Morgan's Passing by Anne Tyler Read Free Book Online Page B

Ma-and-Pa hardware store. They’d been childhood sweethearts, maybe. Mentally, he aged her. He would have liked her to have white hair. He started wearing a wrinkled gray jacket and gray work trousers; he thought of himself as “Pa Hardware.” The funny thing was, sometimes he could be looking right at her but daydreaming her from scratch, as if she weren’t there. Then one afternoon he was standing on the ladder putting some shelves in order and she was handing him boxes of extension cords, and he happened to lean down and kiss her on the cheek. He said, “You look tired, Ma. Maybe you ought to take a little nap.” The girl had gasped but said nothing. The next day she didn’t show up for work, and she never came again. Her gray smock still hung in the stockroom. Occasionally, when he passed it, Morgan felt sad all over again for the days when he had been Pa Hardware.
    But now he had this Butkins, this efficient, colorless young fellow already setting out a new display of Rubbermaid products in the window. “Morning,” Morgan told him. He went on up to his office. He took off his parka, hung it on the coat tree, and sat down in the cracked leather swivel chair behind his desk. Supposedly, he would be dealing with the paperwork now-typing up orders, filing invoices. Instead he opened the center drawer and pulled out his bird-feeder plans. Hewas building the feeder for Bonny. Next Tuesday was their anniversary. They had been married for nineteen years; good God. He unrolled the plans and studied them, running a nicotine-stained finger across the angles of various levels and compartments. The feeder hung by a post in which he would drill four suet holes—or peanut-butter holes, for Bonny claimed that suet caused cholesterol problems. Morgan smiled to himself. Bonny was a little crazy on this subject of birds, he thought. He weighted the plans flat with a stapler and a pack of drill bits, and went to find a good plank to begin on.
    For most of the morning he sawed and sanded and hummed, occasionally pausing to push back his hat and wipe his face on his sleeve. His office stairs made a fine sawhorse. At the front of the store a trickle of shoppers chose their single purchases: a mousetrap, a furnace filter, a can of roach spray. Morgan hummed the “W.P.A. Blues” and chiseled a new point on his pencil.
    Then Butkins went to an early lunch, leaving Morgan in charge. Morgan had to rise and dust off his knees, regretfully, and wait on a man in coveralls who wanted to buy a Hide-a-Key. “What for?” Morgan asked. “Why spend good money on a little tin box? Do you see the price on this thing?”
    â€œWell, but last week I locked the keys inside my car, don’t you know, and I was thinking how maybe I could hide an extra key beneath the—”
    â€œLook,” said Morgan. “All you do is take a piece of dental floss, waxed. Surely you have dental floss. Thread your extra key on it, double it for strength, tie it to your radiator grille and let the key hang down inside. Simple! Costs you nothing.”
    â€œWell, but this here Hide-a-Key—”
    â€œAre you not standing in the presence of a man whose wife perpetually mislays his car keys for him?” Morgan asked.
    The man glanced around him.
    â€œMe
, I mean. She loses all I own,” Morgan said, “and I’ve never had a Hide-a-Key in my life.”
    â€œWell, still,” the man said doggedly, “I think I’ll just go on ahead with this here.”
    â€œWhat is it?” Morgan asked. “You don’t have dental floss? Never mind! I tell you what I’ll do: you come back this same time tomorrow, I’ll have a piece for you from home. Free, no charge. A gift. All right? I’ll bring you in a yard or two.”
    â€œFor Christ’s sake,” said the man, “will you let me buy one cruddy Hide-a-Key?”
    Morgan flung his hands up. “Of