Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [80]
“Who will?” Morgan asked.
“Robert Roberts. Brindle’s gone back to Baltimore.”
“She has?”
“Billy drove her to the bus in Ocean City.”
“She doesn’t want it any more, she said.”
“Oh,” said Morgan. He thought that over. “So it’s my house she’s gone to, is it.
I didn’t ask,” Emily said.
“It serves him right,” said Morgan. “Yes, I was on his side till now, the way he rang our doorbell, bringing roses … but, oh, this ocean business. No. People imagine they can hold you with such things. They cause themselves some damage and assume that we’ll accept responsibility. But they underestimate us. They fail to realize. No, Brindle will never forgive him for that.”
Emily said nothing. He glanced down at her and found her drawn and pale, walking alongside him with her camera held tight in one bluish hand. How had she managed to avoid a sunburn? She’d been out on the beach as long as the others. He wiped his sweaty forehead on his sleeve. “Well,” he said, “I suppose you must find us very tiring. Right?”
“I’ve had a wonderful time,” she told him.
“Eh?”
“I’ve had a wonderful time.”
“Yes, well, that’s sweet of you, but … never mind, I know this wasn’t what you’re used to. There’s no economy to our life. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that.”
“It was wonderful. It was a real vacation,” Emily said. “As soon as we got your letter, I was so excited—I went out and bought us all new clothes. It’s been years since I’ve been to the beach. Not since high school.”
“Ah, yes, high school,” Morgan said, sighing.
“He never thinks we can spare the time. He’d rather stay at home. We either give our shows or stay home. Sometimes I think he’s doing it for spite—he’s saying, ‘You wanted to marry and settle, didn’t you? Well, here we are, and we’re never going anywhere again.’ It’s funny: I hoped I’d grow more like him—more, oh, active—but it seems instead he’s more like me. We just sit home. I sit in that room with that sewing machine; I feel like someone in a story, some drudge. I feel like the miller’s daughter, left to spin gold out of straw. Visiting here was just what we needed—so much going on, so many things happening—”
“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” Morgan said. He felt very uncomfortable, and had forgotten to bring his cigarettes. They passed a man smoking on his front steps and Morgan drew a chestful of sharp gray air from him. “Doesn’t the sun set differently here,” he said, “so long and level; the light’s so flat, somehow—” He walked faster. Emily kept up. They turned east and passed the first of a string of shops.
“He puts me in such a position,” she said. “He always makes it seem that everything was my idea, that I’m the one who organized our lives this way, but I’m not. I mean, if he just sat, what was I to do? Tell me that!”
Morgan said, “I honestly don’t believe I can last another day in the place.”
“In Bethany?” Emily asked. She looked around her. “But it’s beautiful,” she said.
“It smells of dead fish.”
“Why, Morgan.”
They passed a gift-shop window hung with yellow nets and filled with spiky, varnished conch shells from Florida and pewter sand dollars, seahorses locked in Lucite paperweights, racks of pierced earrings shaped like starfish and dolphins. They climbed a set of weathered wooden stairs, and on the way up the ramp to the boardwalk Morgan glanced into the dark plate glass of the Holiday House restaurant. “Oh! My God,” he said.
Emily turned to him.
“Look!” he said, feeling his cheeks, peering into the glass. “I’m so old! I’m so ruined! I seem to have … fallen apart.”
She laughed.
“Well, I don’t see anything funny,” he told her.
“Morgan, don’t worry. You’re fine. It’s always like that, if you haven’t braced your face first.”
“Yes, but now my face is braced,” he said. “And look! Still!”
She stopped laughing and put on a sympathetic expression. But, of course, he couldn’t expect her to understand.