Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [62]
The three of them entered the hall. On the radiator were a stack of library books with scummy plastic covers, a watering can, and a box of Triscuits. Emily had to watch her step through a little turmoil of shoes and sneakers, and by then they’d reached the living room. “Look!” Morgan said, pouncing on a vase. “This is what Amy made at camp, the summer she was ten.”
“It’s very pretty,” Emily said. It was lopsided, and a crack ran down from the rim.
“I wish you could meet her, but she lives in Roland Park now. You can meet Mother and Brindle, though.”
“Brindle’s out shopping for a wedding ring,” Bonny said.
“A ring! Yes, I’ve told Emily all about that. And see, here’s Molly’s picture on the mantel. Isn’t she beautiful? It’s from her school play; they say she has a talent for acting. I can’t imagine where she got it. There’s never been an actor in our family. What do you think of her? Bonny, don’t we still have Jeannie’s wedding album?”
There was something feverish about him, Emily thought. He darted around the room, rummaging through various overloaded shelves. Emily and Bonny stood in the doorway watching him. Once they happened to glance at each other, but when Emily saw Bonny’s expression—oddly hooded—she looked away again. “Please,” she told Morgan, “I ought to be going. I’ll just catch a bus and go, please.”
“But you haven’t met my mother!” he said, stopping short. “And I wanted Bonny to get to know you; I wanted you two to … Bonny, Emily was in the paper today.”
“Was she?” Bonny said.
“Where’s the paper? Did you throw it out?”
“I think it’s in the kitchen.”
“Come to the kitchen. Let’s all go! Let’s all have some coffee,” he said. He raced away. Bonny straightened from the door frame to follow him, and Emily trailed behind. She wished she could just vanish. She thought of ducking out soundlessly, slipping away before they noticed. She dodged a mobile of homemade paper sailing ships and stepped into the kitchen.
The counters in the kitchen were stacked with dirty dishes, and several animals’ feeding bowls cluttered the floor. One wall was shingled with yellow cartoons and news clippings and hockey schedules, recipes, calendar, photographs, telephone numbers on torn corners of paper, dental appointment cards, invitations—even someone’s high-school diploma. Emily felt surrounded, flooded. Over by the back door Morgan was plowing through a stack of newspapers. “Where is it? Where is it? Did it come?” he asked. “Aha!” He held up a paper. He laid it flat on the floor, licked his thumb, and started turning pages. “News … editorials … craft revival in Baltimore!”
Peering over his shoulder, Emily saw Leon’s sober face. He seemed to be staring at her out of another world. “Bonny, here’s Leon. Emily’s husband,” Morgan said. “And here’s her daughter, Gina. See?”
“Very nice,” said Bonny, setting out coffee cups.
“You know,” Morgan said thoughtfully, “I once looked a little like Leon.”
Bonny glanced at the photo. “Like that man there? Never,” she said. “You’re two totally different types.”
“Well, yes,” he said, “but there’s something about the eyes, maybe; I don’t know. Or something around the mouth. Or maybe it’s the forehead. I don’t know.”
He stood up, abandoning the paper, and pulled out a chair from the table. “Sit down, sit down,” he told Emily. He took a seat opposite, as if demonstrating, and fixed her with an urgent, focused look till she sat too. She felt trapped. The dishes on the counters towered so far above her that she imagined they might teeter and topple, swamping her. A typewriter stood in a puddle of orange juice on the table, with a sheet of paper in the carriage … resolution was passed by a show of hands, she read, and Matilda Grayson requested that … Bonny placed