The Resurrection File by Craig Parshall Page B

his and everything else that belonged to everyone else in the world. But us, and we, and ours, no longer existed. Audra was gone. She was no longer part of this huge house. Her perfume didn’t precede her into a room anymore. Her laugh didn’t make him smile anymore despite himself. She was not there to keep him from taking himself, or his work, too seriously. He thought about the feel of her hair when it brushed against his face. He felt the aching loss of her touches and caresses.
    He had met Audra at Georgetown during his law-school years. She was in the art department. She was an earthy blonde with a quirky sense of humor and an easy, winning smile. When he moved from his first job at the ACLU in New York to rural Tennessee for the Law Project of the South, she supported him. Audra sold her paintings at galleries in the tourist towns and taught art in the community colleges.
    But when Will was fired from that office and then finally got the job with what was then Bates, Burke, Meadows & Bates, Audra had hoped it would last. And it did, for a while. But after five years, the rest of the partners suggested that Will move up to central Virginia to open a branch office. They said it was to get him closer to D.C., where they wanted to open their third branch, but Will felt the real reason was to get him out of the Richmond office, where he had become a constant irritation to the others.
    Yet after the move to Monroeville, both Will and Audra felt an immediate sense of belonging. It was a city with a lot of charm and history. Monroeville was connected with several of the Founding Fathers. General Robert E. Lee had once marched down the street, right past the very building where Will’s office was now located. The buildings and shops had carried their age quietly and well among the pear trees that lined the streets, trees whose blossoms would draw tourists in the spring through the fall.
    But it was Generals’ Hill, situated prominently in the rolling Virginia countryside just outside of Monroeville, that most symbolized the couple’s sense of belonging.
    They had bought the dilapidated pre–Civil War mansion with the idea of restoring it. Audra poured herself into the loving reconstruction of the great house. It was small as Southern mansions go, but to them it was a thing of beauty. It had tall white columns in the front, and a huge fan-shaped window just below the peak of the roof. Inside there was a curving staircase that led to the second floor.
    Audra taught a few art classes at the local college. She split the rest of her time between the restoration of the house and painting in watercolors and acrylics in the studio that they had created in one of the extra rooms. She loved the house, but with her pacifist’s heart had tried to get Will to agree to change the name of the mansion from “Generals’ Hill” to something less warlike. But Will was too wedded to historical truth for that. The mansion had switched hands between the South and the North several times during the course of the Civil War. The name of the place was enshrined in local history. Besides, Will liked the idea of living in a house that had been near the focal point of great battles. After all, he thought,he made his living as a legal combatant in the new civil wars of justice. “Generals’ Hill” just seemed to fit. There was something poetic about living in a place with a name like that.
    But their idyllic life did not last. Audra longed for a baby but could not get pregnant. She threw herself into her painting and created a successful career as an artist. Her showings increased around the country. Tensions grew in the marriage. Audra moved out of Generals’ Hill—just a temporary separation, she told Will—but he was too proud to ask her back. He had stared at the phone a hundred times, thinking about calling her at her apartment in Georgetown, but each time he had decided against it. She