Marion Reed, sixty-six, former school principal, widow, lived alone in a house too large for one person and sang in the choir like it was the only time all week she was allowed to take up space.
June Wallace, seventy-one. Buried two husbands and one son. Wore bright lipstick and sensible shoes. Once told me, “People think I’m strong because I don’t cry in public. Truth is, Margaret, I cry every night. I’m just private about it.”
Five women.
Five lives that rhymed with mine.
I called each of them.
“You want to take me where?”
“The Outer Banks,” I said. “One week. Ocean view. My treat.”
“Why?”
“Because I have the money and I have the love, and I am done giving both to people who waste them.”
The silence on those calls was one of the sweetest sounds I had ever heard. It was the stunned confusion of women who had spent so long being useful that receiving without earning felt almost improper.
I rented a beachfront house.
Six bedrooms. A wide porch. A view of the Atlantic. Enough rocking chairs for all of us. I shipped a box ahead with candles, cloth napkins, a guest book, and Henry’s photograph from the unfinished porch.
When we arrived, I placed his picture in the center of the dining table.