Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [122]
“Emily,” he said, “think about my suggestion.”
“I can’t,” she said. She lifted the baby’s weight. Barefoot, with one hip slung out, she felt countrified and disadvantaged.
“Just think about it. Promise.”
Instead of answering, she went over to the car and bent to kiss Gina through the window. “Honey, be careful,” she said. “Have a good time. Call me if you’re homesick; please call.”
“I will.”
“Come back,” she said.
“I will, Mama.”
Emily stepped away from the car, and stood in the crook of Morgan’s arm, smiling hard and holding Josh very close.
6
“I’ve decided to become a writer,” Bonny said.
“I’ve always had a bent in that direction. I’m writing a short story composed entirely of thirty years’ worth of check stubs and budget-book entries.”
“What kind of story would that make?” Emily wondered. She sat down in the nearest kitchen chair, holding the receiver to her ear.
“You’d be surprised at how a plot emerges. I mean, checks to the diaper service, then to the nursery schools, then to the grade schools … but it’s sad to see things were so cheap once. It seems pathetic that I spent ten dollars and sixteen cents on groceries for the second week of August nineteen fifty-one. Did Morgan see my personal?”
“What personal?” Emily asked.
(Of course he’d seen it.)
“My personal in the classified section. Don’t tell me he doesn’t read the papers any more.”
“Oh, did you put a personal in?”
“It said, MORGAN G.: All is known. Didn’t he see it?”
“Morgan can’t be bothered reading every notice in the paper.”
“I thought that would really get him,” Bonny said. “How he would hate for all to be known!”
She was right. He’d hated it. He’d said, “What does this mean? Of course I realize it must be Bonny’s doing, but … do you think it might be someone else? No, of course it’s Bonny. What does she mean, all is known? What’s known? What is she talking about?”
“He likes to think he’s going through life as a stranger,” Bonny said.
Emily said, “I believe I hear the baby crying.”
“Sometimes,” Bonny said, “I wonder if there’s even any point in blaming him. It’s the way he is, right? It’s in his genes, or … None of his family has ever seemed quite normal to me. I didn’t know his father, of course, but what kind of man must he have been? Killing himself for no good reason. And his grandfather … and his great-great-uncle? Has he told you the story of his great-great-uncle? Uncle Owen, the black sheep. What would it take to be the black sheep of that family? You wonder. No one ever says, if they know. This was when the family was still in Wales. Uncle Owen was such an embarrassment, they sent him off to America. Sort of a … remittance man, is that what they call them?”
“I’d better hang up,” Emily said.
“When they sailed into New York Harbor, Uncle Owen was so excited he started dancing all over the deck,” Bonny said. “The sight of the Statue of Liberty drove him wild. He started jumping up and down too close to the railing. Then he fell overboard and drowned.” She started laughing. “Do you believe it? This is a documented fact! It really happened!”
“Bonny, I have to go now.”
“Drowned!” said Bonny. “What a man!” And she went on laughing and laughing, no doubt shaking her head and wiping her eyes, for as long as Emily stood listening.
7
One night in August the doorbell rang with a stutter—two quick burrs before it fell silent. Morgan had gone out shopping. Emily thought he might be the one at the door, maybe too burdened to manage his key. But when she answered, she found a young, pale, fat boy, sweating heavily, teetering on dainty feet and holding a bouquet of red carnations. He said, “Mrs. Meredith?”
“Yes.”
“Will the dog bite?”
She didn’t want to say he wouldn’t, though it should have been obvious. Harry sat beside her, no more interested than was polite, slapping his tail against the floor with a rubbery sound.
“Well, fella.