GrannyLizzie: Has your f ather died?
thedoctorisin: He and my mother both died 4 years ago. She had cancer and then he had a stroke 5 months later. But I’ve always believed that some of the best people are called Richard.
GrannyLizzie: So was Nixon!!!
Good; we’re developing a rapport.
thedoctorisin: How long were you married?
GrannyLizzie: Forty seven years.
GrannyLizzie: We met on the job. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT BY THE WAY!
GrannyLizzie: He taught chemistry. I taught art. Opposites attract!
thedoctorisin: That’s amazing! And you have children?
GrannyLizzie: I have two sons and three grandsons.
GrannyLizzie: My sons are pretty cute, but my grandsons are beautiful!
thedoctorisin: That’s a lot of boys.
GrannyLizzie: You’re telling me!
GrannyLizzie: The things I’ve seen!
GrannyLizzie: The things I’ve smelled!
I note the tone, brisk and insistently upbeat; I clock the language, informal but confident, and the precise punctuation, the infrequent errors. She’s intelligent, outgoing. Thorough, too—she spells out numbers, and writes by the way instead of btw, although maybe that’s a function of age. Whatever the case, she’s an adult I can work with.
GrannyLizzie: Are YOU a boy, by the way?
GrannyLizzie: Sorry if you are, it’s just that girls are sometimes doctors too! Even out here in Montana!
I smile. I like her.
thedoctorisin: I am indeed a girl doctor.
GrannyLizzie: Good! We need more of you!
thedoctorisin: Tell me, Lizzie, what’s happened since Richard passed?
And tell me she does. She tells me how, on returning from the funeral, she felt too frightened to walk the mourners beyond the front door; she tells me that in the days following, it felt like the outside was trying to get into my house, and so she drew the blinds; she tells me about her sons far away in the Southeast, their confusion, their concern.
GrannyLizzie: I’ve got to tell you, all joking aside, that this is really upsetting.
Time to roll up my sleeves.
thedoctorisin: Naturally it is. What’s happening, I think, is that Richard’s passing has fundamentally altered your world, but the world outside has moved on without him. And that’s very difficult to face and to accept.
I await a response. Nothing.
thedoctorisin: You mentioned that you haven’t removed any of Richard’s belongings, which I understand. But I’d like you to think about that.
Radio silence.
And then:
GrannyLizzie: I’m so grateful to have found you. Really really.
GrannyLizzie: That’s something my grandsons say. They heard it in Shrek. Really really.
GrannyLizzie: May I speak to you again soon, I hope?
thedoctorisin: Really really!
Couldn’t help myself.
GrannyLizzie: I am really really (!!) grateful to Disco Mickey for pointing me to you. You’re a doll.
thedoctorisin: My pleasure.
I wait for her to sign off, but she’s still typing.
GrannyLizzie: I just realized I don’t even know your name!
I hesitate. I’ve never shared my name on the Agora, not even with Sally. I don’t want anyone to find me, to pair my name with my profession and figure me out, unlock me; yet something in Lizzie’s story snags my heart: this elderly widow, alone and bereaved, putting on a brave face beneath those huge skies. She can crack jokes all she wants, but she’s housebound, and that’s terrifying.
thedoctorisin: I’m Anna.
As I prepare to log out, a last message pings on my screen.
GrannyLizzie: Thank you, Anna.
GrannyLizzie has left the chat.
I feel my veins rushing. I’ve helped someone. I’ve connected. Only connect. Where have I heard that?
I deserve a drink.
TRIPPING DOWN TO THE KITCHEN, I roll my head against my shoulders, hear the crackle of my bones. Something catches my eye overhead: In the dim recesses of the ceiling, at the very top of the stairwell three stories up, there’s a dark stain glaring at me—from the trapdoor of the roof, I think, right beside the skylight.
I knock on David’s door. It opens a moment later; he’s barefoot, in a wilted T-shirt and slouched jeans. I just woke him up, I see. “Sorry,” I say. “Were you in bed?”
“No.”
He was. “Could you look at something for me? I think I saw water damage on the ceiling.”
We head up to the top floor, past the study, past my bedroom, to the landing between Olivia’s room and the second spare.
“Big skylight,” David says.
I can’t tell if that’s a compliment. “It’s original,” I say, just to say something.
“Oval.”
“Yes.”
“Haven’t seen too many like that.”
“Oval?”
But the exchange is over. He eyes the stain.
“That’s mildew,” he says, hushed, like a doctor gently breaking news to a patient.
“Can we just brush it off?”
“Not going to fix it.”
“What will?”
He sighs. “First I need to check out the roof.” He reaches for the trapdoor chain and tugs. The door judders open; a ladder slides toward us, screeching; sunshine bolts in. I step to one side, away from the light. Perhaps I am a vampire after all.
David drags the ladder down until it bumps against the floor. I watch him as he mounts the steps, his jeans taut against his rear; then he disappears.
“See anything?” I call.
No response.
“David?”
I hear a clang. A plume of water, mirror-bright in the sunlight, pours onto the landing. I draw back. “Sorry,” David says. “Watering can.”
“It’s fine. Do you see anything?”
A pause, then David’s voice again, almost reverent. “It’s a jungle up here.”
It was Ed’s idea, four years ago, after my mother died. “You need a project,” he decided; so we set about converting the rooftop into a garden—flower beds, a vegetable patch, a row of miniature boxwoods.