The Accidental Tourist

The store he drove to was a Western-wear place where he used to take Ethan. It hadn't changed a bit. Its wooden floorboards creaked, its aisles smelled of leather and new denim. He steered Alexander to the boys' department, where he spun a rack of shirts. How many times had he done this before? It wasn't even painful. Only disorienting, in a way, to see that everything continued no matter what. The student jeans were still stacked according to waist and inseam. The horsey tie pins were still arrayed behind glass. Ethan was dead and gone but Macon was still holding up shirts and asking, "This one? This one? This one?"

"What I'd really like is T-shirts," Alexander said.

"T-shirts. Ah."

"The kind with a sort of stretched-out neck. And jeans with raggedy bottoms."

"Well, that you have to do for yourself," Macon said. "You have to break them in."

"I don't want to look new."

"Tell you what. Everything we buy, we'll wash about twenty times before you wear it."

"But nothing prewashed," Alexander said.

"No, no."

"Only nerds wear prewashed."

"Right."

Alexander chose several T-shirts, purposely too big, along with an assortment of jeans because he wasn't sure of his size. Then he went off to try everything on. "Shall I come with you?" Macon asked.

"I can do it myself."

"Oh. All right."

That was familiar, too.

Alexander disappeared into one of the stalls and Macon went on a tour of the men's department. He tried on a leather cowboy hat but took it off immediately. Then he went back to the stall. "Alexander?"

"Huh?"

"How's it going?"

"Okay."

In the space below the door, Macon saw Alexander's shoes and his trouser cuffs. Evidently he hadn't got around to putting on the jeans yet.

Someone said, "Macon?"

He turned and found a woman in a trim blond pageboy, her wrap skirt printed with little blue whales. "Yes," he said.

"Laurel Canfield. Scott's mother, remember?"

"Of course," Macon said, shaking her hand. Now he caught sight of Scott, who had been in Ethan's class at school-an unexpectedly tall, gawky boy lurking at his mother's elbow with an armload of athletic socks. "Why, Scott. Nice to see you," Macon said.

Scott flushed and said nothing. Laurel Canfield said, "It's nice to see you. Are you doing your spring shopping?"

"Oh, well, ah-"

He looked toward the stall. Now Alexander's trousers were slumped around his ankles. "I'm helping the son of a friend," he explained.

"We've just been buying out the sock department."

"Yes, I see you have."

"Seems every other week I find Scott's run through his socks again; you know how they are at this age-"

She stopped herself. She looked horrified. She said, "Or, rather . . ."

"Yes, certainly!" Macon said. "Amazing, isn't it?" He felt so embarrassed for her that he was pleased, at first, to see another familiar face behind her. Then he realized whose it was. There stood his mother-in-law.

"Why!" he said. Was she still Mother Sidey? Mrs. Sidey? Who, for God's sake?

Luckily, it turned out that Laurel Canfield knew her too. "Paula Sidey," she said. "I haven't seen you since last year's Hunt Cup."

"Yes, I've been away," Mrs. Sidey told her, and then she dropped her lids somewhat, as if drawing a curtain, before saying, "Macon."

"How are you?" Macon said.

She was flawlessly groomed, industriously tended-a blue-haired woman in tailored slacks and a turtleneck. He used to worry that Sarah would age the same way, develop the same brittle carapace, but now he found himself admiring Mrs. Sidey's resolve. "You're looking well," he told her.

"Thank you," she said, touching her hairdo. "I suppose you're here for your spring wardrobe."

"Oh, Macon's helping a friend!" Laurel Canfield caroled. She was so chirpy, all of a sudden, that Macon suspected she'd just now recalled Mrs. Sidey's relationship to him. She looked toward Alexander's stall.

Alexander was in his socks now. One sock rose and vanished, stepping into a flood of blue denim. "Isn't shopping for boys so difficult?" she said.

"I wouldn't know," Mrs. Sidey said. "I never had one. I'm here for the denim skirts."

"Oh, the skirts, well, I notice they're offering a-"

"What friend are you helping to buy for?" Mrs. Sidey asked Macon.

Macon didn't know what to tell her. He looked toward the stall. If only Alexander would just stay hidden forever, he thought. How to explain this scrawny little waif, this poor excuse of a child who could never hold a candle to the real child?

Contrary as always, Alexander chose that moment to step forth.

He wore an oversized T-shirt that slipped a bit off one shoulder, as if he'd just emerged from some rough-and-tumble game. His jeans were comfortably baggy. His face, Macon saw, had somehow filled out in the past few weeks without anybody's noticing; and his hair-which Macon had started cutting at home-had lost that shaved prickliness and grown thick and floppy.

"I look wonderful!" Alexander said.

Macon turned to the women and said, "Actually, I find shopping for boys is a pleasure."