Redhead by the Side of the Road

by Anne Tyler

It was Micah’s personal theory that if you actually noticed the difference you made when you cleaned—the coffee table suddenly shiny, the rug suddenly lint-free—it meant you had waited too long to do it.

(People put their computers in the most outlandish locations. It was as if they didn’t quite grasp that they weren’t still writing with fountain pens.)

oh! Look at that!” She was staring at her computer screen, both hands clasped beneath her chin. “Amazon!” she said in a thrilled tone.

The fact was, he reflected as he was driving home, that even if she had paid him triple, this job barely supported him. On the other hand, it was work he liked, and at least he was his own boss. He wasn’t all that fond of people ordering him around.

How she didn’t own a single pair of shoes that weren’t stilettos and therefore the tendons in her heels or something had shortened so her toes were permanently pointed. If she walked barefoot to the bathroom at night she had to walk tippy-toe. He made it sound like that was an attractive quality, but all I could picture was a woman with sort of hooves, know what I mean?”

At night the lane markings on the streets were all but invisible, and just last week he had whacked a black spider that turned out to be a tangle of sewing thread. On the homeward stretch this morning, he made his usual mistake of imagining for a second that a certain fire hydrant, faded to the pinkish color of an aged clay flowerpot, was a child or a very short grown-up. There was something about the rounded top of it, emerging bit by bit as he descended a slope toward an intersection. Why! he always thought to himself. What was that little redhead doing by the side of the road?

Even though Brink was most definitely not his son, Micah had a sudden inkling of how it would feel if he did have a son—one who had turned out to be a disappointment. A dud.

I took off from work early and invited him to come grocery shopping. I was planning on the car effect. You know how kids who don’t talk to their parents will spill their souls out once they get in a moving vehicle. It’s like what’s said in a car doesn’t count.