Another Section of A Possible Novel

I have all these pieces. Will they ever be whole? Who can say?

photo by Amy Meredith

She had started watching these mystery programs with her grandmother on Sunday nights and looked forward to it. Her grandmother was at her best this way, in the dark, with the intermediary of a good story, and she actually talked to her during the commercials. “I went to Los Angeles once,” her grandmother said, because one of the mystery programs took place there. “It seems very ugly when you’re driving through it but off of the main roads it was really quite heavenly. We had some friends, an old fraternity brother of your grandfather’s who was a judge, I believe he’s retired now, they had the most marvelous place. It was up a very steep hill — you cannot believe how steep the hills in Los Angeles are. So steep you can almost reach out and touch the slope in front of you. And their driveway! What a driveway! What flowers!”

During the next program, which took place somewhere in Maine, she said “Maine is beautiful of course, and we have been to some absolutely divine houses there — but there’s really nothing to do there but play tennis, and when I say nothing to do but play tennis, I am not exaggerating. I mean, you can go — sit on a rock, I guess. But the water is just absolutely breathtakingly cold. I jumped in it once — once only! Right before I said…