The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler [127]
“I don’t want tea, I want to hear!” she’d said. “What are you hiding?” He had the impression she was blaming him for something. Over the next few weeks it seemed she grew to hold him responsible, like a bearer of bad tidings—the only one who could say for a fact that Ethan had truly died. She made several references to Macon’s chilliness, to his appalling calm that night in the hospital morgue. Twice she expressed some doubt as to whether, in fact, he was really capable of distinguishing Ethan from some similar boy. In fact, that may not have been Ethan at all. It may have been somebody else who had died. She should have ascertained for herself. She was the mother, after all; she knew her child far better; what did Macon know?
Macon said, “Sarah. Listen. I will tell you as much as I can. He was very pale and still. You wouldn’t believe how still. He didn’t have any expression. His eyes were closed. There was nothing bloody or gruesome, just a sense of . . . futility. I mean I wondered what the purpose had been. His arms were down by his sides and I thought about last spring when he started lifting weights. I thought, ‘Is this what it comes to? Lift weights and take vitamins and build yourself up and then—nothing?’ ”
He hadn’t been prepared for Sarah’s response. “So what are you saying?” she asked him. “We die in the end, so why bother living in the first place? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No—” he said.
“It all comes down to a question of economy?” she asked.
“No, Sarah. Wait,” he had said.
Thinking back on that conversation now, he began to believe that people could, in fact, be used up—could use each other up, could be of no further help to each other and maybe even do harm to each other. He began to think that who you are when you’re with somebody may matter more than whether you love her.
Lord knows how long he sat there.
Edward had been barking in the kitchen all this time, but now he went into a frenzy. Somebody must have knocked. Macon rose and went to the front of the house, where he found Julian standing on the porch with a file folder. “Oh. It’s you,” Macon said.
“What’s all that barking I hear?”
“Don’t worry, he’s shut in the kitchen. Come on in.”
He held the screen door open and Julian stepped inside. “Thought I’d bring you the material for Paris,” Julian said.
“I see,” Macon said. But he suspected he was really here for some other reason. Probably hoping to hurry the Canada book. “Well, I was just this minute touching up my conclusion,” he said, leading the way to the living room. And then, hastily, “Few details here and there I’m not entirely happy with; may be a little while yet . . .”
Julian didn’t seem to be listening. He sat down on the cellophane that covered the couch. He tossed the folder aside and said, “Have you seen Rose lately?”
“Yes, we were over there just this morning.”
“Do you think she’s not coming back?”
Macon hadn’t expected him to be so direct. In fact, Rose’s situation had begun to look like one of those permanent irregularities that couples never refer to. “Oh, well,” he told Julian, “you know how it is. She’s worried about the boys. They’re eating glop or something.”
“Those are not boys, Macon. They’re men in their forties.”
Macon stroked his chin.
“I’m afraid she’s left me,” Julian said.
“Oh, now, you can’t be sure of that.”
“And not even for a decent reason!” Julian said. “Or for any reason. I mean our marriage was working out fine; that much I can swear to. But she’d worn herself a groove or something in that house of hers, and she couldn’t help swerving back into it. At least, I can’t think of any other explanation.”
“Well, it sounds about right,” Macon told him.
“I went to see her two days ago,” Julian said, “but she was out. I was standing