Lovingly,
ANNABEL

Clinton read the letter a second time. Then he lit another cigarette and, sipping his coffee, copied the letter into his notebook. When he had finished, he repaired the envelope with transparent tape, hoping that Bernice would not notice its condition or make any comment on it in her answer. He placed his belongings in his pockets—except for the notebook which always rode on his belly, tucked under his shirt and secured by the belt of his trousers.

Apart from his pleasure in partaking of its secrets, Annabel’s letter had touched him in some other way that was also in itself a secret. It was this extra mystery that he pondered on the way home. Out of her presence, if he ever tried to conjure up a picture of Annabel, her fragments always seemed to float in air and never would stand still for him. There seemed to be no part of her or her life that was whole, without gaps. Her conversations had this quality, too. Whenever she took hold of a subject, it sprang a leak and all the facts dribbled away from her. Or a person: if she reached out to a person, it seemed that the part she got hold of ceased to exist, and she was left holding the ghost of an arm, the ghost of a hand or a chin or a cheek, the ghost of someone’s heart. These letters that went to Toledo, Ohio, were the most solid communications of her life; and they went to a crippled lady, half-drugged and in pain, who seldom sent back answers of any length except on rare occasions when her fingers could manipulate the fountain pen. Annabel was like some unhappy Midas whose touch was liquid; whatever she reached out for dissolved, floated away from her. Clinton’s thinking about these matters was of a similar character. The sadness of it would not stand still for him either, but floated away. He could not even gather up one strong firm thought to put down in his notebook.

After he had placed the letter in the slot, he tipped back the iron pan once again to make certain the envelope had slid down into the box. He never took this kind of thing for granted, and if he failed to double-check, the matter would worry him. For a moment, Clinton was aware of this New Neighborhood he was walking through. The houses were plain and undistinguished, most of them frame, well cared for, with neat lawns and modest splotches of shrubbery outlining the porches and some of the driveways and paths. He knew the street only as any passer-by would know it at first glance; it was not familiar to him in any personal sense at all, and he knew it never would be. It seemed impossible to him that any neighborhood could have any flavor to it unless Berry-berry lived in it.

Now this thought captured him. Berry-berry had always this power over him, to move in, even in the form of a thought, and take over his imagination, no matter what else might be pressing in on it for attention. The reason was this: his brother was the center of Clinton’s most important dream: that one day when he was considered old enough, perhaps at seventeen, Berry-berry would send for him to go traveling with him. What made the dream important was not only that he wanted it to come true—but that he was certain it never would. It was therefore impossible to get rid of, and had tormented him for a long time.