The Accidental Tourist

Apparently an upstairs pipe (in that cold little bathroom off Ethan's old room, Macon would bet) had frozen and burst, heaven only knew how long ago, and the water had run and run until it saturated the ceiling and started coming through the plaster. All over the room it was raining. Chunks of plaster had fallen on the furniture, turning it white and splotchy. The floorboards were mottled. The rug, when Macon stepped on it, squelched beneath his feet. He marveled at the thoroughness of the destruction; not a detail had been overlooked. Every ashtray was full of wet flakes and every magazine was sodden. There was a gray smell rising from the upholstery.

"What are you going to do?" Charles breathed.

Macon pulled himself together. "Why, turn off the water main, of course," he said.

"But your living room!"

Macon didn't answer. His living room was . . . appropriate, was what he wanted to say. Even more appropriate if it had been washed away entirely.

(He imagined the house under twelve feet of water, uncannily clear, like a castle at the bottom of a goldfish bowl.)

He went down to the basement and shut off the valve, and then he checked the laundry sink. It was dry. Ordinarily he let the tap run all winter long, a slender stream to keep the pipes from freezing, but this year he hadn't thought of it and neither had his brothers, evidently, when they came to light the furnace.

"Oh, this is terrible, just terrible," Charles was saying when Macon came back upstairs. But he was in the kitchen now, where there wasn't any problem. He was opening and shutting cabinet doors. "Terrible. Terrible."

Macon had no idea what he was going on about. He said, "Just let me find my boots and we can leave."

"Leave?"

He thought his boots must be in his closet. He went upstairs to the bedroom. Everything here was so dreary-the naked mattress with its body bag, the dusty mirror, the brittle yellow newspaper folded on the nightstand. He bent to root through the objects on the closet floor.

There were his boots, all right, along with some wire hangers and a little booklet of some sort. A Gardener's Diary, 1976. He flipped through it. First lawn-mowing of the spring, Sarah had written in her compact script. Forsythia still in bloom. Macon closed the diary and smoothed the cover and laid it aside.

Boots in hand, he went back downstairs. Charles had returned to the living room; he was wringing out cushions. "Never mind those," Macon said. "They'll just get wet again."

"Will your insurance cover this?"

"I suppose so."

"What would they call it? Flood damage? Weather damage?"

"I don't know. Let's get going."

"You should phone our contractor, Macon. Remember the man who took care of our porch?"

"Nobody lives here anyhow," Macon said.

Charles straightened, still holding a cushion. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"Mean?"

"Are you saying you'll just let this stay?"

"Probably," Macon told him.

"All soaked and ruined? Nothing done?"

"Oh, well," Macon said, waving a hand. "Come along, Charles."

But Charles hung back, still gazing around the living room. "Terrible.

Even the curtains are dripping. Sarah will feel just terrible."

"I doubt she'll give it a thought," Macon said.

He paused on the porch to pull his boots on. They were old and stiff, the kind with metal clasps. He tucked his wet trouser cuffs inside them and then led the way to the street.

Once they were settled in the car, Charles didn't start the engine but sat there, key in hand, and looked soberly at Macon. "I think it's time we had a talk," he said.

"What about?"

"I'd like to know what you think you're up to with this Muriel person."

"Is that what you call her? 'This Muriel person'?"

"No one else will tell you," Charles said. "They say it's none of their business. But I can't just stand by and watch, Macon. I have to say what I think. How old are you-forty-two? Forty-three now? And she is ... but more than that, she's not your type of woman."

"You don't even know her!"

"I know her type."

"I have to be getting home now, Charles."

Charles looked down at his key. Then he started the car and pulled into the street, but he didn't drop the subject. "She's some kind of symptom, Macon! You're not yourself these days and this Muriel person's a symptom.

Everybody says so."

"I'm more myself than I've been my whole life long," Macon told him.

"What kind of remark is that? It doesn't even make sense!"

"And who is 'everybody,' anyway?"

"Why, Porter, Rose, me . . ."

"All such experts."

"We're just worried for you, Macon."

"Could we switch to some other topic?"

"I had to tell you what I thought," Charles said.

"Well, fine. You've told me."

But Charles didn't look satisfied.

The car wallowed back through the slush, with ribbons of bright water trickling down the windshield from the roof. Then out on the main road, it picked up speed. "Hate to think what all that salt is doing to your underbody," Macon said.

Charles said, "I never told you this before, but it's my opinion sex is overrated."

Macon looked at him.