Sylvie and Don and Evelyn and Judea gathered around the wide-open back doors of the truck to say good-bye.
“I told you not to visit every day but that don’t mean I want you to forget me.” Gladys pointed at Don in particular. “I’m charming company and besides, you owe me.”
“We’ll be there,” said Don. “We’ll even hold the wedding there if you want, so you can come. Nothing fancy. I figure just the five of us and some preacher or something to make it legal.”
“And thanks for tearing up the house to get me out,” she said. “Once I didn’t have to fight that damn house anymore I thought I go crazy if I stay in that room another minute.”
“I understand that,” said Sylvie.
“Come on, boys,” she said to her attendants. “Get me to the fat farm. Good-bye, Miz Evvie, Cousin Judy! I’m gonna miss your cooking!”
They said their good-byes as the driver closed the back door of the truck. Then they watched as it drove away.
Don walked over to the FOR SALE sign on the lawn of the carriagehouse, then up at the gaping hole in the front wall of the house. “I guess I got me some work to do before this house can be sold.”
“And it’s right kind of you to do it for us,” said Miz Evelyn.
“No need for this house to end up like the other one,” said Miz Judea.
They all looked over at the freshly leveled ground where the old Bellamy house had stood. It was hard to believe that the plot of land was even large enough to hold such a house, or that it had once risen tall among the trees.
“It was a beautiful house,” said Don.
“Built in love,” said Sylvie.
“Too strong for its own damn good,” said Miz Judea.
“But I did love the place,” said Miz Evelyn.
“Too many ugly secrets,” Miz Judea answered.
“I was content there,” said Sylvie. “For ten years.”
“Dead but happy,” said Miz Judea.
“No,” said Sylvie. “Now I’m happy.”
She took Don’s hand.
“How can you be happy?” said Miz Judea. “You two got no money to speak of. All lost when that house came down.”
“I got a few thousand left,” said Don.
“Now don’t spoil it by telling us you got all you need,” said Miz Evelyn. She reached into her big purse and pulled out a SOLD sticker. She peeled off the backing and placed it across the FOR SALE sign.
“You’ve already sold it?” Don asked.
“The boy’s a little dim, isn’t he?” Miz Judea said to Sylvie.
“I think they’re giving us the house, Don.”
“No,” said Don. “You need the place.”
“I’ve had enough of this house, Don Lark. I want a nice little apartment where somebody else takes care of the yard while I watch TV or go to the movies.”
“We already agreed on that,” said Evelyn. “I’m still working on getting her to take a cruise with me.”
“No boats,” said Miz Judea. “No planes.”
“She’s just an old woman,” said Miz Evelyn. “No doubt about it.”
“We got plenty of savings,” said Miz Judea. “We don’t need the house. And we got no sentimental attachment to it, either, so once you get all that damage repaired, you go ahead and sell it yourself and move on, you understand? I know you two won’t want to live next door to where all that bad stuff happened. The house may be gone, but the memories ain’t.”
“But we’re OK,” said Don. “I’ll fix this up but you keep the money—”
Miz Evelyn shook her head and reached up and put her hand across his mouth. “Some folks just can’t figure out when to shut up and say thank you.”
“I feel sorry for folks like that,” said Miz Judea. “Don’t you, Sylvie?”
She laughed and Don laughed and it was done.
“We’ll let you know when we set up the closing,” said Miz Evelyn.
A Daniel Keck Co. taxi pulled up to the curb. The old ladies immediately bustled around, telling the driver to put the bags in the trunk and when there wasn’t room, into the front seat so they could sit in back. And a few minutes later, they were away.
Alone together now, Don and Sylvie walked up the ramp into the torn-open house they had just been given. Sylvie went around touching knickknacks, pictures, furniture, the artifacts of a half-century of life. “They can’t mean to leave all this behind,” she said.
“I think they do mean to,” said Don. “They’re done with it. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“I guess you’d know,” said Sylvie.
“I’ve left everything behind before. Lost it all. Only one thing I’m hanging on to now.” He took her hand.
“Don,” she said. “Look at me.”
He looked into her face.
“Now that I look like Lissy, am I prettier?”
He laughed as if it were a crazy question, but she held his hand tighter and insisted. “I have to know, Don.”
“Sylvie, I can’t tell you, because I only saw Lissy’s face for a few seconds before she left and this became your face.”
“It’s still the face I looked at all those years when I saw her. I don’t like looking in the mirror now. It makes me sick and sad. And then to know that when you look at me, you see her . . .”
“No,” he said, “no, don’t think that way. It’s not her face, not for a moment. She never smiled like you do. She never looked out of those eyes with your soul. I saw her there in the ballroom, how tired and worn-out she looked, cynical, plain-looking. And then it was you inside that face, and Sylvie, I would have recognized you even if I hadn’t seen the transition. All the gestures, all the facial expressions. The way you laugh, the way you smile, it’s you I’m seeing, and the face will look more and more the way it should as time goes on. Don’t you see, Sylvie? The men who looked at her and preferred her to you—they were her kind of men, that’s all. I’m not. I’m your kind of man.”
She searched his eyes, believing him, not believing him, believing him again.
“Aw, hell,” said Don. “I guess I’ll just have to spend the next fifty or sixty years reassuring you.”
“OK,” she said. “That just might work. We’re both damaged property, I guess.”
“Plenty of time for renovation.” He kissed her, there in the gap at the front of the house, with the chilly autumn breeze passing through, where all the world could watch, if they noticed, if they cared.
The kiss ended. “Let’s get started,” Sylvie said. “I know you work alone, but I’d like to train as your assistant.”
“I think the official term is ‘helpmeet.’”
“Whatever,” she said. “I’ve got no experience but at least I’m cheap.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon framing in the replacement wall and putting up the new door. By nightfall, the house was tight again.
About the Author
Multiple New York Times bestselling author ORSON SCOTT CARD has won several Hugo and Nebula Awards for his works of speculative fiction, including his Ender series and The Tales of Alvin Maker. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife and youngest child. You can visit his website at www.hatrack.com.
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Praise
Raves for Orson Scott Card
“[His] prose is a model of narrative clarity; the author never says more than is needed or arbitrarily withholds information, yet even a simple declarative sentence carries a delicious hint of further revelation.”
—New York Times
“Card is a writer of compassion and his heart breaks for the individual men and women of goodwill.”
—Washington Post Book World
“Like his worthiest characters, Card has the strength to forgo glamour in favor of truth.”
—Locus
“Card, one of our best writers . . . understands that to imagine the Other is one of the best ways to explore our
hidden selves.”
—Columbus Dispatch
“Card is skilled at pacing and good with an action scene, but he has raised to a fine art the creation of suspense by ethical dilemma, and in doing so has raised his work to a high plane.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
Praise for
TREASURE BOX
“The story moves toward a powerful climax . . . strong character development and a mystery to solve . . . a rare pleasure gained.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The pace is headlong, the protagonist’s dilemmas compelling, and the supernatural aspects well-described and consistent. Card is quite a craftsman and builds his treasure box here with a sure and steady hand.”
—Memphis Commercial Appeal
“Card’s books [are] thoughtful, well-crafted stories.. . . Pure imagination, pure wonder, total fun. Card is able to take the reader for a ride . . . and keep the pages turning. Good as gold.”
—Dayton Daily News
and
LOST BOYS
“Card skillfully uses terror as a background to everyday family life. For Stephen King fans and those who like their suspense mixed with the supernatural.”
—Library Journal
“The pull of family drama with an overlayer of rising suspense.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Affecting, genuine, poignant, uplifting: a limpid, beautifully orchestrated new venture from an author already accomplished in other fields.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Also by Orson Scott Card
Treasure Box*
Lost Boys*
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
Saints
The Folk of the Fringe
Ender’s Game
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind
Seventh Son
Red Prophet
Prentice Alvin
Alvin Journeyman
The Memory of Earth
The Call of Earth
The Ships of Earth
Earthfall
Earthborn
Cruel Miracles
Flux
Monkey Sonatas
The Changed Man
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1998 by Orson Scott Card
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
ISBN 0-06-109399-8
EPUB Edition © February 2013 ISBN 9780062281425
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1998 by HarperCollinsPublishers.
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Orson Scott Card, Homebody
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