Noah's Compass

  “I get a notebook all my own!” Liam said in a jokey voice.

  “What?”

  “A notebook like Mr. Cope’s.”

  She looked at the steno pad and then at Liam. “No, well, Mr. Cope’s is more of a binder,” she said.

  “Yes, I realize that, but … I was thinking how nice it would be if you were to keep my memories.”

  “Oh!” she said. She flushed a deep pink and let her pen fall to the floor. Bending down to retrieve it turned her even pinker.

  It was possible, Liam thought, that Kitty had been right: Eunice harbored some personal feeling for him. On the other hand, maybe she just reacted this way to life in general.

  Kitty chose that moment to emerge from the den. She held her cell phone out at arm’s length. “Mom wants to talk to you,” she told him. She walked over to him and handed him the phone.

  Liam spent a second trying to figure out how such a tiny object could make contact with both his ear and his mouth at the same time. He gave up, finally, and pressed it to his ear. “Hello?” he said.

  Barbara said, “Kitty tells me she wants to stay with you all summer.”

  “She does?”

  “Have the two of you not discussed this?”

  “No.”

  Kitty suddenly fell to the floor, surprising him so that he nearly dropped the phone. Kneeling in front of him, she pressed her hands together like someone praying and mouthed a silent Please please please please.

  “I won’t deny that I could use a little help, here,” Barbara said. “But I still have a lot of reservations. If we do this, I need to be sure you’ll set some limits.”

  Liam said, “Wait, I—”

  “First you’ll have to promise me she’ll be home by ten on weeknights. Twelve on Fridays and Saturdays. And she is absolutely not allowed one moment alone in the apartment with Damian or any other boy. Is that clear? I’ve no desire to end up with a pregnant seventeen-year-old.”

  “Pregnant!” Liam said.

  Kitty lowered her hands and gaped at him. Eunice’s eyes grew very wide behind her glasses.

  “No, of course not,” he said hastily. “I’m sure she wouldn’t want that either. Merciful heavens!”

  “You act as if it’s an impossibility, but believe me, these things happen,” Barbara told him.

  “I’m aware of that,” Liam said.

  “Okay, Liam. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “But—”

  “If she wants to come by for her clothes, I’ll be here till late afternoon. Put her on, will you?”

  Wordlessly, Liam handed the phone to Kitty. She sprang to her feet and walked off with it, saying, “What. Yes, I hear you. I’m not a total dummy.”

  The den door shut behind her. Liam looked at Eunice.

  “Seems all at once I have a long-term visitor,” he said.

  “She’s going to live here?”

  “For the summer.”

  “Well, isn’t it nice that she wants to!” Eunice said.

  “It’s more a case of her not wanting to live with her mother, I believe.”

  “Is her mother a difficult person?” Eunice asked.

  “No, not particularly.”

  “Then why did you two divorce?”

  This was beginning to feel like a date, somehow. It might have had to do with the way Eunice leaned forward to ask her questions—so attentive, so receptive. But Liam wasn’t sure now that he wanted a date. (At the moment, her head of curls reminded him of a Shirley Temple doll.)

  He said, “The divorce was Barbara’s idea, not mine. I don’t even believe in divorce; I’ve always felt marriages are meant to be permanent. If it were up to me, we’d still be together.”

  “What was she unhappy about?” Eunice asked.

  “Oh,” he said, “I guess she felt I wasn’t, um, forthcoming.”

  Eunice went on looking at him expectantly.

  He turned his palms up. What more could he say?

  “But you’re forthcoming with me,” she said.

  “I am?”

  “And you listen so well! You asked all about my job; you want to know every detail of how I spend my days … Men don’t usually do that.”

  “I didn’t do it with Barbara, though,” Liam said. “She was right. I told her that. I said, ‘It’s true, I’m not forthcoming at all.’ ”

  This made Eunice blush again, for some reason. She said, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  He was still trying to figure out why it should be a compliment when she said, “Maybe your marriage was troubled because of your loss.”

  “What did I lose?”

  “Didn’t you say your first wife had died?”

  “Oh, yes. But that was a long time before.” He slapped his thighs and stood up. “Let me top off your coffee!” he said.

  “No, thanks, I’m okay.”

  He sat down again. He said, “Should we be getting on with my résumé?”

  “All right,” she said. “Fine.” She clicked her pen point. “First, your places of employment.”

  “Employment. Well. From nineteen seventy-five to nineteen eighty-two, I taught ancient history at the Fremont School.”

  “The Fremont School? Gosh,” Eunice said.

  “That was my first job.”

  “Well, but you’re supposed to start with your last job,” she told him, “and work your way back.”

  “You’re right. Okay: eighty-two till this past spring, I taught at St. Dyfrig.”

  She wrote it down without comment.

  “I taught fifth grade from ninety … four? No, three. From ninety-three on, and before that, American history.”

  He liked this business of proceeding in reverse order. It meant he was listing progressively higher positions instead of lower. (In his opinion, history was definitely higher than fifth grade, and ancient history higher than American.) Eunice took notes in silence. When he stopped speaking, she looked up and said, “Any honors or awards?”

  “Miles Elliott Prize in Philosophy, nineteen sixty-nine.”

  “You were employed in sixty-nine?”

  “I was in college.”

  “Oh. College.”

  “Philosophy was my major,” he said. “Pretty silly, right? Who do you know who’s majored in philosophy and actually works as a philosopher?”

  “How about your professional life? Any awards there?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s pass on to your education.” She flipped a page of the steno pad. “I have this software program that produces résumés,” she told him. “All I have to do is plug in the facts and the program does the rest. My parents gave it to me for Christmas one year. Is your computer Windows or Macintosh?”

  “I don’t have a computer,” he said.

  “You don’t have a computer. Okay. I’d better write your letter of inquiry, too,” she said, and she made another note.

  Liam said, “Eunice. Do you really think we should go on with this?”

  “What? Why not?”

  “I don’t have any business experience. I’m a teacher! I don’t even know what they’re looking for.”

  Eunice seemed about to offer an argument, but just then Kitty came out of the den. She was wearing shorts now and a T-shirt that advertised Absolut vodka. “Poppy,” she said, “can I borrow your car?”

  “My car! What for?”

  “I need to get some more of my clothes.”

  Liam wasn’t used to lending out his car. He knew it wasn’t much of a car, but it was sort of attuned to his ways, he felt. Also, he had a suspicion that there was some kind of insurance complication with teenage drivers.

  “Why don’t I take you over myself later this afternoon,” he said.

  “I won’t keep it long! I’ll have it back before you even miss it.”

  “Just wait till we’re finished here and I’ll drive you.”

  “Geez,” Kitty said, and she threw herself into the other armchair. She sat practically on t
he back of her neck, with her long bare legs stretched out in front of her, and sent him a fierce glare.

  “Eunice and I were just discussing my employment,” Liam told her.

  Kitty went on glaring.

  “Eunice thinks I ought to apply at Cope Development, but I was telling her I don’t know what I could do there.”

  “What’s Cope Development,” Kitty said without a question mark.

  “It’s a place that develops new properties.”

  “He would be terrible at that,” Kitty told Eunice.

  Eunice made a sound between a gasp and a giggle.

  “I’m serious,” Kitty said. “He’s not a good businessman.”

  “How would you know what kind of businessman I am?” Liam asked her. Then he realized that he was undermining his own argument, so he turned back to Eunice and said, “But just in terms of where I’d be comfortable, I don’t believe Cope’s the right fit. I’m sorry, Eunice.”

  Eunice said, “Oh.”

  She looked down at what she’d written. Then she clicked her pen shut. Finally, it seemed, she had heard what he was saying. “I understand,” she said gently.

  “I’m sorry I put you to so much trouble.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. You’ve been telling me this all along, haven’t you? I guess I’ve been kind of pushy.”

  “No, no. Certainly not! You’ve been wonderful,” he said. “I really appreciate your help.” He told Kitty, “She’s been helping with my résumé. She’s got this computer program that …”

  Kitty was watching him with mild, detached curiosity. Eunice was still gazing down at her steno pad. Her lowered lids gave her a meek and chastened look; all her enthusiasm had left her.

  All his had left, too—all his sense of something new in the air, something about to happen.

  He said, “But couldn’t we go on keeping the notebook anyhow?”

  She raised her eyes and said, “Pardon?”

  “I mean …” he said, and he cleared his throat. “Couldn’t we go on keeping in touch?”

  “Oh! Of course we could!” she said. “Certainly we could! No matter where you apply you’ll need a résumé, right?”

  This wasn’t what he had meant, but he said, “Right.”

  He pretended not to hear Kitty’s snort of amusement.

  7

  Early on the fifth of July, Louise phoned and asked Liam if he would babysit. “I know it’s short notice,” she said, “but my regular sitter has called in sick and I’ve got a doctor’s appointment just around the corner from you. I could drop Jonah off at your place on the way.”

  “You mean, all by himself?” Liam asked.

  “Why, yes.”

  “But I don’t have any toys here. I have nothing to amuse him with.”

  “We’ll bring some with us. Please? Ordinarily I would cancel, but this appointment means a lot to me.”

  Liam supposed, from her phrasing, that it might be an obstetrician’s appointment. He didn’t want to seem nosy, though, so all he said was, “Well, okay, I guess.”

  “Thanks, Dad. I appreciate this.”

  He wondered why she hadn’t asked Barbara, who could pretty much arrange her own schedule in the summertime. Or why she didn’t just take Jonah along with her to the doctor’s office. Surely that was allowed, wasn’t it? Too bad Kitty had already left for work. He really had no idea what to do with a four-year-old.

  They showed up at his door half an hour later—Louise out of breath and rushed-looking, wearing dressier clothes than usual and even a bit of lipstick. Jonah had on a T-shirt and what appeared to be swim trunks, orange Hawaiian-print nylon billowing around his toothpick shins. A knapsack almost bigger than he was loomed on his back. It was obvious from his expression that he would rather be somewhere else. He gazed up at Liam unsmilingly, his eyebrows two worried quirks. “Hi, there,” Liam told him.

  Jonah didn’t answer.

  Louise said, “I should be back in an hour or so. There’s a snack in Jonah’s bag if he gets hungry.” She planted a kiss on top of Jonah’s head and said, “Bye, sweetheart. Be a good boy.”

  When the door had slammed shut behind her, there was an uneasy silence.

  “So,” Liam said finally. He frowned down at Jonah.

  Jonah frowned back at him.

  “Where’s your grandmother?” Liam asked.

  Jonah said, “Who?”

  “Your Grandma Barbara. Is she working?”

  Jonah shrugged. It was an artificial-looking shrug—his sharp little shoulders hitching themselves too high and then staying there too long, as if he had not quite perfected the technique.

  “Hard to believe she would have a date so early in the day,” Liam mused.

  Jonah said, “Deirdre is in deep, deep trouble.”

  “Who’s Deirdre?”

  “My sitter. We bet anything she’s not sick. We bet she’s off with her boyfriend someplace. Her boyfriend’s named Chicken Little.”

  “He’s what?”

  “Sometimes she brings him to my house to visit. Me and him play soccer together out in the backyard.”

  “Is that a fact,” Liam said.

  “Deirdre wears a jewel in her nose, and she’s got a chain around her wrist that’s really a tattoo.”

  “This Deirdre sounds like quite a gal,” Liam said.

  “Me and her are going to the State Fair in the fall.”

  Was Liam supposed to be correcting Jonah’s grammatical errors? It seemed irresponsible just to let them slide past. On the other hand, he didn’t want to discourage this sudden chattiness.

  “Let’s see what’s in your knapsack,” he said. “I hope you brought something to keep busy with.”

  “I’ve got my Bible-stories coloring book.”

  “Ah.”

  “And my crayons.”

  “Well, let’s see them.”

  Jonah struggled out of his knapsack and laid it on the rug. Unzipping it took some doing—everything seemed to be such hard work, at this age—but eventually he brought forth a box of apple juice, a plastic bag of carrot sticks, a pack of crayons, and a coloring book entitled Bible Tales for Tots. “I just finished Abraham,” he told Liam.

  “Abraham!”

  Wasn’t that the man who’d been willing to slaughter his own son?

  “Now I think I’ll do Joseph,” Jonah said. He started flipping through the coloring book.

  “Could I see Abraham?” Liam asked him.

  Jonah raised his head and gave him a level stare, as if he didn’t quite trust Liam’s motives.

  “Just a peek?” Liam said.

  Jonah turned back several pages to show a picture that had been covered over with jagged swaths of purple, nowhere near inside the lines. From what Liam could make out, it was a benign illustration of a man and a boy walking up a hill. Abraham obeys God’s command to deliver Isaac, the caption read.

  “Thanks,” Liam said. “Very nice.”

  Jonah resumed flipping pages, settling finally on one that read Joseph had a coat of many colors. The coat was a sort of bathrobe affair with wide vertical stripes.

  “Do they have your story? Jonah and the whale?” Liam asked.

  Jonah gave another of his effortful shrugs and dumped the pack of crayons out on the carpet. All of them seemed untouched except for the purple, which was worn down to a nubbin. “You’re supposed to tell about Joseph while I’m coloring,” he said.

  “Who, me?”

  Jonah nodded vigorously. He selected the purple crayon and started making wild horizontal marks across the coat. There was an extremely high probability that the purple would stray onto the carpet, but Liam was so relieved to have Jonah occupied that he didn’t intervene. He sat down in an armchair and said, “Okay. Joseph.”

  Strange how unconnected he felt to this child. Not that he had anything against him; certainly he wished him well. And it was true there was something fetching about those fragile little ears, and those tiny bare feet in laughably small flip-flops.
(The universal appeal of the miniature! Obviously it must serve to perpetuate the species.) But the fact that they were related by blood seemed too much to comprehend. Did other grandparents feel this way? Or maybe it was just that Jonah was growing up in such a different world, with his fundamentalist parents and his Bible Tales for Tots.

  Liam couldn’t for the life of him remember the point of the Joseph story.

  Still, he did his best. “Joseph,” he said, “had a coat of many colors that was a present from his father, and this made his brothers jealous.”

  He wondered if the word jealous would be familiar to a four-year-old. It seemed doubtful. He tried to guess from Jonah’s expression, but Jonah was busily working away, his lower lip caught between his teeth.

  “Joseph’s brothers were upset,” Liam clarified, “because they didn’t have any coats of many colors themselves.”

  “Maybe Joseph could let them borrow his sometimes,” Jonah said.

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you.”

  “Did he?” Jonah persisted.

  “Well, no, I don’t believe he did.”

  Jonah shook his head and paused to peel more paper off his crayon. “That wasn’t very sharing of him,” he told Liam.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Liam said. “You’re right. And also—” He was sneaking a look now at the caption on the facing page. “Also, he told his brothers about a dream he’d had where all of them were forced to bow down in front of him.”

  Jonah made a clucking sound of disapproval.

  He was coloring Joseph’s hair now (another splash of purple), and he seemed engrossed enough that Liam felt he could rise and go off to the kitchen to pour himself a mug of coffee. By the time he returned, Jonah had skipped ahead to Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. Aha. “So Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery,” Liam said, settling into his chair again, “and then they went home and told their father he’d been killed.”

  They had soaked Joseph’s coat in an animal’s blood to back up their claim, Liam seemed to recall. What a waste of the beautiful coat! he had thought as a child. Now it was no use to anyone! Evidently these things hung on in the memory longer than he would have supposed. He hadn’t considered that story in decades. His mother had been quite religious (or, at least, she had turned to her church for support after his father left them), but Liam himself had dropped out of Sunday school as soon as he was old enough to be allowed to stay home on his own.