That Strangest Month of All

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Now the earth had turned a little bit past summer, and the elms stood tall and proudly aflame. On the orchard slope behind the house the apple trees had lost half their leaves. It was a day of incomparable stillness and clarity, with the morning sun climbing toward noon.

After the school bus had picked up the children and after Paul had left for the office, she had hurried through her housework, changed to the treasured and threadbare yellow sun suit, and with stubborn effort wrestled the old drop-leaf table out of the cellar and into the middle of the backyard. Paul had removed the paint and a lot of the varnish. She sanded it, the sun hot on her back, taking pleasure in the texture, the rough whispering sound.

She was a wife named Susan, a slim tanned woman with a soft cap of black hair, a lovely face, but with a brooding inward look, an air of containment. She was called Susan. Not Sue. Not Suzy.

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