witty. Did you know that?
We never heard much of that here, Dad said.
No. He wouldn’t here. But he could be very funny.
Like how? said Mary.
Oh, just clever. Not telling jokes, I don’t mean that. But talking in a funny entertaining
way about different people. About his life. About his friends and the people he worked
for.
I suppose he said something about us, Dad said.
He talked about you. About both of you.
What about us?
What his life was like here, Daddy. When he and I were growing up here in Holt.
It was all bad, I suppose.
Not all of it. He had some good things to say too.
Well, I don’t know.
I hope he did, Mary said. She got up and went into the house and brought back a blanket
and spread it over Dad. He sat in the chair looking out at the street, the blanket
drawn up to his chest.
The millers were swirling under the porch light and bumping it and dropping to the
floorboards and fluttering upward again. Mary went back and switched off the light
and returned and sat down. The millers still singed themselves against the hot bulb
and fell or fluttered away. From beyond Berta May’s house the corner street lamp cast
long shadows through the trees that moved a little in the night air.
10
Y EARS AGO Alene walked along a wide Denver sidewalk with her arm in a man’s arm. That was in
wintertime. A snowy evening. The snow was falling thickly and it was pleasant under
the lights along the street, walking slowly past the city stores, looking in the windows,
delaying going back to the hotel for the pleasure of being out in the cold air together.
She was a young woman then, just thirty-three, nice-looking and slim and tall and
brown haired and blue eyed. He was a little older, closer to forty, a tall man with
the gray starting to show at the sides of his head. A principal in a school in the
same district as the school she taught in. Which was how and why they met, at a district-wide
school meeting. She had felt something at once. And then she had found a way of saying
something to him. She couldn’t remember what it had been but it’d made him laugh and
then they’d met again at another gathering and he had wanted to know if she would
join him for dinner sometime in Denver. They both understood what he was saying. She
said yes, she’d like that. And that was when it began.
The snow had started to collect on the sidewalk. The cars were beginning to pack it
down out in the street. Going quietly by, quieted by the snow.
At the end of the block they stood waiting for a city bus to pass, the interior illuminated
in the evening, the people in the bus moving past them as in a kind of movie. An old
woman alone in her seat on the bus. An old man wearing a hat. A young girl at the
back looking out the window as the bus passed and went on up the street. They crossed
the street, she held on to his arm so as not to misstep.
Are you ready to go up? he said.
Yes. Are you?
Yes.
They turned in at the lobby of the hotel. It was a block east of the train depot,
an old hotel, one of the oldest in the city, a tall square redbrick building with
an ornate front. She stood near the elevator while he got the key from the desk clerk
and they rode up to the third floor, another man with them, and she felt his now familiar
hand pressing the side of her hip through her coat and that was something she would
remember afterward, the feeling of that and the secret of it, while he and the other
man made conversation about the weather. What about this snow? It might go up to a
foot. Is that right? That’s what they were saying on the news, if you can believe
them, and then the elevator stopped and they got out and walked down the long narrow
hall, following the runner tacked to the floor, she in front, he following, and came
to the room and she stepped aside so he could open the door with the key.
The flowers he had brought her that afternoon were still there on
We never heard much of that here, Dad said.
No. He wouldn’t here. But he could be very funny.
Like how? said Mary.
Oh, just clever. Not telling jokes, I don’t mean that. But talking in a funny entertaining
way about different people. About his life. About his friends and the people he worked
for.
I suppose he said something about us, Dad said.
He talked about you. About both of you.
What about us?
What his life was like here, Daddy. When he and I were growing up here in Holt.
It was all bad, I suppose.
Not all of it. He had some good things to say too.
Well, I don’t know.
I hope he did, Mary said. She got up and went into the house and brought back a blanket
and spread it over Dad. He sat in the chair looking out at the street, the blanket
drawn up to his chest.
The millers were swirling under the porch light and bumping it and dropping to the
floorboards and fluttering upward again. Mary went back and switched off the light
and returned and sat down. The millers still singed themselves against the hot bulb
and fell or fluttered away. From beyond Berta May’s house the corner street lamp cast
long shadows through the trees that moved a little in the night air.
10
Y EARS AGO Alene walked along a wide Denver sidewalk with her arm in a man’s arm. That was in
wintertime. A snowy evening. The snow was falling thickly and it was pleasant under
the lights along the street, walking slowly past the city stores, looking in the windows,
delaying going back to the hotel for the pleasure of being out in the cold air together.
She was a young woman then, just thirty-three, nice-looking and slim and tall and
brown haired and blue eyed. He was a little older, closer to forty, a tall man with
the gray starting to show at the sides of his head. A principal in a school in the
same district as the school she taught in. Which was how and why they met, at a district-wide
school meeting. She had felt something at once. And then she had found a way of saying
something to him. She couldn’t remember what it had been but it’d made him laugh and
then they’d met again at another gathering and he had wanted to know if she would
join him for dinner sometime in Denver. They both understood what he was saying. She
said yes, she’d like that. And that was when it began.
The snow had started to collect on the sidewalk. The cars were beginning to pack it
down out in the street. Going quietly by, quieted by the snow.
At the end of the block they stood waiting for a city bus to pass, the interior illuminated
in the evening, the people in the bus moving past them as in a kind of movie. An old
woman alone in her seat on the bus. An old man wearing a hat. A young girl at the
back looking out the window as the bus passed and went on up the street. They crossed
the street, she held on to his arm so as not to misstep.
Are you ready to go up? he said.
Yes. Are you?
Yes.
They turned in at the lobby of the hotel. It was a block east of the train depot,
an old hotel, one of the oldest in the city, a tall square redbrick building with
an ornate front. She stood near the elevator while he got the key from the desk clerk
and they rode up to the third floor, another man with them, and she felt his now familiar
hand pressing the side of her hip through her coat and that was something she would
remember afterward, the feeling of that and the secret of it, while he and the other
man made conversation about the weather. What about this snow? It might go up to a
foot. Is that right? That’s what they were saying on the news, if you can believe
them, and then the elevator stopped and they got out and walked down the long narrow
hall, following the runner tacked to the floor, she in front, he following, and came
to the room and she stepped aside so he could open the door with the key.
The flowers he had brought her that afternoon were still there on
Similar Books
