Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [55]
They’d reached the intersection. Emily held out her hands and the children swarmed around her, knocking Morgan backward a pace. When she’d crossed to the other side and turned to look for him, he was picking up his helmet from the gutter. He polished it with his sleeve, sadly, and set it on his head. It matched his splotchy camouflage jacket and his crumpled olive-drab jungle pants. He was always dressing for catastrophes that were unlikely to occur, she thought. “These are guaranteed, certified, snake-proof boots,” he said now. He stopped to hold up one green foot. “I bought them at Sunny’s Surplus.”
“They’re very nice,” she said. “Children! Slow down, please.”
“How come you have those other two girls?” Morgan asked. “I don’t remember seeing them before.”
“I’m trading off with their mother. She’s walking Gina home today so that I can do a show.”
“Well, it all seems so disorganized,” Morgan said. “I come to you people for peace and quiet and I find this disorganization. Look at Gina: she hasn’t even said hello to me.”
“Oh, she will; you know she loves to see you. It’s only that she’s with friends.”
“I prefer it when you both come and Gina walks between you, just the one of her. Where’s Leon? Why isn’t he here?”
“He’s sleeping. He was out late last night, trying for a part in a play.”
“It’s too disorganized,” Morgan said glumly. He stopped and peered down the front of his jacket. Then he reached inside and brought up a pack of cigarettes. “So Brindle goes to the door,” he said, “and nothing more happens. There’s nothing but silence. Well, we thought she might have faded off somewhere. Forgot where she was headed. Lost her way or something. You know Brindle. Or at least, you know about her: always in that bathrobe, moping. ‘How was your day?’ you ask, and she says, ‘Day?’ She acts surprised to hear there’s been one. ‘Go see where she’s got to,’ Bonny tells me. ‘She’s your sister; see what she’s up to.’ So I push away from the table and go to find her and there she is in the entrance hall being kissed by a total stranger. It’s one of those long, deep, wrap-around kisses, like in the movies. I was uncertain what to do about it. It seemed rude to interrupt, but if I turned and left they’d no doubt hear the floorboards creak, so I just stood there flossing my teeth and the two of them went on kissing. Heavy-set man with slicked-down hair. Brindle in her bathrobe. Finally I ask, ‘Was there something you wanted?’ Then they pulled apart and Brindle said, ‘It’s Robert Roberts, my childhood sweetheart. Don’t you know him?”
“Children!” Emily called. They’d reached another intersection. She ran ahead to take their hands. Morgan followed, muttering something. “Known him all his life, of course” was what it sounded like. “Knew him when he was a bit of a thing, coming to play roll-a-bat with Brindle in the alley. Called her ‘Idiot. Dumbhead. Moron,’ in that fond, insulting way that childhood sweethearts have …”
The school loomed up, a gloomy building surrounded by cracked concrete, teeming with shabby children. Emily bent to kiss Gina goodbye. “Have a good day, honey,” she said, and Morgan said, “How about old Morgan? No kiss for Uncle Morgan?”
He bent over, and Gina threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “Come by after school and help me again with my yo-yo,” she said.
“All right, sugar-pie.”
“You promise?”
“Absolutely. Have I ever let you down?”
When she ran off, he stood watching after her, smiling and tapping cigarette ashes across the toes of his boots. “Ah, yes. Ah, yes,” he said. “What a darling, eh? I wish she’d stay this size forever.”
“I hate that school,” Emily said.
“Why! What could be wrong with it?”
“It’s so crowded; classes are so big, and I doubt I’ll ever feel safe letting her walk here alone. I’d like to send her someplace private. Leon’s parents have offered to pay, but I don’t know. I’d have to think how to bring it up with Leon.”
“No, no, leave her here. Don’t forsake your principles,” Morgan said. He took her elbow and turned her toward home.