Epilogue

DEATH'S SHADOW

Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there,
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death. - Rupert Brooke, Peace

"I am concerned about you!" exclaimed a frazzled Olivia Logan, as she paced the length of the Persian rug in the parlor, worry etched on her face and revealed in her movements.

"So you keep saying." answered Malcolm, looking back down at his newspaper. His granddaughter stalked across to stand directly in front of him.

"You are blocking my light." he said tersely.

"Malcolm," she easily removed the paper from his weakened grasp. "listen to me-"

"You say that just like your grandmother." he said archly. It was not meant as a compliment.

"It's a wonder that you have been able to put up with this man." said Olivia Ann with an exasperated look toward Olivia.

"Entirely by choice. No one need suffer my presence," snapped Malcolm.

"You really must not upset him." said Olivia, an edge to her voice.

"It seems as though I've outstayed my welcome, today." Olivia Ann said. She continued to belabor her point. "The two of you cannot continue to live here by yourselves."

"We're managing well enough, without your interference." Malcolm insisted.

"I know you dislike having to ask for help, Malcolm," she lowered her voice, changing tactic before continuing: "Look around, and be realistic. Gram can barely pull herself out of a chair, and she seems to be slowing down more, I notice, each time I visit."

"Rubbish," muttered Malcolm.

"You just don't see it."

"We spend summers here, and winters in Connecticut. I don't plan to change that." he said, battling to control the frustrations caused by the indignities of age and the impertinence of his well-meaning granddaughter.

"But neither of you can drive. What if one of you should need a doctor, or need to get into town quickly-had you thought of that? It takes half an hour to drive to Charlottesville, and longer in poor weather. It is dangerous for you to be here alone. And don't glare at me that way!" The two of them had identical expressions when they were displeased.

"I won't have you talking down to me." he said. "I am still a rational being, and able to make my own arrangements."

"The two of you should consider coming to live with us." she said. There was no response whatsoever. "Malcolm, I can't visit as often as I could, if you would stay in Connecticut. I can't look after you, from such a distance."

"We didn't ask for your help." said Malcolm, straightening in his chair, glancing at Olivia, who seemed not to be listening. She sat nearby, motionless on an old walnut and burgundy brocade settee, her face impassive.

"You don't need to ask." Olivia Ann sighed. "But this arrangement is no longer a good one, even if it is only for the summer. I worry. Someone besides the servants should be here with you. Look, if you won't call Corinne, then I will. If you are too proud to ask for help, or to patch up whatever the rift is between you, then I will do it for you," Then, seeing the hard expression that came into Malcolm's eyes, she said: "and you don't have a choice about it."

"It isn't that simple."

They both turned to Olivia. She spoke so rarely, as if speech had become too great an effort.

"We haven't been in contact with Corinne and Bartholomew for several years now. In fact, Bartholomew doesn't know that Malcolm is alive."

This was astonishing! Was there no end to the deceptions in families?

Olivia Ann concluded that her grandparents felt, even after knowing her for ten years, that they could not trust her with their secrets, and this hurt, for who else cared about them, now? Their daughter had obviously abandoned them, although they were on good enough terms so that Corinne was still permitted to come and go as she wished at Foxworth Hall, although she never crossed paths with her parents.

Photographs of Corinne Winslow showed a woman of refinement, whose demeanor and smile suggested only sweetness, though this could not be the case. What was Corinne thinking, gallivanting all over the country-the world-never writing, never spending so much as a single holiday with her aging parents? For this, for shunning family responsibilities, Olivia Ann disliked the aunt she had never met.

"I suppose you could call Bartholomew. If he returned to Virginia without Corinne, as he often has done in the past, no one would be suspicious. He'll have to be told about Malcolm. You MUST advise him to use discretion." stressed Olivia.

"Suspicious of what, Gram?"

Olivia wore a closed expression; clearly she was unwilling to reveal the source of their trouble.

Sunlight streamed in through the leaded glass window, causing the diamonds on her hand to sparkle. Olivia made an effort with her appearance when visitors were expected, but despite the elegance of her clothes and jewelry, she seemed to be fading. She appeared smaller, and often she seemed distant, as if separating herself from the present. Her skin was tissue-paper thin and pale, the vibrant energy that defined her was disappearing. Olivia Ann wondered if Malcolm even noticed.

Not being with her grandparents every day, she noticed changes in each of them, which they did not see. They were both more subdued than usual. The constant bickering that had always been part of their communication seemed to have lessened-or was it only her imagination? No, of course they were the same as they had always been-a bit aloof, with a quiet solidarity that she envied. It seemed that they needed no one else.

Undemonstrative herself, she understood their reserved manner. The pride innate in each of them forbade certain kinds of warmth. She wondered if the man who, if he had lived, would have been her father, might have felt excluded in the company of his parents.

She herself had often felt strangely disconnected from the Gordons. Had it been an intuitive knowing that had told her she wasn't one of them, that she had a family elsewhere? Would she have felt more of a sense of belonging, if she'd grown up as a Foxworth?

Olivia Ann couldn't imagine living in this massive house-feeling at ease enough to walk downstairs in one's night clothes, or to summon the courage to relax enough to feel that all the untidy ways of life were permissible, in these surroundings. It was even more impossible to imagine being a child, here. She was uneasy, bringing her children into its polished grandeur. She and Samuel preferred more modern houses, though one could not help being impressed by Foxworth Hall. One couldn't help but feel grand, simply by traversing wide spaces and deep pile rugs, or descending the curving staircases. Her grandparents, though, belonged to these large rooms and high ceilings, and perhaps Mal had as well. He would have inherited the mansion, so surely, had Mal not died, his daughter would have been brought up here, too.

Olivia Ann felt no particular connection to Mal, but she was curious about him. In avid fascination, she had studied pictures of him, wondering who he had been. She wished she had known him, for the pieces of his life left to her in colorless photographs and in the stories told to her were insufficient. All one could know from photographs was that Mal had strongly resembled Malcolm, even as a small boy. Had Mal worn the old-fashioned clothing of the 1890's rather than knee pants, he would have looked exactly as Malcolm had at the same age. In the last photographs of Mal, he resembled Malcolm more than ever, although Mal had an unformed, youthful quality which the picture of Malcolm-at twenty-five, taken shortly after his marriage-did not show.

Like his father, Mal had been magnificent, and brilliant. (Although, if one believed her grandmother, all Foxworth men were born geniuses, of one kind or another.) As a young man, at six-five, Mal had been taller than both of his parents, and he seemed to have had a lively quality they lacked. Perhaps it was only the exuberance of youth they had lost, and then on a Monday, a mild September evening, they had lost Mal too, the one her grandfather-had placed all his ambitious hopes in. She wondered if Mal had been as pertinacious as the man he was named after, and if this had been part of his charm.

"As usual, I am getting nowhere with the two of you. You would try the patience of a saint! It's getting late, and I should be going. I'll call you tomorrow night."

With her characteristic brisk movements, Olivia Ann hugged each of them quickly, and started for the door. Sadness slowed her steps, for the arms that hugged her back were no longer strong. Just as it had with her parents, time was running out with two more people she loved, and she hated to leave them. Every visit might be the last.

"Bring the boys with you next time, dear." said Olivia.

"I will." Olivia Ann promised, reluctantly. The noise and constant activity of the children would tire them-a fact to which they had begun, recently, to admit.

"They liked the toys you sent, Gram." She must find a tactful way to ask her grandmother to desist from buying the children new toys, for so many presents they surely did not deserve, outside of holiday occasions. "Chester especially likes the kaleidoscope and the wind-up cars."

"Those infernal cars have a way of always being underfoot." grumbled Malcolm. "See that they aren't brought back into this house."

"Mal had some like them. I can't tell you how many times he sent one hurtling across the rotunda, and it would go through the balusters and crash down into the foyer, always when Malcolm was walking by." Olivia smiled, but the scene had been anything but pleasant, at the time.

"He did it intentionally." said Malcolm.

"Well, don't put that idea in Chester's head, please."

"Take these news clippings Jacob wanted about Pioneer 10." said Malcolm. Olivia Ann accepted the envelope, then hurried down the steps of the front portico, and down the driveway to her car.

Leaning on his cane, Malcolm went to the window to see her off, then turned to help Olivia to her feet. She had been given a cane as well, but refused to use it, insisting the aid wasn't necessary. Yet each day she complained of pain in her hip, and her steps grew more faltering.

Seven chimes resounded from the grandfather clock, breaking the silence that followed the departure.

Mabel came to leave their after-dinner coffee, asked if they required anything more, then she, too, left for the evening.

"I have such a headache." said Olivia.

"It's doubtless caused by something she uses to season the chicken. I don't care for it myself." said Malcolm. He knew Olivia was changing the subject with her next words.

"She is right, Malcolm."

"Nonsense. I won't hear of it." There was a delay before he spoke, and he replied absent-mindedly, not looking up from the headlines. "If you're getting around to what she said about us going back to Connecticut-"

"Malcolm, it's not a bad idea."

"She has a point, I'm sure, but it is easier to get around this house, with its larger rooms and fewer unavoidable stairs."

"Well, I can't disagree with that."

"Precisely. We will stay here. It's more practical for us, if not for her."

"But it's too much of an imposition for her to drive all this way so often. She's busy with the children and the business, and-"

"The business!" Vexed, Malcolm tossed aside his newspaper. "Why doesn't Samuel take more of an active role in it? He's a worthless excuse for a man. He's lazy, has no ambition."

"You are deliberately changing the subject."

"What kind of a man lets his wife do the work he should be about?"

"She wants to work, Malcolm, and anyway, it's none of our concern."

"It certainly is our concern! I mean to have a word with him." Malcolm fumed.

"Don't do that. Stay out of it, Malcolm. I doubt she would appreciate your interference."

"She looked tired. Didn't you think she looked like she's been working too hard?"

"I really didn't notice. If so, it was due to having to drive to Virginia."

"Must we carry out this tiresome discussion any further?"

"I suppose not," she said crisply. "since you've already made up your mind."

"It's for them-Jacob and Chester-that I need to be here occasionally to see that the place doesn't fall into disrepair and... Olivia? What is it?" Malcolm asked, disturbed by something he saw in her expression.

"Oh, I don't know. I was just thinking that I'll probably never see New England again."

"What kind of talk is that? We'll be there in September." he said impatiently.

"That's such a long time from now." she said. It was then late March, and one of those days with a deceptively clear sky, almost cloudless. Through a window,
it looked warm, but was not.

Olivia talked on, but Malcolm only half listened. Later, he would regret this. Later, he would want very much to know what she'd said, trivial though it may have been. All he would remember was that she'd crossed the room and picked up a jar of shells Olivia Ann had left atop the music cabinet. The shells were from Jacob for Olivia, because she had once told him how she used to collect them as a girl. Jacob would never be far from his home, from the ocean,
he was born to it... She had been talking about Jacob, perhaps.

Malcolm looked up when he heard a small crash, and the skittering of shells of all sizes spilling across the hardwood floor. He looked up in time to see Olivia in the doorway, reaching out, groping for the edge of the music cabinet for balance, before she crumpled to the floor. At first, he thought she'd tripped on the edge of the recently restored rug, which had only yesterday been returned to the room.

"My God!" he went across and looked down at her. He swore, hating his helplessness, but there was no way he could lift her, no way he could move her to a more comfortable place. He leaned on his cane. She was trying to speak, but he could make no sense of the sounds. She clutched at his cane ineffectually.

"Mabel! Mabel, goddammit!" he shouted, and looked for a bell-pull which, in his panic, he forgot hadn't been in this room for several decades. Then he remembered that Mabel had left for the evening. The servants no longer lived on the premises.

Reaching for the telephone on the desk nearby, he stared stupidly at its dial. He could not think. His hands shook so badly that it took three attempts before he could successfully put through the necessary call.

"My wife has fallen, and-" he looked down at her, unable to say what he believed-that she was probably dying. "I think she's suffered a stroke. What? How long will it be, for God's sake? She needs help, NOW! Oh, yes. The address is-" His mind went blank.

"Five Mulberry Circle." he finally said into the telephone. "No, no! At the TOP of the hill. It's the Foxworth estate. In North Garden. What should I do for her? I can't... Right. thank you."

The line went dead. Seconds stretched out into what seemed like hours, as he waited.

When Malcolm's own ill health had conquered him, he resented Olivia's vitality, her mobility, while he had been confined to a wheelchair. Age had marked him first, leaving Olivia untouched, until it caught up with her all at once. When it did, she appeared to age overnight. It seemed to Malcolm that she lost ten years in a single day, in that single minute when she fell to the floor, and the mental image he carried of her, forever standing tall and strong and alone dissolved. Now, she languished in the hospital, helpless and unresponsive.

The doctors could not assess what the impact of the stroke would be, for some time yet. Olivia could remain in a coma, or she might die. They gave no concrete answers or guarantee of recovery. If Olivia woke, she might be able to understand words, but she wouldn't be able to form them into speech. Aphasia, the doctors termed it, and they did not expect much improvement.

Malcolm had never expected to be the stronger one, again. After his own heart disease set in, when he considered the infirmities of age, it was himself he believed death would claim first, and that might have been a blessing. Olivia would resist, surely. But she wasn't resisting. It saddened him to realize that she was giving in, she, who had refused to let him give in to death during the days when he would have welcomed an end to his life.

Malcolm's memory was stirred, of a day long ago, after Joel's disappearance, when he'd been sitting alone, staring blankly into space. It was all he seemed to do, in those days, and he wondered how he-a man so hollow and broken-could continue to exist. How could he be expected to take up life's mundane activities again? The gulf between himself and those closest to him widened each day, but he was indifferent to their concerns.

Olivia entered the library one evening, soundless and ghostlike. Her sympathy had been rejected once too often, and now she did not often try to speak to him about his state of mind, but instead sent her cousin.

The dreary rain beyond the French windows was a more appealing sight than his wife, and Malcolm didn't look at her, for whenever he did, he saw what he had lost; he only saw in her face the shape of Mal's face. When she spoke, he heard traces of Joel's voice in her voice. For months, it had been easier to blame her, than to accept that losing his sons was nothing but a pair of causeless accidents-a reality he could not endure.

John Amos claimed the tragedies were punishments from God. But Malcolm knew-though he didn't argue the matter with John-that the universe was far too chaotic and driven by chance for there to be a force so exacting and orderly, doling out rewards and punishments, as John believed.

"Malcolm, listen to me. You're not helping yourself by shutting yourself away in this library, day after day."

"Leave me alone."

"I know you blamed me for... for what happened to Mal."

She waited, but he said nothing. Olivia's voice grated on his nerves.

"Even so," she continued, "you stopped me from harming myself, that day. Let me help you, now."

"I don't see how you, particularly-or anyone-can help."

He didn't want to recall the details of the day of Mal's death. He wished to God she would stop trying to force him to talk, but he finally looked at her, into the eyes he had wished, for months, to avoid, for their vacant expression frightened him. Their emptiness was worse even than seeing her tears.

He had always counted on her to take charge when he couldn't. He didn't know how to cope when she could not. If she had been angry, cutting into him with her usual sarcasm, that would have been easier to abide. But he could not cope with another's weakness, when he himself was at a point of such powerlessness.

John Amos was the only one not crushed by what had happened, and so Malcolm found his company easiest to tolerate.

"You've got to heal yourself, or you'll die." she said, succinctly. "Corinne needs you. She needs us, and we are all we have left of the boys. The only good we had is gone, but we are still living, and we must get beyond this, somehow. We have to look after each other; we're still... a family. We have a daughter and we have a responsibility toward her."

They were brave words, but he doubted if Olivia herself even believed them.

"Yes." he said dully. "But I don't know... I don't know how to-"

Malcolm, unable to articulate his thoughts, waited to be reminded that he deserved all of the blame, that all of this tragedy was engendered by his sin.

The minutes stretched out. The silence was interminable, and he realized that, this once, she would not break it. The silence was calming. Olivia was not the cause of the peace, but strangely, she was part of it-of going on, somehow-to the future, and returning to what remained of importance in his life.

"I am not getting through to Gram. You must go. You must talk to her." said Olivia Ann, who had, only that morning, returned just long enough to unpack her suitcase once again, upstairs in one of the spare rooms.

"She won't know the difference."

"That's nonsense." she snapped. "Stop making excuses."

"The doctors are doing all they can. My presence is not needed."

"I can't believe I am having this conversation with you!"

"I can't see her," he insisted, quietly, but his granddaughter's intractable expression did not change.

"All right." he said with a sigh.

"Good. We'll go after dinner. Do try to eat, Malcolm. I don't want to see both of you in the hospital." she said, setting a bowl of soup before Malcolm, who hadn't eaten anything, in the last day and a half.

She sat down across from him, and poured tea for herself into a fragile, rose-colored cup.

Malcolm could see that she was tired, but unruffled, able to cope with whatever was required of her. The movements of her small hands were swift and graceful, as ever. She sat straight, not leaning against the curved back of the chair. Her clothes were neat and sensible, a pearl-gray skirt and blouse with embroidered collar, and an oval cameo pendant.

"I know how you dislike long-term guests, so I'll be going home, soon, but I'll wait until Corinne arrives. By that time, perhaps Gram will be home."

"You've put too much onion in the soup. I cannot eat this." he said, putting down his spoon, unappreciative of her efforts, and pointedly ignoring the reference to his daughter.

Olivia Ann looked crestfallen, but Malcolm wouldn't retract his criticism. He wasn't hungry, and even had he wanted to eat, the truth was that she couldn't cook. What she made was invariably bland, or improperly seasoned.

"You are certainly not a guest here; you're a Foxworth. This is your home, whenever you need one." Malcolm went on, in a subdued, mumbling way. He felt some guilt as he said it, not because there was anything inherently wrong in letting her know this, but because of the awareness that he'd never expressed such a sentiment to any of his own children.

He looked around the dining room, at the polished silver tea service on the sideboard behind her, at the gleaming oak, at the ornate chandelier above the table, and the sheer, lacy curtains which allowed natural light into the long room, and hoped what he said would be true-that his granddaughter would always be welcomed at Foxworth Hall.

Corinne would inherit the house, of course. Olivia Ann neither needed nor wished for the responsibility of it, but it was as much hers as it was Corinne's.

"I want you to go to the house in New London. There is a sealed parcel of papers there that you must send to me, without delay." Malcolm said later, handing over a set of keys. "And while you are there, take whatever you wish to keep. I don't know what Olivia's written into her will, but I'm sure she'd want you to have-"

"Stop this! She isn't going to die, Malcolm." she insisted in the sharp, thin tone that defied dispute.

"I think I know better than you what to expect." he fired back, forgetting for a moment that Olivia Ann had lost both parents at a relatively young age.

"This is difficult for you, I know." she said. "She's been with you for most of your life."

"There's no reason to get maudlin over it. It's a fact."

"What about Corinne? Have you called her? When will she be here? And... won't she want things from the house, too?" Olivia Ann asked, trying to be generous,
although if a dispute arose, she had no intention of fighting Corinne for ownership of anything. Malcolm snorted, and she knew this to be a dismissal, and so, heavy-hearted, she accepted and pocketed the keys.

"Corinne won't come."

"Why not? How much longer will she carry on like this, pretending her wretched life has meaning?" she burst out, then, fearing she'd spoken out of turn,
she added unconvincingly, "Forgive me. I shouldn't have said that."

"No." he agreed, letting the silence linger before continuing. "And, to answer your question, I don't know, but it isn't all her fault."

"What isn't?" she asked, seizing on this opportunity, hoping to learn the cause of the estrangement.

Malcolm looked down at the steps, intently focused on putting one foot in front of the other. He disliked being escorted everywhere, watched, assisted, but Olivia Ann did not treat him as if he were helpless, and she didn't mince words. Walking without help was a monumental challenge, as was evading his granddaughter's questions.

Malcolm would have welcomed the chance to confide in someone. But that would mean having to explain everything, from the beginning. He would have to explain why Corinne and Christopher's relationship had been such an embarrassment, and that they had been so shameless as to engage in improper relations (which was how Olivia would have put it) right here in this house! Had they not thought how indiscreet and inappropriate that was, and how shocking?

Olivia's sensibilities being what they were-old-fashioned, (and he saw the value in that; it preserved boundaries and respectability) she hadn't ever told Malcolm the precise circumstances under which she'd discovered Christopher and Corinne in the Swan Room, that June morning. But John Amos had had no such scruples about spelling out the whole sordid scene to Malcolm.

Malcolm would have to explain about John Amos, as well, and he felt it quite beyond him, so he pretended not to have heard Olivia Ann's question.

"Corinne may choose not to come home, but she ought to know what's happened to her mother."

"Yes," Malcolm considered. "Yes, of course. You'll have to call her."

It would be a brief conversation. Corinne would not be grateful to be notified in this way, and to have to return to Virginia. Her superficially polite, aloof tone was an oblique reminder to Olivia Logan that she was a latecomer to this family.

As they drove away from Foxworth Hall, neither Malcolm nor Olivia Ann spoke. She did not chatter on, with the false brightness Corinne would have employed to fill a lull in conversation; they both preferred companionable silence.

Malcolm did not speculate on what awaited them at the hospital. Instead, he stared out the car window and into the distance, toward the blue-misted mountains, and at his estate.

He had never lost his love of the vast Palladian-style Georgian house he had inherited. What would become of it, when he was gone? Few people had the means to, or wanted to maintain such extravagant houses, anymore.

He regretted that he was incapable of showing his granddaughter around, properly; he did so enjoy seeing the astonishment and appreciation on the face of one viewing Foxworth Hall for the first time, and feeling the pride of ownership which years could not diminish.

It had been decades since he'd walked the familiar paths and through the woods. It had been decades since he'd seen the lake, and he glimpsed it through the trees, a silver sheet reflecting the bright spring sunlight, wishing he could go there, once more. He would not have the chance to relive the memories associated with that place, some good, some best forgotten. He had taught Mal to swim, and that lake had been his refuge from the turmoil that accompanied growing up.

It had been Malcolm's refuge from the confusion that often marked his own younger years, as well. It was his place of escape when he was a boy needing to hide from his father's drunken rages, in the first years after Corinne Sprencel Foxworth, his mother, abandoned them.

In his mind, Malcolm conjured his mother's image, more clearly than he had done, in years. He saw the angelic smile that disguised her true nature. He remembered her unusual eyes and her easy laugh. She had been the darling of everyone's affections, indulged and adored, and forgiven for her flaws.

One April morning, she was nowhere to be found.

At the time, being barely five years old, Malcolm was alternately devastated by the loss of his mother, and glad she was gone, for she had been the one person who would not bend to his will. For months afterward, he was afraid he might disappear in the middle of the night, just as she had disappeared. Didn't all fairy tales promise punishment of one kind or another? His prevailing memories of early childhood were of fear and confusion and loneliness, not of games and happiness.

Attempting to frighten him into behaving, one of the nannies had told him that it was only what bad children deserved. People were-in various ways-always telling him he was very disobedient-his grandmother Rosamond, his own father, Mrs. Wilson the cook, and his nannies, Tillie and Emmeline. All of them thought him worse than naughty, they pronounced him a bad child; they hated him and wished he had been the one to vanish.

While the five-year-old Malcolm grappled with terrors which no one thought to allay, his father, who had displayed little more than indifference toward his son, began to make an impression upon him. For the first time, Malcolm experienced the full force of Garland's temper. Malcolm hadn't fully understood-until much later-why his father fell into such black moods whenever Corinne's name was mentioned-not until he had found the drawer at the back of her vanity table, where Corinne had hidden a packet of letters.

Garland had surely never seen the letters, or he would have burned them, as Malcolm himself did, after reading them, at the impressionable age of fourteen. He wondered why Corinne had not destroyed the letters, or taken them away with her, but her carelessness about them confirmed his opinion that she was indifferent to the feelings of others, self-centered, deliberately cruel.

From that day, Malcolm worried that deviant, inverted natures such as hers might be inheritable traits. Had she meant for Malcolm, or for Garland to find the letters? They contained a disgraceful secret which Malcolm never confided to anyone. His mother had not left with another man; she had done something far more scandalous and injurious to Garland's pride. The treacherous Corinne had run off with one named Isabel Bertram, a woman she had, for years, passed off as her personal maid and seamstress. (On the day of their flight, Corinne took nothing away with her-almost nothing. But she, unbeknownst even to herself, carried a child, a daughter who should inherit the name of Foxworth, but never would.)

"Shall I bring your chair?"

His granddaughter broke into his thoughts when they reached the hospital.

"No, I'll walk." said Malcolm, and then, when the elevator opened onto the second floor corridor of the hospital, he frowned, muttering to himself. "What is SHE doing here?"

An elderly woman approached, obviously recognizing him. They were the same height, nearly, and they greeted each other without smiling.

"My granddaughter Molly is a nurse, and she told me Olivia is here. I wish you'd phoned me, Malcolm." said the woman, a hint of reproach in her voice. She spoke in the slow, lazily drawling way common to lifelong residents of the Shenandoah valley.

"Olivia hasn't asked to see anyone. You might have done better to wait until she's home." said Malcolm. The woman was unperturbed.

Olivia Ann gave Malcolm an inquiring look.

"This is Millicent Hanscomb." Malcolm began, leaning heavily on his cane. "This is my granddaughter. Olivia."

"I'm glad to finally meet you. She told me about you." said Millicent, with an ingratiating smile. "I've known Olivia, oh, for years and years, since the boys were just little ones."

"It was good of you to come." said Olivia Ann. "How is she today?"

"It's hard to say." replied Millicent. "She doesn't respond to anything. Malcolm, what do the doctors say? I didn't get much from the nurses, and they won't let me see her, since I'm not family."

"I should have a word with the doctor." said Malcolm, looking about, helplessly.

"I'll speak to the doctor," decided Olivia Ann. "You go on and see her now."

"I can't." he said, and to her dismay, he began to cry, silently. Millicent led him discreetly away. She clasped his hands, speaking to him quietly, as he collected himself.

Olivia Ann left them. When she returned some ten minutes later, Millicent was alone.

"He'll be all right, won't he?" she asked. Seeing Malcolm undone had brought home the severity of the situation.

Millicent offered no empty reassurances.

"Listen, if you would, gather some clothes-some of her winter things, and bring them." suggested Millicent. "These hospitals tend to be cold."

Millicent glanced down the hallway.

"It's good that they have you." she said. "You'll call if there's any change?"

"I will." agreed Olivia Ann. There was something about this woman that she disliked-her instant familiarity, or perhaps it was only that she sensed Malcolm's dislike of Millicent.

"Thank you. I can't stay. My daughter is waiting downstairs." said Millicent, edging toward the elevator.

Olivia Ann went in search of her grandfather.

"Are you ready to go, Malcolm?"

"I'll stay a while longer-see if she..." his words trailed off.

"Millicent suggested I bring Gram some things from the house."

"You'll do this tonight. I should have thought-"

"I need to call home and speak to Samuel and Loretta, but yes, I can do that tonight. You look very tired, Malcolm. You should let me take you home."

"I'll stay a while longer." he repeated.

"Gram will be all right. She may improve in time." Olivia Ann offered, not sure if she even believed the optimism she hoped Malcolm would accept.

"All of you are wrong. Olivia won't get better." he stated, with an unsettling finality.

"How can you know that?"

"I'm being realistic." said Malcolm.

For a fleeting moment, she wished she had never met and grown so attached to them. It would only mean another loss, eventually. But she chastised herself for such a thought. They were her family, and although she had met them only after she was grown, in some ways, she felt a stronger connection to them these days than with her flighty and demented sister.

Her grandparents were steady, dependable, and she had learned much from them, both about herself, and about coping with the stretch of life that lay ahead.
Though not openly affectionate, they seemed to be the most married of all the married people she knew, but perhaps that was the way of things after fifty-five years. What would the passing of fifty years make of her own marriage to Samuel? It mattered very little anymore whether he was the right one; he was the only one.