Read Online A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler - Free Book Online

kind of impostor.
    “But I don’t have to tell you that,” Sophia was saying, “because look at you!”
    “Pardon?”
    “You’re already on your way to visit her!”
    “Ah. Except that, well, this visit was really just a … random activity, so to speak.”
    “I know just what you mean,” Sophia said.
    “You do?”
    “Sometimes intuition is our truest guiding force, don’t you agree?”
    “Intuition? Hmm,” I said, paying close attention now.
    “You can be led to get on a train, not even knowing why,” she said.
    “Is that a fact.”
    “And once you arrive at your ex-wife’s, you’re going to be led to say exactly the words that will change her mind.”
    “But see,” I said, “I’m not sure that … at this point, I don’t believe my family situation is the central issue anymore.”
    “I’m going to tell you a story,” Sophia said.
    I grew very still. I said, “Okay.”
    “Two weeks ago, I went to visit my mother. Well, I do that every week; she’s elderly and she lives alone. But this time she was in such a fretful mood; so fractious. I made her some tea, and she said, ‘This tea tastes moldy’ ‘Moldy?’ I said. ‘It’s a new box! How could it taste moldy?’ She said, ‘I don’t know, but it does.’ I said, ‘Very well, Mother.’ This was not fifteen minutes after I had got there, mind. I was still exhausted from my trip. But I said, ‘Very well, Mother,’ and I picked up my purse and went out to buy more tea bags. I was walking toward this little store nearby, but once I reached it, do you know what I did? I walked right past. I kept walking till I came to Thirtieth Street Station, and I hopped on a train and rode home. And all the way, I was thinking, Heavens, what have I done? Then something told me, This is what you were led to do; so it must be right. Well, my point is, that evening Mother telephoned, which she almost never does—she has that old-time attitude toward long distance—and she said, ‘Sophia, I apologize. I don’t know what got into me. All day I’ve been regretting my behavior, and I promise that when you come next week I will watch my p’s and q’s.’ And true to her word, when I went back up last Saturday she was an entirely different person.”
    I couldn’t figure out how this related to me. I said, “Well. That’s very interesting.”
    She must have sensed my disappointment, because she said, “You think I acted terrible, don’t you?”
    “No, no. Not at all.”
    “You’re shocked I would walk out on her like that.”
    “I’m not a bit shocked,” I told her. “I know all about these aged parents. The kind that want everything done for them, and the kind you can’t do a thing for, and the humble, self-denying kind, and the cranky, picky, dissatisfied kind … I must have seen every existing model. They’re who my company deals with, mostly.”
    “What company is that?” Sophia asked.
    “Rent-a-Back, it’s called. We go around to people’s houses, perform whatever chores they aren’t quite up to.”
    “Oh! What a valuable service!”
    “Well, we try,” I said. (I wanted to look as good as possible.) “How about you?”
    “I work in a bank. Equity loan department,” she said. And while I was adjusting to this, she gave a little laugh and said, “Nothing like as helpful as what your company does!”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “A loan can be extremely helpful.”
    She made a face, turning her mouth down. (She had no idea.) “And can people just telephone and you send somebody over?” she asked. “Or do they have to be on a schedule of some kind?”
    “Either way. We offer both arrangements,” I told her.
    “Would a client be able to get her groceries carried in? Her garbage taken out to the alley? Little humdrum things like that?”
    “Oh, the humdrum is our specialty,” I told her. Then it dawned on me that she might have her mother in mind; so I added, “We operate just in Baltimore, though.”
    “I was