mind your manners,” Morgan told him. He reached across the table for Emily’s purse. It had an interesting weight to it. Most days, all it contained was keys and her billfold, but whenever she had a puppet show she loaded it with carefully selected equipment. You could live in the wilderness for a month off that purse, Morgan thought. He rummaged through it and came up with a ball of string, a roll of Scotch tape, her Swiss Army knife, a pair of needle-nosed pliers … “What’s this for? And this?” he kept asking.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” she said. “What’s this little Baggie full of Cheerios?”
“They’re the doughnuts for Red Riding Hood’s basket.”
“Oh, yes. Oh, excellent.”
He began to feel very happy. He piled everything back in the purse and started humming, patting his knees, looking around for something new. “How’s your burner doing?” he asked.
“It’s fine.”
“See? I told you all it needed was unclogging.”
He hummed a few more bars. Then he said, “Don’t you want to know why I have this dog with me?”
She didn’t seem to. He continued anyway. “Bonny brought him. Threw everything out on the sidewalk: hats, clothes, vacuum-cleaner instructions … and Harry. But Harry belongs to Mother. Mother’s always owned a dog. This must be her tenth or twentieth. Who did she have when you first met us—Elmer? Lucille? She pays them no mind at all, never looks at them, it’s me who walks them … but she’s always had one, so she always will. That’s the way they work things, back home. The extras! The stacks of unnecessary extras! This Harry, you see, is Bonny’s revenge. Oh, she knew what she was doing, all right. Cluttering up my leaving, even. I’m surprised she didn’t bring the cat as well.”
“I always did want a dog,” Emily said unexpectedly.
“Eh?”
“But I couldn’t because my mother was allergic.”
“Yes, that’s Butkins’ trouble, too. Allergic.”
“Butkins?”
They heard the front door open. Emily sat up straighter. “Mama,” said Gina, bouncing in, “guess what I got on my science test. Hello, Morgan, what’s Harry doing here?”
“I brought him in for a drink. Well, Miss Gina,” Morgan said. “What’d you get on your science test?”
“?-plus,” she said. She twined an arm around him and looked down at Harry, who was scratching fleas. Leon walked in.
“Hello, Morgan,” he said.
“Leon.”
“Taking the afternoon off?”
“Yes, well, there’s something I want to discuss with you.”
“What’s that?” asked Leon.
Morgan glanced over at Gina. She had dropped her arm but continued to stand there, so close that he could smell her salty, summery smell of fresh sweat and chewing gum. He scratched his head. “Leon,” he said, “would you like to … come walk the dog with me?”
“Do what?”
“Walk the dog.”
Leon looked at the dog, who grinned.
“Don’t if you don