The Tin Can Tree by Anne Tyler Read Free Book Online Page A

and pulled the chairs up by their backs, both at the same time. “Sit down, why don’t you,” he said.
    Joan drew up the chair from beside the stove, and Miss Lucy sat down in it with a sigh while Miss Fayewent to sit beside Simon. “We only mean to stay a minute,” said Miss Lucy. She plopped the bowl she was carrying down on the table in front of her and then sat back, sliding her purse strap to a more comfortable position on her wrist. The Potter sisters always carried handbags and wore hats and gloves, even if they were going next door. They were small, round women, in their early sixties probably, and for as long as Joan had known them they had had only one aim in life: they wanted to have swarms of neighborhood children clamoring at their door for cookies, gathering in their yard at the first smell of cinnamon buns. And although no one came (“Children nowadays prefer to buy Nutty Buddies,” Miss Faye said), they still went on baking, eating the cookies themselves, growing fat together and comparing notes on their identical heart conditions. It was those heart conditions that Miss Faye was discussing right now. She was saying, “Now, you and Lou know, Roy, how much we wish we could have climbed that hill today. If there was
any
way, the merest
logging
trail, we would’ve got there. But as it was, it would just have meant more tragedy. You know that.”
    And Mr. Pike was saying, “Well, I know, I know,” and nodding gently without seeming to be listening. There was chicken salad on his chin, which meant that both the Potters kept staring tactfully down at their gloves instead of looking at him. Joan passed him a paper napkin, but he ignored it; he sat forward on his chair and said, “It surely was nice of you to come. Nice to bring us supper.”
    “It’s the
least
we could do,” said Miss Lucy. She looked around her, toward the kitchen door, and then lowered her voice. “Tell me,” she whispered. “How is she now? How’s Lou?”
    “It just breaks my heart,” said Mr. Pike.
    “Oh, my.”
    “Not a thing I can do, seems like. She just sits. If she would stop all this
blaming
herself—”
    “They all do that,” said Miss Faye.
    “She said Janie was the one she never paid no mind to.”
    “Will you listen to that.”
    “Never gave her a fair share.”
    “If it’s not one reason it’s another,” Miss Lucy said. “I’ve seen that happen plenty of times.”
    “Maybe if you talked to her,” said Mr. Pike. He pushed his plate away and straightened up. “You think you could just run up there a minute?”
    “Well, not
run
, no, but—”
    “I didn’t mean that,” he said. “No, you can take the stairs as slow as you want to. But if you two would talk to her a minute, so long as you don’t mind—”
    “Why, we don’t mind a bit,” said Miss Faye. “We’d be proud.” She reached up to set her flowered hat straighter, as if she might like to put an extra hat on top of the first one for such a special visit. And Miss Lucy pulled gloves to perfect smoothness, and then folded her hands tightly over her purse.
    “I just don’t like to trouble you,” Mr. Pike said.
    “You stop that, Roy Pike.”
    They rose simultaneously, with their backs very straight. But even making the trip across the kitchen they walked slowly, preparing themselves for the stairs. “Be careful,” Joan told them. “Just see they don’t get out of breath, Uncle Roy.”
    “I will.”
    But Simon was frowning as he watched them leave. “Hey, Joan,” he said.
    “Hmmm?”
    “When they go up to bed at night, it takes them half an hour. They take two steps and then rest and talk; they bring their knitting along.”
    “Well, that’s kind of silly,” said Joan.
    “Could they crumple up and die on our stairs?”
    “No, they could not,” she said. “It would take more than that.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I heard Dr. Kitt tell them so. They just shouldn’t get too out of breath, is all, or run in any