The Clock Winder by Anne Tyler Read Free Book Online Page B

dashboard. Then they hit Roland Avenue, and he settled back in his seat. “I don’t suppose you know if Andrew’s coming,” he said.
    “He’s not.”
    “I was afraid to ask Mother on the phone. She can go on and on about things like that. But Matthew will be there.”
    “Nope.”
    “What, no Matthew? He practically
lives
there.”
    “He used to,” said Elizabeth. “Then your mother said he was wasting his life on a dead-end job. Running a dinky country newspaper and getting all of the work but none of the credit. I don’t know why.”
    “The owner drinks,” Timothy said.
    “She said for him to come back when he got a decent job. He never did. It’s been three weeks now.”
    “Matthew is the crazy one in the family,” Timothy said.
    “Oh, I thought that was Andrew.”
    “Well, him too. But Matthew is downright peculiar: I don’t believe he hears a word Mother says to him. He visits her every week, no matter
what
she’s up to. Brings tomatoes he’s grown himself, stays an hour or two.”
    “Not any more he doesn’t,” Elizabeth said. “Will he get another job, do you think?”
    “No.”
    “Well, what then? Won’t he ever come home again?”
    “Oh, sooner or later Mother will give up. Then he’ll wander in again and that’ll be the end of it.”
    “I doubt if he’s crazy at all,” Elizabeth said.
    She parked haphazardly in a space barely longer than the car, and they climbed out. Standing on the curb she peeled her paint-shirt off, shut it in the car, and brought a curling vinyl wallet from her jacket pocket. “I wonder how much turkeys cost,” she said.
    “Let me pay. It was my idea.”
    “No, I have enough.”
    “Aren’t you saving up for college or something?” “Not really,” Elizabeth said.
    The grocery store was vast and gloomy, even under the fluorescent ice-cube trays that hung from the ceiling. There was a smell of damp wood, cardboard, cracker crumbs. They had barely stepped inside when someone said, “Timothy Emerson!”—a sharp-edged woman in a fur stole, one of Mrs. Emerson’s tea guests. “Don’t tell me you’re honoring your mother with a visit,” she said. “Did she recognize you?” She flung out a little peal of laughter. Elizabeth slid past her and went over to the meat counter. “I’d like a turkey,” she told the butcher. “Kind of fat.”
    “Fifteen pounds? Twenty?”
    “I wouldn’t know. Could you let me hold one?”
    He disappeared into a back room. Mrs. Emerson’s friend could be heard all over the store. “…   never known a braver woman, just so sweet and brave. Disappointments never faze her. I said, ‘Pamela,’ I said, ‘why don’t you sell that big old house and find yourself an apartment now that—’ ‘Oh no, mydear,’ she told me, ‘I’ll need all that space for my children, if ever they choose to come home.’ “
    The butcher reappeared, carrying three turkeys. “This one?” he said. “This one?” He held them up one by one, while Elizabeth frowned and twirled her car keys. “Let me try that last one,” she said finally. She reached across the counter for it and weighed it in her hands. “Wait a minute. I’ll be back.”
    “How is your twin brother, dear?” the friend was saying. “I understand he’s in the care of a doctor again. Now, wouldn’t you think he should be in his own home? New
York
is no place for a, for someone who’s …”
    “Try this,” Elizabeth told Timothy. “Add intestines and such. Feathers. Feet. Do you think he’s about the right size?”
    Timothy, who had lit a pipe, stuck the pipe between his teeth and took hold of the turkey. “Feels okay to
me,”
he said.
    Mrs. Emerson’s friend said, “It’s Elizabeth, isn’t it? How are
you
this fine day? Planning for a great many dinner guests?”
    “Well, not exactly,” Elizabeth said. “Forget you saw me buying this.” She left the woman staring after her and went back to the butcher. “I like it,” she told him, “but I