Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler Page A

said.
    “Hmm?”
    Joining the Book of Life Tabernacle had done nothing for her sense of humor.
    Dr. Morrow’s office turned out to be just below Fender Street, in an ornate old building squeezed between a dry cleaner’s and a pawnshop. Parking, of course, was impossible.
    Louise said, “You hop on out and I’ll find a space around the block.” Liam didn’t argue. According to his watch, it was 9:10. He wondered if Dr. Morrow would restrict him to a mere five minutes.
    The lobby had a high, sculptured ceiling and a marble floor gridded with seams of brass.
    An actual person—an ancient black man in full uniform—operated the elevator, sitting on a wooden stool and sliding the accordion door shut with a white-gloved hand. Liam was amazed. When the only other passenger, a woman in a silk dress, said, “Three, please,” he felt he had been transported back to his childhood, to one of the old downtown department stores where his mother could spend hours fingering bolts of fabric. “Sir?” the operator asked him.
    “Oh. Four, please,” Liam said.
    Four was jarringly modern, carpeted wall to wall in businesslike gray and lined overhead with acoustical tiles. A disappointment, but also a relief. (You wouldn’t want your neurologist to be too old-fashioned.)
    An entire column of doctors’ names marched down the plate-glass door of Suite 401, beneath larger lettering that read ST. PAUL NEUROLOGY ASSOCIATES. Even at this early hour, there were quite a few patients in the waiting room. They sat on molded plastic chairs under the bank of receptionists’ windows—a separate window for each doctor. Dr. Morrow’s receptionist had dyed black hair that made her look less cozy than she had sounded on the phone. The minute Liam gave her his name, she handed him a clipboard with a form to fill out. “I’ll need to make a copy of your insurance card, too, and your driver’s license,” she said.
    Liam had been sincere when he told Dr. Morrow he intended to pay, but somehow he still felt taken aback by the woman’s crass commercialism.
    The other patients were in terrible shape. Good Lord, neurology was a distressing spe-cialty! One man shook so violently that his cane kept falling to the floor. A woman held an oversized child who seemed boneless. Another woman kept wiping her blank-faced husband’s mouth with a tissue. Oh, Liam should not be here. He had no business frittering away the doctor’s time on such a trivial complaint. But even so, he continued printing out his new address in large, distinct block letters.
    Louise and Jonah came in and settled across from him, although there were seats free on either side of him. Nobody would have guessed they had anything to do with him. They didn’t look his way, and Louise immediately started searching through the magazines on the table to her left. Eventually she came up with a children’s magazine. “Look!” she told Jonah. “Baby rabbits! You love baby rabbits!” Jonah clutched his teddy bear tightly and followed her pointing finger.
    To be honest, Liam thought, the Pennywells were a rather homely family. (Himself included.) Louise’s hair was too short and her face too angular. She had on boxy red pedal pushers, not a flattering style for anyone, and flip-flops that showed her long white bony feet.
    Jonah was breathing through his mouth and he wore a slack, stunned expression as he gazed down at the page.
    In a low, clear voice just inches from Liam’s right ear, a woman said, “Verity.”
    Liam started and turned.
    This was someone young and plump and ringleted, wearing a voluminous Indian-print skirt and cloddish, handmade-looking sandals. One hand was linked through the arm of an old man in a suit.
    Liam said, “What?”
    But she had already passed him by. She and the old man—her father?—were approaching Dr. Morrow’s receptionist. When they reached the window, she dropped the old man’s arm and stepped back. The old man told the receptionist, “Why,