stirring of her will, her sense of self, until she met Paul Maynard, come to serve as a substitute pastor in their church while Dr. Atherton was ill.
And now, here is Lily in the guest room at Alan’s house, arranged the way she likes it, going through the letters Paul wrote her at that time and a little later, before they were married,
when he had gone ahead to the church in Ohio. Alan and Gaby have hired a girl for her, Noreen, dumb as a post but good-hearted, Lily will concede, and Noreen has set Lily up for the morning, the
box of papers—mostly these letters, but some from her mother too—on the table pushed in front of her, and a bowl of cereal, oatmeal with maple syrup, cold by now, off just to the side
of them.
As Lily finishes each letter, reading slowly, thoughtfully one last time, she tears it with trembling precision in two, then four, and drops it into her wastebasket, set close to her chair for
this purpose. She is doing this because she is old. She is dying, she feels. It has begun. And she has left the world exactly what she wishes it to know about Paul and herself, about their love and
their marriage and the end of all of it. These letters are nobody’s business but hers. She wouldn’t like anyone, even family, pawing through them after she’s gone. (These are the
very words she said to Noreen, who agreed with her absolutely. And when she said them, she imagined it just that way: big hands, animal hands connected to no particular body, roughly stirring
through her letters—these memories—scattering them through sheer carelessness.
Wounding
them, as Lily thought of it.)
The correspondence is in file folders, ordered in clusters of years, usually three or four years together in one folder, but sometimes only one when there were many letters. Lily arranged it in
this fashion when she began to write her memoir. She hasn’t gone through it since that time. Oh, occasionally, searching for a certain memory to nourish a story idea, she has tracked down one
in particular, or read through a year of her life, but she hasn’t read some of these early letters in twenty or more years, and certainly not in order.
When Paul moved to Ohio, they were already engaged, and planning to be married within the year. Paul had gone ahead alone to “establish himself,” which meant, as they all understood,
to save some money. (Though Lily had come into her trust by then, her money was not to be used for any joint expenses, at his insistence.) Most of the letters contained long accounts of social
events in Belvaine, descriptions of people she would meet, especially of the women who had spoken of looking forward to her arrival. Sometimes Paul would be invited by a church family on a day trip
or outing to some local historic sight or natural wonder. Lily is struck now, reading the letters, by the energy he had for these encounters and trips, by the care he had for detail in these
letters, by his concern to give her a sense of what it was like to be there. He wanted her to feel, already, a part of it, and of his life.
I have been thinking of you here often, Lily, and often my question as I go through some event centers on what your response might be or how you might be experiencing
a certain thing if you were here by me. It is like looking at the world with a new set of eyes on the one hand, and on the other is slightly disorienting, and occasionally makes me feel
sorry for myself.
I went on a trip with the Barretts, all seven of us packed into their car on a day when the temperature must have hit ninety degrees! to what constitutes, locally, a
“mountain.” We climbed it, interminably it seemed, because of the pace of the two youngest children. It is really a large mound, but it’s true it had a long and very
lovely view over rolling fields, with the property boundaries (or perhaps they were creeks or streams?) marked by thickets of trees. Madam Barrett had outdone herself with the spread. Not
And now, here is Lily in the guest room at Alan’s house, arranged the way she likes it, going through the letters Paul wrote her at that time and a little later, before they were married,
when he had gone ahead to the church in Ohio. Alan and Gaby have hired a girl for her, Noreen, dumb as a post but good-hearted, Lily will concede, and Noreen has set Lily up for the morning, the
box of papers—mostly these letters, but some from her mother too—on the table pushed in front of her, and a bowl of cereal, oatmeal with maple syrup, cold by now, off just to the side
of them.
As Lily finishes each letter, reading slowly, thoughtfully one last time, she tears it with trembling precision in two, then four, and drops it into her wastebasket, set close to her chair for
this purpose. She is doing this because she is old. She is dying, she feels. It has begun. And she has left the world exactly what she wishes it to know about Paul and herself, about their love and
their marriage and the end of all of it. These letters are nobody’s business but hers. She wouldn’t like anyone, even family, pawing through them after she’s gone. (These are the
very words she said to Noreen, who agreed with her absolutely. And when she said them, she imagined it just that way: big hands, animal hands connected to no particular body, roughly stirring
through her letters—these memories—scattering them through sheer carelessness.
Wounding
them, as Lily thought of it.)
The correspondence is in file folders, ordered in clusters of years, usually three or four years together in one folder, but sometimes only one when there were many letters. Lily arranged it in
this fashion when she began to write her memoir. She hasn’t gone through it since that time. Oh, occasionally, searching for a certain memory to nourish a story idea, she has tracked down one
in particular, or read through a year of her life, but she hasn’t read some of these early letters in twenty or more years, and certainly not in order.
When Paul moved to Ohio, they were already engaged, and planning to be married within the year. Paul had gone ahead alone to “establish himself,” which meant, as they all understood,
to save some money. (Though Lily had come into her trust by then, her money was not to be used for any joint expenses, at his insistence.) Most of the letters contained long accounts of social
events in Belvaine, descriptions of people she would meet, especially of the women who had spoken of looking forward to her arrival. Sometimes Paul would be invited by a church family on a day trip
or outing to some local historic sight or natural wonder. Lily is struck now, reading the letters, by the energy he had for these encounters and trips, by the care he had for detail in these
letters, by his concern to give her a sense of what it was like to be there. He wanted her to feel, already, a part of it, and of his life.
I have been thinking of you here often, Lily, and often my question as I go through some event centers on what your response might be or how you might be experiencing
a certain thing if you were here by me. It is like looking at the world with a new set of eyes on the one hand, and on the other is slightly disorienting, and occasionally makes me feel
sorry for myself.
I went on a trip with the Barretts, all seven of us packed into their car on a day when the temperature must have hit ninety degrees! to what constitutes, locally, a
“mountain.” We climbed it, interminably it seemed, because of the pace of the two youngest children. It is really a large mound, but it’s true it had a long and very
lovely view over rolling fields, with the property boundaries (or perhaps they were creeks or streams?) marked by thickets of trees. Madam Barrett had outdone herself with the spread. Not
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