Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler Read Free Book Online Page B

home beforehand—change clothes, filch some wine from the pantry. Damn, he should have seen to all that before he came here. He jiggled a foot across his knee and watched a housewife in high heels explaining that bacteria cause odors.
    At 8:35, the phone rang. He sprang for it, already preparing his response. (
No
, you can’t stay out longer.) “Ian?” Cicely asked. “When you come, could you bring some gravy mix?”
    “Gravy mix.”
    “I just can’t understand where I went wrong.”
    Ian said, “Did Stevie get to bed all right?”
    “I’m going to see to that in a minute, but first this gravy! I pick up the spoon and everything in the pan comes with it, all in a clump.”
    “Well, don’t worry about it,” Ian told her. “I’ll bring the mix. Meanwhile, you get Stevie into bed.”
    “Well …” Cicely said, trailing off.
    “Dad’s old rocker dull and gray?” two girls sang on TV. “Stain it, wax it, the Wood-Witch way!”
    After he’d hung up, Ian turned to the children and asked, “Did your mother say where she was going?”
    “No,” Agatha said.
    “Was it someplace she could walk to?”
    “I don’t know.”
    He rose and went to the front window. Beyond the gauzy curtains he saw street lamps glinting faintly and squares of soft yellow light from the neighboring houses.
    There was a wet, uncorking sound behind him—Thomas’s thumb popping out of his mouth. “She went in a car,” Thomas said distinctly.
    Ian turned.
    “She went in a car with Dot,” Thomas told him. “Dot lives down the block a ways and Mama went over to her house and got herself a ride.” He replaced his thumb.
    A wail floated from the children’s room. Ian glanced at Agatha. A second wail, more assured.
    “You didn’t burp her,” Agatha said serenely.
    Thomas merely sent him the drugged, veiled gaze of a dedicated thumb-sucker.
    From 8:40 to 9:15 Ian walked Daphne around and around the living room. Thomas and Agatha quarreled over the afghan. Thomas kicked Agatha in the shin and she started crying—unconvincingly, it seemed to Ian. She rolled her knee sock down to her thick white ankle and pointed out, “See? See there what he did?”
    Ian patted the baby more rapidly and revised his plans. He would not go home first after all; they would do without the wine and butter and whatever. He would simply explain to Cicely when he got there. “I don’t care about dinner,” he would say, drawing her into his arms. “I care about
you.
” And they would climb the stairs together, tiptoeing past her brother’s door and into—
    Oh-oh.
    The one thing he could not do without—the three things, in their linked foil packets—lay in the toe of his left gym shoe at the very back of his closet. There was no way he could avoid going by his house.
    The phone rang again and Ian picked up the receiver and barked, “What!”
    Cicely said, “Ian, where are you?”
    “This goddamn Lucy,” he said, not caring if the children heard. “I’ve a good mind to just walk on out of here.”
    Agatha looked up from her shin and said, “You wouldn’t!”
    “Everything’s stone cold,” Cicely said.
    “Well, don’t worry. The dinner’s not important—”
    “Not important! I’ve been slaving all day over this dinner! We’re having flank steak stuffed with mushrooms, and baked potatoes stuffed with cheese, and green peppers stuffed with—”
    “But how about Stevie? Did Stevie get to bed all right?”
    “He got to bed hours ago.” Ian groaned.
    “Is that all you care about?” Cicely asked. “Don’t you care about my cooking?”
    “Oh! Yes! Your cooking,” Ian said. “I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”
    “No, don’t say that! I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.”
    “Cicely,” Ian said. “Listen. I’ll be over soon no matter what. Just wait for me.”
    He hung up to find Thomas and Agatha eyeing him reproachfully. “What’re you going to do? Leave us on our own?” Thomas asked.
    “You’re not