After the Fire by Belva Plain

Author:Belva Plain [Plain, Belva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-48121-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2000-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

On one of the first fine warm days of early spring, Granny had a stroke. Without warning and without pain, she closed her eyes. She would have been the first to say that her death did not bring with it the intense grief that Jim's death had brought. And during the lengthy prayers at the funeral services, Hyacinth's mind wandered, making loose contact between Granny's life and her own.

One after the other came before the congregation to say a few words about Granny. There was a very old man who had been an usher at her wedding; there were two distant cousins from Ohio; there was a younger woman who had been her next-door neighbor. Each of them spoke well. They were sincerely moved, and as she heard them, Hyacinth felt an overwhelming return of memory, the sights and sounds and fragrances of Granny and her house: the knitting needles in the basket, apples baking on the stove, Granny's lily-of-the-valley perfume, and Granny complaining to the humane society about a dog left outdoors in the cold.

The old, old man remembered things that Hyacinth had never known.

“She took in boarders during the Depression. She made their meals, washed their clothes, and scrubbed their floors; she had never done such things or needed to do them, but she taught herself and did them.

“When the war came and the Depression ended, she helped her husband rebuild his business. When he died of cancer, she took over the business and saved a nest egg for old age. She lost two sons, one in war, another war, and one not long ago, your father, Hyacinth, your husband, Francine. And through it all, she held up her head. She never forgot how to laugh. She kept her zest for life. She lived it bravely.”

When the service was over, Hyacinth did not linger to exchange sympathy and reminiscences with the large crowd that had gathered. Heavy with her thoughts, she went straight home instead and lay awake half the night with those thoughts.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.