Here On Earth

Tonight, he’ll go to bed in the spare room off the kitchen, since he can’t stand to enter the bedroom where he slept when he was married. In the morning, while people in town are getting dressed for the funeral service, while March Murray is brushing her long dark hair, Hollis will fix himself black coffee, as always. He’ll begin the chores he does routinely-paying the bills, speaking with his lawyer, making certain rents are collected and debts are paid. At noon, when his neighbors have left the chapel to gather at the cemetery beyond the golf course, off Route 22, he’ll walk the boundaries of his property to make certain none of the fences are down and no one has trespassed. He’ll do this, as he does every single day, and he won’t stop until he’s completely exhausted, knowing full well that if he ever did stop, if he ever really looked around him, every single inch of this acreage he owns would serve to remind him of all that went wrong.

4

On the day of Judith Dale’s funeral, the sky is as gray as soapstone. Mothers in town fix their children oatmeal for breakfast and insist that wool mittens and socks be retrieved from dresser drawers. The doors of the library squeak when they’re pushed open, the way they always do when the weather begins to change. Over on the comer of Elm Street and Main, the bakery must have loaves of the ci

“Listen, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” March says, and she tells the saga of the rental car, which has already been towed back to town. “You are a true friend. I’m grateful.”

The surprising thing is, March means it, and she never thought herself capable of such sentiments when she and Susie were girls. They were thrown together because their fathers were partners, but they hated each other all the same. For two years solid they refused to speak even the simplest phrases to each other, not even “Pass the sweet potato pie” at Thanksgiving di

“It was because you were an idiot,” Susie says as she does her best to clear out the cab of her pickup. Aside from the dog hair, there are files and stray bits of paper and dozens of maps.

“Actually it was because you were a know-it-all,” March shoots back. “And you still are.”

They both have to laugh at this. Susa

Why, Susa

“Honey, all you have to do is squeeze me and I give out worthless information,” Susie always says.

She even knows when the sales take place at Laughton’s Lingerie Shop (every January and July, second Saturday of the month) and how much the jelly doughnuts cost at the Bluebird Coffee Shop (fifty cents). She’s always learning something new, and it has recently come to her attention that Ed Milton, the chief of police, kisses with his eyes closed and looks like an angel when he sleeps. Some information, however, she’s been aware of all her life; it’s old news. For example-that her old friend March Murray wouldn’t know good luck if it came up and slapped her in the face.

“You think you’re so hot living out in Palo Alto. Well, for your information, Eileen Singleton is retiring on Tuesday after forty-three years of work at the library.”

“Oh, gosh,” March says. “Stop the presses.” She winds her long hair into a knot, which is kept in place with a silver comb, one that she cast herself. She and Susie are wearing similar silver bracelets, among the first March ever dared to try. What started out as a hobby has become more and more rewarding, both financially and artistically.

“That’s nothing,” Susie says, brushing at the dog hair stuck to the one dress she owns that’s sober enough to wear to a funeral. Susie has cropped blond hair and gray-blue eyes and black is definitely not her color, dog hair or no. “You want real news? Mr. and Mrs. Morrisey are pleased to a

“That’s because you’re a superior being,” March says.

“As are you,” Susie says. “Hence our friendship.”

Gwen, who’s been listening in and who now struggles to climb into the cab of the pickup in her extremely short skirt, ca

Gwen’s tiny black dress isn’t the only reason Susa

“You’re letting her go like that?” Susie asks March.

“Letting her?” People who haven’t had children have the oddest ideas.

“Can we just go to the funeral and get this over with?” Gwen says in her froggy voice. Before coming outside, she sneaked a cigarette in the bathroom, then doused herself with some Jean Naté she found in the medicine cabinet which she thinks has gotten rid of the scent of smoke.

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Susie says, getting in behind the wheel. “Let’s not let Judith’s funeral take up too much of your precious time.”

“Exactly,” Gwen says. She’s flipped down the visor in order to get a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She wishes for two things: bigger eyes and a thi