Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [124]
“Why, thank you,” said Morgan, smelling his carnations.
“Only, it’s funny: you don’t much look like your photos.”
“I grew a beard, you see.”
“Yes, a beard will do it, I guess.” Durwood looked over at Emily. He said, “But I hope it don’t mean you’ve … gone hippie, or some such.”
“No, no,” Morgan said.
“Well, good! Well, good! Because, now, maybe me and my father didn’t always see eye to eye on every little thing, but, you know, I still want a Christian outfit, still want a fine, upstanding group we wouldn’t be ashamed to take to a school auditorium …” He trailed off, suddenly frowning. He said, “I surely hope those Glass Accordion folks are not on drugs. Do you think?”
“Oh, no, no, I shouldn’t imagine they are,” Morgan said soothingly.
“You’re going to like it in Tindell, Mr. Meredith.”
“Tindell?”
“Well, you wouldn’t want to keep on living in Baltimore, would you? We got connections all over the state of Maryland, and clear through southern Pennsylvania.”
Louisa said, “I’ve been to Tindell.”
“Well, there now!” said Durwood.
“Hated the place.”
“Hated Tindell?”
“Didn’t seem truly populated.”
“Well, I don’t know how you can say that.”
“Empty as a graveyard. Stores all closed.”
“You must have gone on a Sunday.”
“It was a Sunday,” she said. “Sunday, March sixth, nineteen twenty-one. Morgan had not been born yet.”
“Who’s Morgan?”
“Him,” she said, jabbing her chin at Morgan.
“It’s a family nickname,” Morgan said. “A sign of affection. Emily, could you show Mother off to bed now?”
“Bed?” said his mother. “It’s not even nine o’clock yet.”
“Well, you’ve had a hard day. Emily?”
Emily rose and went over to his mother. She set a hand under her wiry arm and helped her gently to her feet. “What’s got into him?” Louisa said. “Don’t forget my knitting, Emily.”
“I have it.”
She led the old woman down the hall and into her room. Brindle was already there, writing in her diary. She looked up and said, “Bedtime already?”
“Morgan has a guest.”
Louisa said, “I wish we were back at Bonny’s house. A person had breathing room at Bonny’s house. Here I’m shunted around like an extra piece of furniture.”
“I’m sorry, Mother Gower,” Emily said. She went to the closet for Louisa’s nightgown, which hung on a hook. Brindle’s and Louisa’s silky dresses packed the rod. At the far end were Gina’s things: two school jumpers, two white blouses, and a blue quilted bathrobe. It made Emily sad to see them. She removed the nightgown from its hook and closed the door. “Can you help her with her buttons?” she asked Brindle. “I’d better get back to the living room.”
But when she left, she didn’t go to the living room after all. She stood in the hall a moment, listening to Durwood’s breathy voice—Mr. Meredith this, Mr. Meredith that. “Used to be I didn’t even like a puppet show, never liked that Punch-and-Judy stuff, but your puppets, Mr. Meredith, they’re another matter altogether.”
She crossed the hall and went into her own room. First she closed the door partway, so that only a thin crack of light showed, and then she changed into her nightgown and slipped between the sheets. Across from her, Joshua stirred in his crib and gave a snuffling sigh. The window was open and she heard all the sounds of summer—a police siren, someone whistling “Clementine,” music from a passing radio. Durwood said, “Think how it’d free you! Think on it, Mr. Meredith. We do the booking; we do the billing, let you attend to more essential things. Why, we even got Master Charge. Got BankAmericard. Got NAC, I tell you.”
There was something about a sound heard from a lying-down position: it was smaller, but clearer. She even heard Morgan’s match strike when he lit a cigarette. She smelled his sharp smoke. She was reminded of houses she had visited as a child—the rough, ragged smoke of hand-rolled cigarettes and the smells of fried fatback and kerosene in the Shufords’ and Biddixes’ kitchens, where she had been ill at ease, an outsider. Shrinking inwardly, as her family