Morgan's Passing (45 page)

So he went down the stairs at last, not even saying goodbye to his mother or giving her a final glance. Bonny followed. He heard the rustle of her bakery sack close behind his ear—an irritating sound. An irritating woman. And this banister was sticky to the touch, downright dirty. And you could break your neck on the rug in the entrance hall.

At the door, when his thoughts were flowing toward the pickup truck (get gas, check tires) and the journey home, Bonny suddenly seemed to have all the time in the world. She brushed a piece of hair off her forehead and said, “His name is Arthur Amherst.”

“Eh?”

“This man I'm seeing. Arthur Amherst.”

“Good, Bonny, good.”

“He's very steady and solid.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” he said, jingling his keys in his pocket.

“You think that means he's dull, I suppose.”

“I know it doesn't mean that,” he said.

He pulled out his keys then, and turned to leave, but was struck by something and turned back. “Listen,” he said. “Those really may be bats, you know.”

“What?”

“Those creatures Mother's hearing in the attic.”

“Oh, well, they're not harming anybody.”

“How can you be sure of that? You ought to do something about it. Don't put it off; they could chew through the wiring.”

“Bats?”
she asked.

“Or whatever,” he said.

He hesitated, and then touched his cap in a salute and left.

Now there was church traffic, old men in felt hats driving carloads of tinkly old ladies, sidewalks ringing with the clop of high heels. He traveled downtown in a suspended state of mind, shaking off the annoyances of the morning. He traveled farther and farther, not out of the city but deeper into it. It wouldn't hurt to take a look at Cullen Hardware. There was always the possibility that Butkins would be there, even on a Sunday, maybe sorting stock or just standing idly, dimly, at the window as he sometimes did.

But the hardware store was gone. There was only a blank space between the rug store and Grimaldi Brothers Realty—not even a hole, just a vacant lot. Weeds grew on it, even. The wastepaper crumpled in its hillocks had already begun to yellow and dissolve. A billboard on the rear of the lot read:
AT THIS LOCATION, NIFF DEVELOPMENT CORP. WILL BE CONSTRUCTING A …

He considered a minute, settled his glasses higher on his nose, and drove on. But what about Butkins? Where was Butkins? He turned left. He cut over to Crosswell Street. Crafts Unlimited was still there, closed for Sunday but thriving, obviously. The ranks of pottery jars in its window gave it an archeological look. The third-floor windows above it were as dark and plain as ever. He half believed that if he were to climb the stairs, he'd find Emily and Leon Meredith still leading their pure, vagabond lives, like two children in a fairytale.

3

“I
'm certain I can fit into it,” the second stepsister said. “It's only that I've been shopping all day and my feet are a little swollen.”

“Madam. Please,” the Prince said in his exhausted voice.

“Well, maybe I could cut off my toes.”

“What about you, young lady?” asked the Prince. He was looking at Cinderella, who peeked out from the rear of the stage. Dressed in burlap, shy and fragile, she inched forward and approached the Prince. He knelt at her feet with the little glass slipper, or it may have been a shimmer of cellophane. All at once her burlap dress was mysteriously cloaked in a billow of icy blue satin. “Sweetheart!” the Prince cried, and the children drew their breaths in. They were young enough still. Their expressions were dazzled and blissful, and even after the house lights came on they continued sitting in their chairs and gazing at the stage, open-mouthed.

It was the Emancipation Baptist Church's Building Fund Weekend. There'd been two puppet shows on Saturday, and this evening's was the last one. Then Morgan and Emily could pack up their props and leave the church's Sunday School hall, which had the biting, minty smell of kindergarten paste. They could say goodbye, at least temporarily, to the Glass Accordion and the Six Singing Simonsons and Boffo the Magician. Emily set the puppets one by one in their liquor carton. Joshua staggered down the aisle with one of Boffo's great brass rings. Morgan folded the wooden stage,
lifted it onto his shoulder with a grunt, and carried it out the side entrance.

It was a pale, misty night. The sidewalk gleamed under the streetlights. Morgan loaded the stage into the back of the pickup and slammed the door shut. Then he stood looking around him, breathing in the soft, damp air. A family passed—cranky children, kept awake past their bedtime, wheedling at their mother's edges. A boy and girl were kissing near a bus stop. On the corner was a mailbox, which reminded Morgan of his letter to Bonny. He'd carried it with him all evening; he might as well get it sent off. He took it from the pocket of his Air Force jacket and started across the street.
(
 … 
simply strew a handful of mothballs
, the letter whispered,
a. along the attic floor beams; b. in the closets beneath the eaves …
)

His boots made a gritty sound that he liked. Cars hissed past him, their headlights haloed. He flattened the envelope, whose corners had started curling.
But if it's bats
 … he should have said. He'd forgotten to mention bats.
You don't want to close all the openings till you're certain the bats are
 … and he also should have said,
Remember that Mother's vitamins are tax-deductible
, and
Don't rush into anything with this professor fellow
, and
Just loving him is not all it takes, you know
. He should have added,
I used to think it was enough that I was loving; yes, I used to think, at least I am a sweet and loving man, but now I see that it matters also who you love, and what your reasons are. Oh, Bonny, you can go so wrong …

He stood at the mailbox, shaking his head, stunned. It took an auto horn to bring him to his senses, and he had the feeling that this wasn't the first time it had honked. A woman leaned out of a Chevrolet, her hair a bobbled mass of curlers. “Well? Will they or won't they?” she asked him.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Will my letters get there by Tuesday, I said, or will they drag their feet and loiter like the last ones did? You
folks are always saying next-day-delivery-this, next-day-delivery-that; then it's me that gets stuck with the finance charges when you drag into BankAmericard with my credit payment two, three, four days late …”

She was waving a pack of letters out the window. Morgan tipped his visored cap and took them from her. “Absolutely,” he said. “It was Robinson who was doing all that and now they've let him go. From here on out, you can trust the U.S. Mail, ma'am.”

“I bet,” she said.

She rolled up her window and screeched off.

Morgan dropped Bonny's letter in the slot. Then he went through what he'd been handed by the woman. Patti Jo's Dress Shop, LeBolt Appliances … he dropped them in too. Clarion Power and Light. He dropped that in. The rest were personal, addressed in a lacy, slanted script to a woman in Essex, a woman in Anneslie, and a married couple in Madison, Wisconsin. He would mail them too, but first he might just take a little glance inside. He started walking back toward the church, coughing dryly, tapping the envelopes against the palm of his hand. They were crisp and thick, weighted with secrets. They whispered
spent Monday letting that dress out some
and
labor pains so bad she like to died
and
least you could have done is have the decency to tell me
. Up ahead, Emily stood at the curb beside a cardboard carton. Josh rode astride her hip. For some reason Morgan felt suddenly light-hearted. He started walking faster. He started smiling. By the time he reached Emily, he was humming. Everything he looked at seemed luminous and beautiful, and rich with possibilities.

A
NNE
T
YLER
was born in Minneapolis in 1941 but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. This is Anne Tyler's sixteenth novel; her eleventh,
Breathing Lessons
, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore.