sh_123
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19 . , 2409 ! , "Bag of bones" ( ).
'You'll be happy as a clam in a mudflat, then. That's a promise.' Bill sounded as happy as a clam in a mudflat himself, and I was glad. 'Goingter come down and write a book by the water? Like in the old days? Not that the last couple ain't been fine, my wife couldn't put that last one down, but '
'I don't know,' I said, which was the truth. And then an idea struck me. 'Bill, would you do me a favor before you clean up the driveway and turn Brenda Meserve loose?'
'Happy to if I can,' he said, so I told him what I wanted.
Four days later, I got a little package with this laconic return address: dean/gen deliv/tr-90 (dark score). I opened it and shook out twenty photographs which had been taken with one of those little cameras you use once and then throw away.
Bill had filled out the roll with various views of the house, most conveying that subtle air of neglect a place gets when it's not used enough . . . even a place that's caretook (to use Bill's word) gets that neglected feel after awhile.
I barely glanced at these. The first four were the ones I wanted, and I lined them up on the kitchen table, where the strong sunlight would fall directly on them. Bill had taken these from the top of the driveway, pointing the disposable camera down at the sprawl of Sara Laughs. I could see the moss which had grown not only on south wings, as well. I could see the litter of fallen branches and the drifts of pine needles on the driveway. Bill must have been tempted to clear all that away before taking his snaps, but he hadn't. I'd told him exactly what I wanted 'warts and all' was the phrase I had used and Bill had given it to me.
The bushes on either side of the driveway had thickened a lot since Jo and I had spent any significant amount of time at the lake; they hadn't exactly run wild, but yes, some of the longer branches did seem to yearn toward each other across the asphalt like separated lovers.
Yet what my eye came back to again and again was the stoop at the foot of the driveway. The other resemblances between the photographs and my dreams of Sara Laughs might only be coincidental (or the writer's often surprisingly practical imagination at work), but I could explain the sunflowers growing out through the boards of the stoop no more than I had been able to explain the cut on the back of my hand.
I turned one of the photos over. On the back, in a spidery script, Bill had written: These fellows are way early . . . and trespassing!
I flipped back to the picture side. Three sunflowers, growing up through the boards of the stoop. Not two, not four, but three large sunflowers with faces like searchlights.
Just like the ones in my dream.
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Camera () - , (3)
Caretake () - (6)
Clam () - (2)
Coincidental () - , (2)
Disposable () - ; (2)
Favor () - , (8)
Flip () - ; (18)
Laconic () - , (1)
Mudflat () - , (2)
Package () - , (3)
Practical () - , (5)
Resemblance () - , (6)
Script () - , (3)
Searchlight () - (2)
Separate () - ; (5)
Sprawl () - , () (4)
Subtle () - , , (2)
Trespass () - , , (3)
Yearn () - , , (1)
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