The theme of this episodic novel is 'gravity' in both its alternative definitions - the handling of grief and the scientific investigation into the nature of gravitation. The plot - to the extent that there is a plot, as against a sequence of rando...
Although not at all like Margie's, Julie's 'home away from home' had become the nexus to all that 'used to be' and had remained between them. Such musings concerning the little girl she loved so dearly always gave Julie pleasure. But there were also aspects of what 'used to be' one chooses not to think about unless and until one has time to sort them out more fully. And, of course, some things one does not think about at all. We do not have the energy or trust ourselves enough to think about them; we know implicitly that they cannot be sorted out. They just hang there like fruit rotted on a tree.
From deep in her reverie Julie was but vaguely aware that Marcia Miller had entered the lounge and begun a painful process of sitting on the couch beside where the nurse had earlier placed her wheelchair. Julie could, of course, have perambulated the chair quite well on her own, but the nurses seemed to like to accommodate her. She was aware of being a favorite here in her new surroundings at 'the home'; it embarrassed her a little.
No, it isn't Miller anymore though, is it? That was what it had used to be two marriages ago, back before any of them, back when Canyon Creek was a little town in a canyon instead of beneath a reservoir.
"Oh yes, very nice." Julie responded to Marcia's mundane comment on the weather, concluding with, "Maybe the rain is finally over for a while."
"Well, we've had enough of that rain now, haven't we, Dear?" Marcia had a tremblingly tentative, but still condescending, way of disseminating her peculiar brand of bitterness. It had already begun to annoy Julie right after settling in. Although she hadn't quite determined just what it was in the way Marcia spoke that was the irritant; it wasn't just the tremble that seemed to be getting worse that had that effect on her. Nor was it the cynical turn in and of itself; she actually found that rather refreshing. It was just a combination that didn't work. It might have for some, but not for Marcia.
"Is the arthritis a little better today then?"
"A little, Dear. And how are you today. Your hair looks so nice again."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Julie noticed again that Marcia's short clip exposed her scalp in little odd-shaped patches over her entire head, making it impossible for Julie to respond in kind. "I'm just fine. Hair is just hair, Marcia."
"But yours has stayed so thick and lustrous. Life has been good to you."
"How many days in a row has it rained anyway?" She would get Marcia back on the weather.
"I think it's been forty." Then after a spell of chuckling she added, "days and nights. Yes, it's been day and night."
"Biblical proportions." She shouldn't have asked if she hadn't wanted the knee jerk answer. Marcia's 'knee jerks' weren't as full or fast as they would have been even six months ago when Julie had first arrived. The conversation in 'these places' is horrendous Julie noted for the umpteenth time and noted also that she was noting such things so repeatedly that she wondered whether she herself were not already operating in the automaton mode prevalent among the inmates of these places. Any one of them could say what they'd always said, but nothing new. Never anything new.
