Old Babes in the Wood

The kettle is aluminum, of a type that has surely been outlawed. Just looking at it gives Nell cancer, but an unspoken rule says that it must never be discarded. The cover will fit only if placed just right: Nell marked the position years ago, with two circles of pink nail polish, one on the lid, a corresponding one on the kettle itself, which must

My heart is broken, Nell thinks. But in our family we don’t say, “My heart is broken.” We say, “Are there any cookies?” One must eat. One must keep busy. One must distract oneself. But why? What for? For whom? “Are there any cookies?” she manages to croak out. “No,” Lizzie says. “But there’s chocolate. Let’s have some.” She knows that Nell’s heart

They’ve had a sauna in the little shack Tig designed and built for the purpose, back when he was first feeling arthritic, back when he thought such a thing as a sauna might reverse time. No such luck, but anyway here they are. They’re holding hands. They’re wearing white terry-cloth bathrobes like those in spas, bought by Nell when white terry-clot

What you mean is how am I managing to cope, now that Tig has died. Am I lonely? Am I suffering? Is the house too empty? Am I checking all the boxes of the prescribed grieving process? Have I gone into the dark tunnel, dressed in mourning black with gloves and a veil, and come out the other end, all cheery and wearing bright colours and loaded for b

That was the active period. Then there had been the slowdown; an accumulation, as in sluggish rivers. Things ended up in this house that hadn’t been needed in their city life but that they couldn’t simply throw out. Layers of sediment, over thirty years of it, had sifted in during springs and summers and falls and springs and summers, and now Nell

Once, at supper, Tig paused, spoon half lifted, and looked out the window. “He sometimes let them go,” he said. Nell knew exactly who he meant, and what he meant. He meant Maigret. You can recognize whole songs, whole symphonies, from just a few notes, if you know the music well.

“I want to still be me,” says Tig. “You still are you,” Nell says. “So far,” says Tig. Another pause. “We’ll get through it,” says Nell. “Yes, we will,” says Tig. They squeeze hands.

Sorry. I’m becoming cranky about language, a thing you don’t do unless you’re past a certain age. For youngsters, things were always called what they are called right now, but for oldsters, not. We notice the gaps, the chasms. And the jokes of former decades have ceased to be jokes, while new jokes have arisen, jokes that are not always understood

The tidying up. There’s a lot of that. So much accumulates, year after year. Then there’s a mini-explosion, and all the items that have been gathered together—the letters, the books, the passports, the photos, the favourite things kept in drawers and boxes or on shelves—all of this is strewn in the wake of the departing rocket or comet or wave of e