Then she refused to come back. It was at this time that Nora rented for her father the large apartment on Bannock Street, on the ground floor of an old Victorian house. It was a roomy place. It had leaded windows and outside there was ivy growing on the brick walls, with a black wrought-iron fence separating the house from the sidewalk and street, and evidently the whole thing suited the old man so well that he was quite pleased with his daughter and even told her so. Consequently Nora stayed awhile longer to help him establish his desk and his books. Then she decided to stay with him permanently. She took a job at the city library downtown and returned every evening to cook supper for him. It was an arrangement they both seemed to like. She wrote me a letter about it. That was how I learned that she was not coming back.
I wasn’t certain how I felt about this. The truth is, I did not miss her particularly. It was easier in the house without her there, without having to watch her every day. But a week or two later, on a Sunday, I drove to Denver to see them. I took Nora and the old gentleman out to eat at a restaurant. It was a place they suggested. There were white linen cloths and linen napkins folded in cones on the tables and heavy silverware beside the white plates. There were several wineglasses too. Dr. Kramer ordered the wine and when the waiter brought the bottle to the table the old man made a bit of dignified show, sniffing the cork and feeling it with his papery fingers. He decided the cork was sufficiently moist and told us it proved that the bottle had been placed on its side, that the cork hadn’t been allowed to dry out. Then the waiter poured wine into his glass and he tasted that and it seemed that the wine was satisfactory too. We all had a glass of wine.
So it was a long complicated meal of four or five courses. But Nora and the old man appeared to enjoy it. I had to admit that Nora’s face looked lovely again; the rigid control she had held on herself during the summer seemed to have been relaxed and she looked almost girlish once more. She sat beside her father and was very attentive to him. They discussed each course as it was brought by the waiter, sampling the food the other had ordered and making comparisons. Later we had dessert and coffee. Then we were finished with dinner and so we drove around in the city for an hour, across town through the city park and past the zoo and the museum, and back through the Cherry Creek retail area toward Broadway and Bannock Street. At the apartment again, Dr. Kramer decided he would take a short nap.
“Of course,” Nora said. “Why don’t you rest for a while, dear.”
“But don’t let me sleep too long. You know I mustn’t sleep too long.”
“No. Just for an hour.”
“No more than that.”
“I’ll wake you in an hour. Then we’ll have some tea.”
She followed him into the bedroom. Through the opened door I could see her bending over him, removing his shoes and covering him with a blanket. They were quite affectionate with one another; they called one another “dear.”
When she came back to the living room I said: “Why don’t we take a walk now? I need some air and I want to work off this dinner. Maybe we can even talk a little.”
It was early evening then. It was in the fall of the year and the trees standing up in front of the old houses in the neighborhood were just beginning to turn. The apartment they had rented was in an old established area of Denver. Formerly it must have been an attractive part of town; there were many large brick houses, built before the turn of the century, but the houses were nearly all divided into apartments and the streets were lined with cars. We walked five or six blocks south along Bannock Street and then turned west where we could see the mountains, high and blue-looking out beyond the city, and then north, and then east again to make a circle. It felt good to be walking. It was pleasantly cool outside and we saw a number of Hispanic families sitting out on the big porches of the neighborhood houses, playing music and drinking beer and talking, while handsome little black-haired kids played games in the yards or rode bicycles on the sidewalks, and I thought there was a sense of real life in the neighborhood, of things happening which would be interesting to know about. But soon Nora was ready to return to the apartment and her father. “I should wake him,” she said. “If he sleeps too long, he won’t be able to sleep again tonight.”
“Let’s go back, then. If that’s what you want.”
“Yes, I do.”
We walked a little farther.
“And this is what you want, isn’t it? You want to stay here and live with your father? And work at the library?”
“Yes. You wouldn’t like it. I know you wouldn’t, but I do. It suits me.”
“Well. I hope you’ll be happy.”
“Oh please. Don’t be that way.”
“I’m not. I do hope you’ll be happy. I mean that.”
“Because I tried,” she said. “I did try, don’t you think I did?”
“Yes. I think you did. I think we both did.”
“Thank you for saying so.” She touched my arm and then took her hand away.
“Yes. Well. I miss Toni. I can’t help but miss her.”
“I know,” Nora said. “I miss her too.”
Then we arrived at the apartment. We stood on the sidewalk in front of the iron fence.
“Do you want to come in?” she said.
“No. I don’t think so. You go ahead.”
“Thank you for dinner.”
“Good-bye,” I said.
She went on up the steps into the apartment. I stood for a moment longer watching as the lights were turned on inside. Then she pulled the curtains shut and I got into the car and drove home, out of Denver onto the High Plains toward Holt.
* * *
After that I was lonely for a while. I do not mean that I missed Nora herself very much, but it was the absence of there being anyone else at all in the house. I suppose after eighteen years, even if it is an unsuccessful marriage, you still miss the sound and presence of someone’s being there when you go home. I missed Toni horribly.
Finally I began to eat supper at one of the local restaurants to delay going home, and often I ate at the Holt Cafe. Jessie Burdette was still working there. She looked very attractive in her yellow blouse and dark slacks, with her brown hair pulled back away from her face in combs. She was thirty-one years old then. She was very competent as a waitress, and it was pleasant to see her and to talk to her briefly in the evenings.
So the fall passed in that way. I worked steadily at the newspaper office every day, editing and publishing the Holt Mercury, printing whatever was profitable and of interest locally without attempting to do anything that would take much effort, just the routine small-town-weekly-newspaper kind of thing. Then one evening at the Holt Cafe, after I had eaten supper, when Jessie brought the bill to the table I asked her if I could drive her home when she got off work. The evening had turned cool and I knew that she usually walked home.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I drove this time. I was late leaving the house so I decided to drive.”
“Oh. Well maybe another time.”
“Yes,” she said. “Why don’t you ask another time? But do you want anything else? Any dessert?”
“I guess not.”
She put the bill on the table and carried the dishes back to the kitchen. I finished my coffee. Well that was foolish, I thought. She doesn’t need you bothering her. I got up and walked over to the register to pay. Jessie was clearing another table. I waited for her, then she came back and rang up the bill and made change and I started to leave.
“But, Pat,” she said. “Wait. Would you like to come to the house? I could make some fresh coffee.”