to the uniformed guard. “It’s nice to see you back again.”
“Hot morning, Mrs. Rowland.” He pushed open the gate. “Is that a new jeep?”
“I liked the color.”
“It sure is bright.” He leaned against the car door and nodded to the empty seat beside her. “Mr. Rowland didn’t come with you?”
“We lost him,” she said softly. “This winter. In January.”
He hesitated, slow to understand. Then he pulled his hand away as if the door were burning hot. “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”
She said, “One learns to live with it. Like any other fact.”
She drove through the gates, thinking: Why did I say anything so silly? Why did I say I had lost Hugh? I haven’t lost him at all. I know exactly where he is and the headstone says HUGH DUDLEY ROWLAND 1905-1984 .
The neat narrow blacktopped road stretched ahead of her; she drove precisely down the very middle. Thinking: Hugh and I came here every good sunny day for thirty summers. We were one of the families who bought this land, built the first clubhouse. Not more than a shed in the jack pines. When the 1961 hurricane destroyed it, Hugh said: Good riddance. This time I’ll lend the club money for a proper building.
That building still stood (its loan long repaid), quite small and lost in all the subsequent remodelings and expansions. But there. It was Hugh who had gone.
She had never felt the presence of his ghost, never seen faint images or slight motions in the air. She never felt that he lingered behind, fading slightly perhaps, following her into this summer.
A decisive man, he had left her completely. A quiet man, he had slipped away quietly.
After the funeral, surfeited with kisses and tears, staggering under the burden of organ chords, she’d returned to their house alone. She’d insisted on that. Not the housekeeper, not her son, not the dogs. She closed the door firmly behind her. The metallic click of the latch fell like a marble and rolled through the silent empty rooms. After a pause, leaning against the door, drawing strength from the firm unmoving wood, she climbed the stairs. Deliberately, being careful of her balance, of her breathing, a high-wire walker moving between two points. In the bedroom she sat, spine stretched alertly, hands on knees, palms up, like boats stranded by the tide. As she waited, her eyes moved slowly, meticulously covering every inch of the room. Up and down the walls, applying her surveillance like a methodical painter, slipping beneath the pictures, passing across the surfaces of the furniture. Across the floor, like a careful housekeeper, board by board, diving under rugs to survey them from beneath. And finally reaching the bed, where Hugh had died three days past, where her eyes now traced every flower on its quilted neutral emptiness.
Later, sometime during the night, she stood up, cramped and chill, and walked through the house. She went into every single room, looked into every closet, opening and closing curtains, turning lamps on and off and on again, then returning to change the pattern of light and shadow she had just made. Picking up vases and boxes and ashtrays and figures and paperweights, taking books from their shelves, turning them over once, twice, putting them back. Pressing her palms on the polished surfaces of tables and desks and chairs, then wiping away the sweaty imprints with her scarf or the edge of her skirt. Repeating, over and over.
When the late winter sun rose, yellow and thin, she was dazzled by the radiance, bending her head before its glory, hands over eyes.
In the blazing white sun of July, Myra Rowland drove her jeep along the twin strips of black asphalt that led to the beach. The road was a large semicircle through wind-shaped olives and rhododendrons (with a few late flowers in the deep cool places), through small salt-twisted pin oaks, through leathery rugosa roses covered with flat pink and white flowers. The stretches of shiny-leaved poison ivy were
“Hot morning, Mrs. Rowland.” He pushed open the gate. “Is that a new jeep?”
“I liked the color.”
“It sure is bright.” He leaned against the car door and nodded to the empty seat beside her. “Mr. Rowland didn’t come with you?”
“We lost him,” she said softly. “This winter. In January.”
He hesitated, slow to understand. Then he pulled his hand away as if the door were burning hot. “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”
She said, “One learns to live with it. Like any other fact.”
She drove through the gates, thinking: Why did I say anything so silly? Why did I say I had lost Hugh? I haven’t lost him at all. I know exactly where he is and the headstone says HUGH DUDLEY ROWLAND 1905-1984 .
The neat narrow blacktopped road stretched ahead of her; she drove precisely down the very middle. Thinking: Hugh and I came here every good sunny day for thirty summers. We were one of the families who bought this land, built the first clubhouse. Not more than a shed in the jack pines. When the 1961 hurricane destroyed it, Hugh said: Good riddance. This time I’ll lend the club money for a proper building.
That building still stood (its loan long repaid), quite small and lost in all the subsequent remodelings and expansions. But there. It was Hugh who had gone.
She had never felt the presence of his ghost, never seen faint images or slight motions in the air. She never felt that he lingered behind, fading slightly perhaps, following her into this summer.
A decisive man, he had left her completely. A quiet man, he had slipped away quietly.
After the funeral, surfeited with kisses and tears, staggering under the burden of organ chords, she’d returned to their house alone. She’d insisted on that. Not the housekeeper, not her son, not the dogs. She closed the door firmly behind her. The metallic click of the latch fell like a marble and rolled through the silent empty rooms. After a pause, leaning against the door, drawing strength from the firm unmoving wood, she climbed the stairs. Deliberately, being careful of her balance, of her breathing, a high-wire walker moving between two points. In the bedroom she sat, spine stretched alertly, hands on knees, palms up, like boats stranded by the tide. As she waited, her eyes moved slowly, meticulously covering every inch of the room. Up and down the walls, applying her surveillance like a methodical painter, slipping beneath the pictures, passing across the surfaces of the furniture. Across the floor, like a careful housekeeper, board by board, diving under rugs to survey them from beneath. And finally reaching the bed, where Hugh had died three days past, where her eyes now traced every flower on its quilted neutral emptiness.
Later, sometime during the night, she stood up, cramped and chill, and walked through the house. She went into every single room, looked into every closet, opening and closing curtains, turning lamps on and off and on again, then returning to change the pattern of light and shadow she had just made. Picking up vases and boxes and ashtrays and figures and paperweights, taking books from their shelves, turning them over once, twice, putting them back. Pressing her palms on the polished surfaces of tables and desks and chairs, then wiping away the sweaty imprints with her scarf or the edge of her skirt. Repeating, over and over.
When the late winter sun rose, yellow and thin, she was dazzled by the radiance, bending her head before its glory, hands over eyes.
In the blazing white sun of July, Myra Rowland drove her jeep along the twin strips of black asphalt that led to the beach. The road was a large semicircle through wind-shaped olives and rhododendrons (with a few late flowers in the deep cool places), through small salt-twisted pin oaks, through leathery rugosa roses covered with flat pink and white flowers. The stretches of shiny-leaved poison ivy were
Similar Books
