“Poor soul, my eye. There are certain things one simply doesn’t do if one wants to avoid certain consequences.”

“Oh, Harriet!”

“Oh, nuts! She’s alive, isn’t she?”

Annie turned away from that rocklike face. Lucy, wrapped in the blanket, was standing just behind her. She thought of Joe—it was only a flash, a shadow moving across her inner vision.

“We’ll take care of things,” Harriet said, dismissing Annie. She looked at Lucy, but Lucy was watching Harriet.

“I’ll go then,” she said.

Lucy glanced at her; for a moment she looked as if she was about to collapse. Then her face cleared and she turned back to Harriet.

“I’m going home today.”

“Yes,” said Harriet.

“I can’t stay here now.”

“I think you’d best go home.”

The other girl said, “I’ll help you pack up, Lucy.”

Annie walked to the door.

Lucy called out, “Thanks,” in a lifeless voice.

Annie ate scrambled eggs in a drugstore, and drank a cup of thin, sour coffee. Then she drove to Cletus’s.

Outside his loft, the morning life of the city cried its noises. Inside, it was quiet. Cletus was sitting on the old couch, a large bandage on his head, one finger splinted, his right arm in a sling. He barely glanced up at her.

“I stayed with her until her friends came back,” Annie said softly. He nodded.

“Have you eaten? Shall I make you breakfast?”

“No.”

“Cletus? Can I put on a record?”

“Get out of here,” he said.

“Cletus!”

“Get out!”

Chapter 17

August 8, 1945

Dear Annie,

Happy Birthday! Although by the time you receive this, several days will have passed. I was reminded this morning when I saw the red maple I planted the day you were born twenty-two years ago. My mind has been very distracted these last few years which I suppose everybody’s has been. I hardly read history now. I think history has died. The town has changed so much you wouldn’t know it. There are many colored now, and some of the grand old families I used to garden for have fallen apart, the children gone off, or killed, no servants to keep up the houses, rationing. Well, rationing didn’t affect some of us much as we’ve always lived lightly. Except for the gasoline. I had to keep my jobs pretty close to home; the old truck drinks up the stuff so I’ve had to let go of some of my people that I’ve worked for all these years, not that people have been tending much to flowers. I don’t know why, but the sight of vegetables growing in a plot where once chrysanthemums bloomed sets my teeth on edge. I’m just foolish, I guess, as I know those “victory gardens” were a good idea.