Here on Earth

“It’s that judge guy,” Gwen calls to her mother.

Gwen has been standing by the window, fogging up the glass with her breath and feeling as trapped as a fly in pudding. Being here is beyond nowhere. This morning she had to help her mother begin to sort through Mrs. Dale’s belongings, and the whole time Gwen was carrying boxes up from the cellar she’d been wishing she could teleport home. She has tried to call her best friend, Minnie, three times, but the line is always busy. This is beyond purgatory. That’s what she planned to tell Minnie, if Minnie ever shut up long enough for her to get a call through. It’s worse than hell. It’s hell times two.

“He’s got a briefcase with him,” she tells her mother, who’s in the kitchen fixing coffee.

The Judge has one hand over his eyes and he’s staring at the house. He walks toward the gate, then takes a step back.

“He’s kind of stumbling around,” Gwen reports.

“The Judge doesn’t stumble,” March informs her daughter as she brings the coffeepot and two china cups over to the dining room table. She comes to stand next to Gwen at the window, then waves to the Judge. He waves back and swings the gate open.

“I’ll bet he was great-looking when he was young,” Gwen decides.

March snorts.

“What?” Gwen asks.

“When are you going to understand—you can’t rate people by the way they look.” The funny thing is, March never realized how handsome Bill Justice was, but now she remembers that her father used to tease him about their women clients being the only ones who preferred Bill. “Anyway, he’s over seventy.”

“Well, I bet he was cute,” Gwen insists. “He’s still not too bad. For somebody ancient.”

“A perfect day for October,” the Judge says as he comes inside. “Unfortunate that we have to use it to tend to such sad business.”

He kisses March’s cheek, then takes off his overcoat. He seems a little bewildered when he sees the cardboard boxes filled with Judith’s belongings that are strewn across the dining room table.

“I thought I should go through everything,” March explains.

“Of course you should.” The Judge sits down and accepts some coffee.

“You can’t believe some of the things I’ve found already.” March holds up a blue ribbon. “Alan’s. From some debating team he was on.”

“Alan,” the Judge says sadly. “There’s a man who ruined his life.”

Gwen has been looking out the window, idly eating Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos from the bag. Now, she shifts her attention.

“How ruined?” she asks the Judge. “Completely ruined? Totally ruined?”

“Gwen!” March says. She turns to the Judge. “She’s never even met him. Do you think I should bring her to visit him?”

“He wouldn’t see you. He wouldn’t open the door.” The Judge notices a silk scarf in one of the boxes; when he narrows his eyes he realizes that the blobs of orange are lilies, like the ones which grow in his own yard. “How long do you plan on staying?” he asks March.

Gwen stops chewing so she can hear the answer. Her whole life depends on this.

“I thought a week.” March looks around at the accumulation of a lifetime. “But there’s so much to do. And so much of what’s left in the house was Alan’s or mine. I found all my sweaters, every one I ever wore, from kindergarten on up, folded into two boxes in the attic.”

“Richard should have come with you,” the Judge says.

“Oh, no.” March pours more coffee. For some reason, just the mention of Richard’s name makes her feel flushed, as if she’d already betrayed him, somehow. It was going up to the attic, that was the problem. She keeps seeing dust, out of the comer of her eye. She keeps hearing the door shut, the way it used to when she and Hollis sneaked up there; she keeps feeling the way she did whenever he was near. “Richard had classes. Midquarter exams. He couldn’t leave.”

“I don’t care what he had. He shouldn’t have let you come back alone.”

Gwen puts down the bag of cookies. This judge guy is more interesting than she would have imagined.

“Cookie?” March offers the Judge, hoping to change the subject.

Bill Justice takes two bites of a Mint Milano, and when there’s only a small piece left, he whistles.

“Sister,” he calls.

March and Gwen look at each other, confused.

The Judge whistles again and holds out the piece of cookie, and then, all of a sudden, he gets a pained expression. His whole face falls.