Dear Life

young wife had taken issue with some features of the place, and the church authorities, rather than fix it up, had decided to build a new house so that she could not complain anymore. The old parsonage was then sold cheaply to the old minister. It had room for the musician son and his wife when they came to visit with their children.
    There were two, their names appearing in the newspaper when they were born. A boy and then a girl. They came occasionally to visit, usually with Leah only; the father was busy with his dances or whatever. Neither Ray nor Isabel had run into them at those times.
    Isabel was better; she was almost normal. She cooked so well that they both put on weight and she had to stop, or at least do the fancier things less often. She got together with some other women in the town to read and discuss Great Books. A few had not understood what this would really be like and dropped out, but aside from them it was a startling success. Isabel laughed about the fuss there would be in Heaven as they tackled poor old Dante.
    Then there was some fainting or near-fainting, but she would not go to the doctor till Ray got angry with her and she claimed it was his temper that had made her sick. She apologized and they made up, but her heart took such a plunge that they had to hire a woman who was called a practical nurse to stay with her when Ray could not be there. Fortunately, there was some money—hers from an inheritance and his from a slight raise—which materialized, even though by choice he kept on with the night shift.
    One summer morning, on his way home, he checked at the post office to see if the mail was ready. Sometimes they had got it sorted by this time; sometimes they hadn’t. This morning they hadn’t.
    And now on the sidewalk, coming towards him in the bright early light of the day, was Leah. She was pushing a stroller, with a little girl about two years old inside it, kicking her legs against the metal footrest. Another child was taking things more soberly, holding on to his mother’s skirt. Or to what was really a long orangey pair of trousers. She was wearing with them a loose white top, something like an undervest. Her hair had more shine than it used to have, and her smile, which he had never actually seen before, seemed positively to shower him with delight.
    She could almost have been one of Isabel’s new friends, who were mostly either younger or recently arrived in this town, though there were a few older, once more cautious residents, who had been swept up in this bright new era, their former viewpoints dismissed and their language altered, straining to be crisp and crude.
    He had been feeling disappointed not to find any new magazines at the post office. Not that it mattered so much to Isabel now. She used to live for her magazines, which wereall serious and thought-provoking but with witty cartoons that she laughed at. Even the ads for furs and jewels had made her laugh, and he hoped, still, that they would revive her. Now, at least, he’d have something to tell her about. Leah.
    Leah greeted him with a new voice and pretended to be amazed that he had recognized her, since she had grown—as she put it—into practically an old lady. She introduced the little girl, who would not look up and kept a rhythm going on the metal footrest, and the boy, who looked into the distance and muttered. She teased the boy because he would not let go of her clothes.
    “We’re across the street now, honeybunch.”
    His name was David and the girl’s was Shelley. Ray had not remembered those names from the paper. He had an idea that both were fashionable.
    She said that they were staying with her in-laws.
    Not visiting them. Staying with them. He didn’t think of that till later and it might have meant nothing.
    “We’re just on our way to the post office.”
    He told her that he was coming from there, but they weren’t through with the sorting yet.
    “Oh too bad. We thought there might be a letter from Daddy, didn’t we, David?”
    The little boy had hold of her clothing again.
    “Wait till they get them sorted,” she said. “Maybe there’ll be one then.”
    There was a feeling that she didn’t quite want to part with Ray yet, and Ray did not want it either, but it was hard to think of anything else to say.
    “I’m on my way to the drugstore,” he said.
    “Oh, are you?”
    “I have to pick up a prescription for my wife.”
    “Oh I hope she’s not sick.”
    Then he felt as