Away From Her by Alice Munro Page B

expensive, as if they had just been taken out of their wrappings, or were polished daily.
    He thought it might be a good idea to admire things. He admired the coffeemaker she was using and said that he and Fiona had always meant to get one. This was absolutely untrue—Fiona had been devoted to a European contraption that made only two cups at a time.
    “They gave us that,” she said. “Our son and his wife. They live in Kamloops. B.C. They send us more stuff than we can handle. It wouldn’t hurt if they would spend the money to come and see us instead.”
    Grant said philosophically, “I suppose they’re busy with their own lives.”
    “They weren’t too busy to go to Hawaii last winter. You could understand it if we had somebody else in the family, closer at hand. But he’s the only one.”
    The coffee being ready, she poured it into two brown-and-green ceramic mugs that she took from the amputated branches of a ceramic tree trunk that sat on the table.
    “People do get lonely,” Grant said. He thought he saw his chance now. “If they’re deprived of seeing somebody they care about, they do feel sad. Fiona, for instance. My wife.”
    “I thought you said you went and visited her.”
    “I do,” he said. “That’s not it.”
    Then he took the plunge, going on to make the request he’d come to make. Could she consider taking Aubrey back to Meadowlake maybe just one day a week, for a visit? It was only a drive of a few miles, surely it wouldn’t prove too difficult. Or if she’d like to take the time off—Grant hadn’t thought of this before and was rather dismayed to hear himself suggest it—then he himself could take Aubrey out there, he wouldn’t mind at all. He was sure he could manage it. And she could use a break.
    While he talked she moved her closed lips and her hidden tongue as if she was trying to identify some dubious flavor. She brought milk for his coffee, and a plate of ginger cookies.
    “Homemade,” she said as she set the plate down. There was challenge rather than hospitality in her tone. She said nothing more until she had sat down, poured milk into her coffee and stirred it.
    Then she said no.
    “No. I can’t do that. And the reason is, I’m not going to upset him.”
    “Would it upset him?” Grant said earnestly.
    “Yes, it would. It would. That’s no way to do. Bringing him home and taking him back. Bringing him home and taking him back, that’s just confusing him.”
    “But wouldn’t he understand that it was just a visit? Wouldn’t he get into the pattern of it?”
    “He understands everything all right.” She said this as if he had offered an insult to Aubrey. “But it’s still an interruption. And then I’ve got to get him all ready and get him into the car, and he’s a big man, he’s not so easy to manage as you might think. I’ve got to maneuver him into the car and pack his chair along and all that and what for? If I go to all that trouble I’d prefer to take him someplace that was more fun.”
    “But even if I agreed to do it?” Grant said, keeping his tone hopeful and reasonable. “It’s true, you shouldn’t have the trouble.”
    “You couldn’t,” she said flatly. “You don’t knowhim. You couldn’t handle him. He wouldn’t stand for you doing for him. All that bother and what would he get out of it?”
    Grant didn’t think he should mention Fiona again.
    “It’d make more sense to take him to the mall,” she said. “Where he could see kids and whatnot. If it didn’t make him sore about his own two grandsons he never gets to see. Or now the lake boats are starting to run again, he might get a charge out of going and watching that.”
    She got up and fetched her cigarettes and lighter from the window above the sink.
    “You smoke?” she said.
    He said no thanks, though he didn’t know if a cigarette was being offered.
    “Did you never? Or did you quit?”
    “Quit,” he said.
    “How long ago was that?”
    He thought about