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Show Motherlunge a novel 238 The snow was piled up in dirty berms on either side of the street as we slowly drove past the house like burglars making the neighborhood. We silently noted the similar ranch-style houses in sage green or clay or sunset-ours alone still surrounded by dried weeds poking up in tufts under the windows-and all the domestically manufactured minivans in the driveways. We saw the vapors rising from the aluminum vents on the roofs, two deer springing over a chain link fence and flashing off through the backyards toward the mountains. And the pang I felt as we crept along wasn't nostalgia; it was relief. I was never coming back. The alert reader may ask, 'What is Supernal Manor?' and/or 'What became of Dorothy?' or yet even, 'Otherwise, shouldn't Eli and Thea stayed at Dorothy's home rather than the too-small residence of Walter, during this trip to Montana?' In fact, Supernal Manor was the assisted-living facility to which Pavia and Jack had had to move Dorothy. In this move, thankfully, I did not directly participate. I did, however, call my mother soon afterward. The ringing of Dorothy's new phone line had a flat, insectal buzz-a corporate sound. She picked up on the second ring. "Hi," I said. "It's me," I said, then added, "Thea." "Darling," she said. |