The lessons continued, as did the history of Muriel's marriage. She talked all the time, and sometimes Macon got the feeling that she used words as a sort of background music. But he couldn't help listening, and was quite shocked when he heard some of the unkind things that Norman's mother had said to Muriel.
'It was the baby that broke our marriage up,' Muriel said.
'Alexander was born early and spent months in the hospital, he was such a sick little baby. Norman wouldn't go near him and he didn't like me spending all my time at the hospital. In the end I took a cleaning job there, to help pay the medical bills, you should have seen them, thousands and thousands of dollar..'
She and Macon were walking along the road with Edward hoping to meet a biker. Edward was getting quite good a lying down and staying, but he still had to learn that he was not allowed to attack bikers.
'If he gives the smallest bark,'Muriel said, 'I'm going to pull his leash so hard he won't know what hit him. It's for his own good, and you've promised not to get upset, remember?'
'Yes, I'll try and remember,' Macon said
Soon a biker came past, a girl with a tiny, serious face. Edward put his head up and looked, but marched calmly on.
"Oh, Edward, that was wonderful," Macon told him. Muriel just clucked, as though she had expected Edward to behave himself.
'so anyhow,' she said. 'They finally let Alexander come home, and a few weeks later Norman just walked out. Packed his clothes and went back to his mother. I knew I couldn't go back my folks, so I just had to manage. I did all kinds of jobs sometimes two or three at a time, but it wasn't easy.'
She slowed and then came to a stop. Edward, with a deep sigh, sat down at her left heel. "Looking back, I almost missed the times in the hospital," she said. 'The nurses talking and those rows of little babies sleeping. It was winter and sometimes I'd stand at a window, feeling warm and safe, and look down at the emergency room entrance and watch the ambulances coming in. You ever wonder what a Martian would think if he landed near an emergency room? He'd see everybody running out to meet the ambulance, pulling the doors open, hurrying to get the patient inside. "What kind and helpful creatures these are," a Martian would say. Don't you think so?'
She looked up at Macon then. Macon felt something turn over inside him. He felt there was something he needed to do, some connection he wanted to make, and when she raised her face, he bent and kissed her lips, though that wasn't the connection he had intended. "Well.." he said.