Redhead by the Side of the Road - Anne Tyler Page 0,57
sorry. Micah, meet Roger. Roger, this is Micah.”
“Come on in,” Micah told them. “Brink is watching TV.”
He turned to lead them through the foyer and down the stairs, through the laundry room and the furnace room. One of the washing machines was in use and the air smelled damp and bleachy, but Micah was long past any concern about appearances. It was occurring to him that Brink might have seized his chance to make an escape through the rear exit. When they entered the apartment, though, they found him standing in the office doorway with the TV still blaring behind him. He was holding the remote control in one hand, as if his parents and Micah were the ones he was about to switch off, and he wore a frozen, defensive expression.
Lorna said, “Sweetheart!” and she rushed across the room to throw her arms around him. Brink gazed over her head toward his father, but with his free hand he was patting her back. “Hi, Mom,” he said. “Hi, Dad.”
“Son,” Roger said, nodding. He remained standing next to Micah; he kept his hands in his trouser pockets.
“Are you all right?” Lorna asked Brink, drawing back. She looked up into his face. “Have you lost weight? You have! What on earth is that you’re wearing?”
Brink shrugged. “I’m fine,” he told her.
“How long has it been since you shaved? You’re not growing a beard, are you?”
“Lorna,” Roger said.
“What? I’m only asking,” Lorna said. She told Brink, “We’ve been out of our minds about you! What have you been eating? Where have you been staying?”
“Let him get a word in, Lorna,” Roger said.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, wheeling on him. “I’m begging him to get a word in!”
“Now, Lor.”
“I’ll just, um, turn the TV off,” Micah said, and he went into the office. A woman was strolling down a beach while a man’s disembodied voice rattled off a medication’s side effects at breakneck speed. Lacking the remote, Micah pressed the power button and then waited a bit before heading back out to the living room. Not much had changed there. Roger’s hands were still in his pockets, and Lorna had looped an arm through Brink’s left arm. “First we thought you might have gone to stay with a friend,” she was telling him, “but your friends are all away at college now, so we weren’t—”
“Would anyone care for coffee?” Micah asked. “How about I make us a pot.”
No one answered, for a moment. Then Roger said, “That would be good of you, Micah.”
Micah moved toward the kitchen area, thinking this would give them some privacy, but for some reason they all came with him. Lorna was saying, “I was going to call some of your friends’ parents, but your dad said…”
Micah took the percolator to the sink to fill it, and Roger drifted over to stand next to him and watch, as if he found the process fascinating.
“…and I knew he had a point but I was just beside myself; I couldn’t think what to…”
Micah spooned ground coffee into the percolator basket, replaced the lid, and plugged the cord into the outlet. When he turned from the counter he found Lorna still clinging to Brink, still fixing her eyes on his face as she talked. Brink had set the remote on the table and he was looking off to one side.
“Why was it you came here, son?” Roger asked during a pause.
Brink focused on him. At first it seemed he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said, “I remembered they sold used clothing next door and I needed something to wear.”
“What? I mean, why was it you came to Baltimore? Why to Micah?”
“I thought he might be my dad,” Brink said.
This wasn’t news to Lorna, of course, but Roger must not have been told. “Your dad!” he said.
“It sounded like we had some traits in common.”
“You had traits in common with Micah,” Roger repeated slowly.
Micah stiffened. He was about to take