It swept open and Mrs. Fitzgerald appeared. Time had passed heavily upon her. Her untidy mop of gray hair and long bony face lent a harshness; her stooped shoulders suggested burdens and worries and a sense that life had the daily habit of victimizing her in a variety of creative ways. When she spoke, her voice was thin; she clipped her words, as if flinging them out like little darts. “Rita will be down soon,” she said curtly. She did not ask me in, so I stood on the porch like a delivery boy, waiting for a tip. She tried to ignore me, pitching her gaze over me, around me and back into the house, where I heard the blurring voice of the TV. She stuffed her hands into her pale, blousy blue-patterned dress pockets. I did not understand how such a beauty had come from such remarkable homeliness. I stepped back, hearing the soft creaking wood beneath my feet, struggling not to notice the cracked and peeling paint; the streaming rust stains from a faulty gutter. The night wind was damp and smelled of burnt leaves.
