I wonder what Cathy meant when she said that we’re not safe like her parents. Anyway, we seem to be getting good marks, and there is no sign of that depression and withdrawal Marianne has worried about. My guess is that Cathy needed to have time alone—time when she was not under pressure even at school. She came back yesterday afternoon after her first day quite elated. She likes her English teacher. Two girls proved friendly and helped show her around, one, I am glad to say, from the next town—Betsy Sullivan—so perhaps we can invite her over now and then. The boys, so far, have kept their distance, but there is a square dance this Saturday in the town hall and then perhaps she’ll feel more in her element with them—the grandchildren have gone to the summer dances since they were eight or nine years old. I don’t feel that I know anything about what goes on inside her, except that her love of Willard is passionate. Sometimes she comes in, her cheeks flushed pink, and just hugs me without saying a word. That is our best form of communication at present.

As for Cornelius, he is plainly bewitched, says she is like me, bless his heart, “wild but tamable,” as he puts it. Everything will depend now on what boy she falls in love with. How precarious to be a woman! Perhaps Cathy’s fear of boys (“I hate them,” she says) comes from her awareness of how vulnerable she is and how dependent, in spite of all her outward swagger and her capacity for being alone. She is such a loving child! When Cornelius asked her what she wants to do after college, she said, “Work with children, Gramp—with poor children—with Blacks if I can.” Here I see Olivia’s influence. Olivia is the one in the whole family whom she truly admires, and Olivia must have talked to her about how much there is to be done. “But there’s so little time!” Cathy added half to herself.

Yes, I remember that feeling—so little time to do all that has to be done! It is strange how narrowed down our world has become since Cornelius’s stroke—but even stranger that it doesn’t feel narrow, for if it is narrow it is also deep. It is as if we were on an island. Willard is an island. Our imagination and concern reaches to its borders—which reminds me that I must go the hospital this week and see how Old Pete is getting on. Cathy would like to see him, too, so perhaps I can pick her up at school one afternoon.