Free Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler Page B

idea had crossed his mind once or twice, just as a theoretical possibility. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
    he asked her.
    “Your pants are losing a belt loop and that shirt is so old it’s transparent.”
    He had hoped nobody would notice.
    Julia herself was, as always, impeccably put together. She wore what she must have worn to work that day: a tailored navy suit and matching pumps. It was obvious she and Liam were related—she had Liam’s stick-straight gray hair and brown eyes, and she was short like him although, of course, smaller boned—but she’d never allowed herself to put on so much as an extra ounce, and her face was still crisply defined while Liam’s had grown a bit pudgy. Also, she had a much more definite way of speaking. (This may have been due to her profession.
    She was a lawyer.) She said, for instance, “I’m going to stay and eat with you. I trust you have no plans,” and something in her tone suggested that if he did have plans, he would naturally be canceling them.
    She marched on into the kitchen, where she set the pot on the stove and slid a canvas grocery bag from her shoulder. “Where do you keep your silverware?” she asked.
    “Oh, um …”
    Just then Kitty sauntered down the hallway from the bedroom, clearly summoned by the sound of their voices. “Aunt Julia!” she said.
    “Hello, there, Kitty. I’ve brought your dad some beef stew.”
    “But he doesn’t eat red meat.”
    “He can just pluck the meat out, then,” Julia said briskly. She was pulling drawers open; in the third, she found the silverware. “Will you be joining us?”
    “Well, sure, I guess so,” Kitty said, although earlier she’d told Liam not to count on her for supper. (All three of his daughters seemed drawn to Julia’s company, perhaps because she made herself so scarce.)
    Kitty was wearing one of those outfits that showed her abdomen, and in her navel she had somehow affixed a little round mirror the size of a dime. From where Liam stood, it looked as if she had a hole in her stomach. It was the oddest effect. He kept glancing at it and blinking, but Julia seemed impervious. “Here,” she said, handing Kitty a fistful of silver. “Set the table, will you.” No doubt she saw all sorts of get-ups in family court. She slapped a baguette on a cutting board and went back to searching through drawers, presumably hunting a bread knife, although Liam could have told her she wouldn’t find one. She settled on a serrated fruit knife.
    “Now, I trust you’re researching burglar alarms,” she told Liam.
    “No, not really,” he said.
    “This is important, Liam. If you insist on living in unsafe surroundings, you should at least take steps to protect yourself.”
    “The thing of it is, I don’t think this place is unsafe,” Liam told her. “I think what happened was just a fluke. If I hadn’t left the patio door unlocked, and if some drugged-up guy hadn’t come fumbling around on the off chance he could get in somewhere … But at least I seem to have neighbors who will call the police, you notice.”
    He had met the neighbors that morning—a portly, middle-aged couple heading out to their car just as he was dropping a bag of garbage into the bin. “How’s your head?” the husband had asked him. “We’re the Hunstlers. The folks who phoned 911.”
    Liam said, “Oh. Glad to meet you.” He had to force himself to proceed through the proper steps—thank them for their help, give a report on his injuries—before he could ask, “Why did you phone, exactly? I mean, what was it that you heard? Did you hear me say any words?”
    “Words, well, no,” the husband said. “Just, like, more of a shout. Just a shout like ‘Aah!’ or ‘Wha?’ and Deb says, ‘What was that?’ and I look out our bedroom window and see this guy running away. Kind of a darker shape in the dark, was all I could make out. Afraid I wouldn’t be much of a witness if it ever came to trial.”
    “I