The Stars Are Fire(57)

“You moving in today?” she asks.

“I thought I might. I don’t have much.”

“What’s your livin’?”

“I’m a doctor. I work in a clinic in North Kennebunkport.”

She nods, taking this in. “You’ll be wanting supper tonight.”

“Yes, if you have enough. What time is dinner?”

“Five. On the dot.”

“Ah,” says the doctor, “the earliest I can get here during the week would be seven. Six-thirty on a slow day.”

“Well then, I’ll save your dinner for you. I can always whip up another batch of popovers if they go flat.”

“I’ll be here for dinner tonight at five. And tomorrow at five,” he says, shaking the farm wife’s hand.

Grace smiles at the woman as she follows John out to the driveway. They don’t speak right away, thinking it rude to do so in full view of the wife.

In the car, however, Grace says, “You just got yourself a good deal. She doesn’t seem like the type to want to pry into your life. I liked the place. It was charming, and in the spring it will be magnificent.”

“You paint a nice picture.”


When they reach Biddeford, Grace double-parks beside his Packard. He lingers in her car a second longer than he might. “Maybe we could go on another drive next weekend, take the kids sledding. I know a great hill.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“Great day, Grace,” he says as he leaves the Buick.


When Grace pulls up the driveway in the navy blue Buick, her mother pushes the back door open. “Oh my Jesus Christ Almighty!” she exclaims and holds her chest as if she thought her heart might explode.

“Are you angry?” Grace asks, sliding out of the car.

“Angry? Oh no.”

In the doorframe, her mother stands in awe, as if her chariot had come for her, as if all the dates of her youth had shown up at the right moment, just when her hair is perfect.


Grace’s responsibilities at the clinic expand. She is asked to see to the billing of patients and to keep the accounts at the bank. When the waiting room is overcrowded, she is charged with bringing patients to rooms in which she takes their temperature, weighs them, gives them a robe if necessary, and records physical complaints. In this way, the patients can wait in a private room for Dr. Lighthart.

By midweek, she asks the doctor if there’s enough money in the budget to buy side tables and lamps and to subscribe to Time and Life. She wants to make the waiting room more appealing.

“Sure,” Dr. Lighthart says. “Saturday afternoon all right with you? I could leave right after lunch, say one o’clock?”

Surprised that he has invited himself along, she tells him she’ll just check with her mother.

“Your car or mine?”

“I’ll collect you.” Grace can’t have Dr. Lighthart come calling for her at Merle’s house.


Grace invents an outing for her mother and the children for Sunday: a car trip with a picnic to a scenic vista. After explaining the trip (to her mother’s pleasure), she mentions that she’ll need a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon to buy furniture for the office.

“Not new furniture!” her mother exclaims.

“I’ll find a good secondhand store. It’s just side tables. They have to be respectable and more or less match the chairs there.”

“What’s that then?”

“Wood with a mahogany-like stain.”

“And to think I used to have side tables that would have been perfect,” muses her mother.

“I wouldn’t have taken your tables.”

“Maybe you should get a coffee table, too,” her mother suggests. “To put flowers on.”

“We’re getting subscriptions to Time and Life.”

“Well, you’d better get Good Housekeeping.”


On Friday night, wanting to confirm their expedition the next day, Grace leans against the doorframe of Dr. Lighthart’s office. He hands her a check. “So we’re all set for tomorrow?” he asks.

“Yes. How do you like your new place?”

“Meals are outstanding. There’s a widow living in one of the bedrooms upstairs in the main house, a shoe salesman in another. I gather he’s giving her samples.” He wiggles his eyebrows, and Grace laughs. “I’m not there much. Heat’s surprisingly good. Bed’s comfy.”

The bed must indeed be comfortable because the doctor appears, for the first time since she met him, rested. Maybe another weekend at his apartment will be even more beneficial. For her part, Grace can’t imagine living alone. Sometimes she wants to picture it, but to do so would mean obliterating Claire and Tom. “I’ve heard of two places we can try,” Grace suggests.

“And there’s always Salvation Army.”

“They must be cleaned out by now,” she says.


On Saturday morning, in Merle’s room, Grace hems a pale wool skirt she wants to wear on the shopping trip. Sunlight, bouncing off the snow, makes the windows shimmer, but the glare darkens objects in the room. She tries on the skirt and stands before the mirror. Because her hair hangs straight from the winter dry, she decides to put it up in a French twist. Maybe a little lipstick to punctuate her facial pallor. The skirt is part of a suit from Merle’s closet and still loose, though more tailoring would leave the garment misshapen. She puts her hands on her hips, turns, and notes that she’s gaining back some of the weight she lost when Aidan was in the house. Her hands move up her rib cage to the undersides of her breasts, but she can feel almost nothing through the thick brassiere and her white blouse. It’s the same with her girdle: running her hands down the front of her skirt, she would never know of the contours within.