Part 1
Char Glimmer sits on her porch in a ladder-backed chair, waiting for a familiar face to drive her to the doctor. She is wearing a navy -blue shirtwaist and around her shoulders is a white cardigan, the empty sleeves hanging on either side. She closed the living room drapes before she stepped out because she’s mindful of the upholstery. Mother taught her to be so.
Her hands are folded where her breasts would be if she had any, and she is shaking from St. Vitus dance, which she developed as a child and has plagued her all her life. It gets worse when she’s upset. She’s upset now, because she has to go to the doctor. She’s been to Dr. Veach plenty of times, but Mabel Lee retired last year and the new head nurse is young. Char can’t place her. She doesn’t know which family she’s from.
She’d like to go back inside and lock the door.
She’s lived at home all her life. First as a child, then as a young girl who cared for her mother, then as a maiden lady, and now a maiden aunt. She has a nephew in California who calls once a month and tells her stories about drug traffic, murders, and things so unspeakable that she knows he wouldn’t mention them if he were home, sitting across the table.
She lives for these calls.
She also lives for his affirmation at the end of each conversation. Paul tells her that she’s right to stay in West Virginia, where it’s safe. She shouldn’t sell the house. Yes, it’s too large and the heating bills are awful, but it’s the house she was raised in. It’s her home.
Sometimes she thinks Paul is working against her best interests. She’s deeded the house to him, and if she sold, she’d use the money to place herself in one of the care facilities that have sprung up like mushrooms, cozy places with lots of company and buttons to push if you have a need. Sometimes the thought is tempting. If she moved to Harmony Manor, for instance, she wouldn’t have to work hard at filling her pill tray or mark when she took a laxative. The last time she took two laxatives and had to wash her underwear out in the cellar sink. The washer and dryer are also in the cellar and now it’s a battle between her and the stairs.
Yes, Harmony Manor would be to her best interest but if she moved, Char believes, her nephew would stop calling. Everyone has family, but he’s all she’s got. Brother Homer died years ago and his wife, Lucia, died more recently, although Char can’t remember the year.
Char was educated. She was sent to the Normal School to become an English teacher and she taught at the local high school until her mother required her full-time presence. Char viewed her mother’s demand for care as a means of salvation. It was a bad time in her life. She’d always hated teaching, and when she didn’t recognize the students as the children or grandchildren of the people she’d known from her youth, she didn’t bother to try. She’d trembled so violently in front of the last batch that, after the students got over their astonishment, they’d thrown spitballs.
The town had changed so fast in tone and manners that Char no longer recognized Harshbarger Mills as the place she’d grown up in.
to be con’t.
