Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler

a little trouble with my memory,” he said finally.
    He was hoping they might get into a discussion about it, but instead she said, “I guess it was pretty creepy staying in the apartment last night.”
    “Not at all,” he said. “Kitty was a bit nervous, though. I had to give her the bedroom.”
    This reminded him; he said, “I believe I owe you some money for the rug shampooer.”
    “Don’t worry about that,” Louise said.
    “No, I insist,” he said. “How much was it?”
    “You can pay me back when you get a job,” she told him.
    “A job. Well …”
    “Have you filled out any applications yet?”
    “I’m not sure I even want to,” he said. “It’s possible I’ll retire.”
    “Retire! You’re sixty years old!”
    “Exactly.”
    “What would you do with yourself?”
    “Why, there’s plenty I could do,” he said. “I could read, I could think … I’m not a man without resources, you know.”
    “You’re going to sit all day and just think?”
    “Or also … I have options! I have lots of possibilities. In fact,” he said spontaneously, “I might become a zayda.”
    “A what?”
    “It’s an adjunct position at a preschool out on Reisters-town Road,” he said. He was proud of himself for coming up with this; he hadn’t thought of it in weeks. “One of the parents at St.
    Dyfrig mentioned there was an opening. They use senior citizens as, so to speak, grandparent figures in the younger children’s classrooms. Zayda is the Jewish word for grandfather.”
    “You aren’t Jewish, though.”
    “No, but the preschool is.”
    “And you aren’t a senior citizen, either. Besides, this sounds to me like a volunteer position. Are you sure it’s not volunteer?”
    “No, no, I would be paid.”
    “How much?”
    “Oh …” he said. Then he said, “What is it with you girls? All of a sudden you seem to think you have a right to pry into my finances.”
    “For good reason,” Louise told him. She slowed for a light. She said, “And don’t even get me started on the obvious irony, here.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Grandfather!” she said. “You, of all people!”
    He raised his eyebrows.
    “Do you even like small children?” she asked.
    “Of course I like them!”
    “Huh,” she said.
    Liam turned once more to look at Jonah. Jonah sent back a milky blue gaze that gave no indication what he was thinking.
    They entered the city limits and traveled through Liam’s old neighborhood—dignified, elderly buildings grouped around the Hopkins campus. Liam felt a pang of homesickness. Resolutely, he steered his thoughts toward the new place: its purity, its stripped-down angularity.
    Louise (a mind reader, like both of her sisters) said, “You could always move back.”
    “Move back! Why would I want to do that?”
    “I doubt your old apartment’s been rented yet, has it?”
    “I’m very content where I am,” he said. “I have a refrigerator now that dispenses water through the door.”
    Louise just flicked her turn signal on. Behind her, Jonah started singing his ABCs in a thin, flat, tuneless voice. Liam turned to flash what he hoped was an appreciative smile, but Jonah was looking out his side window and didn’t notice.
    Imagine naming a child Jonah. That was surely Dougall’s doing—Louise’s husband. Dougall was some kind of fundamentalist Christian. He and Louise had dated all through high school and married right after graduation, over everyone’s objections, and then Dougall went into his family’s plumbing business while Louise, a straight-A student, abandoned any thought of college and gave birth in short order to Jonah. “Why Jonah?” Liam had asked. “What’s next: Judas? Herod? Cain?” Louise had looked puzzled. “I mean, Jonah’s was not a very happy story, was it?” Liam asked.
    All Louise said was, “I do know someone named Cain, in fact.”
    “Does he happen to have a brother?” Liam asked.
    “Not that I ever heard of.”
    “Inn-teresting,” Liam