The Accidental Tourist

But what was it he wanted to know? She was an open book, would tell him anything-more than he felt comfortable with. Nor did she attempt to hide her true nature, which was certainly far from perfect. It emerged that she had a nasty temper, a shrewish tongue, and a tendency to fall into spells of self-disgust from which no one could rouse her for hours. She was inconsistent with Alexander to the point of pure craziness-one minute overprotective, the next minute callous and offhand. She was obviously intelligent, but she counteracted that with the most global case of superstition Macon had ever witnessed. Hardly a day passed when she didn't tell him some dream in exhaustive detail and then sift through it for omens. (A dream of white ships on a purple sea came true the very next morning, she claimed, when a door-to-door salesman showed up in a purple sweater patterned with little white boats. "The very same purple! Same shape of ship!" Macon only wondered what kind of salesman would wear such clothing.) She believed in horoscopes and tarot cards and Ouija boards. Her magic number was seventeen. In a previous incarnation she'd been a fashion designer, and she swore she could recall at least one of her deaths. ("We think she's passed on," they told the doctor as he entered, and the doctor unwound his muffler.) She was religious in a blurry, non-denominational way and had no doubt whatsoever that God was looking after her personally-ironic, it seemed to Macon, in view of how she'd had to fight for every little thing she wanted.

He knew all this and yet, finding a folded sheet of paper on the counter, he opened it and devoured her lurching scrawl as if she were a stranger.

Pretzels. Pantyhose. Dentist, he read. Pick up Mrs. Arnold's laundry.

No, not that. Not that.

Then it was three o'clock and Alexander was home from school, letting himself in with a key that he wore on a shoelace around his neck.

"Macon?" he'd call tentatively. "Is that you out there?" He was scared of burglars. Macon said, "It's me." Edward leapt up and went running for his ball. "How was your day?" Macon always asked.

"Oh, okay."

But Macon had the feeling that school never went very well for Alexander.

He came out of it with his face more pinched than ever, his glasses thick with fingerprints. He reminded Macon of a homework paper that had been erased and rewritten too many times. His clothes, on the other hand, were as neat as when he'd left in the morning. Oh, those clothes! Spotless polo shirts with a restrained brown pinstripe, matching brown trousers gathered bulkily around his waist with a heavy leather belt. Shiny brown shoes. Blinding white socks. Didn't he ever play? Didn't kids have recess anymore?

Macon gave him a snack: milk and cookies. (Alexander drank milk in the afternoons without complaint.) Then he helped him with his schoolwork. It was the simplest sort-arithmetic sums and reading questions. "Why did Joe need the dime? Where was Joe's daddy?"

"Umm . . ." Alexander said. Blue veins pulsed in his temples.

He was not a stupid child but he was limited, Macon felt. Limited. Even his walk was constricted. Even his smile never dared to venture beyond two invisible boundaries in the center of his face. Not that he was smiling now. He was wrinkling his forehead, raising his eyes fearfully to Macon.

"Take your time," Macon told him. "There's no hurry."

"But I can't! I don't know! I don't know!"

"You remember Joe," Macon said patiently.

"I don't think I do!"

Sometimes Macon stuck with it, sometimes he simply dropped it.

After all, Alexander had managed without him up till now, hadn't he?

There was a peculiar kind of luxury here: Alexander was not his own child. Macon felt linked to him in all sorts of complicated ways, but not in that inseparable, inevitable way that he'd been linked to Ethan. He could still draw back from Alexander; he could still give up on him. "Oh, well," he could say, "talk it over with your teacher tomorrow." And then his thoughts could wander off again.

The difference was, he realized, that he was not held responsible here.

It was a great relief to know that.

When Muriel came home she brought fresh air and bustle and excitement.

"Is it ever cold! Is it ever windy! Radio says three below zero tonight.