Morgan's Passing (35 page)

He turned these thoughts over continually, plowing them under, digging them up again, but the odd part was that he still felt sublimely, serenely distant. He seemed to have grown removed from everything. Even his own house, his family, he suddenly saw from outside. Often he paused in a doorway, say the door to his room, and looked in as if he were judging someone else's life. It was not a bad place: the window open, curtains fluttering. He observed how lovely Bonny was when she fell into helpless laughter, which she was always
doing. He noticed that when the house was full of women, there was a sound like water flowing in and out of the upstairs rooms. His mother and his sister spoke their chosen lines, which were as polished as the chorus of a poem. “This is the time when the artichokes begin, those spiky little leaves with a lemon-butter sauce …”

“If Robert Roberts had not taken all my energy, all the care I ever had to give …” One of the twins—Susan, who had never married—was home recovering from a bout of hepatitis, and she lay peacefully in her old spool bed, knitting Morgan a beautiful long stocking cap from every color of scrap wool in the house. As for his other daughters—why, it began to seem he'd finally found a place in their eyes, basking among their clamorous children. What had been embarrassing in a father, it appeared, was lovably eccentric in a grandfather. Yes, and on second thought, even his work was not so terrible—his hardware store smelling of wood and machine oils, and Butkins perched on a stool behind the counter. Butkins! He was a skeletal, hay-colored man, with a nose so pointed that it seemed a clear drop hung perpetually at its tip. He had once been young—twenty-three when Uncle Ollie hired him. In Morgan's mind he'd stuck at that age forever after, but now Morgan took a closer look and found him nearing forty, bowed by his wife's ill health and the death of his only child. He seemed collapsed at the center, cavernous. His eyes were the palest, milkiest blue that Morgan had ever seen, celestially mild and accepting. Morgan felt he had wasted so much time, had nearly let this man slip through his fingers unnoticed. He took to hunkering on his office steps and bemusedly smoking cigarettes while he studied Butkins at work, till Butkins grew flustered and spilled coins all over the counter as he was making change.

Emily phoned him at the hardware store. “I'm calling from home,” she said. “Leon's gone out.”

“How are you?” Morgan asked her.

“Oh, well.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, but my back is starting to ache.”

“Backache. Well, good! Yes, that's a good sign, I'm certain of it.”

“Or else not,” Emily said. “And anyhow, I may be just imagining things.”

“No, no, how can you imagine a backache?”

“It's possible. There's nothing so strange about that.”

“Well, what are you feeling, exactly?”

“I don't know, it may be all in my mind.”

“Just tell me what you're feeling, please, Emily.”

“Morgan, don't snap at me.”

“Sweetheart, I wasn't snapping. Just tell me.”

“You always get this … older tone of voice.”

He lit a cigarette. “Emily,” he said.

“Well, I have a dragginess in my back, you see, a really tired dragged-outness. Do you think that's hopeful? I tried to jog this morning and I couldn't do more than a block. Right now I have to go to Gina's gymnastics meet, and I was thinking, ‘I'll never make it, I know I'll never make it. All I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep.' Oh, but that's a terrible sign, sleepiness. I just remembered. It's the worst sign I could have.”

“Nonsense,” Morgan told her. “You're feeling the strain, that's all. Why, naturally. You ought to get some rest, Emily.”

“Well, maybe after Gina's meet.”

“What time is that? I'll go in your place.”

“Oh … in half an hour. But she's expecting me.”

“I'll tell her you weren't feeling well and she'll have to take me instead.”

“But I'm always letting her down, these days—”

“Emily, go to bed,” he said. He hung up.

He told Butkins he would be out for a while. Butkins nodded and went on alphabetizing packets of flower seeds. When all this was over, Morgan decided, he was really going to devote himself to the hardware store. He'd start bringing a sandwich and staying here through
lunch hour, even. He set his beret at a steeper angle and went to find his pickup.

Gina's school was in the northern part of town—St. Andrew's, a girls' school that Leon's parents had selected for her. They were paying her tuition and had the right to choose, Morgan supposed. Still, he didn't think much of St. Andrew's. He'd have preferred her to stay on at public school. He thought Leon's parents were a bad influence: last Christmas they'd bought Emily an electric mixer. If Emily didn't watch out, that apartment would be as overstuffed as anyone's. These things could creep up on you, Morgan told her.

He turned down the shady driveway of St. Andrew's and parked beside a school bus. The gym must be the building straight ahead. He recognized the hollow sound that voices take on in a gymnasium. He crossed the playground, tucking in his workshirt and combing his beard with his fingers, hoping he made a good showing. (Gina was ten years old now—the age when you had to start watching your step. Any little thing could mortify her.)

Evidently, he was late. The meet had already begun. In acres of echoing hardwood that smelled of varnish, little girls were teetering on a high chrome frame. Morgan crossed to the bleachers and settled himself on the lowest level, alongside a scattering of mothers. All the mothers wore blazers and blond, pageboy haircuts. He tried to picture Emily sitting here with them. He hunched forward in his seat and looked around for Gina. It took a moment (there were swarms of little girls in blue leotards and swarms in lavender, and he didn't even know which color was St. Andrew's), but he spotted her, finally. She was the one in blue with the cloud of curls. Her face was still round and opulent—he would know those heavy-lidded eyes anywhere, and that pale, delicate mouth—but her body had become a stick, the narrow hips pathetically high above legs so long and thin that he could see the workings of her kneecaps when she walked. She came over to him, her bare toes
gripping the floor. Ordinarily she would hug him, but in front of friends she never did. “Where's Mama?” she asked him.

“She doesn't feel well.”

“She never comes to anything any more,” Gina said, but without much concern; her attention had already wandered elsewhere. She turned to study the girls on the other team. Then, “Morgan!” she screeched, spinning on him. “You can't smoke in here!”

She must have eyes in the back of her head. Morgan muttered, “Sorry,” and replaced his cigarette in the pack.

“I could die of embarrassment,” she said.

“Sorry, sweetheart.”

“Are you giving me a ride home afterward?”

“I will if you like.”

“That red-haired girl is Kitty Potts. I hate and despise her,” Gina said. She ran off.

Morgan watched a series of girls perform slow and trembling labors on a balance beam. Periodically, one would fall off and have to climb back on. Gina, when it was her turn, fell off twice. By the time she'd finished, Morgan's muscles ached; he'd been holding his breath. He remembered that his daughter Kate had also liked gymnastics, a few years back. She'd won several ribbons. In fact, he didn't believe he'd ever seen her fall or make an error, not once in any meet that he'd attended. He might have just forgotten, of course. But he was sure that her scores had been better. Gina's was a 4.3, read off by a bored-looking woman at a microphone. Coming here today was an unnatural act, Morgan decided. He really had nothing to do with any of this—the unfamiliar gym, the blazered mothers, someone else's daughter in a leotard. He wished he could get up and go back to the hardware store.

They'd finished with the balance beam and moved in the horse for vaulting. Morgan thought vaulting was a monotonous event to watch. He tucked his boot in off the floor so the girls could run past him, one by one,
for two leaps each. Their arms and legs looked stretched with concentration, and their faces were comically intense. Gina raced by with her eyes tightly focused. She sprang up and cleared the horse, but then she did something wrong. Instead of landing upright, she fell in a twisted heap on the mat.

The mothers went rigid; one laid her needlepoint aside. Morgan leaped to his feet. He was certain Gina'd broken her neck. But no, she was all right, or nearly all right—in tears, but not seriously injured. She rose holding on to one wrist. A young woman in shorts, with a whistle dangling from her neck, bent over her to ask her questions. Gina answered inaudibly, blotting her tears on her sleeve.

The woman led her up the floor again for her second try, though Gina was shaking her head and sobbing. The woman was saying something in a coaxing, reasoning voice. She smoothed Gina's hair, speaking urgently. It was barbaric. Morgan hated sports. He sat down and put an unlit cigarette in his mouth with a trembling hand.

Gina shrugged the woman away, drew herself up, and narrowed her eyes at the horse. There was still a little catch in her breath. It was the loudest sound in the gym. Everyone leaned forward. Gina set her jaw and started running. By the time she passed Morgan she was a steely, pounding blur. She cleared the horse magnificently and landed in perfect form, with her arms raised high.

Morgan jumped up and flung away his cigarette. He galloped in her footsteps all the way to the horse, and veered around it to hug her. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. “Sweetheart, you were wonderful,” he said. She said, “Oh, Morgan,” and giggled. (She was unscathed; she had forgotten everything.) She slipped away from him to join her teammates. Morgan returned to his seat, beaming and wiping his eyes. “Wasn't she wonderful,” he told the mothers. He blew his nose in his handkerchief. He felt suddenly joyous and expansive.
What could he not accomplish? He was a wide, deep, powerful man, and it was time he took some action.

5

“H
ow was the meet?” Emily asked Gina.

“It was all right.”

“I'm sorry I couldn't be there. Morgan, do you want to come in?”

“Yes, thank you,” Morgan said. Emily's appearance shocked him. Four days ago—the last time he'd seen her—she'd been a little drawn, yes, but now her skin had the yellow, cracked look of aged chinaware. “Emily, dear,” he said. Emily slid her eyes sideways, reminding him of Gina, but he ignored her. He didn't even glance around for Leon, who might very well have returned by now. “I've come to take you to a doctor,” he said.

“Is Mama really sick?” Gina asked.

“She needs a check-up. You stay here, Gina. We won't be long.”

He started hunting through the closet for a sweater or a jacket, something light, but all he found was Emily's winter coat. He took it off the hanger and helped her into it. She stood docilely while he buttoned the buttons.

“It's not that cold,” Gina told him.

“We have to take good care of her.”

He led Emily out the door, closing it behind him. Halfway down the stairs, he heard the door swing open
again. Gina hung over the banister. “Can I have that last banana?” she asked her mother.

Morgan said, “Yes. For God's sake. Anything you like.” Emily was silent. Like someone truly ill, she made her way falteringly down the stairs.

In the truck she said, “Do we have an appointment?”

“We'll make one when we get there.”

“Morgan, it takes weeks.”

“Not today it won't,” he said, pulling out of the parking space.

He drove to St. Paul Street, to Bonny's old obstetrician. He couldn't remember the number, but recalled very clearly the upholsterer's establishment next to it, and when he found a display window full of dusty velvet furniture, he stopped immediately, blocking an alley, and assisted Emily from the truck.

“How do you know this person?” Emily asked, looking around her at the gaunt, grimy buildings.

“He delivered all my daughters.”

“Morgan!”

“What?”

“We can't go in there.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“He knows you! I mean, we have to find someone else. We have to assume an alias or something.”

Morgan took her elbow and guided her up the front steps, through the brass-trimmed door, and into a carpeted lobby. “Never mind all that,” he told her, punching a button for the elevator. “This is no time to play around, Emily.”

The elevator door slid open. A very old black man in a purple and gold uniform was sitting on a stool in the corner. Morgan hadn't realized that elevator men still existed. “Three,” he said. He stepped in beside Emily. The silence in which they rode was dense and charged. Emily kept twisting her top button.