‘I’d rather have a barking dog than a damaged, scared dog.’
‘You want a dog that bites all your friends and neighbors? A dog that hates the whole world? A mean, nasty, angry dog?’
She stepped neatly around Edward and opened the front door, then turned back to look into Macon’s face.
‘Why, yes, I guess you do,’ she said.
………………………………………………………….
Macon continued practicing with Edward every day ,and thought that Edward was slowly getting more obedient . His family was not so hopeful. ‘What about when you start traveling again?’ Rose asked. ‘You’re not leaving him with me.’
It was hard for Macon to imagine starting his travels again. Sometimes he wished he could stay in his plaster. In face, he wished it covered him from head to foot. People would knock on the plaster wall. ‘Macon? You in there?’ Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. No one would ever know.
One evening Julian stopped by with some paper for Macon’s New York trip. Rose offered him some coffee, which he accepted eagerly, much to Macon’s annoyance, who was sure Julian was hoping for some Leary oddities.
‘What do you do for a living, Charles?’ Julian asked, when they were all sitting down in the living room.
‘I make bottle caps.’
‘Bottle caps! Is that a fact! And Rose? Do you work?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Rose said, in her serious way. ‘I work at home; I keep house for the boys.’
The telephone rang. Since Macon’s return home, the Learys had got into the habit of not answering the phone, but there was a chance this was Potter, who had gone out to buy a hammer and who often got lose, even in his own neighborhood.
They discussed it urgently.
‘What do you think?’
‘But he knows we wouldn’t answer.’
‘Yes, he’d surely call a neighbor instead.’
‘On the other hand . . .’
It was Julian’s fascinated expression that decided Macon.
………………………………………………………………………
They agreed to meet for supper in the Old Bay Restaurant the next evening. Macon wore his gray suit coat and gray trousers with one leg neatly cut off at the top of the plaster. Rose had cut his hair, and Potter had lent him his best tie.
He was the first to arrive, and when Sarah came in, she greeted him in a cool, distant sort of way, like neighbors meeting at a drinks party. They sat down and ordered their food.
‘So, why are you living with your family?’ Sarah asked.
‘Well, because of my leg, I can’t manage the step at home.’
‘And what happened to your hand?’ she asked.
‘Um, Edward bit it,’ Macon said. ‘He’ getting kind of out pf control, to tell the truth.’ He told her about the trainer he had hired, and how cruel she had been when Edward tried to bite her.
‘Ridiculous,’ Sarah said. ‘He was only frightened; that’s why he attacked. There’s no point in making him ever more scared.’
Macon felt sudden rush of love.
Oh he’d had moments when he’d almost hated her, but the fact was, she was his oldest friend. She was part of his life. It was much too late to cut her out.
‘What Edward needs,’ she was saying, ‘is a sense of routine. ’
‘Sarah,’ he said, ‘it’s been awful living apart. Hasn’t it?’
Sarah looked at him. ‘I asked you hear for a reason, Macon.’
He could tell it was something he didn’t want to here.
‘I’ve been talking to a lawyer about our separation,’ she said.
Their food arrived, plates were put down, knives and forks arranged. Macon waved the waitress away.
‘I think you ought to come home,’ he said. ‘Can’t we try-’
‘I’m trying to make a new life for myself’ she said.
‘New direction, different . We didn’t have much left, did we? When you broke your leg, who did you call for help? Your sister Rose !’
‘If I called you, would you have come?’
‘Well…but you didn’t call me. You called your family, and that’s where you’re happiest, isn’t it? The kind of family that always fastens their seat-belts, that has to have a group discussion before they can decide whether to close the curtains. And the best house in the world might be for sale, but you can’t buy it because you’ve ordered a thousand address labels for the old house, and you have to use them up before you move. ’
‘That wasn’t me, it was Charles,’ Macon said.
‘Charles, you, it’s all the same.’ Her eyes were full of tears.
‘Macon, I know you loved Ethan, but you’re not so torn apart by his death as I am. You seem unfeeling, unchanged. ’
‘Sarah, I’m not unfeeling. I’m… just trying to survive.’
‘Survive, yes. Survive unchanged by any experience, just like those silly travel books you write. You’re empty, dried up, Macon, and nothing really touches you.’
She put her coat on, clumsily. ‘So anyway,’ she said. ‘You’ll get a letter from my lawyer.’
Then she stood up and walked out.