Free Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler Page A

Ira! You remember Sissy. She played at Se-rena's wedding." "Oh, yes." "Where you and I sang 'Love Is a Many Splendored Thing,' " Maggie said.
"How could I forget that," he said.
"Which Serena wants us to sing again today." Ira didn't even change expression. He said, "Too bad we can't oblige her." "Sugar Tilghman won't sing, either, and Serena's giving her fits. I don't think she'll let us out of this, Ira." "Sugar Tilghman's here?" Ira said. He turned and looked over his shoulder.
Boys had always been fascinated by Sugar.
"She's sitting back there in the hat," Maggie told him. , "Did Sugar sing at their wedding?" "She sang 'Born to Be with You.' " Ira faced forward again and thought a moment. He must have been reviewing the lyrics. Eventually, he gave a little snort.
Maggie said, "Do you recall the words to 'Love Is a Many Splendored Thing'?" "No, and I don't intend to," Ira said.
A man paused in the aisle next to Maggie. He said, "How you doing, Morans?" "Oh, Durwood," Maggie said. She told Ira, "Move over and let Durwood have a seat." "Durwood. Hi, there," Ira said. He slid down a foot.
"If I'd known you were coming too, I'd have hitched a ride," Durwood said, settling next to Maggie. "Peg had to take the bus to work." "Oh, I'm sorry, we should have thought," Maggie said. "Serena must have phoned everyone in Baltimore." "Yes, I noticed old Sugar back there," Durwood said. He slipped a ballpoint pen from his breast pocket. He was a rumpled, quiet man, with wavy gray hair that he wore just a little too long. It trailed thinly over the tops of his ears and lay in wisps on the back of his collar, giving him the look of someone down on his luck. In high school Maggie had not much liked him, but over the years he'd stayed on in the neighborhood and married a Glen Burnie girl and raised a family, and now she saw more of him than anyone else she'd grown up with. Wasn't it funny how that happened, she thought. She couldn't remember now why they hadn't been close to begin with.
Durwood was patting all his pockets, hunting something. "You wouldn't have a piece of paper, would you?" he said.
All she found was her shampoo coupon. She gave him that and he laid it on a hymnbook. Clicking his pen point, he frowned into space. "What are you writing?" Maggie asked.
"I'm trying to think of the words to 'I Want You, I Need You, I Love You.' " Ira groaned.
The church was filling now. A family settled in the pew just in front of theirs, the children arranged by height so that the line of round blond heads slanted upward like a question. Serena flitted from guest to guest, no doubt pleading and cajoling. The fringes of her shawl had gathered a row of dust mice from somewhere. "My Prayer" played over and over, turning dogged.
Now that she knew how many people from her past were sitting here, Maggie wished she'd given more thought to her appearance. She could have worn powder, for instance, or foundation of some kind-something to make her face less rosy. Maybe she'd have tried painting brown hollows on her cheeks, the way the magazines were always recommending. Also she'd have chosen a younger dress, an eye-catching dress like Serena's. Except that she didn't own such a dress. Serena had always been more flamboyant-the only girl in their school with pierced ears. She had teetered on the edge of downright gaudy, but had somehow brought it off.
How gloriously Serena had defied the stodgy times they'd grown up in! In third grade she'd worn ballet-style shoes, paper-thin, with a stunning spray of sequins across each toe, and the other girls (in their sensible brown tie oxfords and thick wool knee socks) had bitterly envied the tripping way she walked and the dancer-like grace of her bare legs, which came out in goose bumps and purple splotches at every recess period. She had brought adventurous lunches to the stewy-smelling cafeteria: one time, tiny silver sardines still in their flat silver tin. (She ate the tails. She ate the little