I hope London is what the doctor ordered. I wish the doctor had ordered it for me and that I was there too, though I can hardly imagine what a sidewalk would be like to walk upon or a motorcar door to shut. We think we saw some snowflakes this morning. They went slowly like things in my head, but not as light, floating I mean. Something occurred to me but I think you must know it. I find it hard to say. Sorry to be so this. Don’t think I don’t know what this has been for you. That is, I don’t really but in another way I do and think you must be the most remarkable girl to put up with it. It’s as if something got ahold of me at my ankle and pulled me down into a hole and before I knew it I couldn’t see anything but how dark it was. The children’s eyes are above me and I remember yours even if I don’t always see them, dark pools. Today I went down two small hills then up one long gentle slope. How I don’t know.

Your Gilbert

At the end of the evening Aunt Tizzy had become a little frayed at the edges. Her lipstick had slid off her mouth, rimming it, and she’d nearly tripped returning from the powder room. She gazed at Lilian with doe eyes, the same eyes Lilian had seen so often on her father after the evening cocktails, on her mother after the nightcap, and seen, too, on Uncle Nat and Aunt Peg when they stopped by summer evenings on the Island. She could picture those droopy eyes — Mrs. Lockwood at Easter, Mr. Cunningham at Christmas — on nearly everyone she knew in Boston.

You’re developing the downturned New England mouth, said Aunt Tizzy.

I blame my ancestors.

Is Mr. Finch making you happy?

It was a ridiculous question, considering the circumstances, and for the first time Lilian understood why her parents rolled their eyes at the mention of Aunt Tizzy’s name.

Of course, Lilian said. She’d had wine with dinner, not something she usually did, and felt a haze over everything. He does his best, she said.

Now he is good to the children, said Aunt Tizzy. Children are the nuisance, aren’t they? I mean, I love other people’s.

He’s a sensitive man, Lilian said.

It’s the sensitive ones who go under, said Aunt Tizzy, hauling herself up from the table.

40 • Dolly’s news

40 • Dolly’s news