Free The Tin Can Tree by Anne Tyler Page B

any more about it. Let’s just get it over with.”
    He sighed then and gave in, but with his shoulders squinched up and his neck drawn into itself as if he thought she might slip and cut his head off. His hair grew in layers, lapping downwards like hay on a haystack. When Joan cut too much from one of the sun-yellowed upper layers it sprang straight up, choppy and jagged-edged, and she quickly pressed it down again and shot a look at Simon to see if he had noticed. He hadn’t. He sat slumped on the stool, idly swinging one boot and gazing out the window. The only sound now was the steady snipping of scissors.
    Out in the back yard Joan could see her uncle—just his head and his crumpled blue shirt. He was tilting back on an old kitchen chair in the sunshine, with one hand resting absently on Nellie’s neck. That was the way he had been sitting all day. When Joan called himfor his meals he came in docilely and ate everything set before him, and then he went out back again. Twice he had gone upstairs to see his wife, but that had taken only a minute; he must have given up trying to talk to her. Even Joan had given up. When she went to her aunt’s bedroom, to where she was lying on her back with the covers pulled up around her, and asked her to come down for a bite to eat, her aunt only said, “No,” and closed her eyes. Saying that one word seemed to take all the strength she could muster; Joan didn’t dare argue with her. In the back of her mind she kept trying to think up little plots, planning ways to get her aunt interested in something, but she wasn’t the kind of person who could do that. The most she could do was try and take care of the house for a while, and feed Mr. Pike and Simon. Even that was hard; she had never learned how to keep house.
    The top part of Simon’s hair was cut now. She squinted at it, not sure if this was how it was supposed to be or not. It seemed a little homemade-looking. But then she shrugged and began on the shaggy part along the back of his neck. She could always even it up later on.
    Outside, Ansel called, “Is anybody home?” His voice was thin and wavered in the wind. Simon gave a sudden start and turned his head, so that Joan nearly gouged him in the neck. “Hold
still
, Simon,” she said, and Ansel called again, “Is anybody home?”
    “It’s him,” Simon said.
    “Who do you mean? It’s Ansel.”
    “I know. It’s him.”
    “Just stop wiggling,” said Joan. She raised her voice and called out, “We’re out here, Ansel.”
    “Out where?”
    “Out
here.
”
    “Well, is someone going to come and let me in?”
    “It’s not locked,” Joan said, and returned to her cutting. She didn’t like Ansel and had never pretended to; he could open his own doors. When he came ambling out to the kitchen, walking in that shuffling way of his and stooping to get through the doorway, she didn’t even turn around to look at him. “How are you,” she said, making it a statement.
    “Oh, not so bad, I guess.”
    “Turn a little to the left, Simon.”
    “Hey, Simon,” Ansel said.
    Simon frowned at his boots.
    “
Hey
, boy.”
    “He’s having his hair cut,” said Joan.
    “Ah, I see. That makes it impossible for him to speak.”
    “Will you have a seat?”
    “I might,” he said. He pulled out one of the chairs from the table and sat down, facing Joan and Simon. He was looking better than usual today. The yellowish pallor of his face had faded and he sat nearly erect, with his arms folded across his chest. When he saw Simon frowning at him he smiled his dippy smile and said, “What’s the matter with the barber, boy?”
    “What?”
    “Barber sick?”
    But Simon only shrugged and didn’t answer. Joan said, “I’m cutting his hair myself this time.”
    “I see that.”
    “I’m using the sewing scissors.”
    “I see.”
    That seemed to leave nothing more to be said. Joanhesitated a minute, with the scissors in mid air, and then she said, “Turn around,