Redhead by the Side of the Road - Anne Tyler Page 0,22

she meant the best thing for cancer, but it turned out she meant for insomnia. “You’re supposed to drink chamomile just before bed and you will drift right off. So I said to Donnie, I said, ‘Fix me a cup tonight and let’s find out if it works,’ because I’ll try anything, I tell you. Anything at all. It makes me crazy, not sleeping! I turn on my left side, turn on my right; I puff my pillows up. I listen to Donnie snoring away and it feels like he is tormenting me, like he’s saying, ‘Look at me! I can sleep just fine!’ But you know what? That tea didn’t do a durn thing. First off, it tasted no better than dishpan water, and then on top of that it did not do one thing. All last night I’m laying there, laying there…and Donnie is snoring like a motorboat. I tell you, I started getting angry. I was angrier than I’ve ever been in my life, I do believe. Finally I reach over and give Donnie a punch in the shoulder. ‘What!’ he says. Like, starting up, like. ‘I cannot stand this!’ I say to him. ‘I got to have my rest, I tell you! And there you are, snoring away. I’m so angry I could spit!’?”

Apparently she had no idea what was really making her angry, but Micah wasn’t about to tell her. He just said, “Oh, yeah. It’s a bitch all right, not sleeping.” And then he started his drill again.

This time, she fell silent while the drill ran. She waited until he had turned it off before she said, “Yesterday my doctor told me, he said, ‘Now, Luella,’ he said. Said, ‘You know this is incurable, don’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I know.’?”

Micah lowered his drill and looked over at her.

She said, “I mean, I’m not angry at God, exactly. But I’m angry.”

“Well, sure you are,” Micah said.

He was ashamed that he had assumed she didn’t realize.

* * *

—

Micah composed an email addressed to all the building’s tenants, cc’ing Mr. Gerard as usual to prove he was doing his job.

Dear Residents:

Once again it’s my day to set the recycling out, and once again I see that people haven’t flattened their cartons. Two large cartons are currently sitting out back in their original, three-dimensional state. With their address labels still attached, by the way, so I know who the culprits are.

This is a city ordinance, folks. It’s not some idle whim of mine. The Department of Public Works requires that cartons be broken down before recycling. Please see to it by six p.m. so I won’t have to bring in my hit man.

Yours wearily,

Micah

He clicked on Send, and whoosh, off it went. Then he checked the time at the top of his computer screen. 4:45. Cass should have finished work by now. He pulled out his phone and tapped her number.

“Hello, Micah,” she said.

“Hi,” he said. “You home yet?”

“I just walked in.”

“Oh, good. Say!” he said. “Did you ever call Nan?”

He had made a mental note to ask her this, to make up for not asking those other times. He realized he’d been remiss there.

“No,” she said. “As it happens, Nan called me again.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“She said she and Richard have set the date, finally, and so she’s giving up the apartment.”

“That’s great,” Micah said.

“Right,” Cass said.

There was something wry in her tone that he couldn’t read. He said, “You do plan to take over the lease, don’t you?”

Cass said, “Oh, yes,” but offhandedly, as if she had not been obsessing about the subject for the past several days. Then she said, “How’s your house guest?”

“Brink? Oh, he left.”

“He’s not staying there anymore?”

“Nope,” Micah said. “In fact, I feel kind of bad about him.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, I basically kicked him out.”

“Kicked him out!”

“It seemed he