In the almost twenty years that he had been gone, renting rooms in this country’s cities and sending penny postcards home to prove he had, Lyman had gone bald, turned shiny as glass on top; he was still tall and spare as a rail, only now instead of wearing farm-boy overalls and sand-caked shoes he was draped fancy in a new houndstooth suit that was too hot and too heavy for July; on his feet he sported black-and-white wing tips that any Las Vegas gambler or East Colfax pimp in Denver would have thought twice about wearing in public. He was a sight.
Edith herself was dressed as for a party. She had gotten out a silky summer dress that must have been fashionable in the 1920s and had combed her hair back from her face in a way I’d never seen before. It was obvious that she was pink with pleasure at having him home. During dinner, I remember, there didn’t seem to be enough that she could do for him; she kept popping up and down like a girl who was having a boyfriend over for dinner and family approval. She was positively solicitous and festive at the same time, worrying cheerfully whether Lyman had enough roast beef and sweet potatoes to eat and concerning herself happily as to the hotness of his coffee. Meanwhile, Lyman masticated and talked with his mouth full; he sat there picking his teeth like a landlord and regaled us with news of his wide travels. Los Angeles, California, was bigger than we could believe. Mobile, Alabama, on the other hand, wasn’t so big, but it was hot. Over dessert, he allowed that we could keep New York City. He’d had all he wanted of New York City, New York.
That’s the way dinner went that evening: Lyman gave us travelogue while Edith fed us roast beef and cherry pie. Afterwards, after we had finished eating and Lyman had talked himself full circle home again, Edith put on an apron and began to sing to herself over the dishes in the sink. Then her brother coaxed me outside to get the benefit of his Pontiac. It stood purple-green under the yard light, one of those long heavy boats they made in the early sixties, with chrome. He opened the driver’s door. “Try her out,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Just sit in her then.”
“No thanks.”
“Well, she drives like a wet dream. Already put eleven thousand miles on her.”
“Sure,” I said. “All right. But what in goddamn hell took you so long? It’s been almost twenty years. Didn’t you know she was waiting all this time?”
“Who?”
“Edith. For christsake. Your sister.”
“Oh. Well,” he said. He shut the car door. “There is a lot of cities, Sandy. You just don’t have a idea till you start looking.”
“And you had to see every damn one of them, is that it?”
“No, sir,” he said. “Nope, I skipped a few. I found out they was much alike.”
So that was Lyman Goodnough. What in hell were you going to do with him? Well, of course Edith knew very well what to do with him. She took him in and fed him supper—because after all, despite everything, despite almost two decades of waiting, he was home again now like only she knew he would be. And she was glad that he was.
Outside under the yard light Lyman stood in front of his car flicking dead grasshoppers and dead millers off the chrome of the grill. “You suppose she has some more cherry pie?” he said. “That’s one thing I missed.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “Tell her.”
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