exercise. It had been at least a decade since sheâd been able to do that without feeling that she was about to fall over at the end of it. Today, though, she was feeling invigorated, and she was fairly sure it wasnât because of the weather. My, but growing up in a town like this developed your antennae, and coming back to it after having been away made those antennae sharp. Or maybe not sharp. Maybe antennae couldnât be sharp. She couldnât remember, and for once she didnât care. If she had been one of those people who thought everything happened for a reason, she would have decided that the reason she had never just bolted from Snow Hill and not looked back was because of this day.
Home was up off Main Street to the north, on Carpenter, and then left up the hill on Jerusalem Cemetery Road. The Cemetary along sidethe road had belonged to a small churchâCongregationalist it was when it was still in operationâthat served people who had moved here from New England. Annie-Vic wasnât old enough to remember that, and she didnât think anybody else was either, not the way this world worked. No, the Congregationalists had built their own church right on Main Street around the time of the American Revolution, and that was probably the last time the Calvinists had really had any influence in this part of Pennsylvania.
âFanatics,â Annie-Vicâs father used to say, when she was in high school and deemed old enough to hear âseriousâ discussion. Ah, but Annie-Vicâs father had never been able to let go of his need for all kinds of discussion. Annie-Vic had heard it from the cradle, and so had her brothers and sisters, the whole lot of them sitting around that dinner table every night while Papa railed on and on about religion and politics and the moral philosophy of the Greeks. Theyâd all gone off to âgoodâ colleges, too, in the East, just as Papa wanted them to, and theyâd all left Snow Hill forever soon after that. Annie-Vic didnât know why she had never really gone, all the way, since sheâd come so close a couple of times.
At Jerusalem Cemetery Road, Annie-Vic stopped power-walking and just walked. The hill was relatively steep, and her own house was at the top of it. The church had never moved their cemetery. She could still see the thin, plain headstones row on row among the weeds and brambles. The weeds and brambles grew up every summer and every winter brought them down, as if something in nature wanted you to notice where the bodies were buried. Maybe they hadnât known how to move a cemetery back then. Annie-Vic wasnât entirely sure how they moved it now. Did they dig up the bodies? If they didnât, what got moved? What would it mean to people if they came out to visit their loved ones and visited only a stone? Did people care?
This was the way she got when she was tired: she asked questions she didnât know the answers to. She reached into her utility belt and came up with her little thing of waterâthere was a name for the thing, but she couldnât remember it. Her grandniece had given it toher. Her grandnieces and nephews gave a lot of things to her, and one of them had represented her when sheâd threatened to sue the AAVC over not being allowed to go to Mongolia.
Up the hill. Into the house. Have some yogurt. Make some tea. Sit down in the living room and listen to the next lecture in the Music History series sheâd bought from The Teaching Company. What she really needed was a series on evolution. She hadnât been able to find one of those.
The house was big and dark. It had been her fatherâs house, and her grandfatherâs. It had eight bedrooms. People in town had called it a mansion when Annie-Vic was growing up, and she supposed that in the middle of the Great Depression it had looked like a mansion. It wasnât one, though. It had only had a single bathroom back then.
Home was up off Main Street to the north, on Carpenter, and then left up the hill on Jerusalem Cemetery Road. The Cemetary along sidethe road had belonged to a small churchâCongregationalist it was when it was still in operationâthat served people who had moved here from New England. Annie-Vic wasnât old enough to remember that, and she didnât think anybody else was either, not the way this world worked. No, the Congregationalists had built their own church right on Main Street around the time of the American Revolution, and that was probably the last time the Calvinists had really had any influence in this part of Pennsylvania.
âFanatics,â Annie-Vicâs father used to say, when she was in high school and deemed old enough to hear âseriousâ discussion. Ah, but Annie-Vicâs father had never been able to let go of his need for all kinds of discussion. Annie-Vic had heard it from the cradle, and so had her brothers and sisters, the whole lot of them sitting around that dinner table every night while Papa railed on and on about religion and politics and the moral philosophy of the Greeks. Theyâd all gone off to âgoodâ colleges, too, in the East, just as Papa wanted them to, and theyâd all left Snow Hill forever soon after that. Annie-Vic didnât know why she had never really gone, all the way, since sheâd come so close a couple of times.
At Jerusalem Cemetery Road, Annie-Vic stopped power-walking and just walked. The hill was relatively steep, and her own house was at the top of it. The church had never moved their cemetery. She could still see the thin, plain headstones row on row among the weeds and brambles. The weeds and brambles grew up every summer and every winter brought them down, as if something in nature wanted you to notice where the bodies were buried. Maybe they hadnât known how to move a cemetery back then. Annie-Vic wasnât entirely sure how they moved it now. Did they dig up the bodies? If they didnât, what got moved? What would it mean to people if they came out to visit their loved ones and visited only a stone? Did people care?
This was the way she got when she was tired: she asked questions she didnât know the answers to. She reached into her utility belt and came up with her little thing of waterâthere was a name for the thing, but she couldnât remember it. Her grandniece had given it toher. Her grandnieces and nephews gave a lot of things to her, and one of them had represented her when sheâd threatened to sue the AAVC over not being allowed to go to Mongolia.
Up the hill. Into the house. Have some yogurt. Make some tea. Sit down in the living room and listen to the next lecture in the Music History series sheâd bought from The Teaching Company. What she really needed was a series on evolution. She hadnât been able to find one of those.
The house was big and dark. It had been her fatherâs house, and her grandfatherâs. It had eight bedrooms. People in town had called it a mansion when Annie-Vic was growing up, and she supposed that in the middle of the Great Depression it had looked like a mansion. It wasnât one, though. It had only had a single bathroom back then.
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