Page 22 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

Their savior, who was responsible for their taking up res-
idence at Lord’s Gate, was a young, attractive, dark-skinned
woman who was hired while Harry and his wife were away to
manage the kitchen. She also suffered Russ’s wrath and she too
found herself out of a job. The house at Lord’s Gate belonged
to her family and she, if truth be told, was spending most of
her time at another family-owned home in the city anyway and
they could stay at Lord’s Gate as long as they needed, rent-free.
They didn’t blink before saying yes.

And that was how they came to be sitting here, on a spa-
cious verandah overlooking Lord’s Gate, with the mountains
and the sea in the distance. With their drinks in hand, it seemed
life couldn’t be better. In just a matter of hours they had gone
from the depths of despair to the height of optimism.

Harry couldn’t help but smile. “Wha…a…t?” his wife asked,
in an all-too-knowing way, mimicking the popular whine of
the day.
“It’s just...” and he stopped, at a loss for words.

“You don’t have to say it. I know. It’s just — life.” She was
repeating the words of their dear old friend Tissie, who they
met many years before in the Lake District of England. It’s
what Tissie would say when a situation was more than she
could grasp: “Life.” Just a single word contained within a
long, evocative sigh.

Life. From the ancient Greek, meaning to anoint with oil.
So there you had it. After all their trials and tribulations, Harry
and his wife were anointed. Blessed. Sent to Lord’s Gate to
marvel at the irony of this thing we call Life.

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