A Gesture Life Read Free Page B

the middle of the evening that I stopped, when it occurred to me that I should at least have a snack, so that I wouldn’t toss in my sleep or wake up famished. I put on my robe and went out to the stairs, but instead of descending, I wandered down the hallway, to the far door, to the room where Sunny once lived.
    For some moments I stood before the door. When I finally opened it, I was surprised by the sudden chill; the heating ducts had long been shut, and an icy curl of air lapped past my bare feet. I remembered, then, how it had taken longer than I expected to clear the room completely: it was crammed full of her furnishings, every sort of bric-a-brac and notion and wall hanging. She had left the house in a hurry. In the following weeks I worked on the room in my spare time, in the evenings and on the weekends. I remember patching and repainting the ceiling and walls, making sure to fix allthe mars in the plaster. There were larger pocks, into which I found it easy enough to spade the filler. But it was the smaller ones, particularly the tack holes, which seemed to number in the hundreds, that took the greatest part of my time. In the end, I found myself doing the work in half-foot squares, pressing in the paste with the tip of a finger, smoothing it out, and it wasn’t until much later, as I’d drift into the room to inspect for missed holes, running my hand over the surfaces, that the whole project was quite satisfactorily done.

2
    MY HOUSE ISN’T THE GRANDEST in our town, but it’s generally known that of the homes on Mountview, one of the original streets in Bedley Run, the two-story Tudor revival at number 57 is one of the special properties in the area. It seems it’s every other week now that I receive a card or note from a realtor, asking if I might consider putting it up for sale. The local ones, of course, know my situation, and as I’m retired and live alone in this large house, with its impressive flower and herb garden, and flagstone swimming pool, and leaded glass and wrought-iron conservatory, they are right to hope that I might do as Mrs. Hickey had thought I’d done, and move to one of those new developments in a welcomingly warm place like Boca Raton or Scottsdale.
    “Now come on, Doc,” Liv Crawford of Town Realty said to me on the phone very early this morning, “that immensely beautiful house of yours is also very high-maintenance. You don’t want to be worrying about clogged gutters and foundation cracks anymore, do you?”
    “I don’t mind so much, actually,” I told her.
    “But how are you going to feel twenty years from now?”
    I reminded her that I would be in my nineties by then.
    “All the more so,” she answered brightly. I thanked her for her very optimistic wishes for my health, and said I would let her know when I was ready.
    “You never know until you are, Doc. But sometimes it’s too late.”
    “Goodness, Liv.”
    “Just saying, Doc. Listen, I’m about to meet some buyers, and I think they’d just love your house to death. They’re young and high-powered, and they’re very desperate to find a place on a Mountview-type street. They’re already talking an overbid, for the right kind of place, which yours is in spades.”
    “But it’s not for sale, there’s no price—”
    “I know that, Doc. I’m just doing a drive-by with them, the whole neighborhood, but when I slow down in front of your place, can I at least tell them you’re considering?”
    “I don’t think this is the best time for me, Liv….”
    “Fine, Doc, thanks. Gotta go.”
    Then click, she’s gone. But really, in fact I don’t mind her opportunism, her wishful pluck, the way her voice positively rings with the joyous vibrancy of commerce (a note I sorely miss). In fact I’ve had several market appraisals done in recent years, with the consensus being that my house hasn’t fallen in price (as everything else in the county has, especially commercial properties like my former store), but