Homecoming

Book by Plain Belva

The desktop was always covered with mail, incoming and outgoing.  Appeals from charities, politicians, whether federal, state, or town, bills and letters from scattered friends, all came flowing.  Sometimes it seemed to Annette that the whole world made connection with her here and asked for response.

She picked up the pen to finish the last of the notes.  Her precise backhand script lay between wide margins, the paper was as smooth as pressed linen, and the dark blue monogram was decorative without possessing too many curlicues.  The whole, even to the back of the envelope, on which her name was engraved--Mrs. Lewis Martinson Byrne, with her address beneath--was pleasing.  E-mail might be the way these days, but there was still nothing as satisfying to send or to receive as a well-written letter; also these days, "Ms."  might be the title of choice for many, but Annette still preferred to be "Mrs.," and that was that.

Having sealed the envelope, she placed it on top of the tidy pile of blue-and-whites, sighed, "There--that's finished," and stood up to stretch.  At eighty-five, even though your doctor said that you were physically ten years younger, you could expect to feel stiff after sitting so long.  Actually, you could expect almost anything, she thought, knowing how to laugh at herself.

Old people were amusing to the young.  Once when she was less than ten years old, her mother had taken her to call on a woman who lived down the country road.  It seemed, as most things did now, like yesterday.

"She's very old, at least ninety, Annette.  She was a married woman with children when Lincoln was president."  

That had meant nothing to Annette.

"My nephew took me out in his machine," the old woman had said.  "We went all the way without a horse."  Marveling, she had repeated, "Without a horse."  

That had seemed ridiculous to Annette.

"So now it's my turn," she said aloud.  "And yet, inside, I don't feel any different from the way I felt when I was twenty."  She laughed again.  "I only look different."  

There she was between the windows, framed in gilt, eternally blond and thirty years old, in a red velvet dress.  Lewis had wanted to display her prominently in the living room, rather than here in the more private library.  But she had objected: portraits were intimate things, not to be shown off before the world.

Facing her and framed in matching gilt on the opposite wall was Lewis himself, wearing the same expression he had worn in life, alert, friendly, and faintly curious.  Often, when she was alone here, she spoke to him.

"Lewis, you would have been amused at what I saw today" (or saddened, or angry).  "Lewis, what do you think about it?  Do you agree?"  

He had been dead ten years, yet his presence was still in the house.  It was the reason, or the chief one, anyway, why she had never moved.

It had been a lively house, filled with the sounds of children, friends, and music, and it was lively still.  Scouts had meetings in the converted barn, and nature-study classes were invited.  Once the place had been a farm, and after that a country estate, one of the less lavish ones in a spacious landscape some two or three hours' drive from New York.  They had bought it as soon as their growing prosperity had allowed.  The grounds, hill, pond, and meadow were treasures and had already been promised after Annette's death to the town, to be kept as a green park forever. That had been Lewis's idea; caring so much about plants and trees, he had built the greenhouse onto the kitchen wing; all their Christmas trees had been live, and now, when you looked beyond the meadow, you saw in a thriving grove fifty years' worth of Scotch pines and spruce.

Of course, it was all too big, but Annette loved it. Especially she loved this room.  It was--what was the word for it?  Cozy, perhaps?  No, that was a poor word to describe it.  Cozy meant too much stuff: too many afghans, plants, and pillows.  This room's walls were covered with books: novels, biography, poetry, and history.  The colors were many quiet shades of blue.  Today, in winter, one dark red amaryllis flourished in an earthenware pot on the desk.

In the corner there was a large dog-bed for the two King Charles spaniels.  They had always kept spaniels.  Roscoe, a gangly, homely mongrel with sorrowful eyes, had a mat of his own. He was completely dependent on Annette, who had found him deserted and hungry on a Caribbean beach.  And she wondered whether, after having lived all these years in comfort, he had any memory of his past misery.  She wondered about animals.  She wondered, in fact, about everything. . . .  But she had better get moving with this pile of letters if they were to be picked up today.

The morning was mild, one of those calm, cold winter mornings without wind, when the pond lay still and lustrous as stainless steel.  Soon, if this cold were to last, it would freeze over. Wearing a heavy jacket and followed by the dogs, she went down the drive to the mailbox at the end.