Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) Read online

  "Though I'm certain you'll do fine," Maggie said in a hurry. "And of course you have me here to help you." "Oh, jiminy," Fiona said.

  Ira turned down a little side road called Elm Lane-a double string of tacky one-story cottages with RVs in most of the driveways and sometimes a sloping tin trailer out back. Maggie asked him, ' 'Who will wake up in the night now and bring her the baby to nurse?" "Her husband, one would Jiope," Ira said. "Or maybe she'll keep the baby in her room this time, the way you should have had her do last time." Then he gave his shoulders a slight shake, as if ridding himself of something, and said, "What baby? Fiona's not having a baby; she's just getting married, or so you claim. Let's put first things first here." Well, but first things weren't put first the time before; Fiona had been two months pregnant when she married Jesse. Not that Maggie wanted to remind him of that. Besides, her thoughts were on something else now. She was caught by an unexpected, piercingly physical memory of bringing the infant Leroy in to Fiona for her a.m. feeding-that downy soft head wavering on Maggie's shoulder, that birdlike mouth searching the bend of Maggie's neck inside her bathrobe collar, and then the close, sleep-smelling warmth of Jesse's and Fiona's bedroom. "Oh," she said without meaning to, and then, "Oh!" For there in Mrs. Stuckey's yard (hard-packed earth, not really a yard at all) stood a wiry little girl with white-blond hair that stopped short squarely at her jawline. She had just let go of a yellow Frisbee, which sailed shuddering toward their car and landed with a thump on the hood as Ira swung into the driveway.

  "That's not-" Maggie said. "Is that-?" "Must be Leroy," Ira told her.

  "It's not!" But of course, it had to be. Maggie was forced to make such a leap across time, though-from the infant on her shoulder to this gawky child, all in two seconds. She was experiencing some difficulty. The child dropped her hands to her sides and stared at them. Frowning gave her forehead a netted look. She wore a pink tank top with some kind of red stain down the front, berry juice or Kool-Aid, andjbaggy shorts in a blinding Hawaiian print. Her face was so thin it was triangular, a cat's face, and her arms and legs were narrow white stems.

  "Maybe it's a neighbor girl," Maggie told Ira-a last-ditch effort.

  He didn't bother replying.

  As soon as he switched the ignition off, Maggie opened the door and stepped out. She called "Leroy?" "What." "Are you Leroy?" The child deliberated a moment, as if uncertain, and then nodded.

  "So," Maggie said. "Well, hi there!" she cried.

  Leroy went on staring. She didn't seem one grain less suspicious.

  Actually, Maggie reflected (already adjusting to new developments), this was one of the most interesting ages. Seven and a half-old enough to converse with but not yet past willing to admire a grownup, provided the grownup played her cards right. Cagily, Maggie rounded the car and approached the child with her purse in both hands, resisting the urge to fling out her arms for a hug. "I guess you must not remember me," she said, stopping a measured distance away.

  Leroy shook her head.

  "Why, sweetie, I'm your grandma!" "You are?" Leroy said. She reminded Maggie of someone peering through a veil.

  "Your other grandma. Your Grandma Moran." It was crazy to have to introduce herself to her own flesh and blood. And crazier still, Maggie thought, that Jesse would have needed to do the same thing. He had not laid eyes on his daughter since-when? Since just after he and Fiona split up-before Leroy was a year old, even. What a sad, partitioned life they all seemed to be living! "I'm from your father's side of the family," she told Leroy, and Leroy said, "Oh." So at least she did know she had a father.

  "And this is your grandpa," Maggie said.

  Leroy shifted her gaze to Ira. In profile, her nose was seen to be tiny and extremely pointed. Maggie could have loved her for her nose alone.

  Ira was out of the car by now, but he didn't come over to Leroy immediately. Instead he reached for the Frisbee on the hood. Then he crossed the yard to them, meanwhile studying the Frisbee and turning it around and around in his hands as if he'd never seen one before. (Wasn't this just like him? Allowing Maggie to rush in while he hung back all reserved, but you notice he did tag along, and would share the benefit of anything she accomplished.) When he arrived in front of Leroy he tossed the Frisbee toward her lightly, and both her hands came up like two skinny spiders to grab it.

  "Thanks," she said.

  Maggie wished she had thought of the Frisbee.

  "We don't seem familiar at all?" she asked Leroy.

  Leroy shook her head.

  "Why! I was standing by when you were born, I'll have you know. I was waiting in the hospital for you to be delivered. You stayed with us the first eight or nine months of your life." "I did?" "You don't remember staying with us?" "How could she, Maggie?" Ira asked.

  "Well, she might," Maggie said, for she herself had a very clear memory of a scratchy-collared dress she used to hate being stuffed into as an infant. And besides, you would think all that loving care had to have left some mark, wouldn't you? She said, "Or Fiona might have told her about it." "She told me I lived in Baltimore," Leroy said.

  "That was us," Maggie said. "Your parents lived with us in your daddy's old boyhood room in Baltimore." "Oh." "Then you and your mother moved away." r Leroy rubbed her calf with the instep of her bare foot.

  She was standing very straight, militarily straight, giving the impression she was held there only by a sense of duty.

  "We visited on your birthdays afterward, remember that?" "Nope." "She was just a little thing, Maggie," Ira said.

  "We came for your first three birthdays," Maggie persisted. (Sometimes you could snag a memory and reel it in out of nowhere, if you used the proper hook.) "But your second birthday you were off at Hershey Park, and so we didn't get to see you." "I've been to Hershey Park six times," Leroy said. "Mindy Brant has only been twice." "Your third birthday, we brought you a kitten." Leroy tilted her head. Her hair wafted to one side- corn silk, lighter than air. "A tiger kitten," she said.

  "Right." "Stripy all over, even on its tummy." "You do remember!" "That was you-all brought me that kitten?" "That was us," Maggie said.

  Leroy looked back and forth between the two of them. Her skin was delicately freckled, as if dusted with those sugar sprinkles people put on cakes. That must come from the Stuckey side. Maggie's family never freckled, and certainly Ira's didn't, with their Indian connections. "And then what happened?" she was asking.

  "What happened when?" "What happened to the kitten! You must've took it back." "Oh, no, honey, we didn't take it back. Or rather, we did but only because you turned out to be allergic. You started sneezing and your eyes got teary." "And after that, what?" Leroy asked.

  "Well, I wanted to visit again," Maggie said, "but your grandpa told me we shouldn't. I wanted to with all my heart, but your grandpa told me-" "I meant, what did you do with the kitten," Leroy said.

  "Oh. The kitten. Well. We gave it to your grandpa's two sisters, your . . . great-aunts, I suppose they'd be; goodness." "So have they still got it?" "No, actually it was hit by a car," Maggie said.

  "Oh." "It wasn't used to traffic and somehow it slipped out when someone left the door open." Leroy stared ahead, fixedly. Maggie hoped she hadn't upset her. She said, "So tell me! Is your mother home?" "My mother? Sure." -"Could we see her, maybe?" Ira said, "Maybe she's busy." "No, she's not busy," Leroy said, and she turned and started toward the house. Maggie didn't know if they were supposed to follow or not. She looked over at Ira. He was standing there slouched with his hands in his trouser pockets, so she took her cue from him and stayed where she was.

  "Ma!" Leroy called, climbing the two front steps. Her voice had a certain mosquito quality that went with her thin face. "Ma? You in there?" She opened the screen door. "Hey, Ma!" Then all at once there was Fiona leaning in the doorway, one arm outstretched to keep the screen door from banging shut again. She wore cutoff denim shorts and a T-shirt with some kind of writing across it. "No need to shout," she said. At that moment she
saw Maggie and Ira. She stood up straighter.

  Maggie moved forward, clutching her purse. She said, "How are you, Fiona?" "Well . . . fine," Fiona said.

  And then she looked beyond them. Oh, Maggie was not mistaken about that. Her eyes swept the yard furtively and alighted on the car for just the briefest instant. She was wondering if Jesse had come too. She still cared enough to wonder.

  Her eyes returned to Maggie.

  "I hope we're not disturbing you," Maggie said.

  "Oh, urn, no . . ." "We were just passing through and thought we'd stop by and say hello." Fiona lifted her free arm and smoothed her hair off her forehead with the back of her hand-a gesture that exposed the satiny white inner surface of her wrist, that made her seem distracted, at a loss. Her hair was still fairly long but she had done something to it that bushed it out more; it didn't hang in sheets now. And she had gained a bit of weight. Her face was slightly broader across the cheekbones, the hollow of her collarbone was less pronounced, and although she was translucently pale, as always, she must have started using makeup, for Maggie detected a half-moon of powdered shadow on each eyelid-that rose-colored shadow that seemed to be so popular lately, that made women look as if they were suffering from a serious cold.

  Maggie climbed the steps and stood next to Leroy, continuing to hold her purse in a way that implied she wasn't expecting so much as a handshake. She was able now to read the writing on Fiona's shirt: LIME SPIDERS, it said- whatever that meant. "I heard you on the radio this morning," she said.

  "Radio," Fiona said, still distracted.

  "On AM Baltimore." "Baltimore," Fiona said.

  Leroy, meanwhile, had ducked under her mother's arm and then turned so she was facing Maggie, side by side with Fiona, gazing up with the same unearthly clear-aqua eyes. There wasn't a trace of Jesse in that child's appearance. You'd think at least his coloring would have won out.

  "I told Ira, 'Why not just stop off and visit,' " Maggie said. "We were up this way anyhow, for Max Gill's funeral. Remember Max Gill? My friend Serena's husband? He died of cancer. So I said, 'Why not stop off and visit Fiona. We wouldn't stay but a minute.' " "It feels funny to see you," Fiona said.

  "Funny?" "I mean . . . Come inside, why don't you?" "Oh, I know you must be busy," Maggie said.

  "No, I'm not busy. Come on in." Fiona turned and led the way into the house. Leroy followed, with Maggie close behind. Ira took a little longer. When Maggie looked over her shoulder she found him kneeling in the yard to tie his shoe, a slant of hair falling over his forehead. "Well, come on, Ira," she told him.

  He rose in silence and started toward her. Her annoyance changed to something softer. Sometimes Ira took on a gangling aspect, she thought, like a bashful young boy not yet comfortable in public.

  The front door opened directly into the living room, where the sun slipping through the Venetian blinds striped the green shag rug. Heaps of crocheted cushions tumbled across a couch upholstered in a fading tropical print. The coffee table bore sliding stacks of magazines and comic books, and a green ceramic ashtray shaped like a row-boat. Maggie remembered the ashtray from earlier visits. She remembered staring at it during awkward pauses and wondering if it could float, in which case it would make a perfect bathtub toy for Leroy. Now that came back to .her, evidently having lurked all these years within some cupboard in her brain.

  "Have a seat," Fiona said, plumping a cushion. She asked Ira, "So how're you doing?" as he ducked his head in the doorway.

  "Oh, passably," he told her.

  Maggie chose the couch, hoping Leroy would sit there too. But Leroy dropped to the rug and stretched her reedy legs out in front of her. Fiona settled in an armchair, and Ira remained standing. He circled the room, pausing at a picture of two basset puppies nestled together in a hatbox. With the tip of one finger, he traced the gilded.molding that lined the frame.

  "Would you like some refreshments?" Fiona asked.

  Maggie said, "No, thank you." "Maybe a soda or something." "We're not thirsty, honestly." Leroy said, "/ could use a soda." "You're not who I was asking," Fiona told her.

  Maggie wished she'd brought Leroy some sort of present. They had so little time to make connections; she felt pushed and anxious. "Leroy," she said too brightly, "is Frisbee a big interest of yours?" "Not really," Leroy told her bare feet.

  "Oh." "I'm still just learning," Leroy said. "I can't make it go where I want yet." "Yes, that's the tricky part, all right," Maggie said.

  Unfortunately, she had no experience with Frisbees herself. She looked hopefully at Ira, but he had moved on to some kind of brown metal appliance that stood in the corner-a box fan, perhaps, or a heater. She turned back to Leroy. "Does it glow in the dark?" she asked after a pause.

  Leroy said, "Huh?" "Excuse me," Fiona reminded her.

  "Excuse me?" "Does your Frisbee glow in the dark? Some do, I believe." "Not this one," Leroy said.

  "Ah!" Maggie cried. "Then maybe we should buy you one that does." Leroy thought about that. Finally she asked, "Why would I want to play Frisbee in the dark?" "Good question," Maggie said.

  She sat back, spent, wondering where to go from there. She looked again at Ira. He was hunkered over the appliance now, inspecting the controls with total concentration.

  Well, no point avoiding this forever. Maggie made herself smile. She tilted her head receptively and said, "Fiona, we were so surprised to hear about your wedding plans." "My what?" "Wedding plans." ' 'Is that supposed to be a joke?'' "Joke?" Maggie asked. She faltered. "Aren't you getting married?" "Not that I'm aware of." "But I heard it on the radio!" Fiona said, "What is this radio business? I don't know what you're talking about." "On WNTK," Maggie said. "You called in and said-" "The station I listen to is WXLR," Fiona told her.

  "No, this was-" "Excellent Rock Around the Clock. A Brittstown station." "This was WNTK," Maggie said.

  "And they claimed I was getting married?" "You claimed it. You called in and claimed your wedding was next Saturday." "Not me," Fiona said.

  There was a kind of alteration of rhythm in the room.

  Maggie experienced a surge of relief, followed by acute embarrassment. How could she have been so sure? What on earth had got into her, not even to question that the voice she'd heard was Fiona's? And on such a staticky, inadequate radio; she'd known perfectly well how inadequate it was, with those dinky little auto speakers that didn't begin to approach high fidelity.

  She braced herself for Ira's I-told-you-so. He still seemed absorbed in the appliance, though, which was nice of him.

  "I guess I made a mistake," she said finally.

  "I guess you did," Fiona said.

  And Leroy said, "Married!" and uttered a little hiss of amusement and wiggled her toes. Each toenail, Maggie saw, bore the tiniest dot of red polish, almost completely chipped off.

  "So who was the lucky guy?" Fiona asked.

  "You didn't say," Maggie told her.

  "What: I just came on the air and announced my engagement?" "It was a call-in talk show," Maggie said. She spoke slowly; she was rearranging her thoughts. All at once Fiona was not getting married. There was still a chance, then! Things could still be worked out! And yet in some illogical way Maggie continued to believe the wedding really had been planned, so that she wondered at the girl's inconsistency. "People called in to discuss their marriages with the host," she said.

  Fiona knit her pale brows, as if considering the possibility that she might have been one of them.

  She was so pretty, and Leroy was so endearingly spiky and unusual; Maggie felt how thirsty her eyes were, drinking them in. It was like the early days with her children, when every neck-crease, every knuckle-dent, could send her into a reverie. Look at Fiona's hair shining like ribbons, like bands of crinkle gift ribbon! Look at the darling little gold studs in Leroy's earlobes! Ira, speaking into the grille of the appliance, said, "This thing really do much good?" His voice rang back at them tinnily.

  "So far as I know," Fiona said.

  "
Fairly energy-efficient?" She lifted both hands, palms up. "Beats me." "How many BTUs does it give off?" ' 'That's just something Mom runs in the wintertime to keep her feet warm," Fiona said. "I never have paid it much heed, to tell the truth." Ira leaned farther forward to read a decal on the appliance's rear.

  Maggie seized on a change of subject. She said, "How is your mother, Fiona?" "Oh, she's fine. Right now she's at the grocery store." "Wonderful," Maggie said. Wonderful that she was fine, she meant. But it was also wonderful that she was out. She said, "And you're looking well too. You're wearing your hair a little fuller, aren't you?" "It's crimped," Fiona said. "I use this special iron, like; you know bigger hair has a slimming effect." "Slimming! You don't need slimming." "I most certainly do. I put on seven pounds over this past summer." "Oh, you didn't, either. You couldn't have! Why you're just a-" Just a twig, she was going to say; or just a stick. But she got mixed up and combined the two words: "You're just a twick!" Fiona glanced at her sharply, and no wonder; it had sounded vaguely insulting. "Just skin and bones, I mean," Maggie said, fighting back a giggle. She remembered now how fragile their relationship had been, how edgy and defensive Fiona had often seemed. She folded her hands and placed her feet carefully together on the green shag rug.

  So Fiona was not getting married after all, "How's Daisy?" Fiona asked.

  "She's doing well." Leroy said, "Daisy who?" "Daisy Moran," Fiona said. Without further explanation, she turned back to Maggie. "All grown up by now, I bet." "Daisy is your aunt. Your daddy's little sister," Maggie told Leroy. "Yes; tomorrow she leaves for college," she said to Fiona.