Gabriel Heatter says on the radio that the war is really over now they’ve dropped that bomb on Hiroshima. I sit up here on the hill in the old house at dusk, and I think I’ve lived much too long. For a while, I read all the stories about the camps in Germany, then I had to stop. My mind wandered away. I hardly know what I’m thinking about any more. The last time I felt all right was in May when I was digging a bed for the Belknaps who still keep up their borders despite the death of their youngest boy. Do you remember him? Brewster Belknap who died in far-off New Guinea?

I seem to be talking all the time about myself. I meant to thank you for your Christmas letter. I was glad to hear of your job. Annie, don’t think I’m reproaching you, but I wish you had told me about your marriage, and then the divorce. Tony called me and told me about it and I was grieved to hear that you’d gone through all that at so young an age. I guess you know that Tony has a son now (and you a half-brother!). I was surprised to hear from him at all but perhaps he has memories of your dear mother and remembers me now and then. He sounded like the same old Tony on the telephone. I haven’t written you before because I’ve not been well. I seem better now which shows that it isn’t necessary to flee to a doctor the moment you get a pain. Sometimes I think you’ll come walking up the hill and open the door. Write to me again, Annie, when you can.

Love, Uncle Greg

“Letter from the heartland,” said Dr. Myron Eagle, handing the sheets of paper back to Annie. “So that’s what you came out of.”

Annie didn’t reply. She dropped the letter on the counter and ran a knife along the sides of the duck she was roasting. The fat poured out and splattered threateningly in the bottom of the pan.

“If it isn’t the Communists, it’s the Congregationalists,” said Myron. “Pay some attention to me.”

“I am, through the medium of this duck,” she said.