Shirley

Lois & Ann & Nell & Mercy Watson   First, Lois. You remember her ? Or not? M y chum who messaged me from Durham NC, stuck in a hospital waiting room? Despite the flurry of people coming and going, the book she’d borrowed from somebody had her engrossed. “Th e first chapter is SO good,” she wrote, “ I became absorbed in it!!! Read it, if you haven’t.” Immediately I put the book on hold at our library— These Precious Days by Ann Patchett . I’d read Patchett’s Truth & Beauty: a Friendship . Also, The Dutch House. Days later, Lois messaged again. “Bill ’s recuperating. I’m glad to b e home!!” “ And everything’s good?” I asked. “ Whew!!” N ow he j ust needed fattening up . At the hospital t hey’ d not given him enough to eat. “ I’m thick into Precious Days , ” I told her. “Wasn’t that chapter on her three fathers so amazing??!!” “ It wa s . I love it all. I’ v e only just gotten to the Eudora Welty chapter. I have to savor things. I don't want it to end.” ...

When the Parents Fluttered Away   Brother Touslyhead takes the bigger bed upstairs, where I can read to him from the purple chair. Sister Ringlets and her math and p syc h  textbooks, the one across the hall. Sister Braids gets my husband’s and mine downstairs, right around the corner from the living room. So where does that leave us?   It’s all right. I love it on the sofa. It’s where I take up camp whenever I’m fevered and hacking, or too riled by the manic dead-of-night thoughts to sleep. This time, both of us chased from our bed, we’re elaborately stocked with pillows, blankets, and all, and from my berth I can still hear his breathing inches away, his toasty warm stirring, down on the floor. He’s even put his clock like he likes it, approximate to his bedding, the numerals lasering a path to his eyes.  For four whole nights the arrangement works just fine. Grandparents are  adaptable , right? They can handle things, right? There’s extra laundr...