Taft by Ann Patchett Page B

thrilled when I was playing myself and everything had come together just so. My boy thrilled me, even Marion, though I hated to admit that, back at the very first. The sight of her face had thrilled me.
    So when it happened with Fay, it was something I knew and I was grateful for it, even though it was probably nothing she'd intended. Even if it was all about something else, a father who was dead and a brother who was strung out and sleeping in doorways, and her hand had only touched my neck because they weren't there, I was pleased. It was a long time since I'd felt such a thing.
    I already knew plenty about the brother, and it didn't take much for me to imagine the dead father. He looked like Carl, not quite tall enough but a good face that balanced things out. He was better looking than his son. Age had made him better. Carl always had the jitters. His eyes darted around from place to place. In my mind, Taft had none of that. It was easy to see him. It was easy to see his house, because it was like every other working-class hillbilly house in east Tennessee. One had a carport instead of a garage. Another one had a box hedge under the picture window. But it was all the same house. Taft would look back at it when he went to the end of the short driveway in the morning to get the paper. He was proud. He would have said I was wrong. He would have pointed out all the ways his house was different. The shutters were green. They had that nice screen door with a cursive letter T shaped from bent metal in the lower half. But the key to the difference was that his house contained his family, his children. He prided himself on being the sort of man who knew exactly what a good thing he had. He was in love with Carl and Fay. Every day of his life since they were born, he was crazy for them.

    "Look at you," Taft says. "All dressed up."
    "I've got a date."
    "Anybody I know?"
    Fay stops at the door and smiles. This smile always shuts him right up. It is the smile of a girl who couldn't do anything wrong. "I don't think so," she says, and then thinking he might ask her not to go, she adds, "I won't be gone long." She stops to look at herself in the mirror in the hallway, runs her little finger over her lipstick.
    It's a Saturday afternoon, bright summer. There's no point in asking where she's going or when she'll be back. Nothing ever happens on a Saturday, during summer, in the middle of the day.
    "You have a good time then," he says. Next minute she's gone. Taft stands at the window to watch her. The way she looks makes him nervous. Too good, too grown up.
    He heads out back to see if Carl's there. He wants Carl to drive over to the lumberyard with him. Taft's been thinking about putting a deck on the back of the house where they could all sit in the evening. He's been doing things lately that might make the place attractive to the kids. He wants to keep them home more. They're at that age now, running around all the time with their friends. That's the way it is, but he wants it to be different. It won't be long until they're gone for good. They'll get married, have babies and jobs. They'll stay in Coalfield or maybe go to Oak Ridge, but it won't be the same as having them home. This is the last chance he has to keep them all to himself, his family, the four of them together. He's spending too much money, his wife told him that. He bought a VCR last month and now he's talking about this deck.
    "You seen Carl?" Taft asks his wife.
    "Out in the garage, I think." She doesn't look up from her work. She has the sewing machine out on the dining room table and is busy putting together a dress. Fabric with flowers the size of fists is spread out everywhere. He doesn't know if it's for her or Fay.
    "Carl?"
    "Sir," Carl calls back from the garage.
    Taft follows his voice, goes through the small laundry room off the kitchen and down two cement steps. Carl has his weights out there. He's lying down on his bench, doing lateral raises, twenty pounds