Oh to be here.
Fringe of Boston and lilac season with scents so heady one almost feels dizzy just walking down to the end of the driveway to get the paper when the boy misses the porch.
Winter finally gone, and the coats sent off to be cleaned. Cedar closets sitting empty soon to be filled up with sweaters and summer chests in the attic to be taken down with things to be got ready for the house in Bar Harbor.
Children in high school and a child off to college. The swing set taken down in the back yard and more and more cars in the driveway instead. A bigger garage, but no. Gone soon they will be and money needing to be spent on grandchild bedrooms where the maids used to sleep soon enough. Three rooms already and not wanting more. The house big enough and not needing something the size of another with a suite or two for nursemaids or au pairs or whatever the young people call them now.
But the neighborhood grand and the flowers divine. A good house for children but not the mother.
A long time ago it was, that year in the apartment on Beacon Hill. Bedrooms needing to be shared but a walk across the Common every Thursday and a sister to meet for dinner. In the same space and not needing a car, just feet. . . far away now she is but not in one’s heart . . . no, there and two ladies in a restaurant laughing over pot pies and a cocktail and cigarette forever . . .
This is the story of Isabelle C. whom I worked for when I was young and she seemed terribly old. She had long since moved to the suburbs but had fond memories of her apartment and told me how once a week her husband would watch their children and she would cross the park to meet her sister for supper.
