didn't lose Nellie - and the price of doing that was that we never met each other and never loved each other..."
Don didn't need to answer. They both knew that they'd do it in a hot second.
"That doesn't mean this isn't real," said Sylvie. "Just because our lives might have gone another way. A better way. Doesn't mean that we don't love each other now. I mean, it did go this way, and we can't trade this for that or that for this, so..."
She couldn't figure out how to end what she was saying, so he kissed her and solved that one small problem. Anything that could be solved with a kiss, he could do that. Trouble was, it was a very small list of very minor problems.
"It's Gladys who'll know," he said. "If anybody does. She had the power to get those old ladies out of here. To keep them out this long. If there's any way to keep you alive but get you out of this house..."
"There isn't," said Sylvie. "She couldn't even get those ladies farther than the carriagehouse. What can she do for me?"
"Hey, it's just a lot of old wives' tales, right?" said Don. "But I'll tell you, everything they told me has turned out to be right. I'm not going to make the mistake of underestimating any of those old wives."
"Think they've finished the food you brought them?" asked Sylvie.
"You had to remind me of food."
"So go eat," she said. "And when you come back, see if they'll let you in and give you some answers. Even if the answer is that there's nothing you can do for me, at least we'll know."
He paused at the door. "Do you really think God has anything to do with this?" he asked.
She shrugged.
"I mean religion is all about life after death and right and wrong, right?"
"I guess we know there's a life after death," she said.
"But the will of God and all that," said Don. "I just don't see how the will of God could possibly have anything to do with this."
"I don't know, Don. I wasn't a believer."
"I was raised that way, but when Nellie died I decided that was all the proof I needed that God didn't exist or if he did then he didn't care about us at all." Even saying this much about Nellie brought tears to his eyes and he had to swallow hard. "But now here you are. Here you are. A spirit, alive when your body's dead. So where does God come into it? Is he out there somewhere, working to make it so that in the long run, the really really lo-o-o-ong run, everything comes out even?"
"I don't think so," she said. "I mean, maybe he's out there." She walked to him, touched his chest, right over his breastbone, right over his heart. "But maybe he's in there. Making it all come out right."
Don shook his head. "I don't think God is in there." He lifted her hand from his chest and kissed it. "But you are."
He went out to the car and his legs felt loose and rubbery under him. He was a little dizzy. Either he was very hungry or he was in love. A quarter pounder with cheese would settle the question.
Chapter 19 Answers
If the idea was to make up with the Weird sisters, Don still had a ways to go. And the start would be that leaf-covered lawn.
Their garage contained no car. Instead, it had the cleanest array of gardening tools Don had ever seen. What did they do, wash them in dish soap after each use? Every tool had a shelf of its own or a clip to hold it to the wall. Nothing touched the ground. The only sign that they had not been maintaining the garage up to their normal standards was a couple of spiderwebs, but these were so new they didn't even have sacs of eggs or more than a couple of bug corpses. If these ladies had stayed in the Bellamy house, the place would never have decayed at all.
The rake was clipped to the wall. Don took it down and toted it over his shoulder out to the front yard. His body didn't like raking, not today, not after yesterday's labors, but he pushed on and after a while the aches and pains subsided and became the trance of labor. His hands were already callused. It felt good to him, to know that work had shaped