Celestial Navigation by Anne Tyler Read Free Book Online

others. Jeremy backed away from me and said, “I really think I should be going home about now.”
    “Oh, as long as we’ve got this far,” I said, “wouldn’t you like to come the rest of the way?”
    I took tighter hold of him and led him across the street. The light was still red but there were no cars coming, and I didn’t want to delay too long. By now he was resisting more, though still moving forward. “You surely are not
scared
to come,” I said.
    He didn’t answer. I looked over at him. “Not a big grown man like
you,”
I said, teasing him. Then he did smile, but just a brief shy unhappy smile directed at his feet. Well, poor soul. There was an
enduring
look about him. He was trudging along so uncomplainingly, with those little saddle oxfords of his squelching in the puddles. “It’s for you that I am doing this,” I told him. “It’s out of concern for you. You know that, don’t you?” I could feel my strength flowing from my hand to his arm. Someone should have done this long ago, I thought—expended a little time and energy, that was all he needed—and brought him out of his cocoon.
    We had reached the middle of the second block. Jeremy’s teeth were chattering so that I could hear them, and he seemed to be shaken all over by great long rolling tremors. I had no idea that he was so susceptible to cold. I said, “Fortunately the funeral parlor is overheated. You’ll be all right when we get there.”
    “How, how far?” he said.
    “Oh, just a few more blocks. Now, Jeremy. Please come on.”
    For he had stopped. I tugged at his arm but couldn’t move him an inch. “I think that maybe I, I think that I—” he said. Or I
believe
that’s what he said. His voice came out wavery and chopped by the clicking of his teeth. I lost what sympathyI was beginning to feel for him. “Jeremy,” I said, “this is getting silly, now.”
    Then I gave him a prod in the side, just to get him going, and he crumpled up. Just crumpled in upon himself and folded onto the sidewalk, where he sat in a heap and shook all over. Yet I swear I had no more than touched him. It wasn’t a
shove
or anything. “Jeremy?” I said. “What’s the matter with you?
Jeremy!”
For he was looking odder than I had ever seen him; I can’t describe it. His face was yellowish and his mouth hung open. He laid his head down upon his bent knees and stayed that way, shapeless and boneless, and all I could do was call out for help. “Oh, help, someone! Won’t someone please stop?” Cars hissed by, not even noticing. Then footsteps came clattering up behind me. “Help,” I said, turning. I saw Laura running toward us, her apron a flash of white flowers in the dark. And half a block behind her, Howard, with his shirttails out. “Amanda Pauling, I’ll never forgive you for this,” Laura said.
    “But what’s the matter with him?”
    Laura bent down and raised Jeremy’s head in her two hands. He only stared at her. She fished a handkerchief from her apron pocket and wiped his mouth, and by that time Howard had come up out of breath and bent to peer into Jeremy’s face.
    “I don’t understand,” I said.
    All I heard was Jeremy’s teeth chattering.
    “I don’t see what’s going on. Is he ill?”
    “You have no heart at all,” Laura told me. “I always thought that of you and now I know it.”
    “Oh, Laura! How can you say such a thing?”
    Laura tugged at Jeremy but he wouldn’t stand. It took Howard, bending over him from behind and raising him by the armpits. “There now, fellow,” he said. “Come along.”
    “What did I do?” I asked Howard.
    But Howard wouldn’t answer either. He gave all his attention to Jeremy; he stood him upright and turned him toward home, and then Laura took Jeremy’s other elbow. “Laura?” I said.
    “I’m not talking to you right now,” Laura said.
    Jeremy took a faltering step forward. His head was nodding. I saw it bobbing against the streetlights, up and down, up and