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Show 69 Twenty-two The day begins as if some large family problem were solved: the sons are up early, moving stacks of cardboard cartons from the attic to the basement, inspecting the garden equipment in the garage, thumbing through the Yellow Pages for the names of local real estate agents, whom they might get to sell the house. The grandchildren have free run of the house, and no one scolds them; they dart in to sit a moment on Annis' lap, and are off again. John begins the task he had so much earlier avoided: he begins, as she has already done, to sort through the contents of the dresser, the closet, the cupboards where he keeps his clothes and shoes and golfing hats, begins to throw some out, set other things aside to pack and take along. Even Rod's shy wife emerges from the kitchen, to ask Annis if she'd like a cup of tea. But Annis sets off by herself along the steep path to the sea. The frayed bark of eucalyptus covers the ground, small spiny plants push themselves up through the soil, and the noise of the ocean seems irregular and loud. She thinks of rows of identical villas, one of which is to be prepared for her, of the warm shallow pool and the continuous bridge games and the periodic tours of elderly women through Spain, Portugal, Greece, and the progression from there to the nursing-care units, where help comes at the sound of a buzzer and there is oxygen stored on each floor, and finally the new white impeccably clean hospital facilities, where one could finally come to dying in the expected way. Evan would come, and Rod would fly in at the last, to sit for a while beside the bed of a wasted, incontinent, senile old woman, who would not perceive their |