Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [20]
He sanded the paddlewheel, nodding gently. He hummed without any tune.
Butkins came up the stairs to say, “I’m going now, if that’s all you need. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Eh?” said Morgan. “Is it time?” He straightened and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Well, yes, surely, Butkins,” he said. “So long, then.”
The store fell silent and grew fuzzy with darkness. Passers-by hurried home to supper without even glancing in. Morgan got to his feet, put on his parka, and made his way up the aisle. He switched off the lights and locked the three massive, burglar-proof locks. From outside, the place looked like an antique photograph: lifeless, blurred, the knobs and bulges in its window a mystery forever. Maybe Grandfather Cullen’s ghost came here, nights, and roamed the aisles in a daze, ruminating over the rechargeable hedge clippers. Morgan turned his collar up and ran to catch the bus.
5
At supper the grownups sat bunched at one end of the table as if taking refuge from the children—Morgan in his hat, Bonny and Louisa, and Morgan’s sister, Brindle, wearing a lavender bathrobe. Brindle had her mother’s sallow, eagle face and hunched posture, but not her vitality. She sat idly buttering pieces of French bread, which she placed in a circle on the rim of her plate, while Louisa recounted, word for word, a cooking program she’d been watching on TV. “First he put the veal shanks endwise in a pot. Then he poured over them a sauce made of tomato paste, lemon zest, bits of celery … but everything was cut up ahead of time! Naturally it looks easy if you don’t have to witness all the peeling and chopping.” Morgan reached across her for the salt. “There’s not enough real life on television,” Louisa said.
“That’s the whole point,” Brindle told her.
“I’d like to see him try scraping the tomato paste out of that little tiny Hunt’s can, too.”
“Mother, you went through all this last week,” Brindle said. “That’s a re-run you were watching, and you made all the same objections too.”
“I did not! I knew nothing about such programs last week.”
“You told us every bit of it: the lemon zest, the celery …”
“Are you accusing me of a faulty memory?” Louisa asked.
“Ladies. Please,” said Morgan. It was true there seemed to be some problem lately with his mother’s memory. She had spells when she was doggedly repetitive; her mind, like an old record, appeared to stick in certain grooves. But it only made her nervous to have it brought to her attention. He scowled at Brindle, who shrugged and buttered another slice of bread.
Meanwhile his daughters ate in a separate flurry of gossip and quarrels and giggles—seven slim, blue-jeaned girls and then someone else, a little white-haired waif with rhinestone ear studs, some friend of Kate’s. She sat between Kate and Amy and stared at Morgan narrowly, as if she disapproved of him. It made him nervous. He was never truly happy if he felt that even the most random passing stranger found him unlikable. He’d begun the meal in a fine mood, twirling his spaghetti theatrically on his fork and speaking a broad Italian accent, but gradually he lost his enthusiasm. “What do you keep looking at?” he asked now. “Have we met before?”
“Sir?”
“This is Coquette,” Kate told him.
“Ah. Coquette.”
“Me and her are in the same class at school. We like the same boy.”
Morgan frowned. “Same what?” he said.
“This boy named Jackson Eps.”
“But you’re only in fifth grade!”
“We liked him in fourth grade too.”
“This is ridiculous,” Morgan told Bonny. Bonny smiled at him; she never knew when to start worrying. “What are things coming to?” he asked his sister. “Where are we headed, here? It’s all these Barbie dolls, Ken dolls, Tinkerbell make-up sets.”
“I liked a boy in fifth grade,” Brindle said.
“You did?”
“Robert Roberts.”
“Oh, Lord, Brindle, not Robert Roberts again.”
“Robert Roberts was in fifth grade?” Kate asked. She nudged Coquette. “Robert Roberts was Brindle’s childhood sweetheart,