Surely you''ve had this happen. You are seated by choice or misfortune in a window seat on an airplane. You look out as the plane takes off, rises up higher and higher, levels off. If you chance to glance down, you see a particular kind of order not realized on earth. You might feel a kind of hopefulness at the sight of houses clustered together in their various neighborhoods, at roads running straight or artfully curved, at what look like toy cars. You see the lakes and rivers, occasionally the wide stretch of ocean meeting horizon. You see natural quilts formed by the lay of fields and farmlands, you see the grouping of trees into parks and forests. Sometimes you see the splendor of autumn leaves or Fourth of July fireworks.
Or sunsets. Or sunrises. All of this can inspire something unnamable but nearly graspable, a kind of yearning toward a grand possibility. And then you land. But what if you landed differently? Diamonds in a Box After she has dried and put away her supper dishes, Lucille Howard sits at her kitchen table and contemplates what to do with another empty evening. A few years back, she might have sat out on the front porch with her former neighbor and then roommate, Arthur Moses, a man too good of heart for this world, in Lucille''s opinion, though she and many others profited plenty from his continual kindness. She pushes herself up from the table and goes out onto her front porch to stand with her hands on her hips, taking in a better view of the night sky. From the kitchen window the stars are so clear they look like diamonds; out here, it''s even more glorious.
As a child, Lucille thought stars were diamonds, and that if only she prayed in the right way, the cigar box she kept under her bed would be filled with them some morning, and she could make a necklace out of them. Never happened. Well, of course it never happened, stars are not diamonds. They''re suns, really, just balls of gas. If there''s one thing Lucille hates, it''s how science has to rain on whimsy''s parade: Rainbows not a gift from leprechauns offering pots of gold, but only a trick of refraction. A blue sky not a miles-wide painting done by a heavenly hand, but molecules scattering light. Still, when Lucille sees the stars strewn across the sky on a night like tonight, they''re diamonds, and she thinks they might end up under her bed yet. Maybe she''ll put a box back under there.
Tradition. Whimsy. Hope. Magical thinking, oh, she knows it''s magical thinking; and she knows, too, that she''s more prone to it now than she ever was. But what fun to imagine kneeling down to lift the dust ruffle and just check. And there they are at last, diamonds in a box, shining so hard they light up the surprised oval of her face. It''s cold enough for a jacket, this being the first of October, but Lucille is still in the habit of summer (the roses still blooming!) and so has neglected to put one on. It feels like too much work to go back in and get one, so she settles into a rocking chair, wraps her arms around herself, and moves vigorously back and forth.
There. That''s fine. It''s good for you to be a bit uncomfortable from time to time, especially if you''re only a few steps away from relief. People forget about the value of adversity. It was something she always tried to teach her fourth-grade students, how adversity can strengthen character. She also tried to teach them the value of having to work for something instead of it being handed to you the instant you said you wanted it. That''s what happens these days, no one waits for anything. But Lucille used to give her class construction-paper coupons with points for good behavior or for scholastic merit; and when they had enough points, she''d bake them a little baby pie in a five-inch tin, whatever kind they wanted, and they got to keep the tin.
They''d loved that. Once, a boy named Danny Matthews had wanted to cut his pie up so that everyone in the twenty-three-pupil class could have some. That had been a good lesson in mathematics. Danny was one of those kids who was never much liked, no matter how hard he tried. He was a very clumsy boy (the kids called him Mr. Magoo for the way he tripped over and bumped into things), and perpetually disheveled. Well, Lucille liked him and his crooked grin, and he loved her--he might act up with others, but he always listened to her. She heard he''d enlisted and gotten killed in Afghanistan.
It was true what they told her on the first day of teachers'' college: you never forget some of your students. For Lucille, it was the cut-ups she could never keep from laughing at, the dreamers she had to keep reeling back into the classroom, and little Danny Matthews, with his ragged heart of gold. Lucille gives herself a challenge: she''ll stay out here until it feels like her teeth might chatter. Then she''ll go inside, draw a bath, and have a soak in Epsom salts. One thing she''s grateful for are the grab bars she''s had installed, though even with them, getting herself down into the tub is a herculean task that reminds her a bit of elephants lowering themselves onto tiny stools, the way they used to have to do in the circus. She''s glad no one can see her, the way she grunts and huffs and puffs. Lord! they would say. Why don''t you switch to showers? You''re eighty-eight! True, but mostly she feels like she''s sixty-eight.
When she was sixty-eight, she felt like she was forty-eight. And so, although she knows the logic is off, she tells everyone that she feels forty-eight. Lucille will not give up her baths. No. In the tub, she is what she thinks being stoned must be like: she enjoys a feeling of timelessness and wide content. A float-y, perfumed detachment. After her bath, she''ll read her Maeve Binchy book, and then she''ll go to sleep. Maeve Binchy died young.
Seventy-two. Lucille bets there are seventy-two-year-olds who can still do the splits. If she could have given Maeve Binchy a year from her own life, you can bet she''d have done it. She actually cried when Maeve Binchy died, she sat in a kitchen chair and twisted a Kleenex in her hands and cried, and she felt a little tornado of frustration in her midsection because there was another good one, gone too soon. Well, bath and bed and then another day will be done, and she''ll be another step closer to the exit grande. She''s not morbid, she''s not sad, she''s just a realist. She is closer to death. Everyone is, from the moment they slide out of the womb.
From time to time, Lucille even feels a jazzy jump of joy, thinking about the journey to the place no one knows about, really, never mind the stories of the bright light and the tunnel and whatnot. No one really knows. Just as she''s ready to get up and go inside, she sees the neighbor who bought her old house, right next door to the smaller house she lives in now, which was Arthur''s house. He willed it to Maddy Harris, the girl who used to live here with them, and Lucille now rents it from Maddy, if you call "rent" simply taking care of the place. The neighbor is coming out to walk his dog. Lucille has nothing against dogs, but that one is the ugliest thing she''s ever seen. An ancient, mid-size gray mutt who looks like he needs a shave. Bugged-out eyes like a pug.
A bit bowlegged. A tail that looks more like Eeyore''s than a dog''s. And his name: Henry. Now, why in the world would you give a dog that looks like that a name befitting a king? "Hello, Lucille," the man calls over. "Hello, Jason," Lucille answers, though she muffles the name a bit. Is it Jason? Or is it Jeremy? Or Jeffrey? It''s a little past the point where she can ask; the neighbors have been there for almost a year. The J. person, his wife, Abby, and their ten-year-old son, whose name is.
well, for heaven''s sake. Starts with an L. Liam? Leroy? Lester? She closes her eyes to concentrate. Lincoln! That''s it. Another strange name, if you ask her. What''s become of Spot and Rex and Champ for dogs? What''s become of Mary and Sally and Billy for children? This is what happens. You live past your time of importance and relevance and the world must be given over to the younger ones. Lucille is all right with that notion.
As the old folks yielded to her as a young woman, she will yield to the young folks coming up after her. But there is one thing she''s going to get before she is here no more. And that is a very specific miracle, which she feels is owed her. In spades. Lucille has kept her eyes closed and is startled now by the sound of footsteps: J. and his dog, coming up onto her porch. She cries out and leaps to her feet. "Sorry," the man says.
"Did I scare you?" "Yes!" "I''m sorry." "It''s all right." She pulls her hand down from where it had flown up onto her chest. "I just wanted to ask you if you''d be free to come to our house for dinner tomorrow night. Abby''s been meaning to ask you forever, but we--" "Tomorrow night? What time?" "Seven?" "Seven! How can your son wait that long to eat?" "Six?" the man asks, smiling. "That''s better." "Okay, good, we''ll see you then." J.
pulls at the leash, but Henry apparently has no interest in going anywhere. He stares up at Lucille as though he''s forgotten something in her house and won''t leave without retrieving it. "Run along now, Henry," Lucille says. "Obey your master." The dog moves closer to her, sniffs at her toes, then at the hem of her pants. "I was just going in." she says, and Henry barks: once, twice, excitedly. Lucille puts her hands on her kn.