Read Online Object lessons by Anna Quindlen - Free Book Online

sapphire-and-diamond earrings. She remembered when she was a little girl thinking that she could see through the blue of her grandfather’s eyes into his head, see wheels and cogs and clicking things, like the inside of a watch. She could almost hear the clicking now.
    “But you two won’t have to worry about all that,” John said, pulling something from his pants pocket, tossing it with a grin into Connie’s lap, where it made a little metallic sound as it hit her engagement and wedding rings. Maggie turned to her father, but he was looking down at the piano keys. The room was very still.
    “Congratulations,” Mary Frances said brightly, but still Connie had not lifted her hands from her lap. Joseph murmured softly in his sleep and turned to tuck his head into his mother’s side. Finally James said, “Those look like keys to me.”
    “Oh, brilliant,” John said under his breath, and aloud he said, “And the door they open is oak, four inches thick with a mullioned window in it, and the rooms inside, none of them are smaller than twenty by fifteen, not even the kitchen. Six bedrooms, four baths, a fireplace you could stand in in the living room. The prettiest azaleas on the block.”
    “Remember the Ryans, Tom?” Mary Frances said brightly. “They’ve moved to Florida. Only three houses down from us. Maggie could walk up the hill to have Saturday lunch with your father.”
    “We could never afford that house, Mother,” Tommy said quietly, and Maggie looked down at her patent-leather shoes, luminous in the half light.
    “Bought and paid for,” John Scanlan said. “Bought and paid for.” Connie raised her head, and Maggie thought her mother’s hair looked like patent leather, too, and Connie’s voice sounded soft and warm.
    “What took you so long?” she said, and she stared right into John Scanlan’s eyes, and the room was quiet. Maggie saw her grandfather look right back at Connie, as though there were only the two of them in the room, as though he loved her. “Ah, little girl,” he said, “I have the gift of perfect timing.”
    “We’re not moving, Pop,” Tommy said, but his father did not look at him.
    “We’ll discuss it another time,” John said, but he still looked deep into Connie’s eyes, and he still smiled.
    “No,” she said, but no one seemed to hear her. Suddenly, as though of one accord, the various Scanlans by birth and by marriage rose and began to gather up their handbags and call to their children. It was as though they had come for something and now it was accomplished. Only Connie remained sitting, staring over at her husband on the piano stool.
    “Tom, bring the glasses into the kitchen,” Mary Frances said as she walked into the hallway, and Tommy stood up and lifted the tray, his wife watching him silently.
    Maggie could hear the sounds of departure and cleaning up as she went upstairs to the bathroom. She heard the front door slam and knew her parents would be waiting for her out in the car, not speaking, the boys bouncing in the back seat.
    Monica was in the bedroom at the top of the stairs, looking carefully at her face in one of the mirrors. The room had two single beds with pink spreads, two dressing tables with pink-and-white ruffled skirts, two bureaus, two bride dolls. It was always called the girls’ room, but only Maggie’s aunt Margaret had ever used it. The other girl was Elizabeth Ann, the Scanlan baby who had died at birth. Sometimes Mary Frances would come up to this room and sit on the bed that was never used, the better one, the one by the window, and she would stare out over the big lawn and the shrubbery like a person struck blind, holding a pillow to her chest. And if Maggie came upon her on those occasions she would beckon her to the bed, and stroke her hair until Maggie’s head started to feel numb and her shoulders to cramp. All the time Mary Frances looked far, far away, staring without seeing a thing.
    It was just like Monica, Maggie